GTA 6 60FPS on Consoles 'Extremely Unlikely' Says Digital Foundry After Extended Look

Digital Foundry, the tech experts, have weighed in on the Grand Theft Auto 6: Extended Look footage, stating that a 60fps version on current consoles is 'extremely unlikely' and even on PC, hitting 60fps will be 'genuinely challenging'.

The 27-minute reveal, which premiered on Netflix, YouTube, and via a raw file from Rockstar, showcased the game running at 30fps. This is likely what players can expect when GTA 6 launches on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S this November.

While 30fps may seem modest compared to other modern blockbusters, Digital Foundry believes Rockstar is prioritizing visual fidelity over frame rate. In their deep dive, they noted, 'It's clear that the focus was absolutely maximising the level of visual detail at a fixed 30fps frame-rate on all platforms. The rendering, simulation and presentation have all been tuned around that constraint - and the result is an unprecedented level of density, material quality and world coherence.'

The report praised GTA 6's character rendering, especially skin shading and hair simulation, which brings Lucia's hair to life with realistic movement and snap-back effects.

Regarding resolution, Digital Foundry suspects the PS5 version runs at 1440p without dynamic resolution scaling, and there's no strong evidence of FSR 2 or TAA upscaling. This could result in some softness and aliasing, but no frame-rate drops that plagued previous entries at launch. For the PS5 Pro, they speculate improved image quality and ray tracing are more likely than a transformative performance boost.

'The evidence suggests that the game maintains its 33.3ms cadence with care, and Rockstar has clearly spent immense effort balancing CPU and GPU workloads to fully saturate the hardware,' Digital Foundry continued. 'That makes a 60fps version extremely unlikely on console hardware - there's no way to regain enough GPU and particularly CPU time to make a 16.7ms update rate work without compromising the world.'

Looking ahead to PC, Digital Foundry advises caution. The PC version should allow for higher resolutions, especially with DLSS, and improved ray tracing and draw distances. However, the CPU demands of such a complex world, tuned around console Zen 2 cores at 30fps, could make 60fps 'genuinely challenging' and may require a high-end CPU like a recent Ryzen X3D to avoid bottlenecks.

IGN had exclusive preview access to GTA 6, and we've covered everything from the romance system and main story length to side activities and map comparisons. Plus, check out 69 new gameplay details we spotted during our time with the game.