Over the previous few years, PC video games have been dealing with an optimization downside. Leaning closely on upscaling options like Nvidia’s DLSS and AMD’s FSR, builders have been releasing ultra-detailed video games, and hoping that these applied sciences will assist mitigate the efficiency price. Crimson Desert is a bit completely different, although.
Whereas Crimson Desert is genuinely an attractive – albeit buggy – sport, developer Pearl Abyss introduced tremendous cheap PC system necessities main as much as launch. What was significantly fascinating about these is that a number of the builds referred to as out upscaling – however many didn’t, so I simply needed to check the sport at native decision to see the way it held up.
And, positive, Crimson Desert does battle slightly bit on low-end playing cards just like the Radeon RX 6500 XT, however not by sufficient that switching on FSR doesn’t convey it over that 60 fps threshold. And when you get to the mid-range, Crimson Desert holds up as a sport the place upscaling serves its unique objective as a picture high quality and efficiency enhancement, reasonably than a requirement.
How I Examined
The very first thing that jumped out at me once I was Crimson Desert’s system necessities is what number of generations of {hardware} have been represented. The minimal necessities name for an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, and that GPU got here out ten years in the past.
The sport must be well-optimized to ensure that such a variety of {hardware} to be represented in Pearl Abyss’ system necessities, so I wished to see simply how nicely the sport would scale. The issue, although, is that the vary of {hardware} was slightly too broad.
The sport’s necessities name out an AMD Ryzen 5 2600X on the low-end, as an illustration, and I simply don’t have a type of any extra. The oldest CPU I’ve mendacity round that has a motherboard that might run it’s the Ryzen 5 7600, so I opted for that for the lower-end builds, swapping to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D once I bought to the higher-end specs.
Crimson Desert additionally requires 16GB of RAM at each advice stage. The catch right here is that I solely have 16GB DDR5 sticks, which implies that if I wished to stick to this requirement, I’d should run my reminiscence in single-channel mode, which might damage efficiency. I might simply exit and purchase a 16GB equipment with two 8GB sticks to get round this, however with RAM costs being what they’re – I’m not going to try this.
That leaves us with the graphics playing cards. I do have a lot of the GPUs to check out most of Crimson Desert’s efficiency tiers, with one exception: the GTX 1060. Whereas I do have an previous GTX 1060 Founders Version on my shelf, once I plugged it in to check Crimson Desert, it didn’t really feel like posting anymore, so it looks as if that card goes to that huge gaming PC upstate – it served me nicely through the years.
However though I don’t have the GPUs available to check the minimal spec, I used to be capable of check the sport on the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X. Curiously, in Pearl Abyss’ system necessities for the Xbox Ally X, it calls out very related high quality settings for the hand-held because it does for the 2016 graphics card – minimal graphics settings and 1080p upscaled from a decrease decision. The GTX 1060 most likely would have ended up being extra highly effective than the hand-held, however solely by a bit.
To check the body charge throughout all of those GPUs (and handheld), I recorded efficiency whereas strolling by Hernand City, the primary metropolis. Whereas this isn’t probably the most anxious location, with fight vastly impacting your efficiency, it’s repeatable, making it simpler to get a good suggestion of what the baseline body charge for every graphics card appears like.
Fairly than working each GPU on the identical settings, I actually wished to check Crimson Desert’s really helpful settings for each graphics card. So I used this graphic as a information, testing the graphics preset, decision and upscaling particularly referred to as out. And, nicely, for probably the most half Pearl Abyss appears to underestimate the efficiency of its sport.
Crimson Desert Xbox Ally X Performance
For as widespread because the Steam Deck is, Crimson Desert merely received’t run on the SteamOS handheld proper now. As an alternative, the one approach to play Crimson Desert on a handheld proper now’s to run it on an Asus ROG Xbox Ally X, or the same Home windows handheld. Whereas that’s a disgrace, the additional energy of the Z2 Excessive would most likely be wanted to play this sport anyhow.
Pearl Abyss recommends three completely different settings profiles for the Xbox Ally X: ‘Performance’, ‘Balanced’ and ‘High quality’, with the previous two leaning closely on upscaling and body era. What’s wild is that in contrast to the specs referred to as out for desktop, these don’t have a really helpful graphics preset. However, after testing it, you’re going to wish to stick to the ‘Minimal’ preset.
Working Crimson Desert at 1080p with FSR set to High quality – which is able to set the rendering decision to 720p – you’ll get 40 fps, which is certainly playable, even when the minimal settings aren’t the best in your eyes. You possibly can activate FSR body era to stretch the body charge to 67 fps, however I wouldn’t really suggest it. It would look visually smoother, however there’s undoubtedly some noticeable enter lag there that doesn’t make the sport really feel nice – and that was simply strolling round on the town.
However with how lovely the sport is when you begin cranking up the standard settings and determination, I’d suggest sticking with a gaming PC or a console, if in case you have the choice.
PC Performance
Whereas Crimson Desert appears prefer it’d be the form of sport that cripples {hardware}, it is surprisingly straightforward to run, so long as you’ve an honest graphics card. I didn’t have the GTX 1060 to check its completely minimal spec, however I did have an AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT, and was stunned that it was really capable of sustain – and with higher than Pearl Abyss’ quoted efficiency.
To be clear, reasonably than pairing the 6500 XT with the 2600X Pearl Abyss requires, I paired it with the 7600, which is considerably sooner, however the low-end GPU nonetheless managed to common 40 fps at low settings at 1080p. That’s with out upscaling, too, and once I enabled FSR on the ‘Balanced’ preset, which renders the sport at 635p, I used to be capable of get 53 fps out of it, getting it nearer to that 60 fps candy spot.
The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is the primary card that Pearl Abyss says can hit 60 fps, with the Medium preset at 1080p. And, no less than within the little laps round Hernand City, the 6700 completely hits that mark, averaging 65 fps over the one-minute lap. You should buy your self extra respiration room with FSR, although, which is able to convey your common fps as much as 83 fps, if you set it to the ‘Balanced’ choice. That is additionally the primary preset that turns ray tracing on, and even with a fairly accessible graphics card, it has no downside clearing 60 fps.
Transferring on to the Nvidia RTX 4070, and we’re off to a brand new decision: 1440p. Setting it to the excessive preset, the sport begins trying unbelievable. And with this last-generation mid-range GPU, Crimson Desert averages 75 fps with none form of upscaling.
With the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, the developer claims it is best to have the ability to run the sport at 60 fps with the Extremely preset at a local 4K. Within the loop round Hernand City, the Radeon RX 9070 XT managed to simply hit that stage, averaging 62 fps. Nevertheless, as soon as I turned FSR to Performance, to render the sport at 1080p and upscale again as much as 4K, the 9070 XT was capable of get a strong 75 fps.
I didn’t have an RTX 5070 Ti on-hand to instantly check in opposition to the Radeon RX 9070 XT, however with the identical settings, the RTX 5080 bought 74 fps in the identical loop, which falls in keeping with what I’d count on from Nvidia’s penultimate graphics card.
There’s a graphics preset above Extremely, although, though it doesn’t have a really helpful graphics card in Pearl Abyss’ really helpful specs. The Cinematic preset bumps nearly all settings all the way in which up, apart from lighting – which has a ‘max’ setting above it. To check this, I put in an RTX 5090, and at 4K with no DLSS, I used to be capable of get a median of 95 fps. Then, in fact, you may activate DLSS and Body Era to stand up to 338 fps with the identical high quality settings.
Can You Play Crimson Desert?
With how nicely Crimson Desert runs on just about each graphics card I examined, it would find yourself being some of the well-optimized PC video games in years. That’s despite the huge view distances and unbelievable lighting on provide.
Just about each trendy graphics card will have the ability to run Crimson Desert with none form of upscaling. In fact, DLSS and FSR are each supported, which might make the sport run even higher with out actually impacting the visible high quality of the sport.
Even on the Xbox Ally X, which is considerably weaker than any of the desktop graphics playing cards I examined, Crimson Desert runs simply high-quality. It’s not going to completely saturate the hand-held’s 144Hz show, however it doesn’t really want to – it’s nonetheless a good way to play the sport if you’re away out of your PC or your Xbox. Now, Pearl Abyss simply wants to determine how one can get the sport working on SteamOS and Bazzite.
In fact, simply because the sport is optimized to run nicely on a large swath of PCs doesn’t imply that it’s not additionally chock-full of bugs and different quirks. For extra on that, take a look at our evaluation of Crimson Desert.
Jackie Thomas is the {Hardware} and Shopping for Guides Editor at IGN and the PC elements queen. You possibly can observe her @Jackiecobra