Marvel's Spider-Man 2 PS5: Fidelity vs Performance Mode Comparison - Which Mode Works Best? 

I nearly always opt for a higher framerate, but the 40fps uncapped mode is so good in this game. The raytracing looks awesome, resolution is crisp, and it's fluid enough for me to really enjoy it. I wish more games went this route.

We need more games supporting 40fps mode, its definitely a lot better than 30fps , from 30 to 40 its noticeable, its different from 60 to 80 with VRR.

Absolutely love the 40fps mode. Haven’t had an issue with it. It’s sooooo good. Every game should have this mode available

One thing I learned while playing this game is that the difference between 30 and 40fps is way more significant to my eye than I ever anticipated. Absolutely loving the 40fps mode.

Fidelity mode is a MUST for me on this game, the visuals are unbelievable, in performance the characters look kinda playdough like, the slight drop in frame rate is noticeable but its not gonna ruin the game AT ALL all the animations are done so well that it really doesn’t effect it to bad

The fidelity 120 uncapped VRR is a god send. I wish this option was standard for every console game!

Excellent analysis, keep up the good work! Did you changed your voice for a higher pitch one? I preferred the other one

I dropped Spider-Man 2 sadly because of the image quality in performance mode. I know ray tracing is the "big thing" in gaming and every developer wants to opt for it but I am missing the normal performance mode without RT from the other two Spider-Man games. I was shocked how blurry the image looks in Spider-Man 2 performance mode. I tried all of the graphic settings and switched my TV settings all the time as I thought something must be broken but no: it actually is the game itself. I even reinstalled Spider-Man Remastered and checked there and I've been confirmed that the image quality/resolution is way better here in performance mode compared the SP2 which is very sad. Spider-Man 2 performance mode comes with a blurry image resolution, bad colors, artifacts and it even uses dithering/ghosting instead of normal transparent effects. All of this worked better in the previous games. I hope Insomniac will patch the old performance mode without Ray Tracing as additional possibility. I don't need Ray Tracing if it is impactng so many other key components. Am I the only one who noticed that as I only hear praise about the technical aspect of the game?

I found out that if you Use the 120hz mode, the image is limited to YCBCR422 color display ( on a 4k display). So if you use a 120Hz display with VRR SMOOTHED option, i suggest you disable the 120Hz mode to have full RGB 12b Color. BUT keep in mind you have a bit more latency.

Fedility mode at the 40fps on my c2 Oled is fantastic!

12:00 seeing peter's warped reflection in the balloons is such a cool use of rt for me. Even on performance mode it looks so amazing and makes me wish this gen had a bit more rt horsepower so stuff like this could become more of a standard!

so impressive, outstanding work!

I play Fidelity mode with vrr uncapped and 120fps on my C2 55 inch. The game looks gorgeous and so smooth. Didn’t expect that

Been playing at 40fps, 120Hz and VRR at smoothed and it's looked and played incredibly well. Genuinely felt like 60fps and had to do a double check with my settings on multiple occasions.

Fidelity mode is clearly how the games is supposed to be experienced. Fidelity + 40fps uncapped mode is the way to go, it's awesome.

Fidelity 120 uncapped is really amazing. One of the very few times I selected fidelity against performance in games. The visuals are amazing and the 40-60 fps is pretty smooth in general.

If you have a 120Hz VRR TV or Monitor, this game is best played at Fidelity 120Hz mode with the unlocked frame rate. While it does drop sometimes, for the most part my monitor is reporting upwards of 50fps when traversing the city and I’ve seen it report nearly 70fps during some interior scenes. I normally choose to sacrifice RT in games for 60fps, but I’m so impressed how well fidelity runs that I’m sticking with it for now.

Wow, I’ve always played on performance mode but fidelity uncapped is amazing. Looks so good.

I've been waiting for this breakdown, DF always deliveres

Thanks for this video!

Yeah the blurriness of performance mode was bothering the hell out of me personally..

In the heat of gameplay I can hardly notice a downgrade for performance mode and it's so dang smooth. What a wonderfully optimized game.

Great video, Oliver. One nit-pick is your view that RT is reduced overall in perf-mode in SM2 vs SMR. We need to remember that the quality of the RT itself ( where both are matched up ) is significantly better and water retains RT which didn't exist in the remaster at all so it evens itself out.

Great work DF!

I am playing in Fidelity mode with VRR uncapped and I feel like I’m getting the best of both worlds. The frame rate is 60 most of the time and 40 in this game looks great. I don’t want to miss any RT goodness, and there is plenty on display in this game. After I beat the story I will go to full performance mode and see what super 60fps looks like.

Also note that when you are in fidelity mode 120hz VRR cap 40 FPS the video output switches to YUV (slight difference in colorimetry) and no longer to RGB because of the flow rate of HDMI which is currently incapable of supporting 4K 120hz in RGB

I'm playing in performance mode when doing open world activities and switching to fidelity for story missions. The 60 fps is a must during fights and open world travel, you are crazy to play this in 30-40 fps just to watch some cleaner reflections. Insomniac are god tier now!

great analysis oliver 👍

What I find to be the most impressive feat coming out of insomniac is there ability to drop these technical masterpieces and be able to do so one after the other in what seems like a very short amount of development time. I don’t know what they got going on in that studio, but it seems like the entire industry could learn from them.

Performance all the way for me, it really isn't noticeable while playing since everything is moving fast most of the time, only in the forced moments where you have to sneak, walk and talk!

As always, outstanding work Oliver ! And, as always SUPERB WORK INSOMNIAC - 40FPS uncapped vrr feels and plays like 60 with full rt and graphics - this is not your typical gamepass game that is released in beta state

I was sceptical about paying £60 for a video game. I had some money in my pay Pal balance from some album sales so purchased this and Mario Wonder. Spiderman 2 is a substantial leap over the previous two games from a visual standpoint. Superior city detail, colour and lighting. Oliver. I heard your thoughts on RT being pulled back a touch in performance mode but the speed that you can traverse the city is most likely the reason. The speed with the wing suit and using air currents is about 4 times faster than the other games in the series...this may explain the mild cut backs? What Insomniac has made here is phenomenal. Both in detail, story and even more important, gameplay. It's such a leap over other AAA first party games on other platforms. I've come off the back of a 2nd play through ,this year on PC maxed out.. originally playing Spidey on PS4 Pro and then Miles on PS5. Spiderman 2 surpasses the PC versions of the previous two games maxed out by quite some way . Lucky for Sony as Insomniac are holding the fort right now...an incredible studio PS: I care not for super heros, Marvel etc but I really enjoy these Spiderman games.

Funny how out of all the amazing tech and visuals the one thing that really blew me away was some suits have a cape and the soft body physics on the capes are next level and make me want a Batman game from these guys : D

I tried both modes myself and I don't like the 60fps mode, it sacrifices too much of the image quality. This isn't really noticeable on a 1080p display, but anything above that it really stands out. If, like me, you're on a large 4k HDR tv then the difference is quite stark. What I might do is try the performance mode once I've finished the main story quests, but for the time being I'll put up with the fidelity mode because it looks absolutely stunning.

this was incredibly helpful as someone who gets confused by all the settings 😭 thank you

Gonna go with the fidelity vrr unlocked option. Nice performance analysis DF

Great overview. Personally I can’t imagine creeping around in 30fps trying to spot RT reflections in door knobs, I’ll take 60 and swing wildly through the city all day. Love to see the options though!

The 120hz Fidelity mode with VRR enabled on my LG C1 is super impressive. It gives the impression of over 40 fps for sure and I'm curious if that is what I'm actually seeing.

I was looking forward to more info regarding the fidelity mode at 120hz with smoothed VRR. It seems a lot like 60fps to me most of the time since I don’t see the slight hitching effect I usual notice at 40. Also I just find hilarious how almost every time there’s a cut to the camera recording directly of the tv it always appears to be in the default game mode settings that look horrible.

I just upgraded to ps5 after owning an xbox since the ps2. One thing I immediately notice about next gen is that loading times are cut down by about 80%. I also like how the cutscenes flow really smoothly with gameplay. If I glide into somewhere the cutscene will start with my character gliding in and it seems to be pretty dynamic.

game looks pretty great but i think the RT in performance mode is clearly very heavy and as such visuals take too big of a hit for me. i wish there was a non-RT performance mode. but either way, the 40Hz mode is great so i've been sticking with that! i can't believe there's still only a handful of games this gen that offer a 40Hz mode!!

As 120hz displays become more ubiquitous I really hope that 40fps becomes the new 30. It’s noticeably smoother, and comes without a lot of the cutbacks of the higher frame rate modes. I love it.

The new game plus update actually added RT reflections to car windows in performance mode! The LOD distance for trees was also increased.

hey df! would be great you guy guys highlighted visually some key differences sometimes. my eyes are not as trained as yours, i try my best but at times i cant simply see the difference hahah

Looks like Fidelity Mode 120HZ + VRR Uncapped is the way to go 🔥🔥

40fps mode is one of my favorite additions. Smoother experience while the game also looks stunning

Playing on performance mode and having a blast. I did however notice a little bit of ghosting in fidelity mode, but its still a pretty looking game.

Funnily enough, I didn't realize the 40fps mode was a thing so I've been playing on the Fidelity mode at 30fps cause it just looks so damn good. Surprisingly though, the 30fps cap hasn't bothered me. I've gotten used to it and the game looking as gorgeous as it does is more of a plus for me than a few frames personally. That said, my TV is 120hz with VRR. Think I just need to fiddle with the settings to get that option to appear so I can try it. Great stuff as always DF!

Rocking the game on Fidelity+120Hz+Uncapped. Having no issues at all. It’s quite admirable how Insomniac is managing to run all this and also give RT reflections on 5700xt equivalent GPU on PS5

The visual disparity between modes is even more significant in late game when visuals really ramp up and there’s a lot going on on screen. Fidelity Mode is def the way to go with this one. There’s also a lot of aliasing or shimmering in general in performance mode that is definitely noticable from a normal viewing distance.

Many thanks Oliver, I noted, there was cast shadow from pedestrians and vehicles in Ray Tracing Reflection also, in comparison of Spider-Man Remastered

Honestly I hope insomniac brings out a patch like horizon forbidden west to upgrade the pormance mode’s resolution, since I feel it is possible to keep it at 1440p with a solid 60fps

I've been playing the game with 4K - 120Hz using Fidelity VRR 40fps Smoothed. The uncapped seems like it would be great, but I'm not quite sure how much of the resolution drops using it.

Note: in the performance mode the frames drop like crazy when you start swinging at higher speed and go really high in the sky using the web wings.

Man the fact that they can squeeze out 60fps with barely any visual differences speaks volumes about their technical expertise. 60 really should be a bare minimum expectation by now but the last 2 Microsoft titles (Starfield and Redfall) were capped at 30fps on console.

I am absolutely sure that a future patch will bring some of the things that are missing compared to fidelity mode. This is Insomniac we are talking about, one of the best devs in gaming.

I've been playing on Fidelity with 120 on and VRR set to Smooth, and loving it.

I also noticed a grid like pop ins in the sky with film grain set to 10. I turned it down to 5 and it seemed to have fixed it.

The 40fps mode literally feels 90% as good as 60fps and also looking a decent bit better. Really good implementation.

Fidelity, vrr, smoothed, is literally perfect!

The graphics, sound and haptics on this are next level. On my LG CX I have it set to 120 on fidelity. It’s flawless l!! Amazing.

I have an LG oled and I’ve spent the last 10 hours switching back and forth but I honestly might go with fidelity uncapped vrr and 120 display on auto. It really does feel like it’s running higher than 40 almost at 60. The menu pop up on my tv says 119fps but idk how true that is but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was wrong

I'm playing in performance mode 120 Hz with vrr unlocked and I don't even feel the need to try anything else, the game looks absolutely stunning and runs smooth. Goty contender for sure

Using 40 uncapped on LG C2 and I'm loving it

Any reason why the performance mode is only reconstructed to 1440p output and not 4K? Is there a higher minimum native resolution required for 4K reconstruction with their Temporal injection compared to other methods like fsr2/dlss etc which can be reconstructed from 1080p or even lower to 4K ? At least fsr2, even if its nowhere close to native rendering, 1080p base to 4K output still looks better than 1080p to 1440p output when displaying to a 4K TV.

So awesome to have 120/VRR/uncapped options at launch!

Seems impossible to resist the performance mode despite the slight cuts in graphics. Just look how smooth and nice it looks during fast cutscenes and gameplay at 60 fps. So fluid and comfortable to the eyes.

For fidelity fans.. Turning on 120hz mode enables 40fps with the same high quality. On top of that you can turn on VRR to get it to smooth out uneven frames or uncap the framerate. VRR reduces resolution slightly. To better improve quality.. play with visual settings like film grain and chromatic aberration. Removing film grain really improves the image here. The contrast slider too should be adjusted as per your display. Moving it from the default at 50 to 65 improved colours and shadows for me.

Given this is for a fixed system I'm surprised there isn't an active mode rather than picking performance / fidelity. Surely you could sync some of these settings to come on during cutscenes or even when the players movement speed is reduced. I'm sure the game can tell when your walking around rather than flying through the city and actively turn on or off the rt reflections, ramp up or down perdestrian desnisty?

What I don’t really understand - what would the difference be between performance mode (60fps) , and the 120hz turned on with performance mode and “smoothed” - wouldn’t those two modes be exactly the same??

I’ve noticed this with Ratchet and Clank snd Horizon. Forbidden west as well. Fidelity mode looks breath taking in these games, performance mode is a huge drop in visual quality, but still fun and much smoother. I find myself using fidelity mode more often since the change is so drastic for me.

I wonder, if they could do something with the 120hz container such that it can change some settings and framecap on the fly depending on character speed or something, so like if your really zoomed in but not moving a lot its 30fps but maximum rt, if your walking speed it's 40fps with max rt slightly less res and if your swinging or fighting speed it's 60fps with min rt lower res. Then you could have all of the things all of the time mwahaha.

Hey, it looks like someone finally releases a game that is finished. When was the last time someone released a game in good shape?

With Insomniac, we discover once again what master optimization is. The end result is just incredible. RT support even in performance mode, almost non-existent loading times and the New York transcription is splendid. I play it in fidelity mode + 120Hz. Which allows me to play at 40Fps with the graphics at maximum. This game is full of detail and everywhere you go, you see the masterful work that Insomniac Games have managed to do. Already with Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart, we had already had an incredible result but here, this time, for the continuation of Spider-Man's adventures, we have something crazy! Thank you Insomniac Games for continuing to make us dream. We really need it!

I’ve been choosing performance mode every time in my PS5 games but I tried fidelity here and was stunned at how smooth it was. It’s the best 30fps I’ve ever played, I’m not sure how they pulled it off. The visual hit in performance is a bit too much for me.

Im always gaming on PC so it feels good to dust off my PS5 to play Spiderman 2 except when you play with Keyboard and mouse a long period of time and then go back to controller it feels foreign. I had to use the inverted controls for the web wings but other than that Im loving it. Im playing with Peformanc mode+ Uncapped but im on a gaming monitor. I wonder how having the game Uncapped looks and feels on a tv

Finally!!!! Been waiting for this

I will play in performance mode, the visual quality is strill great and the gap isn't that noticeable unless you compare the two side by side, and as good as the fidelity mode looks you lose all the detail in motion at lower framerates. I hope they patch that shimmering in the LOD though, it's distractiong, but other than that 60 fps it is. What a great job Insomniac, I hoper this serves as an example to every developer putting lackluster perfomance modes in their games.

I’ve been on performance mode, but after reading these comments I think I’m gonna give fidelity with uncapped VRR a try!

Isn't it possible for Insomniac to automatically "toggle" the fidelity settings when cutscenes are being shown. I think fidelity Isn't that necessary for normal gameplay but I definitely noticed the visual hits in cutscenes, I wonder if they could do something like that.

Those uncapped modes look like preparation for the upcoming PS5 Pro (and future 6)

They did a great job with all modes. I don’t have the 40 capable fps but 30 fps with motion blur is really well done for what it is

The 40fps mode is so good. Enjoyed it in Ragnarok, and now this game. Every game should have that option. It’s so smooth.

I play on a 1440p monitor, so I'm interested to try the fidelity mode with uncapped VRR! I wish games let you choose 1440p in fidelity modes with an uncapped framerate. VRR uncapped seems to be the closest so far!

This is basically the dream for me at 1440p and 60fps and people are still not happy lol If games would run like this forever I would be happy with it.

I am still amazed how much RT can be optimised in Spider man Games, it may not be super fancy but it looks good.

Insomniac has seriously impressed me. Like many here, I'm rocking the 120 VRR with the Fidelity at 40. It's really awesome. Insomniac has set the bar. Best superhero games out there

How does the game run on a 1080p screen with the framerate uncapped in fidelity mode? I want to buy a new monitor and don't really care for higher resolutions.

that 40fps is amazing. I NEVER play games in quality mode but I really enjoyed the experience here

Great coverage! The only option i would personally avoid is the 30fps Fidelity Mode. This game really needs the extra fluidity to shine and even the 40fps is a decent upgrade.

Just started the game yesterday, did anyone else think that the graphics in the introductory fight were off ? As if there were missing textures and looked lower quality.

Does anyone else notice low res HUD and subtitles on both mods? Drives me crazy

Grain in fidelity mode is causing problems for me. It’s tearing and causing black checkerboard to flash in the background. I turned it down and it’s completely fixed

Spiderman 2 is one of the few games where I found the fidelity mode quite noticeably better than the performance mode. I recommend fidelity. Better reflections, better hair, and more crowd density on the NYC streets that put Cyberpunk 2077 to shame. Have fun guys!

I'm looking at all these comments but yet no one's talking about Spider-Man 2 bugs🤷‍♂️ what a lot of people are experiencing

i wish there was a mode that targeted 60fps instead of locking to 60fps, we have a 60fps mode that hits 60fps pretty much constantly but with vrr it can go up to 80fps, it would be nice if we could get a mode that can go up to 60 but then most of the time is around 50fps which is still in the vrr window basically a 50fps mode with vrr, the 40fps with vrr dosent work since its below 48fps

Did I miss the spot in the video where they mentioned whether the 40fps mode matched the quality mode settings or the performance mode?

Fidelity at 40 FPS with a 120 hz TV is the best way!

Cant wait to play this game on PC with my Rtx 5090

9:10 bro that framedrop was just “The Blip” from the multiverse lol.