PS4 System Update 4.50 With External Hard Drive Support Out Tomorrow

Digital Foundry has a nice video showcasing Boost Mode.

There’s voice chat support for Remote Play, now, so even if you’re gaming away from your box you’ll be able to natter with your pals as if you’re button mashing on the sofa. In fact, the PlayStation Blog leads off with improved 2D visuals in PlayStation VR, noting that the home screen will look better now.

External storage isn’t the only improvement coming with update 4.50. This new feature is now available in this month’s PS4 Pro software update. Finally, a new feature specific to the PS4 Pro is also detailed today. Fortunately, earlier this year Sony announced “Boost Mode” which aims to unlock the additional CPU and GPU power of the Pro and boost frame rates in older PS4 titles. According to Sony, this could provide a frame rate improvement or frame rate stability to many games.

The Boost Mode targets the quality and the performance of the games that haven’t received until now that patch in order to support the PS4 Pro. It was a programming bug – as after the PS4 system software update 4.50, the system screen’s resolution on the TV will be a whole lot better once you exit from VR mode. With System Update 4.5, Sony added a smartphone-shaped icon to the dashboard so you can tell whether your friends are online through an app or if they are logged into their console. Other updates include better interaction and UI lift in the PS Messages and PS Communities apps. For that reason, Sony lets you toggle Boost Mode at will. Probably the most significantly important one is the much-needed HDD support, which allows users to store applications and data on external hard drives of up to 8TB in size.

Sony is also adding voice chat when using Remote Play on Windows PCs, Mac, or an Xperia device, which the company says is useful for times when a player isn’t within proximity to their console. You can switch your mic on and off via the microphone icon on the Tool Bar of the Remote Play app.

If you like a scene or a view in a game, you can save it as a screenshot and set it as your PS4’s custom wallpaper. Although game saves cannot be placed on an external hard drive, all games and applications can be saved on an external. Users can alter who sees Activities via the same-named tab in the Sharing Your Experience section of Settings. The PS Communities app will now also provide PSN service status updates, giving you an easy way to check without having to boot up your console.