The roughly 20% improve in common FPS comes from mixed efforts specializing in GPU, CPU, and common effectivity, with the Optimization Team figuring out particular refinements to enhance efficiency with out being too noticeable when it comes to visible constancy.
In addition to enhancing common FPS, we decreased stutters, enhancing the 1% and 0.1% lows in body price. These are the underside 1% and 0.1% of frames generated throughout our benchmark take a look at and are indicators of body stability. The nearer these numbers are to the common FPS, the smoother and extra responsive the sport will really feel, lowering stutters and hitches.
Hitching is among the many prime challenges impacting efficiency, as a stuttering body price can actually take you out of the motion. We decreased hitching by refining our PSO (Pipeline State Objects) course of to keep away from overloading the sport system with too many results.
Shader PSOs exist to make rendering sooner by having the graphics drivers generate a closing optimum shader for a particular GPU in particular circumstances. However, the tradeoff is that these drivers want time to generate the shaders when encountering them for the primary time, resulting in hitches. Developers often clear up this by pre-building shaders earlier than getting into a degree or letting the system construct them within the background; we do each.
Borderlands 4 is thought for having billions of weapons, each dynamically spawned with devoted supplies for every half. It’s a fantastic recipe for enjoyable, however a difficult process for the workforce’s rendering programmers. Since launch, we improved the best way Borderlands 4 permits your graphics drivers early detection of latest materials on particular results and weapons, subsequently making certain these drivers are prepared.
Another huge space of optimization is our HLOD (Hierarchical Level of Detail) that renders areas of the map which are farther off within the distance. We reworked how the low-detail mesh appears to be like in a manner that is hopefully imperceptible, so you do not discover any change when traversing the seamless world of Kairos with none loading screens.
Lastly, we drastically improved stability since launch, lowering how usually gamers encounter crashes. And since December alone, we’ve almost halved the crash price, from 0.63% of all classes to 0.38% (and 17% of gamers experiencing a crash all the way down to 9.35%).
Optimized visuals, lighting, and UI
When it involves visible results, we discovered methods to scale back your GPU’s workload by trimming polygon counts for sure results like thruster exhausts, Action Skill particle results, and Airship drop world occasions, simply to call a number of examples.
Likewise, we lessened pressure on CPUs by refining issues like Cryo injury results, collision physics, and fabric simulation. There could also be occasions on Kairos while you’re seeing all of those results and extra without delay, so the GPU and CPU optimizations go a good distance!
We additionally made headway in lighting throughout Kairos, utilizing the Virtual Shadow Maps expertise of Unreal 5 to enhance efficiency. Borderlands 4 launched dynamic time-of-day lighting throughout day and night time cycles, which means that each body has to account for the solar’s place. That results in a ton of per-frame calculations, which we’re now capable of cache utilizing Virtual Shadow Maps to scale back the load in your GPU. We additionally did some fine-tuning with higher lighting shaders and skylight surroundings map updates.
Lastly (for at the moment’s dialogue not less than), we made backend code enhancements to drastically enhance UI effectivity. You should not discover a distinction when perusing your ECHO Menus or delighting within the injury numbers hovering above wounded enemies, however relaxation assured that they are working higher than ever relating to efficiency.
Thank you
We’re happy with the work the workforce’s achieved to enhance Borderlands 4‘s PC efficiency since launch, and we additionally acknowledge we’ve got extra to do. We’re in it for the lengthy haul!
We are doing all of this with out eradicating the power that gamers have had, and can proceed to have, to self-tune their experiences to suit their playstyle preferences utilizing the in-game graphics choices and graphics card-based drivers and instruments.
Thanks once more to your assist and endurance, and an additional particular due to everybody who submitted suggestions. Every ticket despatched to 2K Support helps us establish, monitor, and diagnose issues so we will make extra refinements; please do not hesitate to succeed in out if you happen to’re encountering any points.
As at all times, we’ll proceed listening to each piece of suggestions and discovering extra methods to enhance your expertise. We’re honored to have you ever with us on Kairos, Vault Hunter.
