Old console packs ray tracing – but only in this game

4K resolution, 120 Hz, ray tracing – these graphics features are among the special features of the PS5 for many PlayStation players. In fact, the latter is also supported by the PS4 – at least in Crysis Remastered thanks to a trick.

Ray tracing on the PS4? In Crysis Remastered it is possible

Thanks to ray tracing, reflections, shadows and lighting moods can be displayed even more realistically. However, to ensure that the performance in games does not drop completely, the respective system must also have correspondingly powerful hardware installed. No wonder the PS4, originally released in 2013, has to do without the nifty feature.

In fact, that’s not entirely true – there’s one game that’s the exception here: Crysis Remastered. The remastered version of the shooter from Crytek allows PS4 Pro players to enable a ray tracing mode in the options. Although this causes the dynamic resolution in the game to drop below Full HD in order to continue running at 30 FPS, it then actually displays ray-traced reflections and shadows, as can be seen in the video embedded below – albeit in some Situations not error-free:

How can the PS4 display ray tracing?

Crysis relies on one Software-based rendering solution for the raytracing effects. This means that no specially tailored hardware is required, which would not only provide significantly more performance, but also better graphics quality.

All in all, it’s still amazing to see that the PS4 Pro still offers enough hardware power, despite its old age, to even refine games like Crysis with ray tracing effects – without dropping the frame rate into the abyss.

However, PS4 players shouldn’t expect other developers to pull off this feat in future PlayStation games. After all, the PS4 is a discontinued model that will probably be retired in a few years.