With the PS5, many people received the new PlayStation console - perhaps for the first time. And in the exciting first few hours with the new hardware, it can easily happen that you don't really know what to do first. After all, the PS5 brings with it a number of innovations and changes - but where to start?
We are here to help you and give you lots of tips and important settings that you should definitely take into account as soon as the PlayStation 5 is at home. Whether you want to follow the tips is of course entirely up to you. But it could definitely be worth it.
Last update on December 25, 2024:You may have had a PlayStation 5 under the Christmas tree recently, then we've summarized some settings and tips for you that you should definitely try out.
1. Set 120 or 60 FPS
Most PlayStation 5 games try to hit 60 FPS as their frame rate target. However, a few titles, such as Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, Dirt 5 or Devil May Cry 5, offer optional 120 FPS modes. So if you have a corresponding monitor, you can access the higher number of frames like this:
- On your PS5, go to Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output
- Navigates completely down to the menu item “Activate 120 Hz output”
- Sets the option to "Automatic"
If you have made this setting, then it is usually still in the game where you also have to activate the mode. In Dirt 5 or Devil May Cry 5, for example, the 120 FPS modes are called "High Frame Rate". In CoD Black Ops: Cold War, however, 120 FPS is set automatically as soon as you have made the PS5 settings.
Set 60 FPS: If you only have a normal monitor that can't display 120 FPS anyway, you don't actually have to change anything on the system side. But you can underGame PreferencesIf the game supports it, you can always automatically select performance mode. Otherwise, you have to check individually depending on the game whether it supports 60 FPS or not. But GamePro.de has the perfect guide for you:
2. Make sure you have 4K set
When you connect your PlayStation 5 to a 4K TV or monitor, you want to get the most out of the console. Normally this should be set correctly automatically, but if an error occurs, you can set 4K as follows:
- On your PS5, go to Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output
- Navigates to the menu item “Resolution”
- Select 2160p there
You can be sure that your PS5 will always play games in 4K if the game supports it.
3. Get the PS Plus Collection & PS5 Monthly Game
Anyone who has already taken out a PS Plus subscription has an advantage here. The recommendation for Sony's online service goes to everyone, even if you don't plan to play online. With the new PS Plus Collection you get20 top-class PlayStation titlesat once. Sure, these aren't PS5 exclusives, but the selection is still impressive:
- God of War
- Bloodborne
- Days Gone
- Until Dawn
- Detroit Become Human
- Battlefield 1
- Infamous Second Son
- Arkham Knight
- Last Guardian
- Last of Us Remastered
- Persona 5
- Resident Evil 7: BioHazard
- Uncharted 4
- Fallout 4
- Ratchet & Clank
- Monster Hunter: World
- Mortal Kombat X
- Final Fantasy 15
- Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
- Call of Duty Black Ops 3: Zombie Chronicles Edition
As usual, the titles can be downloaded from the PS Plus section in the PS Store provided you have an active PS Plus subscription. By the way, playing the PS4 hits on the PS5 brings a bonus: the PS5's Game Boost reduces loading times and stabilizes the frame rates.
You can find out more about the PS5 improvements here:
There's more:In addition to the PS Plus Collection, there are of course also the “normal” PS Plus games for every month. As a result, you have already been able to secure the following PS5 games in the past few weeks:
- (November & December)
- (December)
- (January)
- (February & March)
- (February)
- (March)
- (April)
- (May)
4. Use the PS5 game presets!
The PS5 offers you the option of making so-called game presets in the system settings. These are options that you otherwise have to select individually in each game, which can of course be annoying little things. Games that support the presets adapt to your needs on the PS5 right from the first start.
Particularly helpful:This also applies to the graphics options that many PS5 titles offer. Do you want more performance, i.e. a higher frame rate? Or would you rather have a higher resolution? If you swear by 60 FPS, you can automatically click this on your PS5.
For the presets, simply look in “Settings, Saved Data and Game App Settings, Game Preferences” and choose according to your taste.
You can also find presets for difficulty levels, camera settings and more here. So have fun!
5. Try the game time tracker
The PS5 has many innovations to offer and one of the most exciting is hidden in your PSN profile. Sony has recently started showing you the exact playing time you have already spent on your titles. To do this, simply go to your profile overview and select the games overview.
Here you can see exactly how many hours you have sunk into your favorite games. A useful feature if you want to avoid investing too much time or are simply curious. But the best thing is: the statistics also apply retroactively to your PS4 library. So you can see exactly what you've been up to over the last seven years.
But be careful:Depending on your privacy settings, your friends can also see how you handle your time. So if you don't want anyone to know what you're up to, you can close the doors and keep the dark secrets.
6. Turns off adaptive triggers and haptic feedback
The haptic feedback and the adaptive triggers are among the coolest innovations of the PS5 and the DualSense controller and are also activated by default.
However, you are not forced to play with the rumble effects or the "resistant" triggers permanently. If you want to deactivate or weaken the functions, you will find an option in the PS5 menu.
You can find these under Settings/Accessories/Controllers. Using “vibration intensity”, the rumble effects can be regulated in three levels (strong, moderate, weak) or switched off completely. The same applies to the “intensity of trigger effects”. These can also be regulated in three stages or deactivated.
This is also very relevant for battery performance:
7. Be sure to play Astro's Playroom!
PS Plus is too expensive for you and you don't have any budget left for the current launch titles after buying the PS5? No problem, because withyou get an excellent 3D platformer for free. Team Asobi's Jump & Run! is pre-installed on every PlayStation 5 console. And here you can expect a fully-fledged gaming highlight and not a boring mini-game collection.
Astro's Playroom is designed as a playable tutorial for the PS5 and is primarily intended to introduce the new features of the DualSense controller, but that is only the beginning. The developers have found a whole range of useful gameplay ideas for both the haptic feedback and the adaptive L2 and R2 triggers to ensure a lot of fun.
If you're still not completely convinced, you can read here why Astro's Playroom is one of the first PS5 highlights:
8. Turn off the DualSense microphone!
The new PS5 controller has many new features. Among other things, the DualSense comes with a built-in microphone that allows you to chat with friends even without a headset when you play online. But there is a small problem:.
So if you want to make sure that no one is listening to you, you have to mute the controller first. Luckily, this is child's play. Simply press the new microphone button on the PS5 controller and let it light up.
The red light tells you that the microphone is muted and no one will know your darkest secrets. You can turn off the DualSense microphone by default in the system settings. Practical!
The biggest technical innovation of the PS5 is undoubtedly the powerful SSD hard drive. But this doesn't just ensure short loading times in the big graphic blockbusters. The entire user interface of the PlayStation 5 benefits from the new speed - you've never maneuvered through a Sony UI so quickly.
It doesn't matter whether you click through the home screen or try out the new Control Center with the new map system. Everything is pleasantly responsive and you never have to wait for any menus or content to load. By the way, this also applies to the new PS Store. This has also been revised and is now built directly into the operating system and is no longer separate software.
Browsing through the offers has never been easier. You can find out more about this in our assessment of the new online services:
10. Expand your SSD for more storage space
PlayStation 5 games are getting bigger and the limited space of 667 GB is quickly used up.
That's why Sony has built in a slot for M.2 SSDs, which can be accessed via theis activated. This means you can then use a compatible SSD and store more games. The memories need the following specifications:
- Interface: PCIe Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSD
- Size: 250GB to 4TB
- Reading speed: at least 5,500 MB/s
- Form factor: The PS5 only supports M.2 types 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280 and 22110.
- Socket Type: Socket 3 (Key M)
- Height: Total maximum 11.25mm.
We list all compatible SSDs for you here:
11. Attention! Don't accidentally play the wrong version of the game
If you want to play on the PS5, you of course also want to play PS5 games. However, the backwards compatibility of the PlayStation 5 can cause confusion. For example, if you download a cross-gen title like Assassin's Creed Valhalla, it can easily happen that you accidentally load the PS4 version - then that's it with the beautiful next-gen graphics.
Among other things, we reported that even the PS4 version was prioritized for downloads. So make sure you get the right version like a hawk. But even after the download there can still be problems. Because we can also switch between PS4 and PS5 versions of games in the home menu. Anyone who has loaded both may be unknowingly playing the last-gen version.
Simply click on the option button on the DualSense and select the correct console version.
12. Give awards to your fellow players
One of the lesser-known features that Sony is introducing with the PlayStation 5 is the new Accolades system. Behind this lies the possibility of awarding certain awards to your fellow players in online matches. You can praise other players for their “helpfulness,” their “sportsmanship,” and even their “hospitality.”
The awards are presented anonymously and only one player can be praised per match. The same players can only be awarded every 12 hours - this prevents mere Accolades spamming. Awards received are displayed on your profile page and are intended to show how nice a player has behaved so far.
By the way, the system puts positivity in the foreground, because there are no negative awards. In this way, Sony wants to ensure that friendly interactions with one another are encouraged - and that is often sorely necessary in multiplayer games. So it's a good idea to start giving out awards as soon as you play online with your PS5 for the first time.
13. The Control Center can be customized
By briefly pressing the PlayStation button you can access the Control Center in the dashboard, where you have quick access to certain areas such as current downloads or the network settings. But if this menu is too packed for you, you can also purify it.
Simply press the options button in the Control Center and you are free to remove the following menu items from the list:
- Game Base
- Music
- transmission
- Accessibility
- network
- Ton
- Micro
And don't worry, the points will not be completely deleted, but can be reactivated later as desired.
14. The PS5 can protect you from spoilers!
Starting today, many PlayStation fans will want to play on the PS5 and share their content accordingly. And it can quickly happen that you come across clips or screenshots that could theoretically be a big spoiler - who wants to know which Demon's Souls bosses there are? Luckily, the PS5 offers built-in spoiler protection.
To do this, simply go to the menu item “Settings, Saved Data and Game App Settings” and go to the spoiler tab. By default, the PS5 automatically warns you about spoilers, but only if the developers have labeled this content as spoilers. To be on the safe side, you can hide everything that you haven't seen yet.
15. The DualSense is not charging properly? Try another USB slot!
Shortly after the US launch of the PS5, there were the first complaints from players who had problems loading their DualSense controller properly. Sometimes it was a loose contact, sometimes the power supply was simply switched off when the PS5 was in sleep mode - despite the settings being made.
But there is a little workaround that you should try before you completely despair. The charging difficulties seem to occur primarily with the USB slot on the front. But if you plug the included cable into the slots on the back, everything should work as planned.
16. Turn off trophy videos and save storage space
Trophies are great, especially when we've worked towards them for a long time. On the PS4, a screenshot was taken at the crucial moment, but the PS5 takes this a step further. For each trophy there is a short gameplay clip of around 15 seconds that shows you how to crack the trophy. A nice idea - but it has a catch.
As is well known, the PS5's SSD hard drive comes with limited storage. To save space, it makes sense to simply turn off the automatic trophy videos. You can turn off the videos under Settings/Recordings and Broadcasts/Trophies and return to the tried and tested screenshots if necessary.
17. Um, where do I actually turn off the PS5?
It's just a small thing, but it can be quite confusing. With the revised user interface, the way in which the PS5 can be shut down has also changed. Instead of using a menu on the left, which we access with the DualShock 4, everything now runs via the new Control Center.
To do this, briefly press the home button on the PS5 controller. This will take you to the bottom bar of the Control Center. Go all the way to the right to the power symbol and choose what you want to do: sleep mode, restart or switch off completely.
It also works the old-fashioned way using the power button on the console itself:
- Long press the power button until it beeps once: sleep mode
- Long press the power button until it beeps the second time: switch off
18. Savegame backups only via PS Plus
Important NOTE:If you want to take your PS5 saves with you to another console or just back them up, you can no longer do this using a USB device, such as a USB stick.
Instead, the backup only works via the cloud and therefore essentially costs money. Because backing up in that same cloud is reserved exclusively for PS Plus users, who pay a monthly or annual fee for the service.
5 more mini tips for the PS5!
- Turn off HDCP:The PS5 also has an internal recording function, but many will also want to record their gameplay with external devices such as an Elgato card. To do this you have to switch off the HDCP copy protection. You can find the item under Settings/System/HDMI/Activate HDCP.
- No folders:You cannot create folders on the PS5. Unfortunately, this means it is not possible to sort games according to genres or preferences, for example on the PS4. It is possible that this function will be added with a system update, but this function does not currently exist.
- Be displayed offline when you log in:Do you want to have peace and quiet while gaming? No problem! When you log in, you can choose whether you should be shown to others as busy or even offline. When logging in to your profile, press the options button and you will be shown a corresponding menu.
- Mute audio completely:Using the DualSense you can not only switch off the microphone, but also the entire audio for a short time. To do this, simply hold down the microphone button for more than a second until it pulsates yellow. If you want to reactivate audio, all you have to do is briefly tap the micro button.
- Shortcuts for Create button:You can use Settings/Recordings and Transfers/Recordings/Create Button Shortcuts to set what you want the console to record when you press the button once or multiple times.
More about PlayStation 5
If you could use a few more tests, assessments and help with the PS5, I recommend our large overview article on the console launch. Here you will find everything that will make your first few hours with the PlayStation 5 easier:
Get the most out of your PS5:The settings mentioned here are not enough for you? Would you like to have the best tips to really get the most out of your new PlayStation 5? Then take a look at this one.
Have fun with your new console!
