Sony and Guerrilla Games recently delayed Horizon Forbidden West from late 2021 to early next year. However, they also dropped a patch for Horizon Zero Dawn that allows the PS5 to now run the game at a better frame rate compared to the PS4 Pro. So, how does the game perform on the PS5, and how does it stack up against the PS4 Pro? Let’s find out, but, before we proceed ahead, we wanted to make a note that we analyzed the performance by taking some sample scenes from the game and running it through trdrop, an open source software.
This tool gives us a mere demonstration of the game’s performance, because an exact 1:1 representation of performance can only be provided by the developers themselves, since they have access to a vast array of tools and profilers.
On the PS4 Pro, Horizon Zero Dawn featured two graphical modes: Favor Resolution and Favor Performance. For the purpose of this comparison, we analyzed the PS4 Pro in better performance mode. On the other hand, PS5 version offers no specific graphical mode.
As the game is running in backwards compatibility mode on the PS5, the new update offers no noticeable improvements in graphics compared to the PS4 Pro version. However, the performance has been doubled to 60 frames per second and it usually sticks to that target. The load times have also seen a major boost. The PS5 version is much faster to load the game compared to the PS4 Pro, thanks to the console’s fast SSD. Overall, this is a pretty handy improvement on the PS5 and for those who haven’t played the original game on the PS4 or PS4 Pro, the PS5 version is the best place to play Horizon Zero Dawn.