Digital Foundry breaks down GTA 6 Trailer 2: ~1440p, 30fps, ray tracing everywhere

Digital Foundry's frame-by-frame analysis of the second Grand Theft Auto VI trailer estimates the footage runs at roughly 1440p-class internal resolution, upscaled toward 4K at 30 frames per second, with ray-traced global illumination present in almost every shot. The technical team also cautions that a 60fps performance mode looks unlikely at launch, because the lighting is so deeply tied to ray tracing that stripping it out would change how the game looks.

The breakdown is expert analysis of trailer footage, not an official Rockstar specification — the studio has not published resolution or frame-rate targets. Rockstar has confirmed only that Trailer 2 was captured on PlayStation 5 and is comprised of equal parts cinematics and gameplay. Everything below is Digital Foundry's read on that footage.

Resolution and frame rate: ~1440p upscaled, 30fps

According to Digital Foundry's analysis — reported by RockstarINTEL — the trailer renders internally at a precise 2560×1152 (the 20:9 frame is letterboxed with black bars top and bottom) before being reconstructed toward a 4K output. That vertical figure is why the footage is often described as ~1440p-class rather than native 4K.

DF's Oliver Mackenzie described the image quality as something that "brings you back to earth" — impressive, but clearly upscaled rather than native 4K. The team identified an FSR1-like image-reconstruction upscaler in this build, with the expectation that Rockstar could move to a more modern reconstruction method such as FSR2 or PSSR closer to release.

The footage is capped at 30fps, and Digital Foundry does not expect a 60fps mode at launch on base consoles. That caveat is a prediction, not a confirmed limitation.

Ray tracing is the whole lighting model

The headline finding is that ray-traced global illumination (RTGI) appears to underpin the entire lighting system, with no traditional rasterized lighting fallback. DF's Alex Battaglia put it bluntly:

You can't get rid of Ray-tracing Global Illumination, it's inherent to the way the game works.

John Linneman pointed to combined direct, indirect and natural lighting, while Mackenzie highlighted the indirect diffused lighting visible on characters. Shadows, notably, appear to be filtered rather than fully ray-traced — a similar approach to Red Dead Redemption 2.

Reflections are the other standout. The team praised ray-traced reflections on transparent surfaces such as sunglasses, mirrors, and car windscreens, and noted that rougher surfaces appear to blend ray-traced reflections with older screen-space reflections.

Characters, hair, and detail

• A significant leap in character rendering, with Battaglia rating it a clear step up from Red Dead Redemption 2
• Notably improved hair technology, though the team flagged some remaining hair-rendering artifacts
• Fine details such as arm hair and realistic sweat on skin
• Independently animated clothing that moves separately from the body

The Xbox Series S question

Digital Foundry's most speculative point concerns the Xbox Series S. To fit the game on the weaker console — which has around 8GB of usable RAM versus roughly 12.5GB on PS5 and 13GB on Series X — DF suggests Rockstar may need to disable ray-traced reflections entirely and drop resolution well below 1080p, potentially to around 720p, as covered by GTA BOOM. Because reflections and RTGI are so central to the look, the team warns that could visibly change the game on that hardware.

It is important to stress this is prediction based on trailer footage and known hardware limits, not gameplay data or any Rockstar statement. Alongside the resolution and ray-tracing cuts, DF expects the Series S version could also see reduced texture streaming, lower volumetric effects, and lower-resolution shadows.

What it means for players

None of this is official, and trailer builds routinely differ from shipping games. But Digital Foundry's read lines up with the broader expectation that Grand Theft Auto VI will prioritise a fidelity-first 30fps presentation built around ray tracing, rather than a high-frame-rate mode, at least at launch. Rockstar currently has the game slated for May 26, 2026, on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.