Capcom has issued a patch for Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition, addressing problematic support for 120Hz unique to the PlayStation 5 version of the game - as reported in prior Digital Foundry coverage. The issue in a nutshell is this: if your TV supports 120Hz, the PS5 version of the game hard-set the console to run at that refresh rate - even if you weren't using the 120H frame-rate mode. This presented several problems, the most notable being that many 4K TVs only support 120Hz at 1080p or 1440p, meaning that DMC5's 4K-specific modes would produce a downscaled output.
Even those with the latest HDMI 2.1 displays capable of running full 4K at 120Hz would have issues with the game: Devil May Cry 5 would then run with an unlocked frame-rate, with the game often running in excess of 60 frames per second. While this was great for 'benchmarking' the game, for seeing the RE engine running fully unleashed until it hit system limits, the user experience was not so good owing to unwanted judder. The unlocked nature of the game applied equally to both Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, but owners of the Microsoft machine could dip into the console display settings and turn off 120Hz support, capping frame-rate to 60fps and producing an overall smoother experience.
So what does the new patch for Devil May Cry 5 on PlayStation 5 actually deliver? Put simply, 120Hz mode will only engage when you activate the high frame-rate mode that is actually designed to target 120 frames per second. Using any of the other modes in the game switches the refresh rate back down to 60Hz, meaning a 60fps cap for those modes for uses with HDMI 2.1 displays - and crucially, full 4K for users with older displays that can only run 120Hz at lower resolutions. The solution employed by Capcom here is effectively identical to that seen in Codemasters' Dirt 5, which also switches display refresh rates, matching 60Hz and 120Hz outputs to the appropriate performance modes as and when you select them.