With the review embargo lifted for Crimson Desert, we can now share a detailed PC performance analysis. Built on the Blackspace Engine, the game was benchmarked using an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB DDR5 RAM, and a range of GPUs including AMD’s Radeon RX 6900XT, RX 7900XTX, RX 9070XT, and NVIDIA’s RTX 2080Ti, 3080, 4090, 5080, and 5090, running Windows 10 64-bit with GeForce 595.76 and Radeon Adrenalin 26.2.2 drivers.

Crimson Desert offers extensive graphics options for models, shadows, textures, lighting, and more, with support for NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 and AMD FSR 3.1. Notably, DLSS 4.5 includes a new Preset L setting across all modes, though Intel XeSS 2.0 is not supported.

Figure 1. Crimson Desert

Since the game lacks a built-in benchmark tool, testing was performed in the starting area, which proved more demanding than later sections of the prologue, providing a reliable indication of overall performance on PC. Figure 1 shows Crimson Desert.

For benchmarking, Ultra and Cinematic Settings automatically enable Ray Tracing, while the Max Lighting Setting incurs a significant performance cost. Cinematic Settings were used for 1080p, 1440p, and 4K tests, and Max Settings were used for DLSS 4 benchmarks.

At 1080p/Cinematic Settings, the top six GPUs—including the AMD Radeon RX 6900XT and NVIDIA RTX 3080—delivered smooth 60FPS gameplay, with the RTX 3080 performing best on a G-Sync monitor. At 1440p, the top five GPUs consistently exceeded 60FPS. At native 4K/Cinematic Settings with Ray Tracing, only the NVIDIA RTX 4090 and RTX 5090 maintained a stable 60FPS.

Scaling tests on the RTX 5090 at 4K revealed minimal performance differences between Ultra, High, and Medium presets, indicating the GPU was fully utilized and not CPU-limited. Significant performance gains were only observed when dropping settings to Low or Minimum.

In Crimson Desert, Ray Tracing (RT) has an unusually small performance impact, sometimes only 3–4FPS, and in certain areas can even outperform the rasterized version [1]. RT improves global illumination and visual fidelity, but the game suffers from notable visual issues, including heavy grass ghosting and severe pop-ins of shadows and lights. NVIDIA Ray Reconstruction or AMD Ray Regeneration can mitigate ghosting, but only on compatible GPUs.

Despite these issues, Crimson Desert excels in environmental effects, such as wind, weather, and destruction physics, giving the world a more dynamic feel. Character visuals, however, lag behind other Unreal Engine 5 titles, and pop-ins indicate corners were cut to optimize performance.

DLSS 4 is recommended over DLSS 4.5, as the latter suffers from flickering. DLSS 4.0 Frame Generation works reasonably well but can show artifacts during rapid camera movement. Ray Reconstruction improves image quality with RT but may introduce flickering. Pearl Abyss has been informed of these issues, which may be addressed in post-launch updates.

References:

1. https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/crimson-desert-benchmarks-pc-performance-analysis/

Cite this article:

Janani R (2025), Crimson Desert Gaming Performance Analysis, AnaTechMaz, pp. 406