PS4 Pro patch update

Previously, I made a post listing the technical details of the PS4 patch.

That was a work-in-progress, and I said at the time I'd post final specs as soon as we know them, which we now do.

We are definitely supporting HDR, on both the PS4 Pro and the base model PS4. If the game detects an HDR TV, it will start in HDR mode. HDR works in all resolutions mentioned below.

If you have a PS4 Pro, and are outputting to a 1080p TV, The Witness will render at 1080p, 60fps, 4x MSAA (which is substantially higher than the base PS4's 900p, 60fps, 2x MSAA). This is the same as we announced in the earlier posting.

If you have a PS4 Pro, and are outputting to a 4k TV, then you get a choice of two modes from the options menu:
(a) 1440p 2x MSAA rendering of the game world, upscaled to 4k, text and UI rendered at 4k, 60fps
(b) 4k 2x MSAA rendering for everything, 30fps 

We added option (b) because a lot of people seem to want it, and it does look really good!

I don't yet know the exact release date for the patch, but it is coming pretty soon, in November sometime. We are now in the process of nailing down all the little details and making sure they are good. As soon as we know the release date I will announce it here.

 

45 Comments:

  1. Option b) will look fantastic, until you start moving ;)

    I’ll stick to 60fps thanks. Great work btw, looking forward to this immensely!

    Cheers.

    • Yep, everyone has different preferences, which is why we provided an option. (I like the smoothness of 60fps also, but the game does look good at 4k!)

    • Yeah, Im so sick and tired of all these 60fps snobs and spoiled brats. Yes, 60fps is smoother than 30fps, but 30fps does not look horrible. And i’ll take a rock solid motion blurred 30fps over a wavery 60fps anyday.

      • Lol. I never said 30fps was horrible, I just prefer the 60fps where possible. My comment wasn’t meant to be serious hence the winky face. I’m glad users have a nice range of options to choose from. I’m certainly not a 60fps snob (I am a little spoiled though, I’ll give you that one!).

      • Educated person

        Try not to add your uneducated opinion thanks

    • 60 fps won’t make a lot of difference in real terms, its not a shooter. So “moving” will be just fine, as it was before.

  2. Hey, you listened! Thanks for the choices. I initially requested for letting us choose between performance and quality so I just want to thank you for that. Although there’s no option for 1080p TV owners, I’m glad and respect that there’s one for us 4K TV owners.

  3. Thanks for the variety with the patch! Do you plan on adding updates to the game? Like new areas or maybe making a sequel? Plus will there be something harder than the music box?

  4. On the initial post, for 1080p TV owners, it was mentioned:

    “We are exploring additional visual quality increases, like increased streaming distance for high-resolution meshes, or decreasing the noticeability of the fade-in between faraway LODs and high-res close-up meshes. Again, we’ll post details when this is finalized!”

    Any word on these aspects?

    • We did not find anything in that category that really seemed like a win.

      • Thanks for the update. Cannot wait to update my game and 100% it!

        • I forgot to ask. What ends up looking better?
          1. 1440p downsampled to 1080p, 2x MSAA, 60 fps
          2. 1080p, 4xMSAA, 60 fps

          Some developers seem to be going for the higher AA approach while others are going for the supersample/downsampling approach.

  5. To provide different options is always the best… option. :)
    Good job, Jonathan, I hope many developers will follow your way, when it comes to offer PS4 Pro (and Project Scorpio) support for their games.

  6. Love the options and looking forward to revisiting a favorite when the PS4 Pro arrives. Out of curiosity, did you test the geometry-only rendering mode that runs fragment shaders at 1080p while resolving geometry at 4K?

    • We did not think that kind of rendering was appropriate for our game or the way our engine is put together, and felt that it was much more straightforward, and would lead to a better result, to do what I posted here.

  7. Fine. Now put it on PC, too. Ask Nvidia and/or AMD how to do it. Thanks.

  8. I would assume the palette is going to stay the same with HDR enabled, just resolving a few more details in the high and low ends and benefitting from the increased bit depth. I’ve seen a few HDR demos for the ps4 which understandably bang up the contrast, having a game that is very clean and colourful in its style, but has a sort of naturalistic balance to the palette would make it a surefire title to return to after buying an HDR capable set!

  9. What happens if you use a 1440p monitor?

  10. Nice feature!

    Hopefully this will free resources for the mac port ^_^

  11. How did Sony allow you as a developer to bypass their strict TRC by offering option (b) 4K 2x MSAA rendering of everything at 30fps on PS4 Pro which runs lower than the base PS4 of 900p 2x MSAA at 60fps? Did you request a TRC waiver? I might to have to recheck DevNet thoroughly again tomorrow morning to see if Sony recently updated their tech notes and documents to surprise licensed PlayStation 4 developers like me.

    • Well, we are presuming they will allow us to provide this as an optional mode. We’ll see if they reject the game!

    • That’s what I thought to start with, but that TRC entry is confusingly written. I won’t get into the specifics of material that’s under NDA on this blog, but it really just describes the modes that you MUST provide, it doesn’t say that you can’t also offer additional alternative modes.

  12. Will there be an iOS version ?

  13. Any idea what the PS4 Pro will do plugged into a 1440p monitor?

    Thanks!

    • Probably upscale to 4K and then downscale to 1440p.
      Is what happen when you try a 720p monitor in regular PS4 or Xbox One (internally upscale to 1080p, then back to 720p).

  14. Does any of this work (specifically HDR) translate to an Xbox One S update?

  15. I’ve encountered an area 6 puzzles in where there is a white line at the top and bottom and everything else black on my 1080p display & PS4 Pro.

    Is there a way to exit or do I have to start over?

    Regards.

  16. Thank you for the update :)

  17. So has the Pro update been released already?

  18. No release date for ps4 pro patch Jonathan Blow ?

  19. Ok tanks :)
    You make a great job for the Witness.
    Merci beaucoup !

  20. So excited thanks for putting extra time into the HDR and 4k support!

  21. Thanks for your effort. I hope The Witness will continue its success. It is still underestimated!
    Waiting for the release of this patch :)

  22. Sony and delay for testing patch…

  23. Hi,
    Any news from the patch? I would like to play at 4k the best game of 20th century.

  24. Was playing at 4K60 2x MSAA on PC… =)

  25. Will the PC version also be getting an update for HDR? I understand that most (all?) monitors do not yet support the HDR-10 spec, but it would be great for use with a compatible TV.

  26. Any chance this could come out for the iOS soon? Thanks.

  27. morning my Name is asaph I would like to play with the patch pro on ps4 but I do not know how to download the patch help me here is my facebook angel loba or you can put this number 01371124 you will see two characters c is my facebook I also speak french

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