Emulate 'Bloodborne' on PC with Stable 60 FPS

Digital Foundry's Thomas Morgan recently put Bloodborne through its paces using the ShadPS4 emulator, analyzing performance and the impact of community-created enhancements.

Morgan's tests utilized ShadPS4 build 0.5.1 by diegolix29, a build based on raphaelthegreat's custom branch. After experimenting with various builds, this version yielded optimal results on his test system (AMD Ryzen 7 5700X CPU and GeForce RTX 4080 GPU).

He strongly suggests installing the Vertex Explosion Fix mod. While this mod disables pre-game character face customization, it effectively eliminates distracting visual glitches manifesting as distorted or misplaced polygons. No other mods are necessary; the emulator incorporates a comprehensive menu for managing various performance enhancements. These include 60fps support, resolution scaling up to 4K, and chromatic aberration toggling.

While occasional stutters were present, Morgan reported a mostly stable 60fps experience at 1080p. Experiments with higher resolutions (1440p and 1800p) resulted in improved visual fidelity, but at the cost of significant performance drops and frequent crashes. Therefore, he recommends sticking to 1080p (native PS4 resolution) or 1152p for the best balance of performance and visual quality.

Morgan concluded that the very existence of playable PS4 emulation via ShadPS4 is a remarkable feat. While acknowledging remaining technical hurdles, he deemed Bloodborne's performance on the emulator largely successful.