PS4 Update 4.5 Is Coming Tomorrow

Link

- External HDD

- PS VR Improvements

If you’re playing a game in PS VR, and you return to PS4’s home screen, you may notice that the resolution looks lower than normal on the TV ‘Social Screen’. Following this update, you’ll find that the resolution of the system screen displayed on your TV is significantly better when you’re out of VR mode.

Also, the resolution of Cinematic Mode on PS VR will improve – if your PS VR screen size is set to Small or Medium, the framerate of content viewed in Cinematic Mode goes up from 90Hz to 120Hz with this update.

PS VR will now support Blu-ray 3D* discs. You will have the ability to watch them in stereoscopic 3D via your headset.

- Voice chat for Remote Play

We’re adding voice chat when using Remote Play on Windows PC, Mac or an Xperia device. If you’ve got a gaming session planned with your friends, but you’re away from your system, this update makes it seem like you’re right at home. You can switch your mic on and off via the microphone icon on the Tool Bar of the Remote Play app.

- Off-console availability

We have a variety of off-console apps and features that make communication with other gamers easier, like the PlayStation App and PS Messages. We’re adding an icon, shaped like a smartphone, which indicates a player is logged into PSN but away from their console

- Custom wallpaper & profile colour

Ready for a much more personal PS4 home screen? Head to Settings, then select Theme. From here, choose ‘Custom’ and select any screenshot and set it as your new PS4 home screen wallpaper.

- Activity feed privacy

In addition, you can now change the privacy settings for individual posts. You can alter who sees your Activities via the same-named tab in the Sharing Your Experience section of Settings, while you can decide the level of privacy for videos, screenshots, broadcasts, PS Store and PS Music when you go to upload them. But worry not, you can also alter who gets to see that content after the post has been shared.

- Save Data Shortcut

Hover over a game title icon and press the Options button. You’ll be given the choice to ‘Upload/Download Saved Data’ from the the PS4’s home screen that let you upload the saved data on your PS4 to PS Plus online storage and download the saved data from PS Plus online storage to your PS4 with ease.

- GIF support

Get the GIF love in 4.50, as you can now share GIFs from SHAREfactory to your Activity Feeds

And probably the most interesting feature:

- Boost mode (applicable to PlayStation 4 Pro only)

PS4 Pro gets a new feature in this update called Boost Mode. This feature has been designed to provide better performance for legacy titles that have not been patched to take advantage of the PS4 Pro’s faster CPU and its faster and double-sized GPU. This can provide a noticeable frame rate boost to some games with variable frame rates, and can provide frame rate stability for games that are programmed to run at 30 Hz or 60 Hz.

Depending on the game, the increased CPU speed may also result in shorter load times. Keep in mind that Boost Mode is not guaranteed to work with all titles. Turning the setting off will allow the game to be played in a mode that replicates the standard PS4.

You can turn on the Boost Mode from the PS4’s Settings menu. Go to ‘Settings’, then ‘System’, then scroll down to ‘Boost Mode’ and tick the box to turn Boost Mode on.

'PS VR will now support Blu-ray 3D* discs. You will have the ability to watch them in stereoscopic 3D via your headset.'

I'm sorry what?

Now that boost mode is getting it's wide release a PS4 Pro is much more enticing. I have Just Cause 4 and The Witcher 3 sitting in my backlog and those would really benefit from a boost...now I just need to decide between that upgrade or a Switch.

On another note: custom backgrounds are pointless when you have the Firewatch theme.

Sweet. I've got a 2TB External just waiting.

You can watch 3d video in a vr headset already, i guess they are just adding support for the disks.

Isn't tracking in VR supposed to improve as well? I hope that wasn't postponed for a later patch.

Heard some good things about the improved cinematic mode and 3D Blu-ray playback.

Finally. I plugged in an external drive last week when Horizon came out and it did nothing. I had assumed this update was out months ago since people had been talking about external hard drive support and boost mode for a while.

I have a 3TB ready to go for this bad boy. PSVR improvements, just wondering how much "better" they've made it and PLEASE tell me this update brings better tracking. Even just watching or playing something non-VR the tracking is a bit obnoxious to keep holding the OPTION button to reset all the time. Maybe my eyes are broken?

@sloppydetective: Yeah, once they get back into stock locally I'm gonna upgrade to a pro. I had earmarked the money for a PC upgrade but I'm using the PS4 so much more than Steam since the turn of the year.

I really hope this fixes the terrible lag that has been present since the last update.

My console crashes way too often, especially when trying to access Netflix. Games also sometimes fail to load.

Applications failing to load isn't a sign of latency and usually a sign of hardware failure of some kind.

@zirilius:

I agree but it started at the same time as other people since the last update:

http://kotaku.com/some-ps4s-have-become-a-bit-laggy-recently-1791921824

Interesting I've never known that to be an issue. I stand corrected then.

Settings screenshots as backgrounds sounds like a "wow finally" console feature that has been stubbornly gated behind paid premium themes for ages.

I know that even the simple screencaps I took from my favorite games would usually serve as better backgrounds than about 99% of themes you get out there which seem to never account for the fact that hey, there will be icons on top of this awesome image you're using which makes the whole thing look like a cluttered mess.

The only good thing about premium themes are the custom sounds.

Boost mode sounds really great. I'd like to see how some older games run now, been meaning to play DS3 and BloodBorne again.

Also, I don't know how everyone else feels but I think the addition of being able to great gifs is an awesome feature.

You know what'd be great? If they could just patch a PS4 up to a PS5.

Very curious to check out Boost Mode on a handful of titles. SFV loading times improved? Sign me up!

come on now with that salt...

...THEY JUST MAY

Got a 2tb in my ps4 pro and just ordered a 4tb external which will come tomorrow. I think i will still be able to fill it if i install all my games.

The external hard drive storage has me the most excited. Fantastic news! I can get Yakuza installed at last.

@geraltitude: I'm telling you, man. Firmware 5.00.

"Adds processing power ... from our cloud of PS3s."

@shindig said:

hahaha >.< Ken Kutaragi's cell processor... finally, we're ready. Now that cell-powered fridge I have suddenly makes sense!

i got 8tb yay.

It's live. At least for me in the Eurozone, anyway.

Moving games over to the USB drive as I type.

Lemme know when I can install a theme and then change the background. Got a really nice FF7 one with music and SFX that I'd like to keep around, but the image they chose for the background looks like a blurry screenshot from a youtube video.

Can it run games from the external hdd?

I already have a back up of my games in there so, if it's only for storage, it doesn't make much of a difference.

I'm very happy about the external HDD drive. Definitely going to plop all my games on there that I go back to occasionally (Bloodborne, Dark Souls III, GTA V... heck, I might as well re-install MGSV, Battlefront, and FIFA at this point too).

@thefreaking21: It can run games from the External.

Still having the bluetooth issue with the PDP Universal PS4 Media Remote that I had in both 4.5 Betas. Basically the bluetooth paired remote wouldn't work even though it was showing that it was paired to the system. When I tried to remove it from the bluetooth devices section it would just error out. I contacted both PDP (said it was a Sony issue) and Playstation (said it was a PDP issue) and rebuilt the database like both suggested and still nothing. Any suggestions? It's annoying to have this device on my PS4 that won't work and I can't remove.

@teddie: Sadly not - I tried it just now with my ABZU theme. When I added a custom wallpaper the applied theme defaulted to the standard sounds and icons.

Does anyone know how the new update will handle downloading to an external HDD while being in rest mode?

Does it continue to give power to the hard drive indefinitely? Just curious.

Thanks!

Excited for my 3D blu-rays to finally get some use

They screwed up the notifications menu so badly. I loved how it was before. There were all the different choices on the left, and as you highlighted them, the corresponding items from that category would appear in the list. Now it's just this mishmash of random crap that you can only separate by downloads and uploads. Something that's different doesn't always mean worse, and if it was just a learning curve thing, it would be fine, but this is objectively worse and makes it less organized. FFS, sony, really?

@tyrrael: eh, i hated it at first, but now im used to it and find it works perfectly fine for me. The main problem i had was figuring out how to view my downloads/uploads. I can see it being a problem if you have a lot of things popping up in there, but for me its mostly just "hey someone posted in this group". But the notification section always seemed kinda of redundant and useless anyway for what pops up there, i mainly use it to keep track of downloads.

@lego_my_eggo: I mainly use it to keep track of downloads too, but to make it less organized just seems like an odd choice. There's literally no benefit at all to changing it the way they did. I can usually find something to like, but after messing around with it for a while, there just doesn't seem to be any beneficial reason for the change. Also, when something new would pop up, it would put it in that most recent notification list. It was the very first choice in the notifications menu. I loved that. That way I could go in there to see everything new, and after I was done, just hit options and click mark all as read. It was super clean and made sure I didn't miss anything. Something popped up after the update, and I still can't figure out what it was. I'm guessing it wasn't anything too important but still. Anyway, maybe there's a benefit I don't see. Is there anything different that you would consider better than how it was before?

I agree the new notifications menu sucks. I feel like I'm missing something. How is this better?

@tyrrael: It is something that i can see as more of as a downgrade then an upgrade when it comes to sorting that stuff out with the new update for sure, but the notifications section is basically a redundant catch all for pop ups, and i never really needed to sort through that crap after the fact. The only nice thing it does is it groups all the crap together so i can just go there, rather then navigate to where i really need to be (like messages, groups or party), which it still serves that purpose. About half or more of those category's where never really used, and most of the things that end up in the notification can easily be tossed in other tabs. So a nice "stream" of notifications is fine with me over the old sorted one, and if you really need to look at what happened after the fact you can go to the other tabs and see, or just scroll down the list and see them all.

The notifications tab has always been one of those "ugly" parts of the UI that i never really liked, but since it makes a few things a little easier its something im ok living with. And i don't have any good ideas on how to make it not "ugly".

The custom background thing is cool and all, but I'm vaguely annoyed it only applies to PS4 screen shots and you can't just plug in a USB stick with any old .jpg or .png file.