Key Takeaways
- F1 24 will make extensive use of the PS5 Pro’s added horsepower, particularly for ray tracing.
- When running on a PS5 Pro, F1 24 will enable several ray tracing features during gameplay at 60fps.
- The PS5 Pro will also allow for native 4K at 120fps, as well as an upscaled 8K 60fps mode in F1 24.
F1 24 is set to receive several impressive visual enhancements on the upcoming PlayStation 5 Pro. Although Sony’s marketing for the PS5 Pro so far has mostly revolved around first-party games, F1 24 developer Codemasters has outlined some tantalizing upgrades for the third-party game, such as additional ray tracing features, higher framerates, and 8K support.
As the latest installment in EA Sports’ annual racing series, F1 24 was launched back in May 2024 for PS4/PS5, Xbox One/Series X/S, and PC. Performance analyses showed that F1 24 runs quite well on the current-gen machines, offering 60fps gameplay as a baseline, with PS5 and Xbox Series X players even having the option to dial it up to 120fps. A suite of ray tracing features, namely shadows, ambient occlusion, reflections, and dynamic diffuse global illumination (DDGI) is also featured in F1 24, albeit with a big concession.
Much like Gran Turismo 7‘s ray tracing restriction, most of F1 24‘s ray tracing features are disabled during gameplay and are only visible in menus, pre-race sequences, and replays. With the debut of the PS5 Pro and its hugely improved ray tracing hardware, though, these limitations will no longer be present in F1 24 when running on the beefier system. Digital Foundry’s Oliver MacKenzie, who recently went hands-on with the PS5 Pro, revealed in a new IGN analysis that F1 24 will greatly benefit from the console’s added horsepower.
F1 24 Performance Upgrades on PS5 Pro
- Ray tracing features enabled during gameplay at 60fps
- Ray-traced global illumination
- Ray-traced shadows
- RT transparency on paint reflections
- Native 4K resolution at 120fps
- 8K 60fps mode using PSSR
MacKenzie remarked that F1 24‘s ray tracing features are a “generational leap” on the PS5 Pro, with the game’s Quality mode adding ray-traced ambient occlusion, reflections, and RT transparency on paint reflections during gameplay. There’s good news for players who prefer playing at higher framerates too, as the 120fps mode’s render resolution has been cranked up to native 4K, allowing for drastically better image quality. Lastly, F1 24 will make use of PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution to offer a staggering 8K 60fps mode, joining the ranks of Gran Turismo 7 as one of the few 8K-supported games on the PS5 Pro.
There was a lot of skepticism around whether the PS5 Pro’s performance would live up to its steep $700 price tag, but previews clearly show that developers have been able to extract highly impressive results from the console. Several games that heavily tax the base PS5’s GPU, such as Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, have seen tremendous uplifts on PS5 Pro. However, it’ll be interesting to see how the PS5 Pro handles Dragon’s Dogma 2, and more such games where the CPU is more of a bottleneck than the GPU.
