I promise this isn’t a “gAmErS aRe MaD” story – there’s precise testing and recommendation and stuff right here, sincere – but it surely should start that means, as I wouldn’t have guessed that birdlike soulslike Wuchang: Fallen Feathers would launch with PC efficiency points with out a cacophony of (presently ‘Principally Adverse’) Steam critiques saying so. Not after these easygoing system necessities, absolutely?
Certainly sure, it seems, although possibly to not the extent {that a} web page of seven,000 thumbs-down symbols would possibly counsel. It’s not good. It runs slowly on max settings. There’s stuttering. DLSS 4 body technology is both damaged, or carried out in a uniquely vexing means. However you possibly can easy issues out significantly with just a few selection 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 Check 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 whole lot of assist from TSR upscaling. From the beneficial specs, in the meantime, Intel’s Arc A750 averaged 51fps on Excessive, once more with TSR. Though you’d usually need 60fps from a “beneficial” GPU, it is encouraging that cheaper and older elements don’t strictly must slum it at 30fps.
Nonetheless, FPS averages inform however half the story. Traversal stutter – the type that happens when bodily transferring into new, beforehand unloaded areas – is a daily prevalence, disrupting the sense of smoothness that may have in any other case enabled extra pleasurable sword-swishing. TSR additionally merely appears to be like worse right here than it does in different Unreal Engine 5 video games, with very noticeable ghosting and aliasing even on its greater high quality settings. And, until you’ve got an RTX graphics card that may allow you to change it with DLSS, it’s successfully required to maintain efficiency up, together with at 1080p.
I additionally wouldn’t be stunned if lots of these efficiency complaints arose from makes an attempt to run Wuchang on its highest presets, Excessive and Extremely. Judging from the RTX 4060, one 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 exceptional for a recreation’s potato settings to outpace the fanciest ones by this diploma, although it does counsel 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 maintain most high quality toggles at their finest whereas claiming a giant FPS bounty from just a few reductions. I discovered that, by far, essentially the most performance-intensive settings are Shadow high quality, Vegetation high quality – there are a whole lot of awfully massive bushes ‘spherical these components – and World Illumination, so decreasing these from their Excessive or Extremely ranges ought to bear scrumptious framerate fruits.
I’d additionally heartily suggest changing TSR with DLSS, in case your GPU permits it, and despite the truth that – undermining all the things 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 appears to be like a lot, a lot sharper and cleaner than TSR does, with simpler 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 quicker), Vegetation on Low, World Illumination disabled fully, and DLSS set to 67, in the end scored a tangibly quicker 80fps. Did it repair the stuttering? No, however did no less than partially soften its jittery blows, with basic efficiency touchdown between the Mid and Low presets regardless of the majority of particular person settings sticking to their Excessive ranges.
Getting nicely above 60fps additionally makes Wuchang extra of a viable body technology candidate, with each normal 2x FG obtainable to RTX 40 GPUs and as much as 4x MFG (Multi Body Technology) for the RTX 50 collection. There may be, nonetheless, a really weird quirk to how this recreation handles body gen: it’s disabled by ambient dialogue. You may be pootling alongside by means of a bamboo forest, fortunately counting the 120fps-plus numbers in Steam’s efficiency monitor, however upon assembly an NPC with some soulslike-standard “Ah, who’s this?” chatter, body gen will instantly change itself off. Then, as soon as the dialogue is exhausted, it pops again on, saying its return with yet one more stutter. I’ve by no means seen something like this earlier than and, actually, am at a little bit of a loss to clarify 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 possible, it’s only a random bug, however nonetheless, don’t depend on interpolation trickery to appease Wuchang’s PC pains. Sacrifice some settings as an alternative, and see if that helps get Fallen Feathers again skywards.
