Releasing just prior to the PlayStation 5 Pro hardware launch, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 features a set of unique enhancements over base PS5 – where we have equally unique insights thanks to a recent trip to meet the series’ Principal Rendering Engineer, Michal Drobot, and the talented team at Infinity Ward Poland. Black Ops 6 is developed by multiple studios – chiefly Treyarch and Raven Software – but at IW’s Poland office I was able to get a behind-the-scenes tour of the tools used to make the game. So in essence, this piece serves two purposes: to discuss the Pro upgrades with input from the developers – and to talk about some of the wider enhancements made to the engine.
PlayStation 5 Pro’s update has been out in the wild for a good month already, and it’s clear that Black Ops 6’s upgrades run deeper than most. Some tweaks are subtle, while others make a more evident difference to frame-rate performance. In summary, PS5 Pro users get improved visual settings while running at 60Hz, plus the adoption of PSSR to boost image quality with 4K as the target output. An anti-lag VRR feature is also added only on PS5 Pro – letting us run at above 60fps while using that default graphics mode. Beyond that, there’s a broad performance boost with the 120Hz mode enabled, where PS5 Pro reverts to base PS5 visual settings to deliver a higher frame-rate.
Starting with the 60Hz mode, there are four improved visual settings, starting with a 2-4x increase in shadow resolution, depending on the shadow type and your distance to it. This primarily affects environmental shadow maps, where quality is boosted across near and far shadows streaking across walls. The improvement is a subtle, but often welcome reduction in stair-stepping across hard shadow lines. Next along, and more remarkably, there’s the improved global illumination. Specifically, a screen-space GI method is added just for PS5 Pro, simulating light bounce between surfaces. Again it’s subtle in some areas – and demands switching between base PS5 and Pro in full screen to truly appreciate – but the pay-off is a much more accurate light interaction between a character and nearby, brightly lit surface.
This SSGI setting is something the team is especially proud of, as a rasterised technique that attempts to mimic the quality of path tracing. It’s calibrated to create as comparable a result to the team’s internal, path traced reference, though obviously at a fraction of the cost. This also extends to the way ambient shade is implemented. With the improved SSAO on Pro, there’s a richer bed of shade added to the scene – and most interior shots like the headquarters – creating a more life-like final frame.
Screen-space reflections – SSR – are also improved pm Pro, where the ambition is to once again match the team’s internal, path-traced reference as closely as possible. In comparing it with base PS5, the main difference on Pro is in the accuracy of how reflections are occluded by objects in the scene. Switching back and forth on the Skyline map, PS5 Pro greatly reduces the ‘light leak’ around geometry – walls, tables – thanks to the updated SSGI, all of which has a domino effect in the accuracy of the reflection as well. Everything combined, we get a change that might not scream at you in the heat of Black Ops 6’s rapid action, but it does make a sensible use of Sony’s mid-gen machine to refine the game’s visuals.