Ember Lab has just released Kena: Bridge of Spirits on PC. Powered by Unreal Engine 4, this game looks absolutely glorious on the PC. However, it’s also a really demanding game as an NVIDIA RTX3080 cannot run it with 60fps in 4K/Ultra.
As always, and before publishing our PC Performance Analysis, we’ve decided to capture some 4K/Ultra screenshots. In order to capture these screenshots, we used an Intel i9 9900K with 16GB of DDR4 at 3600Mhz and NVIDIA’s RTX 3080. We also used Windows 10 64-bit, the GeForce 472.12 driver. Additionally, we’ve included MSI Afterburner which will give you an idea of the in-game performance.
Now let’s start with some good news. Kena: Bridge of Spirits is one of the most beautiful games we’ve seen on PC. It’s definitely a showcase of what Unreal Engine 4 can achieve. Keep also in mind that Ember Lab is a small studio. It’s not as big as, let’s say, 343 Industries, Rockstar, or Ubisoft (to name a few). And yet, Ember Lab has managed to create one of the best-looking games on PC. And for that, we have to congratulate it.
As you can see, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX3080 has trouble running the game in 4K/Ultra. In DX12, there are numerous drops to mid-50s, and some fewer drops to 49-50fps. This game really needs a high-end GPU for gaming at 4K/Ultra.
Unfortunately, and despite using Unreal Engine 4, Kena does not support DLSS. We strongly believe that this game would benefit from NVIDIA’s tech, so here is hoping that Ember Lab will add support for it via a post-launch update.
Our PC Performance Analysis for this game will go live later this week, so stay tuned for more!
UPDATE
We’ve decided to slightly change the title. The aforementioned tests and screenshots were in DX12. However, DX11 appears to be running by 10fps faster in 4K/Ultra. There are still some drops below 60fps, however, there aren’t any drops to the low-50s anymore. Unfortunately, though, frametimes are better in DX12 than in DX11. In DX11 we noticed some additional micro-stutters. So while framerates are better in DX11, the overall experience is smoother in DX12.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
What do you think a 6-8 hour game should cost? Is $40 to much?
Hard to say honestly, i value indies games so i give them a little leway, specially if they have a unique art style or gameplay, but a game that is indie and go for that Epic money loses a lot of it’s value in my eyes.
I don’t think we should value games based on their length. Look at vanquish, it is the most riveting and satisfying 4 hours you’ll ever have in a game. I’ll take 5 hours of wonders over any of these long A$$ non-sense.
You must have a problem while ultra in 4k I am at + 120fps I have a 11700k + 3080Ti + 32go in 3600mhz
32 GB RAM, I presume you meant to say
Lol, sure you are :P.
Hint: Fullscreen mode is not working properly in this game. If you have a non-4K monitor and set fullscreen to 4K, the game won’t render in 4K. It will render in your native res. To use native 4K, you’ll have to set your desktop resolution to 4K and then use Borderless.
Now if you are using a 4K monitor and you have 120fps in 4K/Ultra, I’d certainly like to see a video of it (showing the settings (Ultra + Borderless) and gameplay).
So then Gsync won’t work with this game? In order for gsync to work correctly for my display I have to play in fullscreen. I have the LG CX.
LG CX has a native 4K res, you will be fine. This is an issue with 1080p/1440p monitors for which most PC gamers want to downsample from a higher resolution.
Gsync works in borderless mode for all DX12 games, and some DX11 games (including this one), even if you have Gsync set to fullscreen only (which is the recommended setting btw).
If a game uses DXGI Flip Model, it will work in borderless just as well if not better than fullscreen. Most games that release these days use this presentation model. Easiest way to check is to see if gsync engages in borderless mode.
Game looks decent but no where near justifying this level of performance. Thank goodness for VRR.
Runs like crap. Stop giving credit to indie devs. Horizon zero dawn looks and runs way better despite being one of the worst PC ports in recent memory. I don’t mind the game being short or looking worse but it has to run great right of the bat. Don’t skimp on QA time!
They should continue optimizing this game…
Are you sure you wanna use horizon as a benchmark for how games should run? Don’t get on that horse.
Well, if even HZD runs better than this game while looking better that must mean something.
Yeah, but HZD’s world is dead, sterile, and monotone.
yeah that’s how all open world games go.
Far Cry: The New Dawn looks great and for more varied than HZD.
Do you think HZD or Days Gone looks better?
Guys please proofread your articles…
yeah, curious to see the performance gains with lower presets. Naturally, we’ll have more details about this in our upcoming PC Performance Analysis.
Well by turning down Volumetrics and Ambient Oclusion to Low and Shadows to High i gain 50% more perfomance on a RTX 2060 Super and the visual differences are minor. Totally worth not leaving everything on Ultra in this game.
Game runs like an a*s. My 3070 Ti at 1440p on maximum settings cannot reach 70 FPS, which is ridiculous when you consider that Doom Eternal exists. It also stuffers from stuttering. No matter how big the studio is, game will always sux at release.
Those 1-sec stutters happen only when loading a new area. A lot of games have these. I wouldn’t really call them game-breaking, it’s how the game was programmed (and these are also present in the console versions).
But that doesn’t make it any less of a problem. This also makes the entire first run a ruined experience.
Also, DX12 runs about 10 FPS worse than DX11.
Yeap, can confirm that DX11 runs by around 10fps faster than DX12. Our tests and screenshots above were with DX12. There are still some dips below 60fps but the situation is WAY BETTER with DX11.
Also, there are more stutters in DX11. I’ve re-tested both of them and frametimes are definitely better in DX12. So while DX12 is slower, it has better frametimes and less micro-stutters.
could be just nvidia thing? often times dx12 on amd is better
Stop comparing a game made on Unreal 4 made by a new dev team to THE MOST optimized game on the market.
It doesn’t work like that.
So you are saying we should be funding their lack of expertise or QA manhours through our overpowered hardware? Tired of indie devs releasing unoptimized games and getting away with it because they are a small indie team. Case in point, games like Blair Witch, the Medium and more.
Optimization is a matter of skills, not money.
Exactly. Stop comparing the best of the best, with their own engine, with a newly established small team with a 3rd party engine.
I don’t need to compare them to big studios. When other indie studios can create well optimizme games running in same engine, so can they. And by the way, Serious Sam 4 exists. This game alone makes your point moot.
I don’t need to compare them to big studios. When other indie studios can create well optimizme games running in same engine, so can they. And by the way, Serious Sam 4 exists. This game alone makes your point moot.
Dude, Doom eternal is basically one room after the other. It’s a room based game, those games should and are the easiest to run. You are just going from one room to the next, there is nothing sprawling to render. I’m not defending Kena, but this is why you shouldn’t compare games.
Doom Eternal have huge maps with high fidelity, interactivity, and action. Kena’s world, while pretty, is much more sterile, barely anything happens in there and have a few enemies here and there. Most of the time you just run and collect things. It basically plays like Spyro: you run, jump, collect a lot of items and fight enemies. And that is it, really. There is nothing jaw dropping that would justify such bloody GPU requirements, which is almost at the CP77’s level. Not to mention that the same performance issues exist on PS5 as well. Clearly, they needed more time to optimize it.
You know nothing about game development dude and it is clear. You think Jaw dropping what constitutes a game to ask for however much resources and IT DOESN’T. Doom is not “Jaw Dropping” by any means. I understand that you love DOOM, good for you. But DOOM is not the game to be using as an example. Doom uses a lot of trickery and it is not a big a sprawling game, it is still “room based”. Once again, based on whether or not a game is jaw dropping doesn’t say much about resources it demands. There a lot of complexities going on.
A very good example of this is The Witcher 3. That game only uses 2-3 GB of V-ram at any given time on 1080p, while a game like The Surge 1+2 uses 5-7 GB of VRAM on 1080p. One is big and sprawling but doesn’t us as much VRAM as the one that IS NOT BIG & Sprawling. It’s not a ZERO SUM game, therefor STOP COMPARING GAMES that are on totally different engines, using different tech. I’s just stupid and a waste of time. Further more ID tech just got it’s stuff together once they landed on ID 6, before that the ID engine was utter trash. And that’s because that engine was built for Doom from the ground up. Notice no other games have used ID 6 expect for DOOM & Wolfenstein II+ it’s spinoffs. Those are still, “ROOM BASED GAMES”. Now we are on ID 7, Doom eternal is the only game using it and it’s still a room/corridor based game. Don’t let all that fake openess fool you.
You ever wondered why Doom Eternal can do 250+ FPS on ULTRA? Because most of the game takes place in a Damn room. Kena is a game that is on a massed produced engine, yes, it should run better because EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW UNREA by now. But it is what it is man. These comparisons of yours are just dead.
I never said that Doom is jaw dropping, so stop putting words into my mouth.
You’re comparing completely uncomparable games man. And no, doom does not have “sprawling maps” they’re actually quite small compared to most games in actuality.
The transition to cut scenes can be quite jarring as they are so obviously much lower frame rate than actual gameplay. Also no proper FOV for ultrawide/superwide monitors, though I expect that to be fixed in a patch. Overall though the game seems ok so far.
Get a 3090 and you’ll have no problems. The 3080 is woefully short of vram with a pitiful 10gb. It was always going to struggle with some games as it just doesn’t have enough vram to run some games at 4k ultra.
Obviously I’ve got the king of cards.
This game doesn’t tax even 8 GB VRAM, let alone 26. But hey, keep sucking your own d*ck.
Shadows from ultra to high will give an enourmous boost. Like from 90 frames to 130, at 1440p
Yep. If I didn’t know better I’d say that they are ray traced.
It’s already sailing the high seas as Epic already paid for you.
Epic, make piracy great again.
Then there’s my 400 dollar ps5 that runs this game at 2k-4k 60fps ????????? it’s so sad and equally hilarious watching PC gamers cry whenever a new game gets released, it literally happens with every release, I legit feel bad for you guys
You do realize that PS5 does not use the PC Ultra settings and runs it at 30fps in native 4K, right? 😛
I don’t care because for 400 dollars I can play the game with a mix of very high and ultra settings at 2k-4k solid 60fps. Go build a 400 dollar PC and show me that pc running kena at 480p 15fps ?????.
ok so you are poor and cant afford good pc, no one cares about you and your soystation. Kena on ps5 runs in 30FPS in 4k, we are talking here about playing in 4k and 60FPS something your ps5 cannot and will never do…
Yeah I’m poor I only own a PC I built for 3500 dollars 2 years ago lmao. You think I care about 4k 60? So sad, I care about paying 400 dollars for a console that will outlive your current rig until the end of this generation ??? keep crying child
you are the reason why developers are these days lazy and use the *i don’t care about technology so lets stay in past* issue,you ruin videogames
Why are you wasting time here when you could be playing your beloved PS 5?
ignorant
And your PS5 will look like crap in comparison. Consoles just don’t have the same fidelity.
Go back to reddit and yell at Xbox players for having the “wrong” console.
question…if you are so happy with your ps4 pro+ what the f****u doing here?
Then there’s my 400 dollar ps5 that runs this game at 2k-4k 60fps ????????? it’s so sad and equally hilarious watching PC gamers cry whenever a new game gets released, it literally happens with every release, I legit feel bad for you guys..
I mean.. you can put shadows at medium and run at 2x twice that, can’t really compare demanding ultra settings to just console quality
And look like sh*t in comparison :p
it does not even run at stable 1080 it just upscale everything to a minimal 4k kinda *trick* kinda pathetic.
No HDR support on PC. Disgusting treatment of the players! First Psychonauts 2, and now this. They will lose millions because players like me boycotting the game.
Excellent work by the team, just purchased the game from EGS.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c2f84df7f4b9570c7408e71c3ca241e8a62f244b941bb1bfbb3e67b987c9f39.jpg
thanks for supporting fraud!
And that’s why you need a proper GPU for 4K gaming. The game runs above 70 FPS on my Strix 3090 with 9900K
After watching some of this game I figured out why Sony was promoting it so much. Part of the story revolves around two interacialdykes.
I get 70-75fps om my 3070?
Bench this baby!
This game could easily benefit A LOT from AMD’s FSR. Any reason it doesnt have it?
DLSS / FSR2 mod incoming later this month.