Loading...
Loading...
Performance and Graphics Settings
March 13, 2026 at 08:44 PM
Added Digital Foundry PS5 Pro hands-on findings, clarified DLSS 4.5 vs 4.0, added FSR Redstone Ray Regeneration, AMD native 4K benchmarks, base PS5/Xbox status
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. A former Pearl Abyss developer has claimed the BlackSpace Engine is "on a completely different level than your typical mass-produced Unreal Engine 5 games."
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.
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.
Feature | Description |
|---|---|
Ray-traced diffuse GI | 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) | Full path tracing mode with dense volumetric fog and multiple light source interactions. The most visually impressive but most demanding mode. |
Crimson Desert launches with day-one support for NVIDIA's full DLSS stack. An optimized GeForce 595.79 WHQL driver was released alongside the game. 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. |
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. AMD's answer to DLSS Ray Reconstruction. |
Neural Radiance Caching | Speeds up intensive lighting calculations using neural networks. |
On PS5 Pro, Crimson Desert supports PSSR (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. These include High CPU Frequency Mode (heavily utilized for seamless open-world traversal), Geometry Shader Oversubscription and NGG Culling (used to render large numbers of elements without losing visual detail), ray tracing for more realistic and natural lighting effects, and SSD streaming leveraged for long draw distances across the open world.
The macOS version uses Apple's MetalFX Upscaling for AI-driven resolution scaling, MetalFX Frame Generation for intermediate frame synthesis, and MetalFX Denoiser for cleaning up ray-traced effects at lower computational cost. M3 and M4 family chips support hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading.
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. |
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.
Digital Foundry's John Linneman described Crimson Desert as "a stunning game" after testing the PS5 Pro version. The PS5 Pro offers three display modes using PSSR upscaling: 4K at 30 FPS (Quality), 1440p at 40 FPS (Balanced), and 1080p at 60 FPS (Performance).
In Performance mode, Linneman said it "surprised" him "with how good it was overall." With VRR enabled, some areas reached 70 FPS. However, the frame rate dips in areas with larger crowds involving many NPCs, and dropped "significantly" during one early game battle into the 30 FPS region, though this was described as "not the norm at all" for the game.
One noted concern was the PS5 Pro build's use of an older version of PSSR, which led to some image quality issues. Pearl Abyss aims to use a more modern version of PSSR in future updates. Digital Foundry praised Pearl Abyss for "adding detail to every corner of the vast open world" and highlighted the ray-traced diffuse global illumination as a standout feature, with sunlight bouncing naturally across surfaces and illuminating interiors.
As of March 14, 2026 (five days before launch), Pearl Abyss has not released base PS5 or Xbox Series X|S performance footage. Only PS5 Pro and PC footage has been shown publicly. Pearl Abyss Marketing Director Will Powers stated: "Regardless of what we say, people probably won't believe us. So instead we're sending the game to Digital Foundry, and they'll have a full analysis of performance across all the platforms at launch." Base PS5 and Xbox Series X|S use AMD FSR 3 for upscaling rather than PSSR.
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.
