GTA 6 is 30fps and ‘too big' for Switch 2 claim tech experts

Metro

08-05-2025

Although there's no unedited gameplay of GTA 6 yet, it's already believed the game's impressive visuals are stuck at 30fps.
If there's one thing you can take away from the newest GTA 6 trailer, it's that its visuals look really good. The graphics alone are impressive, but it's also clear a lot of work has gone into the lighting, ray-tracing, and rendering for what seems to be the best-looking video game ever.
While Rockstar Games has yet to share unedited gameplay, it has said that the trailer contains a mixture of gameplay and cut scenes. Given how indistinguishable the two are, GTA 6 is set to be a technical marvel when it comes out next year, on May 26.
However, those who prefer their games running as smoothly as possible best temper expectations for GTA 6's frame rate, as it's believed all the footage in the trailer was captured at 30 frames per second.
Although performance specs have not been confirmed by Rockstar itself, the team at Digital Foundry does not believe GTA 6 will be capable of running at 60fps on PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S when it launches.
In a video breaking down the new GTA 6 trailer, Digital Foundry highlights some incredible attention to detail, with particular praise going to the ray-traced reflections and hair rendering.
While he'd love to be wrong, senior staff writer John Linneman believes, as a result, GTA 6 will be locked to 30fps.
Video producer Alex Battaglia points out that some games enable features for cut scenes to make them look better visually, which are then turned off for gameplay so it can run at a higher frame rate.
But he does not think this is something Rockstar will do for GTA 6, especially with regards to the ray-tracing technology, since it's all over the trailer and likely something the game was built with in mind.
'You can't get rid of RTGI (ray traced global illumination). It's inherent to the way the game works. Even getting rid of RT reflections potentially could make scenes look quite a bit different…' explains Battaglia.
'As soon as you have ray-traced global illumination, a massive open world… those things tend to not run well at 60fps,' he adds, concluding that, at best, GTA 6 could run upwards of 40fps.
You also have to remember that Rockstar needs to get the game running on the Xbox Series S, which is a deliberately weaker console and needs to have feature parity with the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 versions. Although if anyone could negotiate an exception with Microsoft it'd be Rockstar.
It's for the same reasons that the team don't expect to see GTA 6 coming to Switch 2, describing it as 'too big', with Battaglia saying he doesn't think it could run on a Steam Deck either, if/when the game comes to PC.
While Digital Foundry doesn't broach the subject, many fans have expressed hope that GTA 6 could run up to 60fps on the more powerful PS5 Pro, with some imagining a bundle and specific marketing tie-ins. More Trending
However, the PS5 Pro isn't that much more powerful than the standard console, when it comes to frame rate, so any improvements would likely focus on the resolution.
At best the 40fps mode (which won't make much difference) may be a PS5 Pro exclusive.
None of this will come as a surprise to more technically savvy gamers, especially as it's rare for open world games to ever run at 30fps.
Given how many different formats GTA 6 was released on though it's very easy to imagine 60fps being implemented for the inevitable PlayStation 6.
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