GTA 6 on PS5, PS5 Pro and Xbox Series: 30 fps, graphics and which console

GTA VI comes out on 19 November on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, and on no other platform for now Confirmed Rockstar Support. It is not coming to PS4 or Xbox One, and no PC version has been announced.

Each console at a glance

The labels come from each listing: “PS5 Pro Enhanced” on the PlayStation Store Confirmed PlayStation Store and “Optimized for Xbox Series X|S” on Xbox Confirmed Xbox. Neither says exactly what changes.

30 frames per second

That is the figure Rob Nelson, co-head of Rockstar North, gave in the preview sessions before the Extended Look: during development, the consoles run the game at 30 fps. On a 60 fps mode, he said he would have to check with the technical team Reported VGC.

Rockstar has not put it in writing, so it is labelled Reported. But the official video points the same way: An Extended Look was captured in-game on PS5 Confirmed Rockstar Newswire, and Digital Foundry, which went through it frame by frame, describes a game designed for 30 fps from the start Reported Digital Foundry.

What Digital Foundry measured in the Extended Look

Digital Foundry specialises in the technical analysis of games. These are its findings on the official video, captured on a standard PS5 Reported Digital Foundry:

• Resolution: around 1440p internally, with no dynamic resolution, upscaled to 4K in a simple way. The result is somewhat soft, with jagged edges and shimmer on fine detail.
• Smoothness: a very stable 30 fps, with only the odd dropped frame. Far better than the launches of GTA IV and GTA V on PS3 and Xbox 360.
• Ray tracing: in reflections and indirect lighting, where it shows most. Shadows are still mostly traditional techniques.
• What falls short: a slight judder in animation and camera turns even when the frame rate is stable, a long-standing trait of Rockstar’s engine.

Its verdict on 60 fps is clear: it sees it as very unlikely on console, because the limit is mostly the processor, which has to run the traffic, pedestrians, physics and world streaming.

What about PS5 Pro?

Rockstar has not shown the PS5 Pro version. Digital Foundry expects it to look somewhat better, because its graphics chip is more powerful and it has Sony’s PSSR upscaling: a cleaner image and better ray tracing. What it does not expect is a much faster game. The Pro’s processor barely changes (3.85 GHz against 3.5 GHz), which in its tests gives about 7% more when the processor is the bottleneck Reported Digital Foundry. A 40 fps mode for 120 Hz screens is more feasible than 60, but it has not been announced either.

What about Xbox Series S?

Nobody has seen it. It is the least powerful of the four, and Digital Foundry notes that its version may show how far Rockstar is willing to pare the visuals back Reported Digital Foundry. Until Rockstar shows it, any resolution figure for Series S is a guess.

The PS5 controller

The PlayStation Store listing says the game uses the DualSense’s haptic feedback and adaptive triggers Confirmed PlayStation Store, and the PlayStation Blog confirms it when presenting its limited-edition controllers Confirmed PlayStation Blog. Rockstar’s official page also carries a “Plays best on PlayStation 5” badge Confirmed Rockstar Games.

What is not known yet

• How big it is. Neither the PlayStation Store nor the Xbox store shows it yet.
• What the PS5 Pro does exactly, beyond the label.
• How it looks on Xbox Series X and Series S.
• Whether a higher frame rate mode will come after launch.
• The languages on PS5. The Xbox listing names its own Confirmed Xbox, and the PlayStation one does not yet. The detail is in our languages guide.

As soon as Rockstar or the stores publish any of this, we will add it here and note it in the changelog.