Among all the PS5 Pro upgrades we've tested to date, the Resident Evil series enjoys some of the biggest benefits running on Sony's new hardware. In order, we have 2017's Resident Evil 7, the remakes of RE 2 and 3, Resident Evil Village, and most recently, Resident Evil 4 Remake. Capcom's in-house RE Engine forms the technical backbone of all five games, of course, and each runs as a native PS5 app. Except there's often been a hiccup in its performance on the base PS5: whether using 60fps RT features in some cases or enabling a 120Hz HFR mode in others, there's a chance it won't be fully realized on the hardware. base. PS5 Pro offers a solution across the board with its increased GPU power and more advanced PSSR improvement, through which there is now a genuine means to close the gap with those frame rate targets.
Before we move on to performance, first the basics: of the five games, only RE4 Remake and RE Village are updated with Pro support. The other three games still receive a performance boost on PS5 Pro, but the visual features and settings remain the same. the same as those of the standard PS5. For RE4 Remake and Village, the PlayStation Store pages show a PS5 Pro Enhanced symbol and sure enough, the update is evident when launching PS5 Pro, where we now get a new 120Hz switch on each. Essentially, this works very similar to the 120Hz switches already present in the RE2/RE3 and RE7 remakes, but is a Pro-only feature for the latter two games.
Let's start our tour of series updates on PS5 Pro with RE Village. This is the only game that gets a PSSR upgrade; otherwise, the main visual settings remain in place from the base machine. PS5 Pro runs at a fixed 1536×864 resolution that is rebuilt to 4K using PSSR in all modes, whether you have ray tracing enabled or disabled, or running at 120Hz or 60Hz. The result is respectable, although there are a disadvantage compared to the 4K checkerboard method used on the base PS5, which plays at a native 1920×2160 resolution. This makes it a side step visually: the base PS5's image is sharper and sharper, but with more pixelation artifacts due to the checkerboard focus. Meanwhile, the PS5 Pro's handling of similar fine details is generally more stable, though prone to its own causes of flickering, depending on the moving content within the frame. However, still shots resolve to a comparatively sharp 4K image as information builds up over multiple frames using PSSR, and the only other drawback is that fine hair details become blurred with motion (not a problem on the base PS5). It's a mixed result, sometimes subtly improved in its temporal stability, and at other points worse, although fortunately there are no other visual side effects as we saw in Dragon's Dogma 2, another RE Engine title.
Moving on to the frame rate tests, running RE Village with RT enabled is a much more solid 60fps experience on PS5 Pro. Here we get RT reflections, ambient occlusion, and a form of GI, improving in-game shadows and lighting. local bounce for indoors. If we look at the base PS5's delivery with this RT mode, it generally maintains a stable 60 fps and with a VRR display it looks almost perfect, except in the most demanding moments of the game, where the frame rate can drop to the mid-40s. . As for the game's new 120Hz high framerate mode on PS5 Pro, it hits its 120fps target almost seamlessly if RT is disabled, and even with it enabled, game length is typically 55-90fps . Overall, it's a great buy if you're willing to sacrifice the ray tracing option.
Resident Evil 4 Remake goes deeper in terms of performance improvements, although it's also a more demanding title overall once all the visual amenities are enabled. Surprisingly, PS5 Pro doesn't make any major visual changes, and PSSR isn't featured here either, instead using a checkerboard rendering much like the base PS5 version. Resolution mode runs at 2160p, while performance mode again runs around 1944p. RT is optional, it adds RT highlights when activated, and there is also a hair strand option. Finally, there's a new 120Hz HFR mode on PS5 Pro. Looking back at the base PS5, running the game in resolution mode with RT turned out to be a recipe for disaster with a 40-60fps frame rate, sometimes below the ideal VRR window. One solution for basic PS5 users is Performance Mode, which runs at 55-60fps with RT.
PS5 Pro users need not make such a sacrifice; now it is possible to run this resolution mode and RT in combination (and even the hair strand option if you want), where the 60fps stays locked almost permanently. Surprisingly, compared to the base PS5, that equates to a relative 30 to 40 percent improvement in frame rate on Sony's new machine, during combat and cutscene matching tests. On the other hand, the fortunes of the new 120Hz option are a little more mixed on the Pro hardware. Frankly, it's impossible to maintain a 120fps lock even with all visual details disabled. It goes between 85-105 fps in performance mode (with RT disabled) and 70-90 fps in resolution mode (RT enabled), showing the absolute best and worst cases. In performance mode, 120fps can technically be achieved in indoor areas and scenes, so HFR mode is viable in some spots, although a VRR display is recommended for the best possible experience.
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Finally, let's take a look at the other three RE Engine releases: RE7 and the remakes of RE2 and RE3. None of these games have an official PS5 Pro update at the time of writing, but the extra GPU power on PS5 Pro means the titles still see automatic improvements. This is particularly true with RT enabled in RE2 and RE3, which caused drops to as low as 35fps on the base PS5 machine. PS5 Pro realizes the untapped potential in this mode, as the game runs at 60fps most of the time and drops to around 48fps in one case. In that case, it's within the VRR range, although those without that screen technology needn't worry: PS5 Pro still runs at a locked 60fps 99 percent of the time. In matching scenes, we measured a 45 percent frame rate improvement on RE2, with similarly large margins on RE3 targeting 60Hz. On that note, the 120Hz mode in each new version also makes a similarly bold gain, replacing the 90-120fps range we saw previously with a near-perfect 120fps lock today on PS5 Pro.
As for Resident Evil 7, the game that RE Engine introduced in 2017, there's a less exciting margin to talk about. In short, it typically ran at a flat 60fps on the base PS5, even with RT enabled, meaning there's no room for the Pro hardware to dazzle us with such a marked improvement today. Likewise, the game's 120Hz mode worked well as is on the base machine, and continues to do so on PS5 Pro.
Looking at all five Resident Evil games, the PS5 Pro fixes almost all the cases where the base model failed to hit 60fps with RT. The good news is that it's now a really viable and effective combination, and 120fps works uniformly well in all games with the exception of RE4 Remake. Perhaps it speaks to a lack of optimization for those RT options on the base PS5, especially RE2 and RE3, and a 30fps cap might have made more sense in those cases. Still, the plus side is that Capcom's use of an unlocked frame rate back then translates to a stable 60fps on current Pro hardware. The only remaining criticism is that there is limited ambition beyond these frame-rate increases. Aside from the switch to PSSR in Resident Evil Village, we are offered a set of visual features that match the base PS5. However, at least the PS5 Pro addresses the performance issues the series faced for years, and for that reason alone, its upgrade across the entire Resident Evil series ranks as one of its biggest successes.