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[Scrawnton]

Game graphics have always progressed in this way. Developers have been building bigger, more detailed worlds with more advanced lighting even if the difference wasnt striking for casual gamers. We would never have reached today's standards in game graphics if developers hadn't pushed the technology.

Here's the scale of the levels in Borderlands 4. Unlike Borderlands 3, you can travel to most of the places you see. Do you think this change doesn't add a lot to the experience and wasnt really needed?



The Borderlands series has always had a dynamic time of day (TOD) system and that's a perfect scenario for dynamic lighting. The volumetric lighting in my screenshot was rendered dynamically and cast real-time shadows. The lighting in previous games has never looked so stunning.

This shows how the lighting changed in the same location a few hours later. Thanks to Lumen lighting always look pleasing to look at.

Even if the scenery is simple, such as boxes on the screenshot below, Lumen makes that scene pleasing to look at. Similar scene in borderlands 3 would looked flat.

The game also renders more objects on the screen, particularly vegetation, which isn't cheap. You can complain about the requirements as much as you like, but the fact remains that the graphics in Borderlands 4 have been significantly enhanced.

You'll need a five-year-old RTX3060 to play this game at around 45 fps at 1080p DLSSQ with the medium settings, which is already a playable experience on a VRR monitor — especially with a gamepad. Back in the '90s and early 2000s, a high-end PC was already struggling after 2 years and after five years it wouldn't be able to run new games. Borderlands 4 has higher requirements compared to other UE5 games, but it's nowhere near as demanding as PT Cyberpunk, Alan Wake 2 or Wukong.

Randy?

 

[Spyxos]

Is performance still poor? I was offered a key at low price.

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

Randy?

That's what people do when their claims are disproved with solid arguments. They start making jokes about the person who disproved their claims because it's easier to attack than to admit to being wrong.

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

Is performance still poor? I was offered a key at low price.

If you have at least 3080 / 4070 / 5060 and modern CPU (i7 10 gen, or ryzen 7600) you will have a good (60fps+) experience at 1440p. If your specs are lower than that, I'd advise waiting until your next upgrade before playing Borderlands 4.

 

[Skifi28]

You can complain about the requirements as much as you like

Thanks, I will!

 

[Lokaum D+]

That's it. It's settled. I'm buying a 5090 so I can play borderlands 4 at 1080p. I've been going back and forth for a while, as it is a huge purchase and if I get it I won't be able to make my rent payment... But borderlands 4 at 1080p is worth it.



/s

Tbf i have the game on PS5 and my budget PC ( around $800 PC ) i can guarantee you that even at 1440p optimized settings on DLSS Balanced + FGx2 the game looks and play way better than it does on base consoles, i say this cause i ditched my 25 hours PS5 play to start fresh on my PC.

 

[Scrawnton]

That's what people do when their claims are disproved with solid arguments. They start making jokes about the person who disproved their claims because it's easier to attack than to admit to being wrong.

I skimmed it and it doesn't change my mind that I think the graphical bump on screen this gen doesn't justify the hardware power, financial cost, and dev time.

P.s. screenshots don't do much to impress me in regards to graphics and performance these days. I don't play screen shots, I play games and it has already been proven this game runs unacceptably on nearly every piece of hardware. You can say "buy a better pc" but that doesn't change the fact that games that look better also run better on the very same hardware that BL4 is tanking on.

 

[Lokaum D+]

If you have at least 3080 / 4070 / 5060 and modern CPU (i7 10 gen, or ryzen 7600) you will have a good (60fps+) experience at 1440p. If your specs are lower than that, I'd advise waiting until your next upgrade before playing Borderlands 4.

Nah i have a 5600+3060ti and my experience is way better than base consoles, with FG on im getting 85fps on evarage at 1440 (DLSS B ) optimized settings, its not native 60fps but It is smooth enough for fast gameplay.

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

I skimmed it and it doesn't change my mind that I think the graphical bump on screen this gen doesn't justify the hardware power, financial cost, and dev time.

If Gearbox were to use static lighting, the cost of their game would be much higher because they would need to pre-bake all the lighting, which would take an insane amount of time and resources.

 

[Scrawnton]

If Gearbox were to use static lighting, the cost of their game would be much higher because they would need to pre-bake all the lighting, which would take an insane amount of time and resources.

Remember back when game development was faster without all these modern tools that were meant to make it faster? I do.

You can argue all you want that these modern technologies make game development easier at the cost of needing more hardware power, but we aren't living in a world where these advanced tools are making dev time shorter and cheaper. What I see as a consumer is games are taking longer to make, requiring more expensive hardware to run, and the cost to buy the games are going up and I simply am not seeing the results on screen to justify all of this.

UE5 is a failure of an engine for this generation. No amount of argument about tools and development eases will change my mind on that as a consumer.

 

[Gaiff]

Is performance still poor? I was offered a key at low price.

No. There hasn't been any improvement to the performance.

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

Remember back when game development was faster without all these modern tools that were meant to make it faster? I do.

You can argue all you want that these modern technologies make game development easier at the cost of needing more hardware power, but we aren't living in a world where these advanced tools are making dev time shorter and cheaper. What I see as a consumer is games are taking longer to make, requiring more expensive hardware to run, and the cost to buy the games are going up and I simply am not seeing the results on screen to justify all of this.

I remember the early days of 3D graphics. It's true that development time was much shorter back then, and even a small team of developers could release a game. However, the scale of old games and the quality of their assets were nothing compared to modern games.

Both ID Software (Doom: The Dark Ages) and Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed: Shadows) said that they would not release their games so quickly without dynamic lighting.

It would take 2 years, and 2TB of data, to pre-bake the lighting of Assassin's Creed Shadows

As Ubisoft's Nicolas Lopez said in a GDC 2025 presentation, it would take 2 years to pre-bake the lighting of Assassin's Creed: Shadows.

www.dsogaming.com

Two years is a long time. Without dynamic lighting, they would probably never include dynamic seasons. But who needs dynamic seasons in games right? The first AC game didn't have this feature, but gamers were still happy, right?

 

[Lokaum D+]

I remember the early days of 3D graphics. It's true that development time was much shorter back then, and even a small team of developers could release a game. However, the scale of old games and the quality of their assets were nothing compared to modern games.

Both ID Software (Doom: The Dark Ages) and Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed: Shadows) said that they would not release their games so quickly without dynamic lighting.

It would take 2 years, and 2TB of data, to pre-bake the lighting of Assassin's Creed Shadows

As Ubisoft's Nicolas Lopez said in a GDC 2025 presentation, it would take 2 years to pre-bake the lighting of Assassin's Creed: Shadows.

www.dsogaming.com

Two years is a long time. Without dynamic lighting, they would probably never include dynamic seasons. But who needs dynamic seasons in games right? The first AC game didn't have this feature, but gamers were still happy, right?

And Assassins Creeds games were better too

 

[lh032]

hows the stuttering on console? heard its fixed in latest patch

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

Thanks, I will!

Glad I could help! Just don't forget to complain about the requirements of pretty much every UE5 game on the market, not to mention PT games! We have games twice as demanding as borderlands 2 with maxed out settings. Even better than complaining about the requirements would be to stop playing new games altogether. Old games were so much better — who needs new ones?

Nah i have a 5600+3060ti and my experience is way better than base consoles, with FG on im getting 85fps on evarage at 1440 (DLSS B ) optimized settings, its not native 60fps but It is smooth enough for fast gameplay.

I need to test the FSR FG in Borderlands 4, but so far, I haven't played a single game with the AMD implementation of FG that felt responsive even at 100fps base framerate. But your 3060ti should have something like 45-55 fps without FSR FG, and IMO that's enough to enjoy playing games (at least with the gamepad).

 

[Scrawnton]

I remember the early days of 3D graphics. It's true that development time was much shorter back then, and even a small team of developers could release a game. However, the scale of old games and the quality of their assets were nothing compared to modern games.

Both ID Software (Doom: The Dark Ages) and Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed: Shadows) said that they would not release their games so quickly without dynamic lighting.

It would take 2 years, and 2TB of data, to pre-bake the lighting of Assassin's Creed Shadows

As Ubisoft's Nicolas Lopez said in a GDC 2025 presentation, it would take 2 years to pre-bake the lighting of Assassin's Creed: Shadows.

www.dsogaming.com

Two years is a long time. Without dynamic lighting, they would probably never include dynamic seasons. But who needs dynamic seasons in games right? The first AC game didn't have this feature, but gamers were still happy, right?

You're yelling into a void, man.

Neither of us will change our minds. So there is no point in me tackling what you're saying and there's no point of you going "see this is how people react when they're wrong." It's not gonna phase me.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

hows the stuttering on console? heard its fixed in latest patch

Its ugly and still runs pretty mid on my PS5 Pro.

It's barely playable, but it IS playable.

Once I get used to 60 fps, the experience is....fine.

 

[Lokaum D+]

I need to test the FSR FG in Borderlands 4, but so far, I haven't played a single game with the AMD implementation of FG that felt responsive even at 100fps base framerate. But your 3060ti should have something like 45-55 fps without FSR FG, and IMO that's enough to enjoy playing games (at least with the gamepad).

For this causal shooter It feels really nice, even with KB+M, but take this with a grain of salty since i m a huge casual player, also pads on FPS should be sin.

 

[lh032]

Its ugly and still runs pretty mid on my PS5 Pro.

It's barely playable, but it IS playable.

Once I get used to 60 fps, the experience is....fine.

i thought its supposed to run at 60fps? u talking about VRR?

 

[JohnnyFootball]

i thought its supposed to run at 60fps? u talking about VRR?

Its between 50 and 60. With some very noticeable drops below in firefights. Its usually around 60.

 

[Rivdoric]

Well fellows, i was going to troll saying how i'm playing Borderlands 2 at DLDSR 2.25x on 3240p @120fps all maxed out + physx, bells and whistles, no fake pixels, no fake frames on my 4090 and laughing at you all with your UE5 garbage but my game crashes every 30 minutes with a "low vram" error because it's 32 bit and can't handle it so i'm just going to shut up and shitpost.