Randy Pitchford is on the offensive with regards to Borderlands 4 PC efficiency, responding on to complaints on social media to Claptrap again at disgruntled followers.
Contemporary from his complicated feedback about the cause why the console model of Borderlands 4 lacks a area of view (FOV) slider, and his declaration that it will have been unimaginable to interrupt the Borderlands 4 servers by sheer weight of participant numbers alone at launch, the outspoken Gearbox chief frolicked this weekend addressing the complaints about Borderlands 4 efficiency on PC. At numerous factors on social media, Pitchford advised individuals to “code your personal engine and present us the way it’s accomplished, please,” and declare Borderlands 4 “a premium sport made for premium players.” He additionally recommended individuals put their irrational mistrust of online game graphics tech such as DLSS apart and use it if accessible to them.
There’s a lot to dig into right here, however in the end what Pitchford is saying is that PC players ought to handle their expectations with regards to the efficiency of Borderlands 4 in the context of their very own rigs.
“Each PC gamer should settle for the actuality of the relationship between their {hardware} and what the software program they’re operating is doing,” he stated, kicking off a thread clearly designed to deal with the efficiency points which have sparked a lot early discourse round Borderlands 4.
“We’ve made a tremendous and enjoyable and enormous looter shooter marketing campaign sport. The sport is fairly rattling optimum — which signifies that the software program is doing what we wish with out wasteful cycles on unhealthy processes.”
Pitchford went on to insist that PC players have instruments that assist them steadiness their preferences between FPS, decision, and rendering options, and they need to make use of them. “When you aren’t pleased with the steadiness between this stuff you might be experiencing, please tune to your preferences utilizing the instruments accessible to you,” he stated.
Acknowledging everyone seems to be entitled to an opinion, Pitchford insisted it was proper for Gearbox to have centered on Borderlands 4’s default settings hitting 30fps on minimal specs, and 60fps on beneficial specs.
“A few of you would favor extra fps, or extra options, or larger decision. We’ve offered many instruments that can assist you make these commerce offs,” he continued.
Borderlands’ Vault Hunters, Ranked
Borderlands’ Vault Hunters, Ranked
Then, in typical Randy Pitchford on the entrance foot vogue: “It’s a mistake to consider or count on that PCs between minimal specification and beneficial specification can obtain all of extraordinarily excessive framerate, most/extremely options, and extraordinarily excessive decision.
“If that final submit makes you may have a adverse response, I wager you may have feelings and expectations that you just really feel aren’t sufficiently attended to. I’m sorry.
“However please settle for that the sport is doing lots and operating fairly optimally and that you’ll have to both settle for some commerce offs between fps, options and decision as your choice or you’ll proceed to be dissatisfied.”
There’s extra. Pitchford went on to advise PC players ought to make use of DLSS (Deep Studying Tremendous Sampling), Nvidia’s AI-powered picture enhancement and rendering know-how for GeForce RTX GPUs, downplaying concern about enter lag.
“Use DLSS. It’s nice,” he stated. “The sport was constructed to make the most of it. This isn’t a aggressive FPS. And, I’ve been led to consider that in a blind check that people can’t detect any enter lag. In my very own demonstrates and experiments, I consider that is true.
“Everybody has the freedom to consider what they need to consider and I do know on the web it’s simple to search out rage and passionate people who find themselves satisfied of all types of issues, whether or not they’re true or not.
“In case you are so hooked up to the concept that DLSS is unhealthy to your sport expertise due to one thing you noticed or learn on the web, I’m sorry. I hope as a substitute you’d use the know-how designed to provide you the expertise you need.”
There’s extra, however the relaxation is stating Gearbox is constant to enhance Borderlands 4 and PC efficiency (there’s an replace out though no-one is aware of what it did), and to thank gamers for his or her curiosity. There are additionally “a number of actual points,” Gearbox is working to repair, however these have an effect on “a really, very small proportion of customers.”
That’s only one social media thread from Pitchford. There are extra on this situation. He tweeted to say customer support studies for Borderlands 4 are roughly 1% of installs, and 0.04% are PC efficiency associated, with CS flagging 0.009% as “legitimate” 0.037% have skilled success with schooling (settings teaching).
“That’s lower than one p.c of 1 p.c (0.01%) of shoppers utilizing CS tickets for legitimate efficiency points, which is lower than 1/5 of the customers utilizing CS to get assist with Twitch drops,” Pitchford defined.
Then, the kicker: “This actuality is dramatically totally different than what you’d count on in case your solely sources of knowledge had been, say, sure web threads.”
“No such assumption made,” Pitchford added in response to at least one one who identified not everybody with PC points recordsdata a ticket. “We’re additionally telemetry in actual time no matter what individuals report. There are individuals with low perf and we care about that. However 1% of 1 million is 10,000! Simply 1,000 posts looks like everybody the method web chatter works.”
Earlier in the weekend, Pitchford recommended individuals lifeless set on enjoying in 4K decision ought to maybe contemplate enjoying at 1440p as a substitute.
“I do know numerous you might be lifeless set on enjoying at 4k with extremely max settings and utilizing two or three-year-old {hardware},” he tweeted. “You do you, however BL4 and UE5 are doing lots and for me that commerce off for frames isn’t price it. I play at 1440p with settings tremendous excessive and am tremendous pleased with that commerce off – the sport seems wonderful at 1440p.
“When you’re not 4k cussed and simply need to have an amazing, enjoyable time with larger perf, please contemplate operating at 1440p decision. When you’ve bought a beast of a video card, you’re most likely superb at 4k. However if you happen to’re in the center or near min spec, I might undoubtedly suggest making that commerce.”
Borderlands 4: All Vault Hunter Ability Timber Ranked
Borderlands 4: All Vault Hunter Ability Timber Ranked
And there are additional quotes, maybe betraying a contact of frustration from the Gearbox boss. Responding to at least one one who advised Pitchford Gearbox would have been higher off constructing the sport for “the commonest {hardware},” he tweeted: “Borderlands 4 is a premium sport made for premium players.”
“The minimal and beneficial specs are revealed,” he stated. “The most typical {hardware} is a 4 yr outdated cellular phone. Borderlands 4 is a premium sport made for premium players. Simply as Borderlands 4 can’t run on a PlayStation 4, it can’t be anticipated to run on too-old PC {hardware}. Not like on PlayStation and Xbox, we can’t stop a PC participant with sub-optimal {hardware} for the sport attempt to play it. So some attempt and get mad. And a few have precise points we have to repair. And a few have to find out how their PC’s work at the excessive finish for this particular sport in 2025 and use the instruments accessible to them to search out the proper steadiness between body charge, decision, and graphics options.
“This isn’t a sport made to run on 10-year-old PCs — this sport makes use of the full capabilities of recent bus, CPU, and GPU. When you’re making an attempt to drive a monster truck with a leaf blower’s motor, you’re going to be dissatisfied. When you uncover your system can’t run the sport properly by chance or wishful considering and/or don’t need to attempt to mess with settings to make issues adequate for you, please use the refund function on Steam slightly than have a subpar expertise.”
And, responding to at least one one who stated Gearbox ought to make Borderlands 4 “look good” with out utilizing AI upscaling know-how, Pitchford hit back with a dose of sarcasm: “Code your personal engine and present us the way it’s accomplished, please. We will probably be your buyer whenever you pull it off. The individuals doing it now are clearly dumb and don’t know what they’re doing and all the help and suggestions and code and structure from the world’s best {hardware} firms and tech firms working with the world’s best actual time graphics engine coders don’t know what you appear to know. /sarcasm”
Borderlands 4 launched final week and hit a peak of over 300,000 concurrent gamers on Steam alone — a determine considerably larger than any Borderlands sport launched on Valve’s platform. Nevertheless, Steam opinions are ‘blended,’ with most of the complaints revolving round PC efficiency.
In response, Gearbox posted a Borderlands 4 Nvidia Optimization information on Steam, advising gamers methods to optimize their graphics settings for “higher efficiency and framerates” on PC with the Nvidia app.
Gearbox then issued a bit of recommendation to PC players that to me reads like an effort to forestall gamers from making knee-jerk reactions to the sport’s efficiency as quickly as they’ve modified their settings: “Please observe that any time you modify any of your graphics settings, your shaders might want to recompile. Please maintain enjoying for at the least quarter-hour to see how your PC’s efficiency has modified.”
In case you are delving into Borderlands 4, do not go with out up to date hourly SHiFT codes checklist. We have additionally bought a enormous interactive map able to go and a badass Borderlands 4 planner tool courtesy of our buds at Maxroll. Plus take a look at our professional gamers’ selections for which character to decide on (nobody agreed).
Picture by Leon Bennett/Getty Photographs.
Wesley is Director, Information at IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You’ll be able to attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.