As we get closer to the March 17th release date for open-world title Crimson Desert, more details about how well it performs on the PS5 Pro have been revealed courtesy of Digital Foundry. In a new video that comes in at just shy of 30 minutes in length, Digital Foundry dives deep into the title’s performance on the console, as well as all of the various options it offers to fine tune its performance and visuals.
The PS5 Pro version of Crimson Desert will offer players a choice between three distinct modes: Performance, Balanced, and Quality. Performance targets 60 FPS with VSync or over 60 with variable refresh rate displays, high-quality raytracing, and 1080p visuals upscaled to 4K. Balanced, on the other hand, aims at upscaling 1440p to 4K while maintaining high raytracing and targeting 40 FPS with Vsync or over 48 FPS with variable refresh rate. Quality will lock the frame rate at 30 FPS with 4K resolution without any upscaling and ultra-quality raytracing. The image upscaling in Performance and Balanced modes are handled by Sony’s own PSSR.
In the analysis video, Digital Foundry’s John Linneman referred to Crimson Desert as “a stunning game”. When it comes to performance, while Digital Foundry has noted that it is still waiting for the full release before it makes any judgment call, the title’s Performance mode is noted as “putting up a good fight” in its attempts to hit the 60 FPS frame rate target. “I was surprised by how good it was overall,” Linneman said before noting that areas or scenes with large crowds, be it NPCs or enemies, tend to cause the frame rate to drop. One particularly busy area even brought the frame rate down as low as 30 FPS.
When it comes to visuals, Linneman noted that, while Pearl Abyss aims to use a more modern version of PSSR for its image upscaling, the build tested by Digital Foundry was still running on an older version of PSSR, which led to poorer image quality. “Apparently PSSR 2 is planned for launch, but in its current state, I can’t really judge image quality yet, aside to say that the usual PSSR artifacts are indeed visible with smearing around foliage and some raytracing noise being the most obvious,” he explained. “It’ll be very interesting to see how this changes with the upgraded PSSR.”
As for getting to test out the PS5 Pro version, in a statement to IGN, Digital Foundry chief Richard Leadbetter spoke about Pearl Abyss offering the chance “with no limitations on what we could cover.”
“My main concern was not so much about graphics but on demands on the CPU,” he said. “Yes, it can be demanding, but overall performance across the three modes is impressive. But more impressive is really what this game is about — the scale and the scope and the systems-driven open world. The high-end PC experience scales well to PS5 Pro and we’re looking forward to seeing the other console versions.”
Crimson Desert is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more, here are 15 details that have us excited.
