Codemasters has revealed that the studio has been a big fan of Sony’s PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution technology – more commonly referred to as PSSR. In a recent interview with us, producer Si Lumb has said that PSSR is a “well-tuned upscaler” that allows the studio to push graphical fidelity even harder for the PS5 Pro version of the upcoming F1 25. “We were delighted that the PlayStation 5 Pro featured such a well-tuned upscaler in PSSR,” he said.
Lumb went on to explain how AI-based supersampling like we see in technologies like Nvidia’s DLSS and AMD’s FSR typically works, and how the PS5 Pro sets itself apart by being able to transform images it was given into high-resolution outputs. Lumb also revealed that, thanks to PSSR, the studio was able to double the resolution of ray traced reflections while leaving it up to PSSR to up the image quality while maintaining steady frame rates.
“For a while in graphics technologies, the upscalers have allowed rendering engines to push more fidelity into a lower resolution ‘input’ image, and then benefit from the AI models to take those to incredible looking large resolution frames, upon which we can then apply post effects and tuning,” Lumb explained. “For PS5 Pro, we originally weren’t going to use PSSR on F1 24, as we were trying to de-risk our approach.“
“However, when testing it, it was so good at transforming from the input to high resolution output that we could actually use double resolution Ray Traced reflections as input and rely on the AI to give us a much higher quality image. It’s something we couldn’t have done with our own TAA upscaler.”
The producer also spoke about more of the technology being used in order to enhance visual fidelity for F1 25, including the use of LiDAR scanning in order to more accurately model the game’s various racing tracks and the surrounding flora and audiences. The studio plans on making use of PSSR even more thoroughly for its next title to try and get an even higher degree of visual fidelity on the PS5 Pro.
“As we go into F1 25 with broadly the same solution as F1 24, we get the benefit of that same quality, just with far more LIDAR tracks to see the increased density and uplift that the Quality mode provides,” said Lumb. “Moving forward, and without anything specific to announce, we look forward to exploring what other areas of our title we can leverage technologies like PSSR to achieve new targets of visual quality on console hardware.”
In the same interview, Lumb, along with creative director Gavin Cooper, had revealed quite a few details about the upcoming F1 25, including some of the new My Team features, the evolution of the Braking Point story mode, and updates to the game’s handling and physics system.
F1 25 is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on May 30. The title will mark the return of the Braking Point storyline, and will aim for high levels of visual fidelity on PC through path tracing. For more details, here is everything you need to know about the game.
