There's a stuttering issue in several PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro games when enabling Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) and unlocked frame rate. The report comes from Digital Foundry, which investigated the issue across various games. They found out that after twenty to thirty minutes of playing one of these games, stuttering would occur roughly every eight seconds, give or take a few frames here and there.
The following games were confirmed to be affected on both PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro:
- The Last of Us Part One
- The Last of Us Part Two Remastered
- Diablo IV
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Elden Ring
- Resident Evil 4
- Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
- Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered
- Metaphor: Refantazio
- Kingdom Come Deliverance II
Digital Foundry also tested Warhorse's first-person open world role-playing game on Xbox Series X and noticed no such stuttering problem. They also noted that testing took place across various TV sets, eliminating that as a potential factor.
However, other games do not seem to exhibit this behavior. This includes:
- God of War Ragnarok
- Gran Turismo 7
- Immortals of Aveum
- Dragon's Dogma 2
What's even more interesting is that some of these games are powered by the same engines seen in the first group. For example, Dragon's Dogma 2 runs on CAPCOM's RE Engine just like Resident Evil 4, but the latter is impacted, and the former is not. Having said that, Digital Foundry noted that it's not unthinkable that some of these games could still suffer from the issue, albeit only after playing them after longer than half an hour.
Interestingly, the stuttering issue seemed to go away for a while after switching to another input (for example, PC) and back. Of course, that's not a proper fix, which can only come from Sony or the developers, depending on whether it is a system-wide issue or a game-specific issue.
Needless to say, we'll let you know if Sony acknowledges the problem and provides an ETA on its resolution.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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