Today Koei Tecmo and Sony Interactive Entertainment made the "Last Chance" demo of NiOh playable, giving a good glimpse on the difference between the PS4 and PS4 Pro versions of the game.
On 1080p screens, both versions have the following options: Action Mode (which runs at 60 FPS), Movie Mode (which runs at 30 FPS) and Movie Mode (Variable Frame Rade), running with unlocked frame rate. That said, there certainly is a difference for each mode between the two console.
In order to give you a better look of what each mode and each console offers, we took screenshots of the same scenes on all modes on both consoles, using an Elgato HD 60 video capture card in order to guarantee equal capture conditions.
All screenshots are saved in lossless PNG to avoid any loss in detail, and you can see them in the galleries below.
For each scene, we have a gallery comparing all modes the following order PS4 Action -> PS4 Movie (Variable Frame Rate) -> PS4 Movie -> PS4 Pro Action - > PS4 Pro Movie (Variable Frame Rate) -> PS4 Pro Movie. Three more galleries pitch the PS4 and PS4 Pro versions of each screenshots against each other.
Keep in mind that the screenshots are pretty hefty in byte size due to the format, so make sure to let them load fully. We also advise against downloading them on mobile if you have limited data, because they'll eat it up fairly fast.
All Modes
Action Mode
Movie Mode (Variable Frame Rate)
Movie Mode
All Modes
Action Mode
Movie Mode (Variable Frame Rate)
Movie Mode
All Modes
Action Mode
Movie Mode (Variable Frame Rate)
Movie Mode
All Modes
Action Mode
Movie Mode (Variable Frame Rate)
Movie Mode
On PS4, Action Mode shows the lowest resolution with the Movie Modes coming with higher resolution (the best place to spot resolution differences is the string of William's bow) and even higher definition in the shadow maps. Textures also showcase a large difference in detail. On the other hand, differences between the two movie modes are extremely difficult to spot, if there are any beyond the unlocked frame rate.
On PS4 Pro, things are different, and the insufficient description of each mode definitely doesn't help your decision. Resolution is the lowest in Action mode and highest in Movie Mode, where there appear to be the best anti-aliasing overall as well. On the other hand, while resolution in Movie Mode (Variable Frame Rate) is higher than in action mode, aliasing is certainly worse than in Movie Mode with fixed frame rate.
Even on PS4 Pro there is a difference in shadow map resolution between Action Mode and the Movie Modes, but the difference in texture definition does not appear as evident as on standard PS4. On the other hand, Movie Modes on PS4 Pro appear to have better reflections (particularly visible on the floor of the dojo) than in action mode and on standard PS4.
Interestingly, movie mode on standard PS4 appears to be nearly identical to action movie on PS4 Pro, meaning that the more powerful iteration version manages to run very similar visuals at double frame rate (60 FPS against 30 FPS).
Action Mode on standard PS4 compares quite poorly with the rest of the modes on both consoles, while Movie Mode on PS4 Pro is definitely the best way to play the game if you're interested in the best visual sacrificing 60 FPS. That said, Action Mode on PS4 Pro still looks quite spectacular and sports 60 frames per second. We could probably consider it the best of both worlds.
If you want to download the demo, and you still didn't, you better hurry, because it'll be available only until tomorrow (January 22nd) at 11:59 PM. You can find it here.
NiOh will launch in North America on February 7th, published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. European gamers will have to wait one more day until February 8th, while Japanese gamers will get the game last directly from Koei Tecmo, on February 9th.