I promise this isn’t a “gAmErS aRe MaD” story – there’s precise testing and recommendation and stuff right here, trustworthy – but it surely should start that method, as I wouldn’t have guessed that birdlike soulslike Wuchang: Fallen Feathers would launch with PC efficiency points and not using a cacophony of (at present ‘Principally Detrimental’) Steam opinions saying so. Not after these easygoing system necessitiesabsolutely?
Certainly sure, it seems, although perhaps to not the extent {that a} web page of seven,000 thumbs-down symbols may recommend. It’s not good. It runs slowly on max settings. There’s stuttering. DLSS 4 body technology is both damaged, or applied in a uniquely vexing method. However you possibly can clean issues out significantly with a couple of alternative settings changes, together with on lower-end graphics playing cards.
On that observe, the minimal system necessities nonetheless show fairly reliable. Even accounting for the RPS Take a look at Rig’s top-end CPU and RAM, becoming it with 6GB GTX 1060 was sufficient to common a really playable 44fps on Wuchang’s Low preset at 1080p – albeit with a number of assist from TSR upscaling. From the really useful specs, in the meantime, Intel’s Arc A750 averaged 51fps on Excessive, once more with TSR. Though you’d sometimes need 60fps from a “really useful” GPU, it is encouraging that cheaper and older parts don’t strictly must slum it at 30fps.
Nonetheless, FPS averages inform however half the story. Traversal stutter – the type that happens when bodily shifting into new, beforehand unloaded areas – is an everyday incidence, disrupting the sense of smoothness that may have in any other case enabled extra pleasurable sword-swishing. TSR additionally merely seems worse right here than it does in different Unreal Engine 5 video games, with very noticeable ghosting and aliasing even on its increased high quality settings. And, until you have got an RTX graphics card that may allow you to exchange it with DLSS, it’s successfully required to maintain efficiency up, together with at 1080p.
I additionally wouldn’t be shocked if a lot of these efficiency complaints arose from makes an attempt to run Wuchang on its highest presets, Excessive and Extremely. Judging from the RTX 4060one of many most-used GPUs amongst Steam gamers, there’s a honking nice hole between how these run versus the decrease high quality presets: sticking to 1080p, with TSR on 67 (High quality mode, principally), Excessive averaged 52fps and Extremely 55fps, earlier than rising sharply to 64fps on Excessive, 72fps at Mid, and 124fps at Low. It’s not unparalleled for a sport’s potato settings to outpace the fanciest ones by this diploma, although it does recommend that these of us who anticipated buttery framerates on newer gear by advantage of Wuchang’s low minimal specs might have indulged in wishful pondering.
The excellent news is that a lot of the Low preset’s efficiency benefit is concentrated right into a minority of its particular person settings, which means you possibly can hold most high quality toggles at their greatest whereas claiming a giant FPS bounty from a couple of reductions. I discovered that, by far, probably the most performance-intensive settings are Shadow high quality, Vegetation high quality – there are a number of awfully massive timber ‘spherical these elements – and International Illumination, so reducing these from their Excessive or Extremely ranges ought to bear scrumptious framerate fruits.
I’d additionally heartily advocate changing TSR with DLSS, in case your GPU permits it, and regardless of the truth that – undermining every part I’ve simply stated about gaining frames – Nvidia’s tech works out slower. About 8% slower on my RTX 4060, to be particular. Nonetheless, it seems a lot, a lot sharper and cleaner than TSR does, with more practical AA and fewer visible artifacts. That 8% may not make for a night-and-day distinction, however DLSS’s general high quality does.
Thus, I re-ran my benchmark with Shadow high quality on Mid (Low exists however isn’t any sooner), Vegetation on Low, International Illumination disabled completely, and DLSS set to 67, finally scored a tangibly sooner 80fps. Did it repair the stuttering? No, however did no less than partially soften its jittery blows, with common efficiency touchdown between the Mid and Low presets regardless of the majority of particular person settings sticking to their Excessive ranges.
Getting properly above 60fps additionally makes Wuchang extra of a viable body technology candidate, with each normal 2x FG out there to RTX 40 GPUs and as much as 4x MFG (Multi Body Era) for the RTX 50 sequence. There may be, nevertheless, a really weird quirk to how this sport handles body gen: it’s disabled by ambient dialogue. You may be pootling alongside by way of a bamboo forest, fortunately counting the 120fps-plus numbers in Steam’s efficiency monitorhowever upon assembly an NPC with some soulslike-standard “Ah, who’s this?” chatter, body gen will all of a sudden change itself off. Then, as soon as the dialogue is exhausted, it pops again on, asserting its return with one more stutter. I’ve by no means seen something like this earlier than and, truthfully, am at a little bit of a loss to elucidate it – I questioned if it’s one thing to do with the frames-per-second of cinematic animations, however then most of those talking characters hardly transfer from their spot.
Extra seemingly, it’s only a random bug, however nonetheless, don’t depend on interpolation trickery to assuage Wuchang’s PC pains. Sacrifice some settings as a substitute, and see if that helps get Fallen Feathers again skywards.
