EDIT Nov 8th: The Last Guardian was confirmed by NXGamer to be uncapped on v1.00 and this method will work exactly the same with that game as well
***Disclaimer points in spoiler:
Thanks to Assassin's Creed Unity and Batman Arkham City launching with unlocked (wildly unstable) framerates on PS4 before being patched with a 30fps lock, PS5 Disc Edition users will be able to put their AC:U or B:AC discs in their PS5 and get a potentially locked 60fps since they are able to block the patch downloads and stay on v1.00. Seeing the recent DF video on AC:U running locked 60fps via XSX is a great sign we can expect similar perf on PS5 if those BC games run with the full PS5 clocks.
What about folks that have the digital versions of those games, or plan to get the PS5 Digital Edition? Since games are downloaded pre-patched from PSN, and PS4/5 doesn't recognize disc/digital game data as the same, digital owners are forever stuck on 30fps for these games right? Nope! There is a method to download unpatched version 1.00 games directly from your library on PS4 with the help of a proxy and the PSX Download Helper program on Windows. Its a simple process and I will outline what worked for me.
First you need the PSX Download Helper, you can Google it to find it pretty easily. Most of the verbiage around the program is that is speeds up PSN downloads, but it has this functionality as well. Next, make sure you have deleted both games, their DLC, and their saves completely from the PS4. Once you open PSX DL Helper, you will probably need to switch the language as it defaults to Chinese I believe. Hit the green arrow thing to get into the main window and click the fifth tab along the top of the program window and there should be a drop down box with English listed inside, click that and exit and reopen the program. Now on the first window you will see an IP address and port #, so go into your PS4 network configuration and choose "custom" instead of "easy", choose the top options for all items except for Proxy Server, for this one choose "Use". Enter the IP address and port # listed on the PSX Download Helper box and save the PS4 network settings. On PSX DL Helper, choose Compatibility mode from the dropdown and click the green arrow to proceed to the main screen (a small pop-up box might come up about strings, just click ok to proceed).
Now just go to your PS4 Library and download either AC:U (minus any DLC) or B:AC and they will download like normal. Head over to your Notifications and open up the download viewer to view the size of the full download. If you see AC:U is right at or around 40.98GB, congrats you are on track. If its a few GB higher or the download immediately fails, you messed up a step so try again from scratch. Likewise, Arkham City's download size should be right around 28.52GB or you will need to retry. Let the downloads go, though its likely that after every 9 or 10 GB the download will "fail" on the PS4. No worries, just close the PSX DL Helper program, reopen it, hit the green arrow and OK on the pop up box, and then on PS4 choose Resume on the download to continue where you left off. Once it is done, verify it is v 1.00 and you should be good. Once done, go back to your PS4 network settings and revert everything to normal.
Now for the tricky part: keeping these games from updating automatically. The easiest method to keep these games from updating is to cancel/delete any updates for them that are actively on your download list, attach a secondary unused external hard drive (not your main external HDD) to format as a PS4 external, move both games to this external, disconnect this hard drive, and throw it in a drawer until you want to play the games. This will keep your DL list clean and not allow the games to be updated automatically. If that is not an option, or if you are actively playing the games, simply pausing the update downloads on your DL list will keep them from downloading until you either resume the download or you start the game. This is important: every time you launch one of these games, it will resume the patch download even if it is paused. Luckily, both patches are multiple GBs so you have plenty of time to make it to the main menu, go back to the dashboard and re-pause the patch download.
Further, i would recommend always double checking the version of the game each time before you launch it by hitting options and choosing information. If you notice the game isn't 1.00, just delete it and re-do the process to re-download so that you don't update your save file to the newest version when launching the game.
That's it! You should have 1.00 of both versions with the ability to get to 60fps easily as long as PS5 runs wide open on both.
A few notes: Arkham Asylum unfortunately is locked to 30fps on all versions, but both Asylum and City have dynamic resolutions on the horizontal axis so they should both run full 1920x1080 under all circumstances on PS5 (again, if they use full clocks). Arkham City apparently didn't get a framerate lock until version 1.02 so if you have 1.01 or lower you should be good. I wasn't able to find the proxy path for v 1.01 unfortunately so no ability to get the likely minor improvements of that patch (also the process for downloading old patches is quite a bit more involved, but if anyone has access to the version 1.01 pkg path for the json file it would be appreciated!). Assassins Creed Unity unfortunately is locked to 30fps on version 1.01 and later so there's no point in going higher than 1.00 (big thanks to Liabe Brave for confirming my footage locked to 30fps on 1.01). Obviously the launch version of AC Unity was panned for its bugs and poor performance, but there is a silver lining in that one DF article from the launch of AC Unity says that Tom Bramwell had some bugs on the launch build but nothing like what you are thinking when you hear "AC Unity bugs" lol. Hopefully between getting lucky there and the huge performance increase thanks to the clocks (and no online mode interference), it should be a world of difference from those initial reviews. Obviously with AC Unity, online stuff won't work but you can do everything possible offline at 60fps and then update to the latest version to get online and finish up anything left to do like co-op missions etc at 30fps
Thanks to Mako on PSNProfiles for sharing this method (albeit for different uses) and again thanks to Liabe Brave for his help counting frames and putting together the Pro Enhancements thread that has helped me alot along the way.
***Disclaimer points in spoiler:
- There's no guarantee that these titles will have access to full PS5 clocks as Sony hasn't confirmed individual supported titles or a Boost Mode toggle, or that 60fps in these games will be locked or stable.
- Rich from DF has confirmed Sony doesn't require PS4 games to be patched to play on PS5.
- While this method isn't illegal or unethical, it is kind of a "backdoor" method similar to the PT re-download method. No one has reported bans or account locks for using this method across many games for many years. You need to own the game licenses on PS4 for this method to work, obviously.
- It is extremely likely that any saves you have from these games where you have played after v 1.00 will not work with this method and will need to be deleted for the games to work unpatched. I haven't tested it myself as I haven't played the games before, but this is usually the case. Likewise, AC Unity's online features will not be accessible.
- I have only checked and confirmed this works on NA PSN, but it is said to work in other regions as well.
- I can confirm this method works when downloading to PS4, and Sony confirmed you can swap your PS4 external HDD to PS5. I have no idea if this method will work if you try to download to PS5 directly.
What about folks that have the digital versions of those games, or plan to get the PS5 Digital Edition? Since games are downloaded pre-patched from PSN, and PS4/5 doesn't recognize disc/digital game data as the same, digital owners are forever stuck on 30fps for these games right? Nope! There is a method to download unpatched version 1.00 games directly from your library on PS4 with the help of a proxy and the PSX Download Helper program on Windows. Its a simple process and I will outline what worked for me.
First you need the PSX Download Helper, you can Google it to find it pretty easily. Most of the verbiage around the program is that is speeds up PSN downloads, but it has this functionality as well. Next, make sure you have deleted both games, their DLC, and their saves completely from the PS4. Once you open PSX DL Helper, you will probably need to switch the language as it defaults to Chinese I believe. Hit the green arrow thing to get into the main window and click the fifth tab along the top of the program window and there should be a drop down box with English listed inside, click that and exit and reopen the program. Now on the first window you will see an IP address and port #, so go into your PS4 network configuration and choose "custom" instead of "easy", choose the top options for all items except for Proxy Server, for this one choose "Use". Enter the IP address and port # listed on the PSX Download Helper box and save the PS4 network settings. On PSX DL Helper, choose Compatibility mode from the dropdown and click the green arrow to proceed to the main screen (a small pop-up box might come up about strings, just click ok to proceed).
Now just go to your PS4 Library and download either AC:U (minus any DLC) or B:AC and they will download like normal. Head over to your Notifications and open up the download viewer to view the size of the full download. If you see AC:U is right at or around 40.98GB, congrats you are on track. If its a few GB higher or the download immediately fails, you messed up a step so try again from scratch. Likewise, Arkham City's download size should be right around 28.52GB or you will need to retry. Let the downloads go, though its likely that after every 9 or 10 GB the download will "fail" on the PS4. No worries, just close the PSX DL Helper program, reopen it, hit the green arrow and OK on the pop up box, and then on PS4 choose Resume on the download to continue where you left off. Once it is done, verify it is v 1.00 and you should be good. Once done, go back to your PS4 network settings and revert everything to normal.
Now for the tricky part: keeping these games from updating automatically. The easiest method to keep these games from updating is to cancel/delete any updates for them that are actively on your download list, attach a secondary unused external hard drive (not your main external HDD) to format as a PS4 external, move both games to this external, disconnect this hard drive, and throw it in a drawer until you want to play the games. This will keep your DL list clean and not allow the games to be updated automatically. If that is not an option, or if you are actively playing the games, simply pausing the update downloads on your DL list will keep them from downloading until you either resume the download or you start the game. This is important: every time you launch one of these games, it will resume the patch download even if it is paused. Luckily, both patches are multiple GBs so you have plenty of time to make it to the main menu, go back to the dashboard and re-pause the patch download.
Further, i would recommend always double checking the version of the game each time before you launch it by hitting options and choosing information. If you notice the game isn't 1.00, just delete it and re-do the process to re-download so that you don't update your save file to the newest version when launching the game.
That's it! You should have 1.00 of both versions with the ability to get to 60fps easily as long as PS5 runs wide open on both.
A few notes: Arkham Asylum unfortunately is locked to 30fps on all versions, but both Asylum and City have dynamic resolutions on the horizontal axis so they should both run full 1920x1080 under all circumstances on PS5 (again, if they use full clocks). Arkham City apparently didn't get a framerate lock until version 1.02 so if you have 1.01 or lower you should be good. I wasn't able to find the proxy path for v 1.01 unfortunately so no ability to get the likely minor improvements of that patch (also the process for downloading old patches is quite a bit more involved, but if anyone has access to the version 1.01 pkg path for the json file it would be appreciated!). Assassins Creed Unity unfortunately is locked to 30fps on version 1.01 and later so there's no point in going higher than 1.00 (big thanks to Liabe Brave for confirming my footage locked to 30fps on 1.01). Obviously the launch version of AC Unity was panned for its bugs and poor performance, but there is a silver lining in that one DF article from the launch of AC Unity says that Tom Bramwell had some bugs on the launch build but nothing like what you are thinking when you hear "AC Unity bugs" lol. Hopefully between getting lucky there and the huge performance increase thanks to the clocks (and no online mode interference), it should be a world of difference from those initial reviews. Obviously with AC Unity, online stuff won't work but you can do everything possible offline at 60fps and then update to the latest version to get online and finish up anything left to do like co-op missions etc at 30fps
Thanks to Mako on PSNProfiles for sharing this method (albeit for different uses) and again thanks to Liabe Brave for his help counting frames and putting together the Pro Enhancements thread that has helped me alot along the way.
Last edited:
