Borderlands 4 launched final week to huge numbers and largely optimistic evaluations on Steam. However there’s been lots of chatter and debate on-line concerning the looter shooter’s efficiency. Some gamers aren’t pleased that Borderlands 4 seemingly requires DLSS and body era to run decently, even on the highest-end {hardware}. In the meantime, Gearbox co-founder and CEO Randy Pitchford has defended the sport’s efficiency, calling it “pretty damn optimal,” and steered individuals want to make use of the “instruments” offered by the studio and settle for some trade-offs.
On PC, many video games can make the most of real-time upscaling tech, like Nvidia’s DLSS and AMD’s FSR. Nvidia and others have additionally created instruments that permit your GPU to fill within the gaps between actual frames rendered by the sport with frames generated utilizing deep studying tech. When this type of tech was first launched about six years in the past or so, gamers complained that DLSS and different instruments made video games look blurry, even when it led to some efficiency boosts. As DLSS and comparable tech have improved, the photographs produced seemed have higher and higher. At the moment, DLSS 4.0 can produce some actually sharp-looking frames and supply some huge efficiency good points, assuming you have got a strong sufficient video card.
However some, myself included, have began to develop involved that studios are constructing video games round DLSS and different comparable tech, and aren’t optimizing them in the way in which devs did prior to now. When DLSS was launched, it felt like an important software for players who had a barely older card however nonetheless needed to play a more moderen recreation. It could allow them to squeeze out a bit extra efficiency with out shelling out for an expensive improve. Now it looks like newer video games working on extra superior engines require customers to activate DLSS and body gen to play. And so enters Borderlands 4, a recreation that has discovered itself on the middle of this heated debate.
Shortly after Borderlands 4 launched, gamers on PC started to complain that the sport didn’t run very effectively. Gearbox responded with some updates that, no less than in my expertise with the sport on PC, helped a bit. The company also released a guide from Nvidia for the best way to optimize the sport primarily based in your GPU and settings. And whereas that helped some attain higher efficiency on PC, many others, myself included, had been struggling to get the sport to run effectively on highly effective {hardware}. I’m rocking a 5080, and even enjoying the sport at 1080p on medium settings led to tons of FPS drops, even whereas making an attempt to play at 60FPS. That each one modified after I did as Gearbox and Nvidia counsel and turned on DLSS and body gen. Now, I can run Borderlands 4 at a largely locked 120 with most settings set to excessive and medium. It appears to be like good and performs superb, however many aren’t okay with a recreation in 2025 being unable to run on high-end {hardware} with out some upscaling help.
Not serving to issues is the truth that Randy Pitchford posted, as part of a recent and lengthy thread on Twitter, that folks ought to use DLSS as a result of it’s “nice” and added: “The game was built to take advantage of it.” That, and a special a part of the thread claiming it was acceptable for devs to give attention to “default settings” reaching solely 30FPS, didn’t go over effectively with lots of PC players who particularly purchase new components and improve their rigs to realize excessive framerates at excessive resolutions. For a lot of, Pitchford’s declare that Borderlands 4 was developed to “take benefit” of DLSS was him confirming that it was constructed with the belief that almost all customers would use DLSS. And that, to some, sounds so much like the sport wasn’t correctly optimized to run with out assist from DLSS and body era.
Whereas I do agree that newer DLSS and body gen instruments are highly effective and spectacular, it feels bizarre that Borderlands 4, together with different video games like Alan Wake 2, demand that even customers with the highest-end {hardware} lean on upscaling tech to play at first rate settings and traditionally in style framerates like 120. In a latest video, the tech consultants over at Digital Foundry weren’t impressed with Borderlands 4 on PC, with one even saying: “[Borderlands 4] does appear to be working worse than ordinary for an Unreal Engine 5 recreation. It’s under the place it looks like it needs to be given how different video games utilizing this engine carry out.”
Pitchford has promised on Twitter that extra updates are coming, together with some extra enhancements to how the sport runs on PC. He’s additionally been spending lots of time on-line helping people improve how Borderlands 4 runs and claiming that performance issues are not as widespread as some may make you imagine. Personally, I simply miss when video games may run on a high-end laptop full of highly effective {hardware} without having 4 totally different upscaling instruments. And it seems I’m not alone.
