Can PS6 Graphics Achieve Photorealism?

If the PS5 Pro leaks are accurate, the eventual PS6 is slated to be one powerful console. Leaks suggest the PS5 Pro will have 33.5 teraflops, upgraded from the base model’s 10.28, but it will feature the same Zen 2 CPU.

Sony’s partnership with AMD aims to use 8K PSSR upscaling, which will help offload CPU strain to keep resolutions high with consistent 60 FPS. The most top-of-the-line GPUs today still can’t render photorealism in dynamic playable spaces. This is partly due to an offset in optimization from the games and the limited CPU in such PCs, which inevitably bottleneck performance.

Unreal Engine 5’s Nanite and Lumen systems help automate high-resolution rendering of 3D objects and ambient lighting, but it’s still a ways off from realizing photorealistic games that are not just static scenes. Gamers typically prefer framerate over resolution, but the PS5 Pro should allow both.

However, with the same Zen 2 CPU and a lower teraflop count than current- gen GPUs, it’s still behind actual photorealistic capability. The launch of new generation graphics cards later in 2024 should pave the way for a far more advanced PS6 when it drops in 2027/2028, though we’re not sure about it executing absolute photorealism.

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