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GTA 6 launch trailer shows no sign of PS5's QSSR upscaler, Digital Foundry finds. Vice City slides past at 30fps on a standard PS5. The image is still being rebuilt from around 1440p, and Sony's brand-new AI upscaler isn't doing the rebuilding. Digital Foundry's frame-by-frame breakdown of the Grand Theft Auto VI launch trailer found no evidence of the feature and questions if the higher latency would be worth it. That's a blow to anyone hoping QSSR would arrive in time for the game's November 19 release. It isn't all bad news for base console owners. The same analysis says one of the RAGE engine's oldest problems, a judder in animations during camera moves, looks like it's finally been fixed. Most of the arguing online has been about whether the trailer looks softer than Rockstar's earlier footage: GTA 6 still sits at 1440p and 30fps on base PS5. Some viewers came away from the trailer convinced the picture had got worse. Notebookcheck's write-up of the Digital Foundry piece notes that the most common criticism of the GTA 6 launch trailer is its hazy appearance. The blurriness softens the visuals, while excessive bloom fades the vibrant colors. The numbers don't support a downgrade. DF counted no change in resolution, and the site also believes Rockstar maintained a 1440p resolution, upscaled to a 4K output. Its explanation for the haze is narrower: the changed look may be specific to this particular PS5 footage. DF did flag the HDR presentation as a weak spot. The RAGE animation judder that goes back to GTA IV. The real headline for tech nerds is motion. In earlier footage, the frame rate stayed steady but animation timing didn't, so slow camera pans had a subtle stutter. French outlet Xboxygen traces the quirk back to GTA IV in 2008. Digital Foundry spotted it again in the extended gameplay look Rockstar put out in August. In the launch trailer it seems to be gone. DF went looking in the slow pans where it usually shows up and didn't find it. It's hedging, though. As Xboxygen points out, the trailer runs for roughly 90 seconds, and Rockstar picks its own shots. Only the retail build will settle whether the fix goes all the way down to the engine. Sony launched QSSR on October 1 with Wolverine and Ghost of Yotei. QSSR stands for Quick Spectral Super Resolution. Sony announced it on the PlayStation Blog on October 1 in a post by Daniel Craig, principal engineer in SIE's graphics R&D group, who called it a new performance tier of AI upscaling. It came out of Project Amethyst, Sony's AI graphics partnership with AMD, and runs on a streamlined neural network architecture tuned specifically for the base PS5. Marvel's Wolverine and Ghost of Yotei got patches adding it on day one. Sony also says it's open to every PlayStation developer, which is why GTA 6 got dragged into the conversation straight away. Sony hasn't oversold it, either. Its own line is that "While PSSR remains the gold standard on PS5 Pro, QSSR provides some notable improvements to both image detail and image stability on PS5". Why 1.5 to 4.4 milliseconds matters for a 4K GTA 6. QSSR has a cost, and Digital Foundry's Wolverine testing puts a figure on it. Rebuilding an image from about 864p to 1440p took about 1,5-1,8 ms more time per frame than Insomniac's proprietary upscaler. With an unlocked frame rate, this corresponded to a difference of approximately 8-10 FPS. Push the output to 2160p and the QSSR load in the Wolverine test increased to approximately 4.4 ms per frame. GTA 6 outputs at 4K, so that heavier number is the one that counts. A 30fps game has 33.3ms to draw each frame. Losing more than 4ms of that in an open world this dense isn't trivial. Then there's integration. Back when QSSR launched, Digital Foundry noted that in earlier GTA 6 PS5 trailers, Digital Foundry found no evidence of FSR or a modern temporal approach. As a result, it may be trickier to introduce the latest advancements. Games already running AMD's FSR, like Ghost of Yotei, have an easier swap. TweakTown adds that a post-launch patch is possible, but Rockstar has not announced QSSR support, and integrating it into the game's rendering pipeline may be challenging. No QSSR at launch is the right call for GTA 6. Here's its view: missing QSSR is fine. Rockstar has been locking down a game this size for years. Bolting a weeks-old upscaler onto the rendering pipeline a month out from launch is exactly how you end up with a day-one patch nobody wanted. A smooth, consistent 30fps with the judder gone is worth more than a sharper still image you'll only notice in a side-by-side comparison. If QSSR turns up at all, Shane the Gamer'd bet on a patch after launch rather than the disc. Rockstar also hasn't said anything about PS5 Pro enhancements yet. EGW's summary of the analysis says there's no detail on PSSR for the Pro either, so Pro owners have the same open question. The next look at the real thing comes on November 19, when Grand Theft Auto VI launches on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

Gran Turismo's new DualSense puts the livery first. Sony's Gran Turismo DualSense pairs racing graphics with a carbon-fibre-style finish. Preorders open in October, while Australian pricing remains unconfirmed. Official Sony product render, reframed and tonally enhanced for POPTOPIC. (C) Sony Interactive Entertainment. Sony has dressed its new Gran Turismo DualSense like a race car that has just rolled out of the livery editor. Black stripes, motorsport markings and a carbon-fibre-style centre make this a controller with a very specific audience: people who want their racing obsession visible before the PS5 is even switched on. The Gran Turismo Limited Edition announcement sets global preorders from 22 October and a launch starting 10 December. Sony lists a US recommended price of US$84.99, with limited quantities. Its published price list does not include Australian dollars, so a local price still needs confirmation. The appeal is in the finish. Sony's announcement does not introduce a new control technology or claim a performance improvement for this edition. Anyone weighing it up should start with whether they like the design, rather than expecting the stripes to shave a tenth off a lap. The Gran Turismo DualSense commits to the livery. The official render is busy in a deliberate way. The white grips carry decals and commemorative markings, while two black stripes run down the touchpad. The dark patterned section around the sticks gives the front a stronger centre than a plain white pad. That combination will either look like a miniature piece of the paddock or a sticker sheet that got away from someone. Both reactions make sense. Racing liveries are meant to be recognisable at speed, and subtle decoration is rarely their first priority. This controller carries that visual language all the way into the lounge room. Sony calls the front plate textured and carbon-fibre-style. The wording describes an appearance and finish; it is not a claim that the controller has acquired a structural carbon-fibre shell. How that texture feels in the hands will need actual handling. A polished render cannot answer it. As a collector's object, the design has a clear identity. As a replacement for a working controller, it needs to clear a different bar: wanting this particular finish enough to pay for another pad. A special edition can be enjoyable without pretending that every fan needs one. Australians still need the local checkout details. The Australian figure being circulated by Press Start is an expectation, rather than a confirmed local retail price. Its report anticipates A$134.95. Sony's global announcement does not establish that figure or name Australian participating retailers. Previous releases offer context, but they do not set the terms for this one. Its coverage of LISA's Australian DualSense preorder and the GTA VI controller listings documented both local prices and EB World PLUS conditions. Those were conditions attached to those listings, not a blanket rule for future controllers. A useful preorder page should make the price, release date, retailer eligibility and delivery costs obvious. Until that page exists, converting the US price or borrowing another limited edition's terms creates a certainty the announcement has not earned. Collectors can admire the design now and make the spending decision when the actual offer appears. Spec IV is the more immediate invitation. The same announcement schedules Gran Turismo 7's free Spec IV Part 1 update for 4pm AEST / 5pm AEDT on 15 October. It brings six vehicles and Sportsland Sugo. The update is free, while acquiring the cars still requires in-game credits earned through progression or bought. That gives existing players something concrete to look forward to before the controller's December release. New places to drive and cars to learn change the evening's possibilities. A commemorative pad changes what is in your hands while you explore them. For a different sort of hardware decision, its look at MOZA's PS5 racing wheels dealt with a change in how players control a car. The new DualSense makes its case through design and collectability. Keep that purpose in view and the decision becomes much clearer. The livery has personality. Now the Australian retail offer needs to be just as clear. Admiration is free; an extra controller should earn its space on the charging stand. Magnus. I'm the founder of POPTOPIC. I have two decades worth of experience working in entertainment and media under my belt. I started as a simpleton contributing author for Platform Nation and Next Gen News. The conversation. Be the first to join the conversation.