Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, Ninja Principle’s newest narrative action-adventure recreation, arrived on Could 21, 2024 for Xbox and PC. Whereas many could also be divided over its easy fight and prolonged puzzles, there’s no denying that Hellblade 2 is a visually gorgeous recreation, particularly on a PC with the horsepower to push the sport to near-photorealistic ranges of element.
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In case you are seeking to tweak the graphics a bit additional, or are fighting framerate points or a wierd visible artifact that attracts black dots on individuals’s faces, learn on for the best way to change these, in addition to the best way to troubleshoot and tweak the sport to your liking.
Be certain that your graphics card drivers are updated
Simply in time for Hellblade 2’s launch, Nvidia has pushed out a brand new driver that particularly addresses efficiency in Senua’s Saga. Even for those who don’t have an Nvidia card, nonetheless, it is best to ensure your drivers are updated.
Utilizing Hellblade 2’s graphics settings and efficiency meter
It’s nicely value your time to dive into Hellblade’s graphics settings earlier than you begin up the sport as you need to mitigate how a lot time you spend coping with menus throughout Senua’s journey. In Settings > Graphics you’ll discover various settings to start out with, in addition to a efficiency meter within the upper-right nook of the display screen that’s kind of self-explanatory.
Learn Extra: Hellblade 2 Studio Reportedly Already Working On Its Subsequent Recreation
For those who’re not used to studying meters like this, you’ll need to take note of the “Body” part and the Video Reminiscence bar. The previous signifies what number of frames you’re getting per second (FPS). Hellblade is a really narrative recreation, so 30-FPS makes for a good expertise. I discovered, although, that the sport feels nice at 60 and above, so positively goal for that for those who can.
The following factor you’ll need to mess with is your selection of upscaler, which can fluctuate relying in your graphics card. AMD of us ought to go along with FSR3 whereas these of us on crew inexperienced with Nvidia playing cards ought to use DLSS. The alternate options shouldn’t be used except completely vital.
Variable fee shading will scale back how a lot effort your GPU spends rendering non-obvious parts of the display screen. It usually leads to an enchancment in efficiency at a less-than-noticeable lower in visible constancy.
Clicking on “Superior Settings” within the graphics settings will open a drop-down menu the place you’ll be able to tailor the expertise to your preferences and the efficiency energy of your machine.
Whereas I do want Hellblade 2 had a devoted benchmark device, the closest is the “Preview,” activated by urgent the spacebar or the menu button on a controller. This may pull the menu again to indicate a scene with Senua, some foliage, a constructing behind her, and a puddle for reflections whenever you’re not in a recreation. You possibly can then toggle between totally different ranges of high quality for particular settings to see the impact in actual time.
For those who navigate to the graphics settings whereas enjoying the sport and choose the “Preview” possibility, it’s going to present the lively scene as an alternative. This can be a good option to troubleshoot particular points you might be having throughout choose moments of Hellblade 2. My choice is to tweak these settings earlier than you load right into a recreation for much less distractions, but in addition as a result of the preview possibility in the primary menu exhibits extra movement than it does whereas in-game.
In my expertise, I discovered post-processing, results, reflection, texture, view distance, and foliage to be value bumping as much as the Excessive settings. Reflections specifically I discovered to be very a lot value bringing as much as Excessive. The whole lot else I stored right down to medium, however your outcomes and preferences might differ.
You should still need to dive into the graphics settings throughout gameplay to tweak issues for those who’re not pleased with the settings. I recommend not twiddling with issues an excessive amount of when you’ve discovered a pleasant candy spot.
Hellblade 2 has an in-game FPS-meter, too
Except you employ one other program (like TK) to indicate your framerate, you’ll be able to monitor it in real-time whereas enjoying Saga by going to Settings > Superior Settings > Present FPS. This may pin a frame-rate counter in one of many corners of the display screen and you may modify its opacity and textual content coloration. Since Hellblade 2 has everlasting letterbox bars always, the FPS counter isn’t terribly distracting. And it will probably assist you get a way of how nicely your framerate is performing for those who’re not used to recognizing framerate dips by eye.
Easy methods to take care of black dots on character faces
There’s an opportunity you is perhaps fighting slightly visible quirk in Hellblade 2 that dramatically sours the expertise: Dancing black dots on character faces. These will pop up throughout gameplay and thru cutscenes.
In my expertise, after updating my Nvidia card to the most recent driver, I haven’t seen this. However for those who’re nonetheless fighting it, I discovered that bumping up the “Results” setting to “Excessive” made these go away.
What in regards to the Steam Deck?
From a qualitative standpoint, Hellblade 2 is finest performed on an enormous display screen, powered by one thing that may reliably ship no less than a strong 30-frames per second. The Steam Deck shouldn’t be the machine for that. It’ll, nonetheless, run Hellblade 2 with blended outcomes.
The vast majority of my time with Hellblade 2 has been on PC, however I’ve spent a couple of hours in transit enjoying the sport on Steam Deck. Headphones, in fact, are vital right here and given how a lot of the expertise of Hellblade is an aural one, the sport remains to be entertaining in transportable format. That mentioned, you will have to carry the graphics to Low settings throughout the board, with FSR3 turned on. Even then, the sport will dip beneath 30-frames per second and about 1-2 hours of battery life relying on the age of your battery. 19 FPS was the bottom dip I noticed to this point.
It’s definitely “Playable,” however I’d advise counting on a extra highly effective machine to crunch Hellblade 2’s pixels for you. Even counting on Steam’s Distant Play by way of Steam Deck is a greater possibility than letting the Deck itself run the sport on its GPU.
No, there’s no option to take away the black bars with out mods
Hellblade 2 solely simply launched on PC and Xbox and already there are a couple of mods for tweaking the visible settings, together with a mod that removes letterboxing. Saga makes use of all kinds of post-processing methods to create a lush, film-like, surreal expertise. That, mixed with letterboxing, to me is a reasonably important a part of the visible look and creative intent in Hellblade that I’d choose to maintain it as is.
Be aware that mods might or might not intervene with the steadiness of the sport, so mod away at your personal threat.
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