GTA 6 Will Push PS5 Pro Further While Xbox Series S Faces Major Visual Cutbacks

With GTA 6 set to become one of the most technically ambitious games of the generation, attention has shifted beyond the base PS5 version to how Rockstar will scale the experience across different hardware. While GTA 6 already appears to push console technology to its limits, questions remain about what improvements the PS5 Pro could offer and what compromises may be necessary for the Xbox Series S.

The game's impressive ray tracing, dense environments, and advanced character rendering make platform scalability one of its most fascinating technical topics of discussion.

What Could PS5 Pro Bring to GTA 6?

As for a deeper look into Rockstar's technology, that's basically down to Rockstar if they fancy doing it. They don't typically talk much about technology, but if they want to, we're up for it.

The more interesting discussion is how GTA 6 scales both down and up. The Xbox Series S is probably the most fascinating part of this conversation. If you consider the hardware, you've got the CPU and the storage. What you don't have is the same level of GPU power, but based on the resolutions we saw in Trailer 1 and Trailer 2, that shouldn't be a problem.

You just render at a lower resolution. However, you don't have the same memory bandwidth, which could be problematic, and you also don't have the same amount of memory. So yes, there will definitely be cutbacks there.

Scaling Down for Xbox Series S Will Be a Major Challenge

We're curious to see what those cutbacks look like. A lot of this art is extremely impressive. We've seen some ugly Series S versions of games before, but GTA 6 looks like it's going to be the best-looking console game of this generation. Even years down the line, it's hard to imagine much eclipsing it.

It simply looks better than everything else we've seen so far on many levels, so scaling it down will be challenging.

PS5 Pro Could Focus on Better Ray Tracing

For the PS5 Pro, if Rockstar doesn't use PSSR at launch, which is the route many third-party developers are taking, another interesting option would be to keep the resolution similar to the base PS5 while improving aspects of ray tracing.

The game already looks fairly soft, and if Rockstar believes the image quality is good enough, it could introduce a mode that extends ray-traced reflection distances much further. That's one aspect of the trailers that remains difficult to judge. If you look at the side of a building with glass, will the ray tracing disappear only a few meters away, as we've seen in previous console games? Those are details we simply don't know yet.

If that's one of the areas where the base PS5 makes compromises, then the PS5 Pro extending those reflection distances would be a genuinely meaningful improvement.

Shadows, Image Quality, and Unknown Visual Weak Points

Direct ray-traced shadows are another possibility, although that depends on how simplified Rockstar's BVH geometry is. It's probably heavily simplified to make everything run efficiently. If that's the case, direct shadows may not be practical for the same reasons that similar techniques remain difficult on current console hardware.

You could also expect better image quality, whether through PSSR or TAA. The PS5 Pro might push 40%-50% more pixels with TAA alone, and that could already look quite good.

Even so, improved ray tracing quality and longer ray tracing distances seem more interesting because they would better leverage the console's expanded ray tracing capabilities.

The reality is that we don't yet have a clear understanding of GTA 6's visual weaknesses. Based on the trailer footage, everything looks almost impeccable. Image quality is one area where you could say it isn't perfect, but it's far from unacceptable. Maybe that's where Rockstar chooses to improve things. Or perhaps actual gameplay reveals ray tracing flaws that simply aren't visible in the cinematic footage we've seen so far.

Expected Xbox Series S Compromises

If you plan to play on the Xbox Series S, you should probably expect greatly reduced rendering resolution first. Lower texture streaming quality, lower-detail assets, lower-resolution shadows, reduced volumetric effects, and significantly reduced ray tracing quality all seem likely.

One feature that could potentially disappear is ray-traced reflections. The problem is that GTA 6 appears to rely on them more heavily than almost any game we've seen before. The world is filled with glossy surfaces and artificial environments.

Just look at the scene with Jason sitting in the car. There are reflections everywhere. It's difficult to imagine how that scene would look without ray-traced reflections.

Hair Simulation Could Be One of the Biggest Casualties

Hair simulation is another obvious candidate for scaling down. Rockstar could remove its strand-based hair system and replace it with simpler hair cards.

We've already seen examples where that didn't look particularly good. Some games removed strand-based hair on lower-end hardware, and the hairstyles suffered significantly as a result.

That's especially concerning because GTA 6's cinematic presentation clearly relies on dynamic hair animation. When Lucia spins around or flips onto the bed, her hair behaves almost like a character of its own. Removing that system entirely would noticeably affect the presentation, although it remains a possibility.

Rockstar's Track Record Leaves Questions

The PS5 Pro situation is particularly interesting because Rockstar's previous enhanced console support wasn't exactly perfect. Red Dead Redemption 2's checkerboard rendering on the PS4 Pro never looked especially good, and it could have benefited from more development time.

However, Rockstar hasn't released a new game in so long that it's difficult to know whether past examples remain a reliable indicator of what the studio will do today.

One interesting detail from Red Dead Redemption 2 was that if your console output was set to 1080p, the game wouldn't use checkerboard rendering at all. Instead, it simply outputs native 1080p, which arguably produces a better image.

What GTA 6 Scaling Could Mean for Future PC Performance

How GTA 6 ultimately scales across different consoles will be fascinating to see. In particular, the Xbox Series S version could offer valuable hints about how lower-end PCs may eventually handle the game once the PC version finally arrives.