2

We've spent some time highlighting Crimson Desert's top-line graphics features, exemplified by the PC version of the game - and we've also looked at how that experience scales to PlayStation 5 Pro. But what we haven't shown you is what we think is the most potent visual upgrade available to PC players - and it perhaps comes from an unlikely source. The bottom line is this: while ray tracing looks impressive in this game, the visuals are transformed if users use either AMD ray regeneration or Nvidia's ray reconstruction. It turns out that in this game, RT denoising is much, much more important than you might imagine.

Crimson Desert uses ray tracing intensively for its indirect lighting across most consoles and there's a case to say that it drives the entire aesthetic of the game. However, to make this possible in a performant manner, the nature of the optimisations means that compromise is inevitable.

The game's unique surfel-based ray-traced global illumination (RTGI) can run at a mere 1/16 rays per pixel, while RT reflections operate at quarter resolution, with both using a computationally lean denoiser. This dramatic reduction in ray count is how the game manages to perform as well as it does on a range of devices - but there is a distinct cost to visual quality as a consequence.

And this is where Nvidia and AMD denoisers make a big difference. The increase in lighting quality provided here is dramatic - often looking like a toggle for RT on/off rather than just a change in denoising technology. With the standard denoiser, lighting can appear relatively flat and directionless, with geometry often lacking proper contact shadows. Meanwhile, grass can look almost unlit.

AMD's FSR Redstone ray regeneration or Nvidia DLSS ray reconstruction are game-changers. Now, tight shadows appear under pipes and overhangs, with clearly directional lighting restored to the scene, grounding objects within the environment. It's not just shadows either, with enhanced localised lighting and reflections.

It's not just about static lighting either. Both of these ML-based denoisers solve the stippled and ghostly look seen with low ray-count reflections on moving surfaces. With the standard denoiser, water reflections look as though they are running at a lower frame-rate due to ghosting from prior frames. Switching to ML denoising sorts the problems, with a more responsive and stable image. You should also see higher quality local lights from emissive sources. The impact is so profound, you're essentially getting an ultra-quality lighting setting that only PCs with ML denoising can deliver.

Of course, in swapping out a lightweight denoiser for a higher quality alternative, there is a computational cost, meaning frame-rates drop. On an RTX 5080 at 4K performance mode, enabling ray reconstruction gives a 14 percent performance drop. It's the same issue on AMD - if not more so. The RX 9070 XT sees a 24 percent frame-rate hit compared to the standard denoiser when paired with FSR 4 upscaling. Similar to other higher quality settings, users will need to carefully weigh up their settings selections to get the performance that's right for them.

It's also worth pointing out that while both AMD and Nvidia solutions are transformative, each have issues. AMD's ray regeneration doesn't seem to integrate upscaling with denoising, producing a clearly sub-native look with some content. Meanwhile, Nvidia's ray reconstruction might be cleaner, but the pre-launch build we had exhibited bugs where displacement maps had less offset, making surfaces less "craggy" than intended, while rain occasionally disappears on-screen. Pearl Abyss is aware of that problem and we'd hope to see improvement.

Beyond denoising, there are some other issues. In the build we have, there are instances of flickering shadow maps from the sun and noticeable pop-in on some elements, even on the top-end cinematic preset. Of course, this could be a factor of the pre-launch code we have, but it's definitely something to watch out for in the final game.

What's most interesting here though is that this is one of the most impactful examples we have of the importance of denoising with ray tracing. Thanks to ray reconstruction and ray regeneration, we have a high-end lighting option that is so transformative, it's hard to go back from once you've seen it. And perhaps highlights how important ML will be in the games of tomorrow.