If you’re trying to decide whether you should be playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on PlayStation 5 or PC and are feeling a little bit daunted by the specification requirements on PC, don’t panic. It’s been tested and confirmed by those over at Eurogamer that the settings on PlayStation 5 are essentially the same as the settings on PC if you were to play it on Ultra. Of course, many people are unable to do so, as the game is very graphically intensive, the world is expansive, and there are lots of visual effects that you need to contend with. Baldur’s Gate 3 has been out on PC for quite a while, and since the start of its release, there have been a number of fixes to work on making the performance of the game better for rigs of all capabilities. While there was some concern about how Baldur’s Gate 3 would run on PC, it’s been confirmed that it runs fine in Act Three, but it suffers some of the same issues that the PC version does.
While the game is very obviously tailored with a Keyboard and Mouse in mind, the game works just fine with a controller on both PS5 and PC. At the start of the game, it’s quite tolerable, and although it looks a little bit odd, it works. However, the more abilities and items you unlock and use, the more complicated your radial menus will get, which can make the interface incredibly overwhelming.
Although this doesn’t really affect the performance of the game on PS5 in any way, it does make it a little bit more finicky to work with. Visually, the PS5 version is very similar to that on PC, and it looks almost the same as how it would if the game was being played on PC in ultra settings. Compared to other games on the console, this comes as quite a surprise. As explained in the article by Eurogamer, there are only two options available for image quality on the PS5, with the game being native to 1440p, with no signs of reconstruction or dynamic resolution. If you’re unsure whether you should be playing the game in Quality or Performance mode, it doesn’t really make much difference.
The Performance mode on PS5 looks very similar to the Quality Mode, but there is a little bit of artifacting and fizzing artifacts in areas that feature a lot of fine detail. This is to be expected, especially considering how they’ve tried to keep the game running at the highest quality.
When it comes to the performance of the game, the Performance mode of Baldur’s Gate 3 on PS5 targets 60fps. For the vast majority, it does do just that, especially if you’re inside or in enclosed spaces, even during combat. However, there are some areas that will start to struggle. Even on PC, the city in Act 3 struggles massively, so it’s not a surprise that it struggles on the PS5, too. From the tests that Eurogamer ran, it seems that the performance drops to the low twenties when it’s at its worst. They’ve also mentioned that there is a fair amount of screen tearing when the frame rate starts to dip from 60. There is, of course, the option to play the game using the Quality Mode, which easily sees Baldur’s Gate 3 run at a target of 30fps. Regardless of being in Quality Mode, you will still see some issues in Act 3, with how densely populated the city is.
Overall, Baldur’s Gate 3 has been confirmed by many to run fine on PS5, as long as you can get over the radial menus and get used to how janky they become later on down the line.
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