Game Science has unveiled its much-anticipated action RPG, Black Myth: Wukong, leveraging the power of Unreal Engine 5. As the gaming community eagerly dives into this new title, it’s essential to assess its performance on PC hardware.
Performance Benchmarks
For our performance benchmarks, we utilized a robust setup featuring an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, paired with 32GB of DDR5 RAM running at 6000MHz. The graphics cards tested included a range from AMD’s Radeon RX580 to the RX 7900XTX, as well as NVIDIA’s GTX980Ti, RTX 2080Ti, RTX 3080, and RTX 4090. The testing environment consisted of Windows 10 64-bit along with the latest drivers from both manufacturers.
Game Science has equipped Black Myth: Wukong with a variety of graphics settings, allowing players to customize aspects such as View Distance, Anti-Aliasing, Textures, Hair, and Vegetation. The game also embraces cutting-edge technologies including NVIDIA DLSS 3, AMD FSR 3.0, and Intel XeSS, alongside Ray Tracing capabilities.
Recently, Game Science released a benchmark tool that accurately reflects in-game performance, enabling players to evaluate their systems before making a purchase.
Notably, Black Myth: Wukong is primarily a GPU-intensive title. Our testing revealed that the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 was pushed to its limits, even at a resolution of 720p, indicating that CPU combinations were less relevant in this scenario. In cases where a CPU bottleneck might occur, players can leverage Frame Generation to enhance performance.
At a resolution of 1080p with maximum settings and no Ray Tracing, only the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 managed to deliver a consistent 60fps experience. This trend continued at 1440p with maximum settings, while achieving a native 4K experience at maximum settings proved challenging, as no GPU could maintain a 60fps frame rate.
Fortunately, performance can be improved through options like DLSS 3 Super Resolution, Frame Generation, or by adjusting graphics settings. At native 4K with high settings, the NVIDIA RTX 4090 managed to hover around 60fps, with occasional drops to 55fps. However, these fluctuations may go unnoticed if players utilize a VRR/G-Sync monitor.
Visual Experience
From a graphical standpoint, Black Myth: Wukong stands out as one of the most visually impressive titles available. Even without Ray Tracing, the game showcases stunning textures, character models, and environments. Players can observe dynamic elements such as bending grass and captivating water and snow effects. However, the presence of invisible walls can detract from the immersive experience, a concern rooted in level design.
Despite its visual prowess, the game is not without its challenges. Players have reported issues with shader compilation and traversal stutters, which can disrupt gameplay. Although a shader compilation process occurs at launch, additional shaders compile during play, leading to unexpected stutters. This is particularly disappointing given the capabilities of Unreal Engine 5, which offers tools to mitigate such issues. A post-launch update addressing these concerns would be welcomed.
Mouse movement has also drawn some criticism, as players have noted discrepancies in sensitivity between the X and Z axes. While there is no apparent mouse acceleration issue, adjustments to mouse movement would enhance the overall experience. Additionally
