Triple-A games have come a long way regarding their overall visual quality. As graphics cards and processors continue to improve, game developers naturally use them to offer a better gaming experience. If you’re a competitive gamer, however, you may not be that stoked about visual improvements.

In the world of competitive gaming, frame rates mean everything since they’re the key to getting the most out of high-refresh-rate monitors. PC gamers have it easy since they can achieve all sorts of frame values depending on their hardware. Conversely, console players have been mostly restricted to 30 frames per second (fps) or 60fps due to hardware limitations and design choices. For instance, when Fortnite became available on consoles, players could only experience the game at 30fps, which took away from the competitive experience.

Game developers are focusing more on performance updates to enhance the experience for competitive players while Sony’s PlayStation 5 is paving the way to higher frames. The PlayStation 5’s internals are more than capable of pushing upwards of 100 frames. Achieving a high frame rate depends on whether a game has a performance mode of its own.

Fortnite and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War are two of the first competitive titles with a 120fps mode, and you’ll need to turn on the performance mode on your PS5 to unlock this feature. You can check out the settings of other games to see if they support higher frames, or you can simply keep the performance turned on for your PS5.

Here’s how you can improve FPS on your PS5 in supported games.

Turn on the performance mode on your PS5

Performance mode was introduced with PS5, and it’ll allow your system to focus on achieving higher frames instead of visual quality.

• Launch your PS5 and navigate to the Home Screen.

• Open Settings by clicking the cog icon toward the top right of your screen.

• Choose Save Data and Game/App Settings.

• Scroll down to Game Presets and find Performance Mode or Resolution Mode.

• Set it to Performance Mode.

After making the adjustments, your PS5 will prioritize performance over visual quality whenever it can. While there won’t be any noticeable difference in visual quality for players who were gaming on 1080p displays, the graphical downgrade may be more visible if you are on a 4K display.

Ray tracing will be turned off in games that support the feature after turning on the performance mode. You may have the option to turn it back on through the in-game menus in supported titles, but doing so can defeat the whole purpose of enabling the performance mode. Ray tracing is one of the most resource-hungry graphical enhancements, and turning it off will yield the highest performance gain in consoles.

Should you turn on the performance mode on PS5?

More performance sounds good on paper, but it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. If you have the ultimate 4K gaming setup with a high-end TV, the visual quality loss can outweigh the performance gains.

If you’re looking to unlock higher frame rates for a smoother experience in titles like Fortnite, you’ll need a monitor or a TV that has a minimum refresh rate of 120Hz. Additionally, you’ll need to configure a second set of settings through the games’ menus to unlock higher frames after turning on the performance mode. You won’t see these settings if your display doesn’t have a high enough refresh rate.

Keeping the performance mode turned off is usually advised if the above applies to you since you’ll still be achieving a stable 60fps even when it’s turned off.

You should try out the performance mode if you’re playing a competitive title. The combination of higher frames and a monitor or TV with a refresh rate of 120Hz and above will let you react quicker. You’ll see actions unfolding faster than your opponents who are on 60Hz, even if it’s by a few milliseconds. While it’s hard to tell the difference, you’ll be at an advantage from a technical standpoint.

If you’d like to upgrade your monitor or TV to one with a high refresh rate but are on a tight budget, consider getting a monitor over a TV. High refresh rate monitors are relatively cheaper compared to TVs and tend to have lower input delays. A 4K TV is still sufficient enough for casual gaming sessions, and you can switch to your monitor whenever you need the extra speed.

Does Game Boost improve FPS on PS5?

Game Boost is another feature that focuses on increasing the performance of supported titles on PS5. In the older generations of PlayStation consoles, players had to manually enable the feature to increase their frame rates.

Game Boost is enabled by default on all PS5s, and it will kick-in automatically whenever you launch a supported backward-compatible title. You can check out the complete list of games that have Game Boost support here. A notification will also pop up to remind you that the feature is available in supported titles when you launch them.

If you don’t seem to be benefitting from turning on the options above and have been noticing that your PS5 has been getting slower by the day, it may be time when you finally clean your PS5.

Cleaning a PS5 is relatively easier than the older generations since it has a fail-proof design. More advanced users can also try to reapply their thermal paste, but know that going that far will void your warranty.

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