The latest technical experiment with The Blood of Dawnwalker improves its image quality on an RTX 5080, but it does not solve the game’s larger PC-performance problems. The unofficial DLSS 5 configuration reached 47 FPS at 4K/Ultra with DLSS Performance before Frame Generation. Native 4K remains punishing, and traversal and camera stutters have been reported even on a Ryzen 9 9950X3D paired with an RTX 5090.
The unofficial DLSS 5 experiment has strict limits
The game does not officially support DLSS 5. The test used DLSS Unlocked and OptiScaler to apply DLSS 5 Neural Rendering before Super Resolution on an RTX 5080 system with a Ryzen 9 7950X3D and 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory.
At 4K/Ultra, the configuration produced 47 FPS with DLSS Performance before Frame Generation. The experiment improved the appearance of faces, environments and ambient occlusion. Its default settings also produced an oily look on character faces, which the test reduced by lowering the DLSS 5 settings.
That result belongs to the modded configuration. It is useful as a glimpse of what the rendering path can do, but it does not change the game’s official feature set or establish a general performance target for every RTX 5080 system.
Native 4K pushes even flagship hardware
A multi-GPU benchmark used the game’s first village, an especially demanding early area, because The Blood of Dawnwalker has no built-in benchmark. The results show a steep cost for increasing resolution and retaining the Ultra preset.
| GPU and test condition | Average FPS | Minimum or 1% low |
| RTX 5090 — 1080p/Ultra | 93 FPS | 88 FPS minimum |
| RTX 5090 — 1440p/Ultra | 74 FPS | 70 FPS minimum |
| RTX 5090 — native 4K/Ultra | 53 FPS | 49 FPS 1% low |
| RTX 5090 — native 4K/High | 64 FPS | 60 FPS 1% low |
At 1440p/Ultra, the RTX 4090 and RTX 5090 were the only tested cards described as smooth. At native 4K/Ultra, no tested GPU reached a 60-FPS average; the RTX 5090 came closest with 53 FPS.
Dropping the RTX 5090 from Ultra to High at native 4K raised the average from 53 to 64 FPS and the 1% low from 49 to 60 FPS. That is a meaningful gain, although it still leaves frame pacing as part of the equation rather than reducing the problem to a single average number.
The game supports Intel XeSS, AMD FSR and NVIDIA DLSS, along with AMD FSR Frame Generation and NVIDIA DLSS Frame Generation. DLSS Multi-Frame Generation was not supported in the benchmarked configuration.
A faster GPU does not remove every hitch
Frame rate and frame pacing are different problems. A high average can coexist with abrupt interruptions when the camera turns or the player moves through the world.
Traversal and camera stutters remained visible on a system using a Ryzen 9 9950X3D and RTX 5090. The same type of issue was also observed on RTX 4060 hardware. Community experiences vary: some high-end players describe smooth performance, while others report stutters even with Low settings.
This is why buying a faster graphics card can improve the average FPS without guaranteeing a completely smooth experience. The RTX 5090 has enough rendering power to make native 4K substantially more viable after reducing the preset, but it does not eliminate every hitch during movement or camera changes.
The RTX 4060 needs a careful settings mix
A separate 1440p test on an RTX 4060 produced 50 FPS average and a 35-FPS 1% low at High with DLSS Balanced. A custom profile reached 62 FPS average and a 46-FPS 1% low in the same repeatable Briar Sloughs run.
That custom profile lowered Shadow Quality to Low and Light Quality, Foliage Quality and Detail Quality to Medium. A separate nighttime scene with several characters averaged 53 FPS, showing how much the result can change with the location and workload.
The figures do not support a universal 60-FPS guarantee for an RTX 4060 at 1440p/High. They do show a practical route to a higher average: reduce the settings that affect lighting, shadows, foliage and scene detail first, then choose an upscaling mode that fits the desired image quality.
Textures deserve separate treatment. The game can use approximately 10–12GB of VRAM with textures maxed. Guidance for texture quality is Ultra with at least 16GB of VRAM, High with 8–12GB, and lower settings below 8GB.
Volumetric Quality is another trade-off. Lowering it below High can affect lighting in some areas, so the apparent FPS gain may come with a visible change to the scene rather than a free performance boost.
Frame Generation raises displayed smoothness, not native rendering
Frame Generation can make motion look smoother, but its displayed FPS is not equivalent to rendering every frame conventionally. In the RTX 4060 test, High with DLSS Balanced and 2x Frame Generation reached 73 FPS from a 50-FPS base result. Measured latency increased from 68 ms to 72 ms.
That makes Frame Generation a useful option when the underlying frame rate is already reasonably stable. It does not turn a 50-FPS rendering result into the same thing as 100 FPS of fully rendered game frames, and it cannot by itself remove traversal or camera stutter.
For The Blood of Dawnwalker, the performance picture is therefore split between three separate levers: GPU power, image reconstruction and frame pacing. The unofficial DLSS 5 test improves the first two aspects of the image pipeline on one RTX 5080 setup, while the broader benchmarks show that native 4K and smooth traversal remain demanding even on flagship hardware.
