PS5 Has an Overlooked Game-Changing Feature That'll Save You Money

Despite the PlayStation 5 recently celebrating its five-year anniversary, Sony is still pushing the boundaries on what the newest console can achieve.

Just recently, we reported on the stick drift issues that have plagued the PlayStation 5 since its inception, with one user sharing a way to hopefully fix it once and for all.

Additionally, in recent months, Sony itself has released brand-new PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro models which aim to rectify liquid metal leakage which have caused previous models to overheat, under-perform, and even shut-down entirely.

It seems as though Sony is thinking ahead to the launch of the PlayStation 6 and how it can make it the best-performing console of all time.

Not only that but with Sony hosting its “Road to Zero” initiative which aims to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, a recently discovered feature may just help its goals massively.

Spotted by one Reddit user over on r/PlayStationPlus, they asked: “What does this icon mean?”

Sony

It was shared alongside an image of the icon in question and for those who do not know, the answer is simple enough.

It is telling you that the game in question, in this case Demon’s Souls, is capable of running in a power save mode.

The feature was added to PlayStation 5 consoles back in October with many users only just noticing the new addition.

With the aim to reduce overall system power draw, certain games will now be able to be played in this power saving mode, which may reduce the game’s performance and overall FPS, but will significantly decrease wattage use in affected games.

One Report Explores the New Feature

Following the news of the new PlayStation feature, Digital Foundry embarked on a mission to investigate how it would affect certain games and discovered that it had a significant impact on a game’s performance.

“To put it bluntly, the performance impact is significant,” the report read.

“Demon's Souls removes all support for a 60 fps refresh, instead enforcing a 30 fps cap while dropping base pixel resolution to 1440p and additionally limiting visual settings to the original game's "performance" preset.

Thus, power saver players can expect reduced visual fidelity such as more dithered volumetric effects around the Nexus.”

Put simply, it may work out better for the environment but it is not going to be an option that many users choose if performance and graphics are affected this much.

After all, if you spend the money on a PS5 console, you will expect it to run your chosen games at their highest capacity.

If this mode continues to be supported, we can expect future game releases to bear this in mind but for now, it seems to be more of a hindrance.

However, if you wish to help protect the environment and save some money in the process, it is worth checking if some of your favourite titles support this new PS5 feature.