Will Death Stranding set a standard for PC port Optimization?

As mentioned earlier here, a PC port has finally arrived of Death Stranding. There was a lot of hype surrounding its release. Now that the game has been released, let's look at the performance of the PC port.

The Do's and Not's of the game

The developers have really outdone themselves with the optimization of the PC port. The game delivers 60 frames and beyond as compared to the console version which only delivers 30 frames. The game also supports HDR making it one of the few games which support the feature. The HDR feature adds to the visual fidelity of an already visually appealing game.

However, the camera Field Of View control is not on par with other games. Although the game already has a pretty high FOV, still Kojima Studios have maintained some artistic control over the gamer's flexibility.

Then, you can only choose from fixed Resolution with no in-between. You can only choose the 720p, 1080p, 1440p or 2160p resolutions. Also, the game will only run at the refresh rate of the desktop. You have no control over choosing your own in-game refresh rate. So if you need to change the refresh rate you need to change your desktop refresh rate and the game will detect that automatically

Moreover, you can choose from 30,60 all the way up to 240 fps. However, the cutscenes are locked at 60 FPS and they even dip to 30 FPS at some points.

Death Stranding comes with your standard tweak settings of shadow resolution, texture streaming size, model quality, depth of field, screen-space ambient occlusion or motion blur. Anti-Aliasing tweaking is there as well.

The thing that really sets the game apart from the console version and other PC games is DLSS 2.0. Yes, Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling technology is supported by the game and is available for all RTX GPU owners. They will enjoy the game's visual fidelity the most of all the PC gamers playing the game.

Nevertheless, if you don't have an RTX GPU that doesn't mean that you can't enjoy the game. The game gives you the option of AMD contrast adaptive sharpening, which works on GPUs from all vendor. However, there are limitations to CAS and DLSS is the sweet spot if you want to experience the game's visual fidelity in its full glory.

GPU comparison

A 2080Ti gains a 38 per cent jump when you're running the game at 4K res with DLSS on. An RX 5700 performs well at 2K and the RX 580 is the 1080p champion while the GTX 1060 gives around 50-60 FPS. Anything below that would need considerable tweaking to attain the 60 FPS sweet spot.

Verdict

The overall requirements of the game are above that of the average PC. However, the game really has set the bar high for a console to pc port conversion. The Decima Engine performs great and Kojima studios have really made good use of it.

Let us know in the comment section your experience with Death Stranding. We'd love to hear from you!

Horizon Zero Dawn is also coming to PC next month on 7th August, so the PC gaming scene is getting pretty interesting. Stay tuned for a review of Horizon Zero Dawn as well. Will be writing in-depth about it too.