Black Myth Wukong Optimization: Best Graphics Settings for PC with Benchmarks

Black Myth: Wukong is out on Steam and Epic Games as the most anticipated title of Q3 2024. Based on the Chinese novel “Journey to the West,” the game is a cutting-edge, ray-traced depiction of the adventure built atop the Unreal Engine 5. Like most modern titles, it features multiple upscaling technologies, including DLSS, FSR, TSR, and XeSS. This is the highest fidelity game we’ve ever benchmarked, and just because a particular setting is taxing doesn’t mean it’s unoptimized.

Windows/System Settings to Optimize

• Enable Resizable BAR.
• Turn on Game Mode.
• Enable Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS) and Windowed Optimizations.
• Use the Windows “High Performance” power profile and set your GPU power management mode to the same.
• Overclock your GPU if you’re narrowly missing the 60 FPS mark.
• Ensure you use the proper XMP/EXPO memory profile (if available).
• Here’s a guide with more detailed instructions.

Black Myth Wukong: PC Specs

Black Myth: Wukong demands a GeForce RTX 4070 or a Radeon RX 7800 XT for 4K “Ultra” (no ray-tracing). The CPU recommendations are quite modest requiring a Skylake-era Core i7-9700 or a Ryzen 5 5500 alongside 32 GB of main memory and 12 GB of graphics memory. The game needs an overall storage of 130 GB, with SSDs preferred for faster load times.

Full ray-tracing or path-tracing requires a GeForce RTX 3060 at 1080p RT “Low,” an RTX 4060 for RT “Medium,” and the RTX 4080 Super for 4K RT “Very High.” The main memory requirements remain unchanged, while graphics memory usage spikes up to 16 GB at the highest preset. These specifications assume that you’re using upscaling and frame generation with ray-tracing.

Test Bench

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X.
• Cooler: Lian Li Galahad 360 AIO.
• GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4090 FE.
• Motherboard: MSI MPG X670E Carbon WiFi.
• Memory: 16 GB x2 @ 6000 MT/s CL30.

Black Myth Wukong: Resolution Scaling & Graphics Presets

Black Myth Wukong is the most GPU-taxing game we’ve ever tested. Even without ray-tracing, the GeForce RTX 4090 cannot attain an average of 60 FPS at 4K. The Ada Lovelace flagship averages 94 FPS at 1080p, 72 FPS at 1440p, and 49 FPS at 4K using the Cinematic quality preset (RT Off). There’s balanced scaling between the three resolutions, indicating the lack of a CPU bottleneck.

The framerates scale well across the five graphics presets, averaging 49 FPS, 55 FPS, 71 FPS, 86 FPS, and 110 FPS at Cinematic, Very High, High, Medium, and Low, respectively. These benchmarks were conducted at 4K with DLAA enabled.

Black Myth: Wukong is built on the Unreal Engine 5 which utilizes the Nanite engine to deliver high-fidelity geometry. It works by automatically delivering the optimal level of detail at each resolution. Ergo, the resolution or the pixel density also determines the polygon-level geometric detail presented on the screen. When using DLSS or FSR, the internal resolution slider is used for the same.

Graphics Presets’ Image Comparisons

Black Myth Wukong: Full Ray-Tracing (Path-Tracing)

Black Myth Wukong features full ray-traced lighting (global illumination), path-traced shadows, reflections (including particles), and caustics. The game offers three path-tracing presets: Low, Medium, and Very High. The difference between the three is summed up in the table below:

Very High enables full-resolution reSTIR global illumination, path-traced shadows, reflections, particles, and caustics. Medium disables caustics while reducing the reflection and GI resolution to half. Low completely disables reflections, leaving you with half-resolution GI and path-traced shadows. Additional image comparisons are linked.

The performance impact of full ray-tracing or path-tracing differs greatly from 1080p to 4K. At 1080p, the “Cinematic” preset is ~70% faster than the highest ray-tracing quality at the same resolution. The performance hit increases to 95% at 1440p, and 160% at 4K. This is largely because the number of rays cast is directly proportional to the screen pixel count.

With only frame generation and DLAA (100) enabled, the GeForce RTX 4090 averages 35 FPS at the RT “Very High” quality preset. Scaling down to “Medium” increases the FPS to 49, with “Low” producing 53 FPS. Disabling ray-tracing completely boosts the averages up to 77.6 FPS.

DLSS 75 “Quality” upscaling produces an average of 36 FPS at 4K RT “Very High.” “Medium” is a notch faster with 49 FPS, while “Low” performs almost the same at 54 FPS. Disabling ray-tracing completely increases the framerates to 72 FPS. Note that while frame generation interpolates a third frame between every two rendered frames, employing upscaling (DLSS or FSR) decreases the ray cast by reducing the internal resolution and thereby the pixel count.

DLSS “Quality” and frame generation together grant an average of 60 FPS at 4K RT “Very High” on the GeForce RTX 4090. The “Medium” preset pumps out 79 FPS, while “Low” is a smidge faster with 86 FPS. Meanwhile, the “Cinematic” preset without RT averages 104 FPS.

Black Myth Wukong features full ray-tracing or path-tracing. It leverages “ReSTIR GI,” a path resampling optimization for path tracing. But before we get to that, what’s the difference between ray and path-tracing? Without making your (or my own) head scratch further, here’s what sets the two apart:

• Ray tracing usually traces a single ray per pixel, from the camera (screen) into the scene and towards the object visible in it.
  • The interaction of this ray with the object determines whether we’ll get a reflection, refraction, or redirection.
  • Gathering this data, the ray then travels back to the light source, where (along with thousands or millions of other rays) it’s used to calculate the scene’s lighting.

• Path tracing is similar to ray tracing but differs at the start and the end. While ray tracing casts a single ray per pixel, path tracing casts several rays in random directions through each pixel.
  • These rays bounce off objects multiple times, across a wider area, tracing the path of many different rays before returning to the source with a lot more lighting data.
  • Path tracing can solve complex lighting scenes, including caustics, particles, and indirect multi-bounce illumination using the Monte Carlo integration.
  • The MC integration is a more fine-tuned approach to ray tracing that produces more realistic lighting, albeit at a higher processing time.

• ReSTIR GI: This is a form of path-traced, multi-bounce global illumination that utilizes data across time and space to improve image quality without raising the computational requirements. The algorithm is composed of three parts:
  • A ray is traced from each visible point (the red dots on the orange ball) in random directions to determine its closest intersection points.
  • The reflected radiance of these points is computed using path tracing.
  • Temporal (data across consecutive frames) and spatial (within the frame) resampling are employed to improve accuracy without the need for casting excessively high rays.

Ray Tracing Image Comparisons: ReSTIR GI, Reflections, Shadows & Caustics

Upscaling & Frame Generation: DLSS 3.7

Black Myth: Wukong offers four upscaling technologies, including DLSS 3.7, FSR 3, XeSS, and TSR. Out of these, DLSS (by far) produces the best image quality especially when it comes to reducing the noise associated with specular reflections in ray-tracing/path-tracing.

If you have a high-end GPU such as the RTX 4080 or the 4090, you can run the game at the highest ray-tracing settings with upscaling alone, without the need for frame generation. Of course, there will be a palpable drop in visual quality (RT reflections) as the internal pixel count takes a hit. The RTX 4090 averages 81 FPS and 54 FPS at 4K (RT Very High) using the “Ultra Performance” and “Performance” DLSS quality presets, respectively.

Enabling frame generation doubles the framerates, from 36 to 60 FPS at DLSS “Quality” and 44 to 74 FPS at DLSS “Balanced” while mostly retaining the pixel-level lighting data. We recorded averages of 120.6 FPS at the DLSS “Ultra Performance” preset at the cost of increased reflection noise. We recommend an internal resolution of 50+ for DLSS to avoid visual artifacts.

The GeForce RTX 4090 averages over 80 FPS at 1440p when using the DLSS “Performance” preset with RT set to “Very High.” Enabling frame generation gets you over 100 FPS with 1% lows of 98 FPS. You can easily get away with frame generation alone at 1440p and lower.

FHD or 1080p allows the RTX 4090 to nearly conquer the 60 FPS mark without any upscaling or frame generation. We recorded an average framerate of 56 FPS at the RT “Very High” settings with DLAA enabled.

Upscaling and frame generation are relevant even if you’re not using ray tracing. For example, the GeForce RTX 4090 averages 49 FPS at the “Cinematic” preset at 4K. Lower-end GPUs will have an even higher need for these options to deliver reasonable framerates at higher resolutions.

All modern upscalers are based on temporal anti-aliasing which leverages image data from previous frames instead of generating it at full resolution. Objects are tracked across frames using motion vectors, accumulating samples and increasing detail using previously rendered frame data.

Reprojecting and accumulating frames tends to be an approximation and invalid pixel data from previous frames is often carried over. This leads to loss of complex geometry (grass, twigs, hair, etc), often causing ghosting (translucent edges) and aliasing.

DLSS and XeSS deal with this using a neural network trained to reject invalid interframe samples. DLSS has shown remarkable improvements over time, producing native-quality output in half the frametime. FSR uses an algorithmic approach that can be fine-tuned and adjusted for different scenarios, at times, producing very similar image quality. However, it’s not a one-fits-all approach, and often struggles with thin objects/geometry.

What About FSR 3 & XeSS?

If you’re wondering why we ignored FSR and XeSS, it’s because they make a mess of the image quality when ray tracing is involved. In Black Myth: Wukong, DLSS is by default enabled with Ray Reconstruction, a neurally trained denoiser that filters the temporally accumulated frame data, discarding the bad/invalid pixels, thereby producing a clearer and more accurate image.

FSR and XeSS lack this little trick, leading to severely noisy specular reflections in water bodies and streams. Additionally, while FSR and TSR support frame generation, they are both locked at 60 FPS to avoid frame pacing issues. This is evident in the below chart (without a 60 FPS lock).

Interestingly, XeSS does a much better job of denoising reflections than FSR but lacks frame generation. In case you have an AMD GPU and prefer quality over performance, then it’s an option worth considering. More comparisons are linked. Black Myth: Wukong is built atop the Unreal Engine 5, the same as “The Last Descendant” so the remaining graphics settings will be similar to the F2P.

NVIDIA DLSS 3.7 vs AMD FSR 3 vs Intel XeSS Image Comparisons

View Distance, Anti-aliasing & Post-processing

View Distance or LOD adjusts the distance (from the player) at which different objects, from NPCs to buildings, disappear or are culled from view. It primarily affects the CPU performance by increasing or decreasing the number of objects in the scene. It has a subtle impact on framerates.

Post-processing includes motion blur, depth of field, bloom, light shafts, and more. It has a nominal impact on image quality and game performance.

Anti-aliasing smoothes jagged edges, while newer temporal methods also help retain geometric detail along thin objects like branches, wire fences, and grass. You don’t have to worry about this as you’ll mostly be relying on upscalers and their anti-aliasing filters.

Shadows & Reflection Quality

Shadow quality sets the resolution of shadow maps, with lower settings producing blurry silhouettes, compared to sharp and detailed shadows at high and above. The “High” setting appears to be the sweet soft, while “Cinematic” cuts framerates by 17% on average.

Reflections (rasterized) in Black Myth are high-performance with minimal screen space detail of surrounding objects. You get roughly the same framerates at “Cinematic” as at “Low.”

Global Illumination (GI) & Visual Effects

Black Myth employs Lumen-based global illumination that can reduce FPS by up to 40% at the highest setting. Medium or High are viable options for users on lower-end hardware, with Very High and Cinematic increasing the range and detail of the effect.

Visual effects control various cosmetic effects such as weathering, decay, inundation, etc, adding another layer of immersion to an already complex world. It has a mild 6-7% impact on performance.

Vegetation & Hair Quality

Vegetation quality sets the density and variety of grass and other vegetation in the scene. Considering the visual impact, it has a paltry 4-5% impact on framerates at the highest setting.

Hair quality sets the density and complexity of the hair strands of the player character and NPCs. Unless you’re in a brawl, this setting has a minimal impact on performance.

Black Myth Wukong: VRAM Usage

Black Myth: Wukong is generous with graphics memory, utilizing over 13 GB at the “Very High” ray-tracing preset at 4K native. “Medium” and “Low” use 11-12 GB, while sheer rasterization stays under 10 GB, with “Low” using just under 7 GB at 4K.

FHD (1080p) and QHD (1440p) use 10-12.5 GB and 7-8 GB with and without ray-tracing, respectively (without upscaling or frame generation).

Black Myth Wukong: CPU Bottlenecks

Black Myth: Wukong is predominantly GPU-bound, a trend we’ve seen with other Unreal Engine 5 games as well. We see a GPU-Busy deviation of 4-6% at 1080p and 1440p, and <4% at 4K. You’ll be CPU-bound only in extreme cases, like at the “Low” quality (non-RT) preset with DLSS upscaling set to Quality or lower.

Best Graphics Settings for Black Myth Wukong: High and Low-end PCs

If you’d like to avoid frame generation (there can be flickering on certain configurations), please use the following settings:

Black Myth Wukong: Settings for the Steam Deck

Here’s our in-depth guide analyzing the performance of Black Myth on the Steam Deck OLED.

Best Settings for Black Myth Wukong: Low-end PC

Here’s our guide for low-end PCs featuring the 60-class GPUs.