Black Fantasy: Wukong is quite a taxing game on PC hardware if you happen to’re planning to play on the very best high quality settings. Sure, it could actually look unbelievable and even contains path-traced lighting, however to make use of these settings you are not precisely going to be operating at excessive body charges. Nonetheless, it isn’t all doom and gloom, as the sport affords vital scaling throughout numerous in-game settings.
Even these with mid-range or older {hardware} ought to be capable to play Wukong after a number of tweaks. That is what we’ll discover at this time: What does every setting in Black Fantasy: Wukong do, how does it have an effect on efficiency, and what are the optimum settings you must use?
Wukong is an Unreal Engine 5 sport designed for the most recent {hardware}, using trendy rendering applied sciences – there is no last-gen console model. A lot of you have got already used the free benchmark tool to evaluate how the sport will run in your PC, and we have used it for the efficiency sections of this information as effectively.
The benchmark software runs via the opening of Chapter 1, making it a consultant slice of in-game efficiency. It is an awesome software, and extra builders ought to think about doing this for his or her video games. Nonetheless, for visible comparisons, we used precise in-game footage from the primary chapter.
Earlier than diving into the main points, listed here are a number of fast notes in regards to the check techniques. All visible comparisons have been captured at 4K utilizing the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, with DLSS High quality to keep up an affordable body charge. We strongly suggest watching the video footage of this information utilizing YouTube’s 4K mode for the very best bitrate.
Efficiency testing was primarily carried out on an RTX 4070 Super at 1440p with DLSS High quality, although some further exams have been carried out on the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT utilizing FSR High quality. The CPU used was the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D with 32GB of DDR5-6000 reminiscence.
Presets Defined
Let’s begin with the presets with out ray tracing enabled, which embody 5 major choices. Most of those settings use Unreal Engine 5’s software program Lumen as the idea for the lighting system, which creates a superb presentation, particularly with the Cinematic preset. Nonetheless, focusing particularly on the lighting, the sport seems nice even on the Medium preset.
The standard of shadows, international illumination, and reflections decreases as you progress right down to Medium from the Most preset, however the general ambiance of the sport stays largely intact. The identical cannot be mentioned for the Low preset, which disables many lighting results and leads to a flat, poor visible expertise. This appears to be the “potato mode” for slower GPUs and maybe portable systems just like the Steam Deck.
The Cinematic preset affords the very best lighting, with shadow high quality that approaches the accuracy, softness, and backbone of hardware-based ray tracing. When stepping right down to the Very Excessive preset, there’s a noticeable drop in shadow high quality, although different lighting parts stay comparable. The Excessive preset additional reduces shadow high quality and impacts international illumination, leading to a slight lower in lighting realism and depth. The Medium preset cuts again shadow element and lighting, significantly for distant objects, and not offers high-resolution shadows.
The drop from Excessive to Medium lighting might be probably the most vital of the principle presets (excluding the Low mode), with Excessive trying a lot nearer to Most.
These presets even have a major impression on the density of the sport world, which is clear throughout all modes. The discount in stage of element and dynamism is constant. This primarily impacts foliage high quality: decrease presets function fewer timber, bushes, grass, and leaves on branches – a lot in order that Medium mode seems notably stripped again and fewer dense.
The quantity of dynamic motion in timber, reminiscent of branches and leaves swaying within the wind, additionally decreases with decrease presets, with the edge for dynamics transferring nearer to the digicam with every mode drop. Cinematic mode seems unbelievable right here, rendering a dense setting with most lifelike motion. Nonetheless, decrease presets do not have an effect on different geometry parts as a lot, so objects like rocks, wood bridges, and the principle character stay comparable till you get to the low preset which drops texture high quality to terrible.
Given the substantial impression on sport world density throughout modes, there is not a easy preset that means that you can decrease settings whereas sustaining an identical visible expertise to Cinematic. Nonetheless, the Excessive mode is not reduce too far, and even Medium seems first rate for mid-range avid gamers.
From a efficiency standpoint, the excellent news is that the presets supply a variety of alternatives to enhance high quality. Relative to the Cinematic preset, on the RTX 4070 Super, we noticed a 13% efficiency enchancment when transferring to Very Excessive, which is visually similar to Cinematic. This improved to an enormous 70% acquire utilizing the Excessive preset, and efficiency greater than doubled with the Medium mode, all with out upscaling. The Low mode was 175% quicker than Cinematic, however the visible high quality was poor, and we do not count on many gamers to go for that mode until completely mandatory.
The efficiency uplift was even bigger on the Radeon 7800 XT. Right here, we noticed an 18% enchancment transferring to Very Excessive, a 93% acquire for Excessive mode, and a 146% acquire for Medium mode. Whereas we would not essentially suggest utilizing the presets over optimized settings, if you happen to favor a preset, the Excessive mode offers an awesome steadiness between visuals and efficiency, delivering a considerably quicker expertise than the very best settings.
View Distance High quality
For a greater illustration of picture high quality comparisons, try the HUB video beneath:
Transferring on to particular person settings, let’s begin with View Distance High quality. This setting has solely a minor impression on visuals, primarily lowering the quantity of foliage on distant timber. It does not take away timber, but it surely trims them barely, which additionally reduces the variety of rendered shadows. You may begin to discover this discount when dropping the setting to Medium, with a extra vital cutback on Low.
Reducing this setting from Cinematic to Medium can enhance efficiency by about 3%, which isn’t overly vital. For many avid gamers with fairly highly effective GPUs, we suggest leaving it on Cinematic. Nonetheless, if you’ll want to increase efficiency, Medium is an appropriate compromise, whereas Low affords solely a small further efficiency acquire at the price of a extra substantial visible downgrade.
Anti-Aliasing High quality
For a greater illustration of picture high quality comparisons, try the HUB video beneath:
Anti-Aliasing High quality does not have a major visible impression, primarily affecting sharpness. Decrease settings enhance the sharpening filter impact. Even on the lowest “sharpness” stage of Cinematic, the sport tends to be oversharpened and may gain advantage from extra adjustability.
That is particularly noticeable within the second chapter, which incorporates a extra desert-like setting. This setting has a better impression when utilizing TSR upscaling in comparison with DLSS or FSR.
Since there isn’t a efficiency impression throughout the completely different settings, you possibly can go away this on Cinematic.
Submit-Results High quality
For a greater illustration of picture high quality comparisons, try the HUB video beneath:
The Submit-Results High quality setting has little impact on the sport’s visuals throughout common gameplay. Nonetheless, it could actually impression sure menus; for instance, when viewing gear, there is a depth of area impact across the character that turns into noticeably extra aliased and of decrease high quality when lowering this setting to Medium or Low.
With no noticeable impression to in-game efficiency generally, it ought to be saved on the most stage, Cinematic, to keep away from ugly artifacts when depth of area is utilized.
Shadow High quality
Shadow High quality is without doubt one of the most influential settings within the sport, each visually and performance-wise, with every choice offering noticeable variations. Cinematic delivers probably the most lifelike, high-resolution shadows with the farthest draw distances and most dynamic presentation.
For a greater illustration of picture high quality comparisons, try the HUB video beneath:
Very Excessive seems much like Cinematic however with a drop in decision, making the shadows seem softer. Excessive reduces many points of shadow high quality, together with decision, draw distance (particularly lowering distant shadowed parts), and dynamism. Medium introduces a major discount in decision and removes many dynamic shadows, whereas Low disables most shadows, leading to a flat and poor visible expertise.
The impression of those modifications depends upon the scene. For instance, with overhead tree shadows, Cinematic and Very Excessive look noticeably higher than Excessive. In these scenes, transferring to Excessive not solely reduces shadow high quality but in addition makes the shadows static as an alternative of dynamic. Nonetheless, in different scenes, the distinction in decision is much less pronounced, and shadows stay dynamic even on Excessive, with Medium being the edge for seen modifications.
Greater shadow settings create dynamic shadows from objects farther away, as proven in a single instance the place Excessive reduces shadow high quality nearer to the digicam, and Medium removes many dynamic shadows altogether.
In some scenes (proven in video), the distinction in shadow high quality shouldn’t be drastic. Whereas Cinematic all the time seems the very best, Excessive is not an enormous downgrade in each scene and nonetheless offers most of the shadows mandatory for the sport to look good.
This setting has a huge effect on efficiency. On an Nvidia GPU, dropping from Cinematic to Very Excessive solely improved body charges by 3%, however transferring to Excessive offered a 28% enchancment. Medium is not value utilizing, because it solely affords a 3% acquire over Excessive, and Low will increase body charges additional whereas severely compromising visible high quality. On an AMD GPU, the good points are a bit bigger, with a 36% increase when utilizing Excessive shadows in comparison with Cinematic.
For many avid gamers, the selection will possible be between Cinematic and Excessive shadows. Usually, if you happen to want further efficiency, Excessive shadows are a superb selection, delivering a strong visible expertise whereas boosting body charges by almost 30%. In the event you favor absolutely the highest visuals, Cinematic does present a noticeable enchancment.
Texture High quality
Texture High quality ought to be saved on Cinematic until you run out of VRAM. The sport can use greater than 8GB of VRAM with ray tracing and body technology enabled, however with out these settings, it sometimes runs fantastic on an 8GB GPU, particularly at 1440p.
For a greater illustration of picture high quality comparisons, try the HUB video beneath:
Reducing the feel setting to Excessive leads to a small discount in texture sharpness, after which dropping it to low actually hurts texture high quality badly in order that setting shouldn’t be really helpful. This setting has no impression on efficiency offered you have got sufficient VRAM.
One factor you will discover within the sport is that texture high quality is not excellent and is arguably the weakest side of the visible presentation. Some parts look nice, however others, like rocks and tree trunks, do not have textures or materials high quality that match the wonderful lighting system.
When the lighting is flatter or much less spectacular, this weak point turns into extra obvious. The sport may gain advantage from a high-resolution texture pack to completely make the most of high-end GPUs with 16GB or extra of VRAM. Provided that there are settings within the sport that solely flagship GPU house owners can use – like path tracing on Very Excessive – it might make sense for there to even be settings to max out VRAM and take visuals to the following stage.
Visible Impact High quality
Wukong describes the Visible Impact High quality setting as controlling fog, cloud density, and particle results, but it surely does not appear to have an effect on the volumetric fog used all through the world. This impact provides numerous ambiance, so the lack to disable it’s most likely a superb factor, though the standard of the fog is common and may gain advantage from a decision bump on the highest settings. There’s an impression on cloud high quality, although even on the Cinematic setting, cloud high quality is simply okay.
For a greater illustration of picture high quality comparisons, try the HUB video beneath:
Nonetheless, we seen that this setting impacts dynamic tree foliage actions, not the vegetation setting. On Cinematic and Very Excessive, tree branches transfer properly within the wind, however dropping to Excessive removes a lot of this motion, making the sport world really feel extra static.
Disabling dynamic tree actions leads to a few 3% efficiency enchancment, however we would not suggest this selection because the world feels extra alive with the upper settings. Subsequently, we advise preserving this on Cinematic until you want each final little bit of efficiency.
Hair High quality
For a greater illustration of picture high quality comparisons, try the HUB video beneath:
Hair High quality does not impression normal visuals all that a lot, however does have an effect on the density of hair on among the bosses. From Cinematic to Medium, increased settings function extra simulated hair strands, although even Medium seems acceptable. Low appears to disable hair simulations, reverting to a extra primary hair presentation.
Within the benchmark go, we noticed solely a 2% efficiency enchancment at finest when decreasing this setting. Within the boss entrance instance, dropping Hair High quality from Cinematic to Medium improved efficiency by 7% on common and 23% for 1% lows, which is a major increase that may impression body charges throughout essential boss fights. Excessive affords a superb steadiness between high quality and body charge, with Medium being a strong selection if further efficiency is required.
Vegetation High quality
Vegetation High quality is a simple setting that impacts the variety of timber, shrubs, and grasses within the scene. Greater settings render extra vegetation, making a denser and richer sport world. Whereas some points of vegetation high quality are managed via different settings, this setting has probably the most noticeable impression on the quantity of vegetation on this planet.
For a greater illustration of picture high quality comparisons, try the HUB video beneath:
What’s vital to notice about this setting is that vegetation density begins to drop as quickly as you alter the setting from Cinematic to Very Excessive. By the point you attain Excessive, the world is noticeably much less dense, explaining among the vital variations noticed between the fundamental presets earlier. On Medium and particularly Low, numerous vegetation is stripped away, and that basically hurts the visible expertise.
This setting can be fairly taxing, although to not the diploma of the shadows setting. Dropping from Cinematic to Very Excessive resulted in a 3% efficiency increase, and a 5% acquire by transferring to Excessive. You may obtain a number of further share factors by decreasing the setting to Medium or Low. Nonetheless, given the substantial impression on visible high quality, we suggest preserving this setting on Cinematic the place potential. If you’d like further efficiency, the Excessive setting is an effective compromise with out actually gutting the density of the world.
International Illumination High quality
International Illumination High quality is the second most taxing setting within the sport, after Shadows. How influential this setting is relies upon closely on the scene, however usually, so long as you keep away from Low mode, the sport maintains a superb visible high quality.
For a greater illustration of picture high quality comparisons, try the HUB video beneath:
Within the first instance (video), the variations are minimal, with only some minor modifications to shadowing round some foliage, making it tough to identify the variations – until you utilize Low mode, which seems noticeably worse. Within the second scene, the discount in ambient occlusion and phone shadowing is extra obvious on the leaves on the bottom when transferring from Cinematic to Excessive. The dearth of worldwide illumination for distant objects could be very apparent within the Medium mode.
In one other scene, Cinematic, Very Excessive, and Excessive look fairly comparable, however Medium is a noticeable step down, and Low seems horrible. The truth is, Low fully alters the sport’s look, making it appear to be an overcast out of doors scene as an alternative of a dimly fire-lit cave. Within the subsequent scene, the variations between Excessive and Medium are extra delicate, whereas the hole between Very Excessive and Excessive is extra noticeable.
As we roll via a number of extra examples, Very Excessive or Cinematic modes seem like probably the most visually spectacular. Excessive can look both very comparable or fairly completely different relying on how a lot distant international illumination is used. Medium is a step down, and Low ought to be averted.
From a efficiency standpoint, this setting is kind of taxing. For these in search of the very best visuals, think about using Very Excessive as an alternative of Cinematic to realize a 4% efficiency increase. Excessive appears to supply a superb steadiness with a 13% acquire relative to Cinematic, although visible high quality is barely diminished. Medium is right for individuals who want further efficiency, offering a 22% enchancment in FPS in comparison with Cinematic.
Reflection High quality
Reflection High quality is attention-grabbing as a result of, whatever the setting, display screen house reflections are enabled for bigger our bodies of water. This is applicable even on Low, which, underneath these situations, seems an identical to Cinematic. Nonetheless, for smaller puddles and another surfaces, reminiscent of wooden and steel, Reflection High quality performs a extra vital position.
For a greater illustration of picture high quality comparisons, try the HUB video beneath:
Cinematic and Very Excessive modes ship steady, higher-resolution, and extra correct reflections on these surfaces. Switching to Excessive reduces the decision noticeably and introduces some visible artifacts. Dropping to Medium additional diminishes reflection accuracy, with Low and Medium trying fairly comparable. There is no such thing as a setting that absolutely switches off reflections.
On the whole gameplay, significantly in areas with few reflections, the impression of this setting is minimal – solely a 1% discount in efficiency when decreasing to Excessive or Medium. Nonetheless, in areas with extra vital reflections, this setting turns into heavier, resulting in a 7% enchancment in efficiency when utilizing Excessive or an 8% enchancment with Medium. The standard of reflections on Excessive is not excellent, so we might suggest avoiding this setting until further efficiency is crucial. In the event you do want extra efficiency, utilizing Excessive could make sense.
Movement Blur
Black Fantasy: Wukong additionally features a movement blur setting, although disabling it has no impression on efficiency. This makes movement blur a private desire setting. We advise utilizing body technology as an alternative of movement blur if you happen to’re trying to simulate a smoother, increased body charge expertise, particularly with a excessive refresh charge show.
Full Ray Tracing Efficiency
The subsequent query we have to reply is whether or not ray tracing is value utilizing on this sport. We’ll begin with the efficiency analysis. On an RTX 4070 Super, and certain on different trendy Nvidia GPUs as effectively, enabling full ray tracing on both the Low or Medium settings solely has a small impression on efficiency relative to the Cinematic mode.
As an illustration, utilizing Low leads to only a 2% efficiency hit, and Medium causes solely a 6% drop. Nonetheless, the Very Excessive setting is way more demanding, lowering the body charge by 28%.
It is because ray tracing replaces the 2 most taxing settings within the sport: Shadows and International Illumination. As an alternative of counting on the extraordinarily performance-intensive Lumen configuration chosen by the builders, full ray tracing in these modes makes use of half-resolution ReSTIR path-traced international illumination and ray-traced shadows.
The Medium setting additionally allows half-resolution reflections. Basically, the sport recovers a major quantity of efficiency by disabling Lumen, which is then used for ray tracing as an alternative.
You may see this when evaluating ray tracing to the Excessive preset. RT on Low or Medium leads to at the least a 30% efficiency drop, and enabling it on Very Excessive – doubling the decision of every impact to “full decision” and including RT Caustics – cuts the body charge in half. So, relative to extra optimized configurations that are not as taxing because the Cinematic preset, ray tracing stays performance-intensive on Nvidia GPUs.
On AMD GPUs, path tracing shouldn’t be a viable choice. Even with full ray tracing on Low, the body charge on the Radeon 7800 XT is halved in comparison with the Cinematic preset, and Very Excessive is exceedingly sluggish. In comparison with the Excessive preset, path tracing causes at the least a 70% efficiency drop, and even at 1440p with upscaling, body charges are poor.
That is possible because of using ReSTIR international illumination, which is enabled in all RT configurations. This system was developed by Nvidia and is optimized for his or her {hardware}. Sadly, you can’t disable ReSTIR and solely use RT shadows or reflections, which is disappointing as different {hardware} configurations might need been in a position to run a extra restricted RT setup.
Ray Tracing Visible High quality
So, how does ray tracing impression the sport’s visuals? It considerably alters the lighting system, usually enhancing the presentation and making the sport look extra correct and lifelike. Shadow high quality is enhanced, with a better decision look, extra pure comfortable falloff relative to the space of the casting object, and higher shadow element additional into the space.
For a greater illustration of picture high quality comparisons, try the HUB video beneath:
The Cinematic preset already options wonderful shadow high quality, so the impression of ray-traced shadows can vary from unnoticeable to a good enchancment. Relative to decrease high quality non-RT shadows, ray tracing affords a considerable improve.
International Illumination can be improved and customarily seems extra correct. Some scenes look noticeably higher, with improved ambient occlusion, extra lifelike lighting, higher contact shadows, and better depth that extra intently mimics actual life. In lots of circumstances, this makes the sport look extra pure and enhances distinction.
Nonetheless, there are some scenes the place the lighting, though extra correct, would possibly subjectively look worse than the Cinematic preset with out full ray tracing. For instance, one scene seems brighter and fewer ‘moody’ with full ray tracing in comparison with the usual UE5 Lumen picture. Usually, although, path tracing has a constructive impression on visuals, as we have additionally seen in video games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Alan Wake 2. Enhancements to each shadows and international illumination are obvious even on the Low ray tracing setting.
Whereas the Very Excessive mode affords barely extra correct and better decision lighting than the Medium and Low modes, the distinction shouldn’t be substantial sufficient to justify utilizing it solely for improved lighting.
For a greater illustration of picture high quality comparisons, try the HUB video beneath:
The Medium and Very Excessive modes allow ray-traced reflections, with half-resolution in Medium and full decision in Very Excessive. The pre-release construct of the sport we accessed had a bug the place Medium reflections seem very blurry, which we have been advised shouldn’t be consultant of the ultimate sport.
Very Excessive reflections are extra correct than Cinematic display screen house reflections and replicate extra of the scene, together with objects outdoors the sphere of view. Nonetheless, even on Very Excessive, these reflections can seem grainier than Cinematic reflections, particularly on rippling water.
Just like the non-ray-traced reflections, enabling RT reflections additionally improves reflections on different surfaces all through the sport world.
One factor we seen is that ray tracing on Low can truly produce worse reflections than having ray tracing disabled. In some conditions, this setting leads to no seen reflections the place they’d be current with out RT, whereas in others, the reflections seem inaccurate, usually reflecting an excessive amount of of the sky. This difficulty is not current in all scenes and could possibly be a bug.
Lastly, Very Excessive RT additionally allows ray traced caustics, which will be seen in some shallow swimming pools and puddles however solely has a small impression on visible high quality for probably the most half.
In the event you plan on utilizing the very best Cinematic preset, enabling Full Ray Tracing on Medium is sensible, because it leads to a small efficiency hit for improved lighting high quality. Very Excessive is more durable to justify for all however the quickest GPUs. Nonetheless, if you happen to’re aiming for a extra optimized expertise and weren’t simply going to blast the highest presets, the efficiency hit from ray tracing is extra vital and it will not be an acceptable selection for a lot of mid-range GPU house owners.
At 1440p, we discovered that GPUs beneath the RTX 4070 Tremendous aren’t highly effective sufficient to run this configuration successfully, even with DLSS upscaling and body technology.
Beneficial and Optimized Settings
Listed here are our optimized settings. The excellent news is that you would be able to considerably enhance efficiency with out a lot impression on visuals by adjusting simply three settings. We suggest turning Shadow High quality, International Illumination High quality, and Hair High quality right down to Excessive for these in search of a high-quality visible expertise, whereas preserving all the pieces else on Cinematic.
For added efficiency, decreasing a variety of different settings to Excessive or Medium is the very best strategy, whereas some settings have little efficiency impression and will stay on Cinematic. In the event you plan to make use of full ray tracing, we advise utilizing our quality-optimized settings and enabling RT on Medium – offered the blurry reflections are fastened within the last launch.
| Setting | TechSpot High quality | TechSpot Efficiency | TechSpot High quality + RT | TechSpot Efficiency + RT |
| View Distance High quality | Cinematic | Medium | Cinematic | Medium |
| Anti-Aliasing High quality | Cinematic | Cinematic | Cinematic | Cinematic |
| Submit-Results High quality | Cinematic | Cinematic | Cinematic | Cinematic |
| Shadow High quality | Excessive | Excessive | Excessive | Excessive |
| Texture High quality | Cinematic | Cinematic | Cinematic | Cinematic |
| Visible Impact High quality | Cinematic | Cinematic | Cinematic | Cinematic |
| Hair High quality | Excessive | Medium | Excessive | Medium |
| Vegetation High quality | Cinematic | Excessive | Cinematic | Excessive |
| International Illumination High quality | Excessive | Medium | Excessive | Medium |
| Reflection High quality | Cinematic | Excessive | Cinematic | Excessive |
| Movement Blur | Tune to Liking (or use Body Era) |
Tune to Liking (or use Body Era) |
Tune to Liking (or use Body Era) |
Tune to Liking (or use Body Era) |
| Full Ray Tracing | Off | Off | Medium | Medium |
From a efficiency standpoint, utilizing these optimized settings leads to at the least a 50% efficiency enchancment in comparison with the Cinematic preset, with solely an 8% discount relative to the Excessive preset.
For a extra performance-oriented configuration, these settings delivered over 80% extra efficiency, putting them between the included Excessive and Medium modes. Nonetheless, enabling ray tracing with our optimized configuration led to a 35% efficiency discount, turning a roughly 90 FPS expertise into 60 FPS. This implies it brings 60 FPS right down to round 40 FPS – possible solely an choice for high-end Nvidia GPU house owners.
These optimized settings scale back the standard of shadows and international illumination whereas preserving the wealthy, dense, and dynamic sport world supplied by different Cinematic settings. Whereas the lighting high quality is not as robust as at most settings, it nonetheless retains a lot of the sport’s ambiance and design. In comparison with the Excessive preset, you are getting comparable lighting high quality however with a major enchancment in world density and dynamism, which will be restored at near-Cinematic ranges with solely a small hit to visuals.
The TechSpot performance-optimized settings supply a balanced combine, together with most textures and higher ranges of element than the Medium preset, in addition to superior shadows. In some ways, this configuration resembles the Excessive preset however with a few 10% efficiency enchancment and almost a 20% acquire over our quality-optimized settings.
There was some criticism of Black Fantasy: Wukong, with claims that the sport is “unoptimized” based mostly on the performance seen in our GPU benchmark article utilizing the Cinematic preset. Nonetheless, we do not consider that is the case in any respect. The sport affords substantial scalability, with in-game settings permitting for a full vary – from path tracing to low-end “potato high quality” lighting.
Sure, the Cinematic preset is tough to run, however that additionally brings with it visible advantages – and you’ll certainly obtain a lot better body charges by adjusting comparatively few settings. The flexibility to play a visually gorgeous sport on high-end {hardware}, a great-looking sport on mid-range {hardware}, and a sport that runs on low-end {hardware} is strictly what PC avid gamers ought to count on.
The Excessive preset, and even the Medium preset at occasions, look pretty much as good because the Extremely preset in different video games. It is a good reminder that the title of the preset is not what issues – avid gamers should not be afraid of utilizing “Excessive” as an alternative of “Extremely” and nonetheless having an awesome expertise.
That being mentioned, if you’d like the very best visible expertise this sport has to supply, it’s fairly performance-intensive and requires high-end {hardware}. The trail tracing mode seems unbelievable, however we’re nonetheless a number of years away from that stage of visible high quality being possible on mainstream GPUs.
It is a sport that advantages considerably from not utilizing upscaling or body technology, at the least when it comes to visuals
There are a number of different issues we have seen about Black Fantasy: Wukong based mostly on our time enjoying the sport. First, this can be a sport that advantages considerably from not utilizing upscaling or body technology, at the least when it comes to visuals. We suspect most gamers will use DLSS, FSR, or XeSS to enhance efficiency, however the density of the world, heavy use of foliage and grass, and general element imply that native rendering seems finest.
For instance, utilizing DLAA is crisper, much less blurry in movement, and fewer grainy, but it surely’s usually not possible from a efficiency perspective. Equally, whereas body technology smooths out the visible presentation – serving to the sport look higher when the bottom render charge is round 60 FPS – fight is comparatively fast-paced, and body technology can introduce some grain and shimmering throughout movement.
We’re not suggesting that you simply should not use upscaling and body technology – they are often very helpful relying in your base body charge, they usually have been our most well-liked option to play. Nonetheless, this sport serves as a superb instance of how, when visuals are pushed to their limits, native rendering can ship higher outcomes. This sport goes to look unimaginable on a future RTX 6090 maxed out with out upscaling – higher than it does now with upscaling tech in use.
Secondly, there are a number of notable omissions and areas the place developer Recreation Science might enhance the PC expertise. Presently, the sport doesn’t help HDR, at the least within the preview construct we performed, and we consider it might look even higher with HDR on a correct HDR show. Whereas somebody might discover a option to unlock HDR help on condition that it is an Unreal Engine sport and UE5 helps HDR, it undoubtedly must be up to date to help HDR on PC natively.
The sport can be usually oversharpened and may gain advantage from extra management over the sharpness stage, which turns into significantly problematic after Chapter 1. Moreover, we’d have preferred extra management over particular person ray tracing options and the inclusion of a higher-quality texture pack, although the latter could also be optimistic as it might require vital growth effort. All the opposite enhancements could possibly be carried out via patches.
As an Unreal Engine 5 sport, there’s additionally some traversal stutter, even when enjoying on high-end {hardware}. There’s a shader compilation go at launch, and whereas the sport does not stutter persistently, there are occasional hitches when transferring between areas. We doubt that is Recreation Science’s fault although, it appears to be simply how Unreal Engine is.
Total, this is without doubt one of the best-looking video games you possibly can play on PC, and we have had numerous enjoyable with it. The fight is pleasant, and there are various attention-grabbing boss battles as you progress via the world. Whereas we primarily targeted on Chapter 1 within the forest areas, the sport options many various biomes that convey selection and hold issues attention-grabbing. Some areas most likely do not look fairly as good however we’re positive you possibly can say the identical for many different video games.
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