If your PS5 Pro is showing flickering edges, shimmering surfaces, or unstable visual detail in certain games, the most likely cause is how PSSR — Sony’s AI upscaling system — handles specific in-game materials. The good news is that the problem is usually game-specific, not a hardware defect. Before disabling PSSR, switching display modes, or returning the console, there are several areas worth checking in order. This guide walks through each one, including what Sony’s March 2026 PSSR upgrade changed and where issues may still remain.
Why PSSR Can Make Some PS5 Pro Games Look Like They Are Flickering
PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) works by analyzing a game’s internal render — typically somewhere between 1080p and 1440p, depending on the game — pixel by pixel, then reconstructing a higher-resolution image for your display. The flickering and shimmering that some users see is not random. It happens when PSSR processes surfaces that are visually complex and non-repeating: dense foliage, wet pavement, shiny reflections, or fine geometric detail like fence mesh or roof tiles.
Because the AI reconstructs these surfaces from a low-resolution input, the output can differ slightly from one frame to the next. That per-frame inconsistency is what your eyes read as shimmer or flicker. It is not a screen defect and it is not the console failing — it is the upscaler working at the edge of what the source material allows.
This behavior was especially visible in PSSR 1.0, which shipped with the PS5 Pro in November 2024. Multiple games — including Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Silent Hill f — drew attention from technical analysts for producing visible shimmering that was absent on the base PS5. In most of those cases, the issue was tied to the internal resolution the developer chose as the PSSR input, and how demanding the in-game environment was on the reconstruction algorithm.
First Check Whether the Problem Is Game-Specific
The fastest way to narrow down the cause is to check whether the flickering appears in every game or only in specific titles. If it only shows up in one or two games, the issue is almost certainly related to how those games implemented PSSR, not a system-wide fault with your console or display.
Here is what to check:
- Try a different PS5 Pro Enhanced game. If the shimmer disappears in another title, the first game’s PSSR integration is the likely cause.
- Switch between Performance Mode and Quality Mode in the affected game. Several games apply PSSR only in Performance Mode. Switching to Quality Mode often removes the shimmering because the game runs at a higher native resolution where PSSR has a cleaner input to work with. According to reports from multiple users, games including the Spider-Man series showed this pattern — shimmering in Performance Mode, stable image in Quality Mode.
- Check whether the game has received a patch since you last played. Developers have been updating their PS5 Pro integrations. A game that had visible PSSR artifacts at launch may look significantly different after an update.
- Check whether the Enhance PSSR Image Quality setting is enabled on your console. If you are on firmware 26.02-13.00.00 or later, go to Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output and look for Enhance PSSR Image Quality. Turning this on applies the updated PSSR algorithm to existing PSSR-compatible games without requiring a separate game patch. This setting is available only on PS5 Pro.
Sony rolled out the upgraded PSSR in March 2026. According to a Digital Foundry analysis of over 20 titles tested with the new algorithm, the update substantially reduced the shimmering and reconstruction noise that had been present in some of the most affected games. Silent Hill f, which had previously shown persistent shimmering in reflections and vegetation, showed major improvement after the upgrade. That said, the analysis also identified a small number of titles where the new algorithm introduced different trade-offs, so the upgrade is not a universal fix for every game.
Settings to Try Before Changing Hardware or Returning the Console
If the shimmer persists after checking game mode and enabling the PSSR upgrade, work through these settings in order. Start with in-game options before touching console-level settings, since game-level changes are easier to reverse.
In-Game Settings
- Switch to Quality Mode or Fidelity Mode. This increases the internal render resolution, giving PSSR a sharper input. The trade-off is a lower frame rate, but shimmering will often reduce significantly.
- Turn off in-game sharpening if the option exists. Some games expose a sharpness slider. Reducing it can help because aggressive in-game sharpening amplifies the frame-to-frame differences that PSSR reconstruction introduces.
PS5 Pro Console Settings
- Enable Enhance PSSR Image Quality. Path: Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output > Enhance PSSR Image Quality. This must be enabled manually — it is not on by default.
- Try disabling VRR temporarily. Go to Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output and turn off VRR. Some display configurations produce a separate type of flicker when VRR interacts with HDR at 120Hz. This is unrelated to PSSR but can look similar. If disabling VRR stops the flickering, the issue is with the VRR-display combination rather than PSSR.
- Try disabling 120Hz output. Path: Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output > Enable 120Hz Output. Some games use PSSR only in 60fps modes and bypass it in 120Hz modes. If the shimmer disappears when 120Hz is off, the game’s PSSR path is responsible.
- Test with HDR off. Path: Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output > HDR. Community reports have noted that at least one title, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, showed visual anomalies when PSSR mode and HDR were active together. Whether this applies to other games will vary.
TV or Monitor Settings
- Disable motion smoothing or frame interpolation. Features called Motion Flow, Auto Motion Plus, TruMotion, or similar on your TV can introduce visual artifacts that look like PSSR shimmer but are display-generated. Turn these off in your TV’s picture settings when gaming.
- Reduce or disable TV sharpness processing. Aggressive sharpening on the display side amplifies edge instability from upscaling. Set TV sharpness to zero or use a dedicated Game Mode preset, which typically disables most post-processing.
When to Wait for a Patch Instead of Changing Your Setup
Not every PSSR artifact is something you can fix through settings. In some cases, the only meaningful improvement comes from a developer update to the game’s PSSR integration — changing the input resolution, adjusting how specific material types are flagged for reconstruction, or switching to the updated PSSR algorithm natively rather than relying on the system-level toggle.
Wait for a patch rather than continuing to adjust settings if:
- The shimmer appears in Quality Mode or at a high internal resolution, where the PSSR input should already be clean.
- The game forces PSSR with no way to switch modes — you cannot test whether a different render path resolves the issue.
- The Enhance PSSR Image Quality toggle is already enabled and the problem persists — meaning the system-level upgrade has been applied but the game still shows artifacts.
- The shimmer is specifically on ray-traced surfaces, reflections, or global illumination. These rendering features interact with upscaling in ways that require developer-level tuning to fix correctly.
Checking the game’s official patch notes or the developer’s social channels for terms like “PS5 Pro Enhanced,” “image quality improvement,” “PSSR update,” or “visual stability” is the most direct way to see whether a fix is being worked on. Community threads on Reddit or the game’s official forum can also surface user reports of whether a patch resolved the issue for others in similar setups.
How to Tell PSSR Artifacts From HDMI, TV, or Console Problems
PSSR shimmering and unrelated flickering can look similar, but they behave differently. Understanding the difference helps you avoid changing settings that are not causing the problem.
PSSR-related artifacts:
- Appear specifically on complex surfaces — foliage, puddles, reflections, fine textures
- Are more visible during camera movement or when the game’s environment is in motion
- Are consistent across multiple sessions of the same game in the same scene
- Change when you switch between Performance Mode and Quality Mode
- Are present in PS5 Pro Enhanced games but not in the same game on a base PS5
Display or connection-related flickering:
- Affects the full screen or appears as flashes, color shifts, or black frames — not localized to specific surfaces
- Occurs during UI screens, menus, or loading screens as well as in gameplay
- Correlates with specific display settings being active — typically VRR, HDR, and 120Hz simultaneously
- Stops or changes when you swap HDMI ports, try a different HDMI cable, or connect the PS5 Pro directly to the TV instead of through an AV receiver
- Appears across multiple different games rather than in specific titles
If the flickering matches the second group rather than the first, the PSSR settings will not help. Check the HDMI cable — a cable that is not rated for 48 Gbps throughput can cause signal instability at 4K 120Hz. Also check whether your TV has a firmware update pending, since some display-side flickering with VRR has been resolved through TV firmware updates from manufacturers including Sony and Samsung.
Related Sony TV VRR firmware reference
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Samsung Community VRR reference thread
Related: PS5 120Hz/VRR troubleshooting guide
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Next: HDMI 2.1 cable guide for PS5 and Xbox Series X
How We Researched
This article is based on the official PlayStation Blog announcement of the upgraded PSSR (February 2026), the firmware 26.02-13.00.00 patch notes (March 2026), and technical analysis published by Digital Foundry covering both PSSR 1.0 and the upgraded version across more than 20 titles. We also reviewed community reports from ResetEra and NeoGAF covering the period from the PS5 Pro launch through mid-2026. We have not conducted hands-on testing. Performance figures, improvement claims, and game-specific assessments are attributed to the sources identified above.
What to Do If Your PS5 Pro Is Still Flickering
Run through the checks in order before drawing a conclusion about what is wrong:
- Enable Enhance PSSR Image Quality in Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output if you have not already done so.
- Switch the affected game to Quality Mode or Fidelity Mode and check whether the shimmer reduces.
- Temporarily disable VRR, 120Hz, and HDR one at a time to isolate whether the display configuration is contributing.
- Turn off motion smoothing and sharpening on your TV and test again.
- Check the game’s patch notes for any recent image quality or PSSR-related updates.
- If the flickering affects the full screen across all games and correlates with your display connection, check your HDMI cable and ports before assuming PSSR is the cause.
In most cases, one of these steps will either resolve the issue or give you a clear answer about whether to wait for a game patch or address a display configuration problem. PSSR continues to receive updates from Sony, and game-level integrations are being refined on an ongoing basis — so a title that shows artifacts today may look significantly better after the developer’s next update.
