So, you’ve finally hooked up that shiny new 4K TV and you’re staring at your trusty PlayStation 4, wondering if it can actually keep up. It’s a fair question. Honestly, the answer is a bit of a "yes, but actually no" situation that depends entirely on which version of the console is sitting under your TV.
Basically, if you have the original "fat" PS4 or the slimmer model that came out later, you're stuck in the world of 1080p. The hardware inside those machines just isn't beefy enough to push out 3,840 by 2,160 pixels. However, if you have the PS4 Pro, things get a lot more interesting.
Can PS4 Play 4K Games and Movies?
Let's clear the air: the standard PS4 and the PS4 Slim cannot play 4K. At all.
They top out at 1080p (Full HD). Even if you plug them into a 4K TV with the fanciest HDMI cable on the market, the console is only sending a 1080p signal. Your TV might do some "upscaling" to make it fill the screen, but that’s the TV doing the heavy lifting, not the PlayStation.
The PS4 Pro is the only member of the family designed for the 4K era. But even then, there’s a massive asterisk attached to it.
- Gaming: Most PS4 Pro games aren't "native" 4K. Instead, they use a clever trick called checkerboard rendering.
- Streaming: You can stream Netflix, YouTube, and Disney+ in 4K on a Pro.
- Physical Media: This is the big shocker—the PS4 Pro cannot play 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs.
It sounds crazy, right? Sony, the company that basically invented Blu-ray, left a 4K disc drive out of their "4K console." If you pop a 4K disc into a PS4 Pro, it'll just give you an error or play the standard 1080p version if it's a hybrid disc.
The Checkerboard Trick
Mark Cerny, the lead architect for the PlayStation, has talked at length about why the Pro doesn't always hit native 4K. Rendering a modern game at native 4K takes an enormous amount of graphical power—more than the 4.2 teraflops inside the Pro can usually handle while maintaining a decent frame rate.
🔗 Read more: How Do You Make a Wither Without Getting Immediately Blown Up
Instead, developers use checkerboard rendering to render only half the pixels and then use data from previous frames to fill in the gaps. Honestly? It looks great. From your couch, it’s really hard to tell the difference between a checkerboarded game like Horizon Zero Dawn and a native 4K image. But technically, it’s a "reconstructed" image, not a true 4K one.
Setting Up Your PS4 Pro for 4K
If you've got the Pro, you can't just plug and play and assume it's working. You've actually got to dig into the menus.
First, head to Settings > Sound and Screen > Video Output Settings.
You want to see 2160p - RGB or 2160p - YUV420 selected. If those options are greyed out, something is wrong with your setup. It might be your HDMI cable. Sony ships a "Premium High Speed" cable with the Pro, and you really should use it. Older cables from the PS3 era won't have the bandwidth to carry a 4K HDR signal at 60Hz.
Another thing: check your TV settings. Many TVs, especially Samsungs and LGs from a few years ago, require you to manually enable "HDMI Ultra HD Deep Color" or "Enhanced Format" for the specific HDMI port you're using. If you don't turn that on, the PS4 Pro will think your TV is just a regular old 1080p set.
What About HDR?
Here is a bit of good news. Even if you have the original, base PS4, you can still use HDR (High Dynamic Range). Sony pushed out a software update years ago that enabled HDR across every single PS4 model.
HDR is arguably more important for visual "pop" than resolution anyway. It makes the whites brighter and the blacks deeper. So, even if you can't get 4K on a base PS4, if your TV supports HDR, you should definitely turn it on in the console settings.
The Disappointing Truth About 4K Blu-Rays
I still see people getting burned by this on eBay and Reddit. You see a "4K" logo on the PS4 Pro box and assume it’s a full-on media center. It's not.
If you are a physical media collector who wants to watch Oppenheimer or Dune on a 4K disc, the PS4 Pro is a paperweight. Sony made a specific business decision to exclude the 4K Blu-ray drive to keep the cost down to $399 at launch. They figured everyone was moving to streaming anyway.
If you want 4K physical discs, you need:
- A PlayStation 5 (the version with the disc drive).
- An Xbox One S or Xbox One X.
- A dedicated 4K Blu-ray player like the Panasonic DP-UB820.
It’s a weird gap in the Pro’s resume, especially since the much weaker Xbox One S included a 4K drive.
Is the Upgrade to 4K Actually Worth It?
If you’re still rocking a 1080p TV, buying a PS4 Pro won't do much for you resolution-wise, though it can use "supersampling" to make your 1080p image look a bit crisper and run at better frame rates.
But on a 4K display? The jump is real. Games like God of War or The Last of Us Part II look significantly sharper. You lose that "shimmer" on fine details like power lines or grass that you see in 1080p.
However, we’re in 2026 now. If you’re looking to buy a console today, the PS4 Pro is becoming a harder sell. The PS5 has dropped in price on the used market, and it does everything the Pro does but better—including playing actual 4K Blu-rays and running games at a native 4K resolution more often.
Actionable Next Steps
If you want to maximize your 4K experience on a PlayStation right now, do this:
- Check your model number: Look for CUH-7000 or higher on the back. That's the Pro. If it's CUH-1000, 1100, or 1200, it's a base model and won't do 4K.
- Verify your HDMI Port: Ensure your TV port is HDMI 2.0 or higher. Usually, ports 1 and 2 on a TV are the "best" ones.
- Update your apps: If you're streaming Netflix, make sure you have the Ultra HD plan. Netflix won't show you 4K content on the PS4 Pro if you're only paying for the Standard tier.
- Boost Mode: Go to Settings > System and turn on Boost Mode. This helps older games that weren't specifically patched for the Pro run a bit smoother.