Shift Up has just released the PC demo for Stellar Blade. The demo supports DLSS 4 Multi-Frame Gen, and is protected by the Denuvo anti-tamper tech. As such, it will give you a pretty good idea of how the full version will run. Thus, we’ve decided to test the game on the NVIDIA RTX 5090 at both 4K and 8K. So, let’s see whether 8K gaming is possible with this Unreal Engine 4 title.
For these benchmarks, I used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB of DDR5 at 6000Mhz and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Founder’s Edition. I also used Windows 10 64-bit and the NVIDIA GeForce 576.40 WHQL driver.
Shift Up has added a respectable number of PC graphics settings to tweak. PC gamers can adjust the quality of Shadows, Textures, Lighting, Characters and more. The demo also comes with the 4K Texture Pack that is exclusive to the PC version. Plus, there is support for both NVIDIA DLSS 4 and AMD FSR 3.0. Sadly, though, there is no support for Intel XeSS.
Stellar Blade does not have a built-in benchmark tool. So, for our benchmarks, we used the Prologue/Beach area. This appeared to be the most demanding area of the demo.
At Native 4K, the NVIDIA RTX 5090 can push framerates over 145FPS at all times. By enabling DLSS 4 Quality Mode, we were able to get to 175-192FPS. Then, we Frame Gen, we got some pretty crazy results. With MFG X4, we were getting framerates over 450FPS.
Sadly, even with X2, Frame Gen introduces noticeable visual artifacts during quick camera movements. Now, while I was able to spot these artifacts immediately, other people may not notice them. Moreover, MFG X3 and X4 do not bring additional visual artifacts or ghosting issues over MFG X2. Thus, image quality appears to be on par between MFG X2, X3 and X4. So, if you don’t notice the artifacts at MFG X2, you can use and enjoy MFG X3 and X4.
At Native 8K, we were getting framerates between 40FPS and 46FPS. With DLSS 4 Performance Mode, we were able to get over 70FPS at all times. So yes, even without Frame Gen, it is possible to game at 8K with smooth framerates. Well, that is if you use DLSS 4. As I’ve showcased, 8K with DLSS 4 Performance looks better than Native 4K. So, if you have the horsepower, you can experiment with 8K.
It’s also worth noting that since our base framerate is over 60FPS, Multi-Frame Gen is a viable option here. With MFG X2, we were able to get over 100FPS at all times. Then, with MFG X4, we got over 180FPS at all times. I did not experience any major input latency issues, and I was able to parry a lot of enemy attacks.
On an NVIDIA RTX 5090, I believe the best way to play Stellar Blade is at Native 4K with DLAA, or at 8K with DLSS 4 Performance and MFG X4. You can consider these the “Performance” and the “Quality” modes, only for PC.
Before closing, I should note that I did not experience any major stuttering issues. There are some shader compilation stutters, but they are not as bad as those we’ve seen in other recent titles. For the most part, the game runs smoothly on PC, even with an unlocked framerate.
Sony will release Stellar Blade on PC on June 10th. So, expect a PC Performance Analysis for it on launch. In this article, we’ll cover multiple GPUs from both NVIDIA and AMD.
Enjoy and stay tuned for more!
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.”
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