Overview
Crimson Desert runs on Pearl Abyss's proprietary BlackSpace Engine, which features advanced rendering techniques including ray-traced global illumination, stochastic path tracing, and real-time color bleeding. The game supports five graphics presets and a range of upscaling technologies to scale across different hardware configurations.
Graphics Presets
Five graphics presets are available, each progressively enabling more demanding visual features.
Preset | Key Features |
|---|---|
Low | Baseline visual settings. Reduced shadow quality, simplified global illumination, and lower particle density. |
Medium | Improved shadow quality and texture detail. Standard post-processing effects. |
High | Higher resolution shadows, improved view distance, and enhanced post-processing. |
Ultra | Enables Advanced Weather Effects and Ray Tracing. High particle quality. The 4K/60 FPS demo used this preset. |
Cinematic | The highest preset. Enables full path tracing with multiple secondary bounces. The most demanding visual mode. |
At the press preview event, Pearl Abyss demonstrated the game running at native 4K with 60 FPS on the Ultra preset (not even the highest setting), using an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX.
Ray Tracing
The BlackSpace Engine uses stochastic path tracing based on Monte Carlo methods to simulate realistic lighting. Ray tracing is enabled by default at the Ultra preset level and includes several advanced features.
Ray-traced diffuse Global Illumination: Per-pixel lighting applied to all light sources including indoor torches, with multiple secondary bounces (Multi-Bounce) for indirect lighting.
Ray-traced reflections: Combined with screen-space reflections at varying distances for accurate surface reflections.
Real-time Color Bleeding: Objects affect nearby surfaces with their color in real time. For example, a red cloak casts a reddish tint on nearby gray stone.
Path tracing (Cinematic preset): Full path tracing mode with dense volumetric fog and multiple light source interactions. The most visually impressive but most demanding mode.
Upscaling Technologies
NVIDIA DLSS
Crimson Desert launches with day-one support for NVIDIA's full DLSS stack. NVIDIA officially announced the game's DLSS 4 support alongside other upcoming titles.
Feature | Hardware Requirement | Description |
|---|---|---|
DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation | RTX 50 Series | Latest generation upscaling with multi-frame generation for maximum performance gains. |
DLSS Frame Generation | RTX 40 Series | AI-generated intermediate frames to boost frame rates. |
DLSS Super Resolution | All RTX GPUs | AI-driven upscaling from lower internal resolutions. |
DLSS Ray Reconstruction | All RTX GPUs | Enhances ray-traced effects with reduced noise and improved stability. |
DLAA | All RTX GPUs | Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing at native resolution for maximum image quality. |
AMD FSR Redstone
Crimson Desert is the second game (after Call of Duty: Black Ops 7) to support AMD FSR Redstone, the latest upscaling suite optimized for AMD Radeon RX 9000 series (RDNA 4) GPUs. The full FSR Redstone suite includes four components.
Component | Description |
|---|---|
FSR 4.0 Super Resolution | AI-driven upscaling technology. |
ML Frame Generation | Machine learning frame synthesis for higher frame rates. |
Ray Regeneration | Machine learning denoiser for ray tracing. Produces more stable, less noisy ray-traced reflections and shadows. |
Neural Radiance Caching | Speeds up intensive lighting calculations using neural networks. |
PlayStation PSSR 2
On PS5 Pro, Crimson Desert supports PSSR 2 (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution), enabling the game to reach 4K resolutions at higher frame rates. The PlayStation Blog confirmed several PS5 Pro enhancements on March 4, 2026.
High CPU Frequency Mode: Heavily utilized to make traversal across the open world as seamless as possible.
Geometry Shader Oversubscription and NGG Culling: Used to render large numbers of elements without losing visual detail.
Ray tracing: Enabled on PS5 Pro for more realistic and natural lighting effects.
SSD streaming: Leveraged for long draw distances across the open world.
Individual Graphics Options
Beyond the five presets, the following individual settings have been identified from preview builds and optimization coverage.
Setting | Notes |
|---|---|
Shadow Quality | Low, Medium, High, Ultra. Reportedly the most impactful setting for performance. |
Global Illumination | Adjustable. Lower settings use screen-space alternatives instead of ray tracing. |
Texture Quality | High and Ultra options. Low FPS impact; 8 GB+ VRAM recommended for Ultra textures. |
View Distance | High and Ultra options. |
Particle Quality | Scales up to 100. |
Advanced Weather Effects | Enabled at Ultra preset and above. |
Ray Tracing | Toggle. Enabled at Ultra preset and above. |
Anti-Aliasing | TAA confirmed. SSAA available but demanding. DLAA for RTX users at native resolution. |
Post-Processing Effects | Adjustable. |
V-Sync | On/Off toggle. No hard frame rate cap on PC. |
PC Performance Benchmarks
The following benchmarks come from the March 2026 press preview event, where Pearl Abyss deliberately chose a previous-generation GPU to demonstrate the engine's optimization.
Configuration | Settings | Result |
|---|---|---|
Ryzen 9 7900X3D + RX 7900 XTX | Native 4K, Ultra, Ray Tracing ON | Approximately 60 FPS |
Ryzen 9850X3D + RX 9070 XT | Native 4K, Path Tracing (Cinematic-level) | Approximately 40-50 FPS |
Digital Foundry noted that the game runs "quite differently than a lot of Unreal Engine games would run at native 4K," highlighting the BlackSpace Engine's efficient rendering pipeline.
PC System Requirements
The following system requirements are listed on the official Steam store page.
Component | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
OS | Windows 10 64-bit | Windows 10 64-bit |
CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 2600X / Intel Core i5-8500 | AMD Ryzen 5 5600 / Intel Core i5-11600K |
RAM | 16 GB | 16 GB |
GPU | AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT / NVIDIA GTX 1060 | AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT / NVIDIA RTX 2080 |
DirectX | Version 12 | Version 12 |
Storage | 135 GB SSD (required) | 135 GB SSD (required) |
Minimum specs target approximately 1080p at medium settings. Recommended specs target 1080p/1440p at higher settings. An SSD is required for both tiers.
Console Performance
PS5 Pro
The PS5 Pro version features PSSR 2 upscaling, ray tracing, and High CPU Frequency Mode, targeting 4K at higher frame rates. DualSense features include haptic feedback for weapon clashes, parries, and heavy hits, with adaptive triggers adding resistance to actions like drawing a bowstring.
Base PS5
The base PS5 version is expected to include Quality and Performance display modes. Specific frame rate targets and resolution details have not been officially confirmed by Pearl Abyss as of March 2026. All press preview sessions were conducted on PC hardware.
Xbox Series X|S
No official performance targets have been disclosed for Xbox consoles. Pearl Abyss has acknowledged that Xbox Series S optimization is a challenging task for the engine.
AMD Partnership
AMD and Pearl Abyss have an official partnership for Crimson Desert. A co-branded Sapphire NITRO+ RX 9070 XT Crimson Desert Edition GPU was released in February 2026 featuring custom artwork. AMD also offers a free copy of Crimson Desert with qualifying Ryzen and Radeon purchases as part of a game bundle promotion running from February 10 to April 25, 2026.