Following the near-complete PS5 Pro specs list leak earlier this month, leaked info verified by Tom Henderson at Insider Gaming points toward the specific requirements for games to receive "PS5 Pro Enhanced" labeling, codenamed "Trinity Enhanced" internally.
The ideal "Trinity Enhanced" mode is described as using PSSR to upscale resolution to 4K, achieving a constant 60 FPS, and adding or increasing ray tracing effects compared to the stock PS5 version, which may or may not have RT. While specific PS5 titles are built from the ground up for RT, like Spider-Man 2, others skirt RT entirely while still targeting 30-60 FPS, like Final Fantasy XVI — so this seems ideal for those games, in particular.
However, "Trinity Enhanced" requirements seem looser than meeting all three of the above goals at once. Instead, meeting any of the below-listed requirements will give a PS5 Pro game its appropriate Trinity Enhanced/PS5 Pro Enhanced labeling.
Leaked PS5 Pro "Trinity Enhanced" Requirements (any)
- Inclusion of "PS5 Pro Ray-tracing effects"—In other words, some titles' only enhancement on PS5 Pro will be the addition of ray-tracing effects to games that ran at specific performance targets (4K30, etc.) but didn't yet include RT. This also applies to games that already had some RT but disabled or lowered the quality of features like RT reflections on PS5.
- Increased target framerate versus standard PS5—This entails 30 FPS PS5 games going up to 60, 60 to Variable or 120, etc. PS5 has supported VRR since April 2022.
- Increased target resolution for games that run with Dynamic Resolution Scaling on PS5 — Most modern console games utilize some degree of dynamic resolution scaling, especially when targeting 4K resolution or 60 FPS.
- Increased fixed resolution for games that already run at a fixed resolution on PS5—This enhancement entails changing the 1080p lock to 4K lock, etc. It's self-explanatory. Either of these increased target resolutions can also be met using Pro-exclusive PSSR upscaling.
Let's use a specific PS5 game as an example to examine these PS5 Pro Enhanced requirements in more detail.
Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition was released on PS5 with various performance modes. As what was originally a PS4 game locked to 60 FPS without RT, one of the basic PlayStation 5/Special Edition enhancements was ray tracing. Ray tracing could be enabled in DMC5:SE while targeting 30 FPS at 4K or 60 FPS at 1080p. However, the game also offered to run at up to 120 FPS/120 Hz without ray-tracing with resolution scaling enabled.
With the four existing performance modes of DMC5:SE on current PS5 hardware targeting either ray tracing or high FPS, it seems evident that a "Trinity Enhanced" patch for the game would allow you to do both. Enabling RT in DMC5:SE's Variable 120 Hz Performance Mode, for example, would seem to fall perfectly in line with the PS5 Pro's established ~4X RT performance boost—though it may not consistently hit 120 FPS.
Widespread speculation from outlets like Digital Foundry points toward actual next-gen titles like Grand Theft Auto VI being unable to run at 60 FPS on the console. However, if the footage of the game we've already seen is running with those ray-traced effects at 30 FPS on existing console hardware— as DMC5:SE is above when targeting 4K— it does seem that PS5 Pro may allow those 30 FPS RT Modes to hit 60.
On base PS5 and in PC games, real-time ray-tracing is also incredibly CPU-intensive, not simply GPU-intensive. However, console games can be optimized at an SoC level, and it seems as if the PS5 Pro's GPU may be tailor-made to offset those CPU bottlenecks otherwise introduced by real-time ray tracing on the console.
Considering the nature of these "PS5 Pro Enhanced" performance targets and the existing leaked specs, it may be too soon to rule out 60 FPS for PS5 Pro games.
