Enhanced for PS4 Pro: F1 2017, Agents of Mayhem and Sine Mora EX

Good day and welcome. We’re back, once again, keeping up with our fresh new series highlighting all the incredible enhancements developers are bringing to their games with the power of PlayStation 4 Pro.

It’s our aim to keep you fully up to date with all the improvements you can expect from the latest releases covering every detail from increased effects work, to pixel counts and performance boosts.

First up this week, we have the clever chaps at Codemasters:

F1 2017 | Out 25th August

The next entry in Codemaster’s officially-licensed Formula 1 series, F1 2017 brings with it all the high-octane racing action the series has become known for, alongside the industry’s latest technological advances and a range of brand new features including a 10-year Career Mode.

Launching on 25th August, the team has put the pedal to the metal with PS4 Pro hardware meaning that users will be in for something quite special.

Right out of the paddock, we see an enormous boost to image quality with a full 4K output resolution of 3840 x 2160 achieved through a checkerboard reconstruction technique, meaning that presentation of every car, component and trackside detail will be pristine.

This is followed up by full support for high dynamic range (HDR) that delivers more crisp, true-to-life colours and a brighter, more natural representation of real-world lighting conditions – all delivered super-smooth 60FPS.

The team at Codemasters were able to go even further though, explaining “we found PS4 Pro’s built-in enhancements for checkerboard rendering made the technique much more efficient, leaving valuable GPU time to spend on other visual upgrades.”

As such, players can also look forward to improved environment reflections (such as those reflected in the car’s bodywork) and enhanced shadow precision adding to the game’s realistic look and feel.

Finally, track shaders also receive an upgrade, one again thanks to the clever design of the PS4 Pro hardware. As the developers explained, “packed fp16 ALU operations, which are unique to the PS4 Pro in the console space, offer us a very powerful tool for optimising shaders, allowing us to enhance CU occupancy and reduce overall instruction count.”

For the less tech-savvie, this ultimately means the hardware design naturally lends itself to providing higher-quality environment shaders, allowing the team to give tracks a more finely-detailed overall appearance.

Last but not least, those using a regular full-HD display will also benefit from hugely-improved image quality thanks to down-sampling. This process allows the console to construct a more finely-detailed 1080p image from the full the 4K render, smoothing jagged edges and refining object and texture detail, particularly at a distance.

Pre-order F1 2017 on PlayStation Store.

Agents of Mayhem | Out 15th August

Something of a spiritual successor to Volition’s larger-than-life Saint’s Row series, Agents of Mayhem is a third-person open-world adventure that transports you to a futuristic recreation of the South Korean capital of Seoul to do battle with corporate villainy as an utterly rag-tag band of hired mercenaries known as the Agents of Mayhem.

PS4 Pro users can look to amp-up the chaos a few notches further with a suite of technical improvements that will make Seoul’s ‘City of Tomorrow’ truly stand out.

First up, maintaining a full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080, textures and scene detail will receive a huge boost from both increased level of detail (LOD) and a four-times increase in anisotropic filtering (from x4 to x16), refining texture detail and quality particularly when viewed at sharp angles.

This is further bolstered by increased shadow quality that creates more accurate and detailed shadows across the entire scene and increased texture resolution for particle effects throughout the game – meaning crisper more satisfying explosions all-round!

Turning away from pure presentation, you’ll also find Seoul an even more lively and happening destination with additional GPU power from PS4 Pro allowing an increase dynamic pedestrian and vehicle counts throughout the city.

And there’s more: all of this beautiful extra detail will pop with full support for high dynamic range (HDR) creating deeper levels of contrast and improving colour depth across the whole scene.

One final thing: overall performance will receive an appreciable boost above the base PS4’s 30hz output, reaching – at maximum – a high of 60FPS.

Pre-order Agents of Mayhem on PlayStation Store. 

Sine Mora EX | Out now

Finally this week we have Sine Mora EX – a deluxe edition re-master of PS3 side-scrolling shooter Sine Mora. Making the jump to PS4 it brings with it not only a full English-language voice cast and a brand new local co-op mode, but also a few sweet treats for PS4 Pro.

Big guns out the way first: Sine Mora EX will increase pixel density four-fold when using PS4 Pro to a fully-native 3840 x 2160, which outputs at a lightning fast 60FPS. That means crystal clear detail across the whole scene and buttery-smooth controller response.

Why stop there though? The team have also indicated that due to a doubling of the game’s normal half-size buffers, players can expect ‘far superior’ rendering quality for particles – meaning every last whizz, pop and bang will be a good bit whizzier, poppier and bangier on PS4 Pro.

To top it all off, global scoreboards have been implemented for Sine Mora EX. All game modes (even local co-op) have their separate boards, so no excuses to not try and beat your mates!

Best of all? You can try it now: Sine Mora EX hit PlayStation Store last week. You can grab it here.

That’s all for this week – join us again soon for more.

The post Enhanced for PS4 Pro: F1 2017, Agents of Mayhem and Sine Mora EX appeared first on PlayStation.Blog.Europe.

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