Black Myth: Wukong truly delivers a stunning high-end PC experience
Ever since its reveal in 2020, Black Myth: Wukong has been an alluring undertaking. Developer Sport Science has been surprisingly open compared to different AAA studios and the sport’s obvious ambitions have been bolstered with each press launch: a hero-focused motion recreation retelling the story of Journey to the West, and a graphical tour de power utilizing the most recent Unreal Engine options. In truth, on PC Wukong makes use of the Nvidia department of UE5 to allow full ray tracing, promising an much more spectacular presentation. With the complete recreation in hand, it is time to see if Sport Science has fulfilled the graphical promise of that first trailer, how the RT options work on PC, and what optimised settings can be utilized to ship a easy experience on a vary of {hardware}. Sufficient monkey enterprise then, let’s get proper into it.
From the second the sport begins up, it is clear that Sport Science has delivered a degree of graphical constancy that surpasses that of the preliminary trailer. The dazzling intro to the sport dazzles, with titanic legendary beings looming over you and a complete space replete with distinctive volumetric rendering that is sadly uncommon within the fashionable age.
With each sprint, workers swipe and little bit of motion, the principle character and his nemesis distort and transfer the bodily quantity of fog that they discover themselves in. Past Housemarque’s Returnal and a few legacy PhysX titles, actual physicalised particles like this are uncommon, and Sport Science made positive to make use of this GPU-intensive impact successfully so as to add a mystical flourish to recreation moments and character entrances.
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Attention-grabbing particle results similar to these might be discovered all through the sport, accentuating fight, hinting in direction of enemy assault patterns and rewarding you for efficiently defeating an enemy. Typically particle results appear to be cheesy, out-of-place add-ons, however right here I really feel like they’re all the time properly located within the recreation’s theme and environments.
The areas you progress via in Black Myth: Wukong are additionally a actual spotlight of the sport’s presentation – and there are a variety of technical elements which actually convey all of them collectively. The primary is an Unreal Engine 5 hallmark, Nanite, which permits surfaces and structure to show a very excessive degree of geometric element. At a median digital camera top and distance within the recreation, you’d discover it difficult to to find any geometric edges on virtually any floor resulting from Nanite’s computerized and ever-changing degree of element (LOD). This additionally prevents intrusive pop-in from LOD modifications on virtually all the geometry within the recreation, offering a extra steady presentation than prior-gen titles.
Sadly, Nanite is not used for foliage – possible a consequence of improvement on UE 5.0 somewhat than 5.1 that added this characteristic – so bushes, shrubbery and leaves showcase extra conventional LOD modifications as you method them.
Shadow stability vastly improves with full RT enabled, stopping the flickering and blobby look generally seen in distant shadows on decrease settings. | Picture credit score: Digital Foundry
This additionally has a knock-on impact, specifically that the sport forgoes utilizing Digital Shadow Maps (VSMs) except you are utilizing the complete RT choice. VSMs are rather more costly when used on non-Nanite geometry and there is loads of foliage in most areas, so the excision of VSMs is logical. As a end result, with out Full RT on, there are extra shadow points than in different UE5 titles. There’s a very distinct shadow cascade line you possibly can see on shadows close to the principle character, and any shadows after a sure distance are inclined to closely blob out or present different instabilities. I presume this may have an effect on the PS5 model as properly, however fortunately when you’ve got an ultra-high-end PC you should utilize the Full RT choice to resolve this explicit difficulty on the expense of a point of efficiency.
Despite these minor adverse features of the presentation, Nanite permits the sport’s property to be seen at their greatest; it is the muse upon which the sport’s extraordinarily dense environments are constructed upon. The glue holding the setting collectively although is the ray tracing: with out utilizing full RT, the sport utilises software program Lumen on PC for diffuse international illumination and specular reflections. With Full RT on, ReSTIR-based path tracing provides in further lighting element.
An enormous portion of the sport takes place out of direct daylight, and because of Lumen or path tracing, all the craggy overhangs, shadowy corners and sun-lit entrances look unbelievable. The oblique lighting element is mostly very good, and I really feel a variety of areas would not work with out using RT to finish the lighting. That is one other stable Lumen showcase, that is for positive.
Enabling full RT additionally provides in a important quantity of oblique lighting element. | Picture credit score: Digital Foundry
The total RT setting enhances the lighting additional, with enhancements to the diffuse lighting seen on rougher surfaces. As the complete RT path utilises very high-quality geometry as an alternative of signed distance fields (SDFs), it may showcase extra advantageous element like smaller crops or leaves which are in any other case solely captured in screen-space and subsequently can look monotone in shading or considerably undershaded. With full RT, almost all the advantageous element geometry is there and being ray traced towards, so you will note advantageous element shadowing or bounce lighting inside such crops, making them higher located of their environment for a higher-fidelity ultimate look. When you take the time to breathe within the environments, that is a welcome boost.
One other visible improve from full RT comes within the type of much less overdarkening, as SDFs are so blobby that greater sparse issues like bushes are inclined to over-obscure gentle, giving some areas an excessively darkish look. With full RT, the larger accuracy means much less over-darkening and extra sky lighting coming via, typically brightening up these areas with per-pixel precision. This distinction is refined although, and with out side-by-side comparisons software program Lumen is ready to cross for full RT on this respect.
The larger distinction with full RT regards reflections. Rougher supplies like stone are extra accuractely represented because the tracing is completed with fewer simplifications, typically permitting you to see extra floor element in any given scene. The largest distinction although is discovered on water. With software program Lumen, the vast majority of reflection element is captured with SSR, so characters and particles are lacking from reflections, whereas objects mirrored exterior of display screen house are blobby and replace slowly. You additionally get disocclusion artefacts when objects on-screen are obscured.
Full RT brightens up some scenes, because the blobby signed distance area method is traded for a dearer however correct different. | Picture credit score: Digital Foundry
Full RT solves the vast majority of these screen-space limitations, eradicating disocclusion artefacts and making certain reflections are totally populated with characters and results and replace at full fee. With the character leaping, absolute zero points there with him obscuring the background – no disappearing reflections. I solely discovered one occasion the place the geometry being traced towards was misaligned with what was being mirrored, with a tree showing with lacking branches in reflection, however this did not have an effect on the identical tree mannequin in later areas. That is nice, because it means the complete RT choice on this recreation almost all the time appears superior to software program Lumen with none obvious areas of oversight or trade-offs.
The ultimate addition within the full RT mode is real-time ray-guided caustics. Any water physique within the recreation basically reveals off a dynamic caustic impact, the place gentle is redirected by the water floor. Meaning you possibly can see water relighting the world round it, or undulating patterns on riverbeds that align with the water’s floor deformation. Your character’s actions in water change the caustic presentation too, making it morph and ripple similar to the water above. It completely elevates the water’s presentation in my eyes and makes a variety of the boss fights look further particular as all the animations trigger these secondary animation results within the setting as a result of caustics shifting round.
The distinction versus software program lumen depends upon how depth of the water and the way a lot it is in shadow; a well-lit shallow pool’s caustics contribute a lot extra lighting to the scene, dramatically altering the water’s look. Actual-time caustic lighting could be very uncommon in video games, and I applaud the builders for including it in a manner which reinforces the presentation in such a significant manner.
Disocclusion artefacts are one among a number of points solved by the complete RT choice – right here, the water is momentarily smeared on the left whereas it stays pristine on the correct. | Picture credit score: Digital Foundry
Past the bullet level engine tech options, there are a few different areas the place Black Myth: Wukong excels. Environmental interplay is one among them, with refined but efficient reactivity whenever you stroll amongst foliage or destroy surroundings like fences and handrails. Character rendering is one other spotlight right here, a good bonus on an in any other case already attractive package deal. The designs are fantastical and barely try to look human, however when mixed with cinematic thrives like depth of area, characters can look breathtaking within the (comparatively few) cutscenes. Fortunately, enemies have comparable ranges of element in open gameplay too, with ultra-high-quality textures, geometry and a heck of a lot of cool secondary animation with particles or fur.
As you possibly can most likely inform by now, Black Myth: Wukong is an incredible-looking recreation and top-of-the-line of the yr – however that does not imply all the pieces is ideal. Nanite provides a lot of element, however some textures aren’t all the time as much as par and seem noticeably stretched and blurry.
One other difficulty is that the sport’s sharpening has been cranked as much as the max – whether or not or not you are utilizing upscalers like DLSS – and infrequently objects flush towards vibrant backgrounds have a noticeably outlined look to them which is not nice. This contributes to a sort of crunchy look to the sport’s visuals, one thing that is exacerbated by Wukong’s intensive use of temporal dithering. Hair can look dithered and aliased, and the identical goes for the sport’s movement blur. All of this contributes to the sport trying much less steady than it must. I might actually like an choice to undither some stuff right here, even when it comes at a efficiency value.
Unreal Engine’s traversal stutter is a fixed annoyance in Black Myth: Wukong. Fortunately, shader compilation stutter has been solved by the developer. | Picture credit score: Digital Foundry
Talking of which, the largest difficulty right here is certainly efficiency – and, sadly, it is the identical sort that always afflicts Unreal Engine releases. I can a minimum of fortunately report that the sport has a prolonged shader precompilation sequence on boot – and even on a high-end CPU just like the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, it takes a very long time and subsequently must be doing fairly a bit. Because of this, I did not encounter any intensive shader compilation stutters in-game.
As an alternative, the difficulty is traversal stutter. It appears like principally each Unreal Engine recreation suffers from this, and whereas it’s not the worst I’ve seen, each space is heralded with a frame-time spike – and even a number of such spikes in a row. This interrupts the move of the sport, and might even be felt throughout boss encounters, disrupted precise gameplay somewhat than simply traversal. Enabling full RT appears to lead to proportionally bigger stutters, too. There are even stutters that do not appear clearly linked to getting into a new space, whether or not or not full RT is engaged.
General, issues aren’t as unhealthy as they’re in Jedi Survivor for instance, nevertheless it’s nonetheless annoying to maintain encountering these frame-time spikes when making an attempt to benefit from the recreation. Unreal Engine is my bane in the mean time, and this recreation is one other so as to add to the checklist of “stutter struggle” casualties.
Utilizing the ray tracing options of Black Myth: Wukong brings with it extra frame-time instability, which is problematic to the purpose that solely the quickest CPUs can energy into the issue and mitigate its impression. | Picture credit score: Digital Foundry
A compounding difficulty is that the complete RT choice additionally provides frame-time spikes of its personal, making the sport much less easy than it may very well be. That is true even with the high-end Ryzen 7 7800X3D, so reaching a steady 60fps with full RT more-or-less calls for the 7800X3D or one other equally performant CPU. Secondly, to get a easy presentation you a VRR-capable show and likewise cap the frame-rate at round 60fps with full RT on. When you use an uncapped frame-rate with DLSS 3 body gen, for instance, the disparity between frame-times turns into uncomfortably massive. Ultimately, solely the largest PCs on the market ought to use full RT, primarily resulting from these CPU efficiency necessities. For everybody else, I might counsel utilizing the lower-quality software program Lumen resolution as an alternative regardless of its constancy compromises, which is a disgrace.
I’ve one ultimate efficiency tip too: if you wish to get higher efficiency in your GPU, don’t use the sport’s cinematic high quality preset. Because the identify suggests, this preset is often hidden in Unreal Engine titles and is meant to be used in recreation cinematics; the excessive preset tends to be a better-optimised model in Unreal Engine 5. We did not have fairly sufficient time to ship a full set of optimised settings right now, however beginning on the excessive preset on a high-end setup ought to go away you in good stead.
With that, that is nearly all I can say about Black Myth: Wukong on PC. It is an extremely attractive recreation, nevertheless it’s not with out its points. I actually wish to see the developer do as a lot as potential to enhance frame-time stability, because the gameplay and graphical presentation are sadly let down by frame-time spikes that can bitter the experience for a good proportion of gamers. From what I perceive, the sport might be getting patches, and I assume that might be one thing they may wish to attempt to deal with. In any other case, I hope Sport Science contemplate including DLSS ray reconstruction to the combination, as the sport does not at the moment use it. Past that, this recreation’s heavy profile on PC does make me surprise what the PS5 model appears like, and we’re endeavouring to reply that query as quickly as we will.