Fans who have been clamouring for VRR and 1440p support on the PS5 can be a little satisfied with PlayStation‘s blog post on its system software update that rolled out today. The March update includes better controls for voice chat groups (termed Parties), UI enhancements on PS5, as well as some new accessibility features – it also announced that PS5 will be getting Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support on HDMI 2.1-compatible TVs and PC monitors in the coming months.
The updates in today’s patch, which has been tested in beta for the past two months, include:
- Open and Closed Parties: One of the fan-requested features coming with the update is the changes to Parties (PlayStation’s voice chat). Parties can now be created either as Open (anyone can join, even friends of friends) or Closed (only those you invite can join), allowing for greater control over your social groups.
- Voice chat reporting (PS5): A visual indicator of who is speaking helps you identify the speaker for making your report.
- Share Play directly from voice chat (PS5): No need to start Share Screen first.
- Individual voice chat volume control (PS4): Each player’s volume in your party can be individually adjusted.
- PS5 Game Base enhancements: Better functionality of the Game Base in the Control Center, allowing you to see all your Friends, send messages, images and videos, as well as view a group’s shared media.
- PS5 UI features: A new genre filter to help sift through your games, better control of what appears on your home screen, improvement to the visual design of the trophy card and trophy list, as well as make it easier to Share Screen and stream your gameplay to an open party.
- New accessibility features: Mono audio support for headphones (same audio on both side of the headphones, which can be particularly useful for players with unilateral hearing loss), as well as increase its Screen Reader (on-screen text to audio) function to 15 languages.
- PS App and PS Remote Play enhancements: Users can create or join Parties through the PS App; PS App Game Base UI has been updated to be consistent with the PS5 changes; a new dark mode available for PS Remote Play mobile app.
Upcoming: VRR support for PS5
PlayStation also announced that PS5 will be getting Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support on HDMI 2.1-compatible TVs and PC monitors in the coming months.
Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) will allow dynamic syncing of the refresh rate of these devices to the PS5’s graphical output, thereby reducing or removing frame pacing issues and screen tearing. What this should do for PS5 users is that graphics will look better and gameplay feels better as input lag is reduced.
VRR Support for previously released games will be patched in, but even games not optimised for VRR can still try running with it. The option can be toggled to your liking.
PlayStation will share more about this in the future. As for 1440p support, there isn’t any news on that yet, so keep requesting.
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