Black Myth: Wukong Updated! PlayStation 5 Pro Support Added - But Is Base PS5 Improved Too?

Summary

Black Myth: Wukong, the stunning action epic powered by Unreal Engine 5, has continued its evolution with a new patch addressing PS5 performance issues and introducing PS5 Pro support. While the game originally suffered from frame rate locks and a 30fps base frame rate, improvements have been made to enhance the visual experience. The latest patch introduces a sharpening slider, altered lighting with more occlusion, and different performance modes each targeting specific resolutions and frame rates. PS5 Pro players get a noteworthy enhancement with the integration of PSSR, providing sharper images even during motion. While not all issues are fully resolved, game science has made significant headway in ensuring Black Myth: Wukong continues to impress on next-gen consoles.

Highlights

• Black Myth: Wukong now supports PS5 Pro with enhanced visuals! 🎮
• Introducing the sharpening slider on PS5 for better image control. 🖼️
• Enhancements in lighting and occlusion add depth to visuals. 🌟
• Frame generation remains a concern for fast action gameplay. 🏃
• Quality mode offers higher shadow resolution on PS5. 🌑
• Balance mode provides smooth 40fps at 120Hz refresh rate! 📈
• Experience improvements, but some issues persist in performance. 😬
• Discover PSSR benefits on the PS5 Pro for optimal visuals. 📺

Key Takeaways

• PS5 performance improved with new patch! 🚀
• Discover the new sharpening slider feature on PS5. 🔧
• PS5 Pro gets sharper images with PSSR technology! 📺
• Frame generation still an issue? Find out why! 🤔
• Experience smoother gameplay with 40fps balance mode. 🎮
• Quality vs. Balance mode - what's the difference? 🤔
• Performance improvements on PS5 Pro? Not as expected. ☹️
• Black Myth: Wukong's technical journey explained! 📈

Overview

Black Myth: Wukong, a powerhouse in action epics, is leveling up with its recent updates for PS5 consoles. Originally grappling with some unique performance challenges, players can now enjoy a host of visual and performance improvements making their gaming adventure more satisfying. Quick fixes like the new sharpening slider offer more image clarity with a simple tweak, and changes in lighting create a more immersive gameplay world. While PS5 owners reap these benefits, PS5 Pro users get treated to PSSR enhancements delivering sharper images without compromising performance, making the epic battles feel more intensive.

Creature shadows and scene detail are elevated with quality and balance modes on the PS5, adding depth to each dramatic action move. The quality mode now has a more stable 30fps cap for a consistently paced experience, while balance mode transforms with the auto 120Hz setting aiming for 40fps, offering gamers a smoother ride with significant visual perks. Despite these advancements, the performance mode lingers on 1080p, struggling slightly with fast-paced scenes, which may leave more aggressive players wanting a revamped update.

Even with these shortcomings, Black Myth: Wukong manages to introduce meaningful improvements with its latest patch, elevating the gaming experience. PS5 Pro's conservative yet impactful upgrades ensure a clear graphical boost, delighting users seeking that high-fidelity look. So, while some may argue about the balance between resolution and visual settings, it's undeniable that Black Myth: Wukong continues on an upward trajectory, making it a compelling choice for PS5 and Pro users alike, just with a gentle reminder of its few lingering quirks.

Black Myth: Wukong Updated! PlayStation 5 Pro Support Added - But Is Base PS5 Improved Too? Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 black myth Wukong was a phenomenon this ui5 powered action epic sold millions of copies when it launched earlier this year impressing with its fast gameplay and sophisticated visuals but its configuration on PS5 left something to be desired employing bizarre frame rate locks and frame gen with a 30fps base frame rate developer game science has addressed at least some of those issues as of the latest patch and they've also added PS5 Pro support using pssr to
• 00:30 - 01:00 improve image quality for pro players so is PS5 finally in reasonable shape and should we expect any issues from the pro upgrade let's start by taking a quick look at the patched PS5 code the most obvious superficial change here is that the PS5 has a sharpening slider now with no sharpening applied the image looks pretty soft but relatively free of Alias
• 01:00 - 01:30 edges dialing it up to five which is the default gives the image a look that is pretty typical for lower res crun and console titles 10 provides maximum crispiness for players who want to max out on local contrast compared to the launch code a value of about seven matches the base PS5 in its performance configuration though I've dialed it to five for the rest of my PS5 comparisons to best represent the default experience outside of the sharpness tweak the most obvious visual Chang is that the game's
• 01:30 - 02:00 luming GI presentation has been altered slightly there's more obvious occlusion present in certain parts of the game World essentially the shadow Maps sometimes appear slightly different as well the other modes also have some GI differences relative to the launch code although they are affected less obviously other visual settings appear similar at least in my tests that includes resolution which remains at 1080p internally with no apparent upsampling to a higher output resolution frame gen is unfortunately still a
• 02:00 - 02:30 reality here and performance is generally similar in my tests as well usually holding 60 FPS fairly well the game's intro runs with frame gen disabled and mostly hangs in the 40s and 50s and there are some occasional dips during other segments as well I suspect the game may be disabling frame gen during especially sudden changes in camera position which is likely the source of some of these dips it's not a great fit for a fast action game running it only 60f PS and it's likely not even
• 02:30 - 03:00 necessary for 60fps gameplay for the most part as Rich demonstrated in some tests a few months ago lean more heavily on FSR or TSR and a reasonable 60fps experience should be achievable even on the PS5 CPU and GPU performance mode is pretty similar then but the other two modes differ more dramatically the quality mode takes a pretty obvious hit to image quality with less definition and Detail in foliage and fine geometry it's a substantial loss relative to the
• 03:00 - 03:30 earlier code a quick pixel count reveals the issue the quality mode appears to be rendering at 1080p here down from roughly 1440p on average before the Old Quality mode was upsampling to 4K while the new quality mode looks more like 1440p or perhaps 162p other visual settings do seem to have been bumped up though Shadows are obviously higher res and have less aggressive Cascades and the draw distance for foliage has has been improved somewhat essentially
• 03:30 - 04:00 you're trading a higher resolution in the launch version for better visual settings in the current version frame rates are improved over the base game at least in a sense the original quality mode ran with an unstable frame rate often running in the low to mid-30s now the quality mode has a more sensible straight 30fps cap producing an evenly frame paced experience without dips balance mode gets a very different visual treatment though the new image obviously has more detail
• 04:00 - 04:30 and finer geometric lines manag to present without artifacting a pixel count reveals a similar setup to Quality mode a 1080p internal resolution with a subjectively 1440p like output performance-wise it spends most of its time at or close to 45 FPS which is the default frame rate cap in this mode that means a pretty unsteady procession of frames 60 HZ output with a mix of 16 and 33 millisecond frames into typical play
• 04:30 - 05:00 but new in this patch is an alternative version of the balance mode with the PS5 set to automatically enable 120 HZ output the balance mode now aims for a flat 40fps reading with each frame essentially tripled to evenly fit a 120 HZ refresh in my experience this actually holds a pretty stable 40fps with relatively small and rare dips this small change makes this mode highly useful in my opinion the other mode can
• 05:00 - 05:30 also run at 120 HZ output with a compatible display but they still Target 60 FPS and 30 FPS respectively to wrap things up I thought I'd quickly compare the patched modes together the quality mode and balance mode look very similar now though the quality mode has higher settings for Shadows which is pretty obvious in this scene but the quality mode and balance mode have a very similar Lumen GI presentation with the performance mode appearing a little coarser than there are the expected
• 05:30 - 06:00 image quality differences the performance mode is visibly 1080p like while the quality and balance modes have greater Clarity of these modes I really think the 40fps balance mode at 120 htz is best it has good input response consistent frame pacing and feels reasonably smooth the quality mode is fine though the hit to frame rate is a little steep and the performance Mode's frame gen is still a bit too much for my taste I might prefer a non-frame gen 60
• 06:00 - 06:30 FPS targeting mode though if one was available on PS5 Pro let's start with the quality mode the biggest change here is the introduction of pssr which works from roughly a 1296p input resolution typically but produces a 4K like final image it's perceptibly sharper especially during movement and holds up really nicely on a 4K TV set some
• 06:30 - 07:00 elements that weren't effectively anti-alias with FSR are actually a bit cleaner here like the noisy hair on the first boss and recently discluded detail in general which tends to look a bit blurred instead of fizzly like with FSR there is a bit of that signature pssr noise if you look closely though it's not obvious from normal viewing distances I've turned off sharpening for my Pro comparisons so you should be getting a good impression of the detail in underlying image here despite the
• 07:00 - 07:30 fact that we are looking at a u5 game the lighting is generally pretty stable and consistent here with pssr without Silent Hill 2 like Shimmer but the lighting here was already pretty stable with FSR so perhaps that's just less of an issue in general for the content in this title I did note some Lumen changes again between the PS5 code and PS5 Pro though these seemed more substantial than the tweaks I noted between the various PS5 vers versions performance is
• 07:30 - 08:00 in line with the base console at a lock 30 frames per second in my tests which feels all right on a controller with motion blur maxed the balance mode is quite similar to Quality mode with a roughly 1296p typical internal res taken to 4K using pssr the most conspicuous visual difference here comes down to the Shadows which are higher res in the quality mode the setup is pretty similar to the PS5 split then with a fairly conservative up upgade for the 30fps
• 08:00 - 08:30 targeting mode variant there are some Lumin tweaks here though that do mirror the quality mode a little bit as well frame rates hovering around 45 FPS are typical at 60 HZ output and the game delivers a more or less straight 40 FPS at 120 HZ output I'm not a fan of the way the game looks on a 60 HZ panel in this mode but at 120 HZ you get steady frame pacing and consistent controller response the performance mode mod hasn't
• 08:30 - 09:00 changed much it's still a 60fps targeting mode using frame gen and still runs at a 1080p resolution compared side by side it appears very similar to the old performance mode minus some Lumin discrepancies this Mode still appears to use FSR 3 as well it also performs very similarly to the base console performance mode again we see the same procession of 33 millisecond frames if the camera position changes rapidly and nonlinearly suggest ing frame gen may be
• 09:00 - 09:30 turned off in these moments it's unfortunate that this mode hasn't been substantially revised because this is probably the mode on the base console that I find most lacking between the PS5 Pro's larger GPU and boosted CPU I'd hope the resources would be there for a decent 60fps targeting mode without frame gen perhaps this is something game science can consider for a future update I'm reasonably pleased with black myth
• 09:30 - 10:00 wukong's technical Evolution on PS5 since launch as both the quality and balance modes feel like they make reasonable trade-offs and can achieve stable frame rates there are still some unusual elements in the mix like frame gen at 60 FPS and 45 FPS frame rate targets at 60 HZ that do Mar the game and make certain mode and refresh rate combinations difficult to use in my opinion the pro upgrade is on the conservative side but it does represent
• 10:00 - 10:30 a clear improvement from the base game the quality and balance modes go from a 1440p like image to a 4K like one with pssr proving a nice upgrade for pro users there's no wild settings bump here or attempts at extra rate tracing but the image quality does look clearly better in typical play which is something we can't always say for Pro upgrades so black myth Wukong has taken several steps in the right direction even if I think a few configuration calls remain misguided I'm pretty
• 10:30 - 11:00 comfortable recommending the PS5 and pro versions of the game now just with a few caveats if you enjoyed this video please like subscribe and press the bell for YouTube notifications check out the patreon at digital.net for exclusive and Early Access content and to get in touch use social media thanks for watching