Sucker Punch delivered top-of-the-line open-worlds of the final technology with Ghost of Tsushima, and Jin Sakai’s story of revenge and redemption is one which followers are unlikely to neglect months and years after rolling the credit. The sport has lastly made its method to the PC platform, courtesy of PlayStation’s in-house porter Nixxes Software program.
However Ghost of Tsushima was all the time constructed as a console-first product with its proprietary sport engine and associated instruments, so how has the transition to a international platform been for the developer? How does it carry out on our check {hardware} and the way constant does the efficiency stay throughout completely different check situations? To that finish, we current a complete graphics evaluation of Ghost of Tsushima on PC.
Check PC Specs and Graphics Choices
Ghost of Tsushima’s PC model requires not less than a Core i3 7100 (or equal) CPU together with Nvidia’s Geforce GTX 960 4GB and eight GB of RAM, and it recommends a Core i5 8600, RTX 2060, and 16 GB in case you want to run it at a mixture of medium and excessive settings at a decent decision. These necessities would possibly appear to be a bit on the upper finish contemplating the sport got here out in 2020 for PS4, however they aren’t too computationally costly both for the port to be known as unoptimized. And also you even have to think about the truth that it is a port of the Director’s Minimize which was launched for the PS5, so there’s that too.
As for our check bench, we examined the sport on a system comprising an AMD Ryzen 5950X, an Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti, and 32 GB RAM which is nicely over what the sport recommends. We additionally took observe to put in the sport on an NVME PCI e 4.0 SSD to make sure a extra balanced comparability for loading occasions between PC and PS5.
Beginning issues off with the graphics menu, Ghost of Tsushima on PC supplies a slew of various sliders to tinker round with and discover the proper stability between efficiency and stability on your {hardware}. Every thing from the extent of element to the feel high quality and SSR will be adjusted in keeping with your necessities, and you may take a look at the refined variations on the fly within the background rendering of the sword and the flower subject.
Nixxes Software program has carried out a advantageous job including quality-of-life options like a FoV slider, DLSS upscaling choices, and body technology choices to make having fun with the sport extra possible throughout all kinds of {hardware}. Given our check bench specs, we had been in a position to crank our settings on extremely at a decision of 4K. We switched on VSync to attenuate display screen tearing, and we additionally set Dynamic Decision Scaling to 60.
PC Model And PS5: What’s New?
Along with our PC maxed-out model, we additionally examined the sport on PS5 working in Decision mode to identify the variations. Unsurprisingly, the sport largely stays the identical throughout each platforms – however it is possible for you to to note a number of variations right here and there in case you take the effort and time to peep in carefully.
Check out the beginning cutscene the place the Mongol ships are marching into the homeland of Tsushima. The extent of element throughout each platforms is identical, however the PC model inches forward by way of the dynamic vary with moonlit areas being darker whereas the Mongol ships adorned with torches are brighter than on the PS5. This may very well be a direct results of increased high quality bloom on PS5 or higher ambient occlusion (we’re utilizing the XeGTAO implementation).
Character fashions additionally look marginally crisper on the PC than on the PS5, and that distinction appears to be stemming from a better polycount finances on the PC than on the previous. Publish-processing results like alpha particles coming from sparks or fireplace ashes are additionally higher trying on the PC than the PS5’s Decision mode, and you will discover comparable iterative variations throughout each variations. World streaming works fairly nicely with an appropriately excessive draw distance that’s corresponding to the PS5 model, and the extent of element swapping occurs easily with out a lot seen artifacts.
Ghost of Tsushima doesn’t characteristic any radical adjustments by way of the rendering pipeline on the PC model. Ray tracing is noticeably absent right here (as was the case with the PS5’s Director Minimize), and we get to see the identical display screen area reflections and GI implementation as the bottom launch. To not counsel that it appears to be like unhealthy by any stretch, removed from it. You see, the fantastic thing about Ghost of Tsushima’s world is basically derived from its placing artwork path and never simply from the uncooked technical grunt of the underlying {hardware}, and it appears to be like simply as gorgeous proper now because it did a few years in the past.
We additionally seen a bizarre bug on the PC model the place cutscenes can have a component of blur, however hopefully, that must be mounted with a post-launch patch. Taking a short comparability by way of quick journey load occasions, the PS5 model of the sport takes about 1 to 2 seconds to quick journey from one level on the map to the opposite because of Sucker Punch’s masterful use of the PS5’s SSD. Alternatively, the PC model takes nearly 2-3 seconds in between quick journey which ensures a equally snappy consumer expertise. Nixxes Software program appears to be making nice use of Home windows DirectStorage API to save lots of up on load occasions, so your expertise would possibly range relying on the storage gadget you employ for the sport.
How is the efficiency on PC?
Coming over to the efficiency facet of issues, Ghost of Tsushima on PC supplies a reasonably steady expertise general. Given our check bench and maxed-out settings, Ghost of Tsushima carried out extraordinarily nicely throughout a bunch of various situations starting from free roam throughout picturesque landscapes to intense fight encounters and the whole lot in between.
Throughout our exams, the body price caught fairly carefully to the 60fps goal, and drops beneath that threshold had been fairly uncommon. Our RTX 3080Ti was in a position to maintain its floor fairly nicely by way of rendering, and we didn’t discover any aggressive decision setbacks throughout our exams.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Ghost of Tsushima on PC is yet one more wonderful port from the workforce over at Nixxes Software program. Regardless of being optimized on proprietary tech initially constructed for consoles, the workforce was in a position to create a stable PC model full with the choices and adaptability that one would need out of such an expertise. Ghost of Tsushima on PC flaunts some spectacular scalability, and it carried out very well in our exams.
Whereas the enhancements are of an iterative nature versus radical, Ghost of Tsushima on PC does include new choices like DLSS assist and body technology to assist with efficiency. It’s additionally a testomony to Nixxes’ acumen in constructing PC ports that it was in a position to keep away from widespread pitfalls equivalent to lengthy shader compilation and inefficient load occasions which is one thing that has plagued some earlier PlayStation ports like Horizon Zero Daybreak and The Final of Us Half 1.