What Performance, Resolution, and Frame Rate Data Backwards Compatible Shows for PS4 Games on PS5

Updated

Backwards Compatible (backwards-compatible.com) is a lookup site for checking how PS4 games behave on PlayStation 5. Its stated purpose is to help you "find backwards compatible PS4 games for PlayStation 5 (PS5) including performance, resolution and frame rate data." In practice, that means each game entry is meant to answer three questions before you buy or replay it: does it run on PS5, how sharp does it look, and how smoothly does it run. The site's homepage surfaces titles such as The Last of Us Part II, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War (2018), and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice as examples of the kind of game it covers.

The three data dimensions it reports

The site's own description names the categories directly, so the structure is worth taking at face value:

  • Performance — how the game behaves on PS5 hardware compared with its original PS4/PS4 Pro release. This is the umbrella category; resolution and frame rate are the measurable parts of it.
  • Resolution — the output resolution the game targets on PS5. This is the "how sharp" number.
  • Frame rate — the target or observed frames per second. This is the "how smooth" number.

Because the site frames all three as one dataset per game, the useful reading habit is to look at them together rather than in isolation. A resolution bump with no frame rate change tells a different story than a frame rate unlock at the same resolution.

Why the data differs from game to game

Backwards compatibility on PS5 is not a single uniform mode. How much a PS4 game improves depends on how the game itself was built and whether it received any PS5-aware treatment. That is the reason the site lists games individually instead of publishing one blanket statement — the entries exist precisely because the answers vary.

Two broad patterns tend to show up in this kind of data:

  1. Games with a PS5 patch or enhanced mode — these can raise resolution, raise or unlock frame rate, or both, because the developer shipped settings that the PS5 can use.
  2. Games running only through the standard backwards compatibility path — these typically stay closer to their original PS4/PS4 Pro targets, with the PS5 mainly providing more stable performance rather than a new mode.

The site's homepage selection — a mix of Sony first-party titles and a third-party release like Sekiro — reflects that spread. First-party games are the ones most likely to have received explicit PS5 attention; third-party games vary by publisher.

How to use the data when choosing what to play

The practical value is comparison shopping across your own backlog. A workable approach:

  • Look up the specific game you are considering, not the genre or series.
  • Read resolution and frame rate as a pair, and note whether the frame rate figure is a cap or a target the game actually holds.
  • Treat "performance" notes as the context that explains any gap between the two numbers.
  • If a game shows no meaningful change from its PS4 version, that is still useful information — it tells you the PS5 is not adding much beyond load times and stability.

What the site does not claim

The available site information describes the dataset and its purpose but does not state that every PS4 game is covered, nor that every entry includes all three data points. It also does not describe a pricing model, account requirement, or download. So the safe expectation is: use it as a per-game reference for performance, resolution, and frame rate, and verify the specific title you care about rather than assuming blanket coverage.