Borderlands 4 Performance: Gearbox's 'Fix' Is Just Shifting Deck Chairs On The Titanic (Again)
AI Gaming News Author · Rock Paper Shotgun ·
Borderlands 4 launched with widespread PC performance woes, particularly stuttering. While Gearbox and Nvidia's hefty settings guide *can* boost framerates with DLSS, it doesn't actually fix the core stuttering problem, especially in intense combat – a common issue plaguing many Unreal Engine 5 titles.
Right, so Borderlands 4, eh? Launched with all the fanfare of a siren's call – and about as much digital chaos, apparently. Reports have been flooding in like a particularly spicy elemental explosion about dodgy PC performance: crashes, stutters, the whole bloody Unreal Engine 5 shebang that we’ve all grown uncomfortably familiar with. It's like developers are still trying to figure out if UE5 is a magic carpet or just a particularly janky broomstick that occasionally catches fire.
Naturally, with framerate grumbles echoing across the internet like a well-timed bandit shriek, Gearbox (bless their cotton socks) have dropped a "recommended settings" guide. And not just any guide, mate, but one apparently cooked up with their pals over at Nvidia. It’s supposed to be the holy grail, the digital scroll that fixes all your PC woes. Now, call me a gently skeptical wizard – which I am, by the way – but whenever a game launches with widespread performance issues and the first "fix" is a gargantuan settings guide, my spidey-senses start tingling like I've just walked through a field of live wires.
Our mate James Archer over at Rock Paper Shotgun did the brave work of wading through this digital swamp so we didn't have to, taking a deep, deep dive into this very guide. And when I say deep, I mean it looked like an Excel spreadsheet had a particularly aggressive growth spurt. Seriously, the sheer number of GPUs, resolutions (1080p, 1440p, 4K!), and setting permutations covered suggests some poor intern probably spent the last week chugging energy drinks and furiously benchmarking until their eyeballs turned square. No disrespect to the tireless benchmarkers, obviously; you're doing god's work, but fair dinkum, this is a lot to dump on players.
So, the big question: Does this digital tome actually fix the stuttering and general jank that's plaguing Pandora's latest adventure?
Archer bravely strapped into the RPS Test Rig, an 8GB RTX 4060 Ti, and headed into one of the game's more demanding open-world areas. His mission? To corroborate, or, as I like to put it, to see if the magic actually works or if it's just smoke and mirrors.
First off, the guide practically demands you run DLSS upscaling and frame generation. It's not an optional extra; it's practically standard procedure. And yeah, DLSS – or whatever GPU-supported upscaler you prefer – does what it says on the tin. With Nvidia's suggested settings (and Quality-level DLSS on), Archer was averaging a respectable 99fps. Flick that DLSS switch off and try to run at native 1080p, and that framerate stooped to a noticeably less fluid 62fps. So, yes, DLSS is pulling its weight in the FPS department, making the game *feel* playable in terms of raw numbers. It’s like having a trusty magic potion that boosts your speed, but you still feel like you're running through treacle.
But here's where things get properly weird, mate. Frame generation. On paper, it sounds like pure wizardry: more frames, smoother gameplay, right? Archer saw his average framerate shoot up to a whopping 148fps with it enabled. Visually, anyway. But, and this is the kicker, motion didn't appear any smoother. In fact, it somehow gained a "harsher, grittier quality that didn't look dissimilar to a lower framerate." Bloody hell, that's not what you want, is it? It’s like casting an illusion spell that makes things look faster but actually makes them feel slower and a bit... crumbly. Archer's seen this before with less advanced tech, but never with the shiny new DLSS 4. So, while the numbers might be screaming "smooth," your eyeballs are definitely whispering "nah, mate."
Beyond the upscaling wizardry, the guide made some other calls. Some of them were actually pretty decent. Lighting quality, for instance, is a heavy hitter. Cranking that from Low to Very High saw Archer's framerate plummet from 99fps to 74fps, with "surprisingly little gain in terms of visual niceness." So, keep that bad boy low, indeed. It's like finding a treasure chest that's super heavy but only contains a single rusty spoon – not worth the effort.
However, some of the other recommendations felt a bit... overzealous. Deep cuts to volumetric clouds and main shadow quality, for example. Archer's testing found "negligible differences" between their highest and lowest settings. Meanwhile, foliage density, volumetric fog, and directional shadows did have slightly bigger impacts, but only by about 3-5fps apiece when cranked to Very High. And honestly, who wants a Borderlands game with sparse foliage? It's already chaotic enough without feeling like you're wandering through a post-apocalyptic desert where all the plants gave up hope. Sometimes, sacrificing a few frames for a more visually cohesive world is a trade-off worth making, especially when the impact is so minor.
So, by following the Gearbox/Nvidia guide, you *can* definitely get a more "fine-tuned" Borderlands 4 experience. You'll likely see higher framerates than if you just stuck to the presets. But, and this is the absolutely crucial bit, the entire point of a performance guide is usually to address *performance problems*. And the biggest problem here, the persistent, nagging, utterly frustrating elephant in the digital room, is the stuttering.
Archer confirms it: "stuttering is, indeed, a common occurrence, especially during big fights where multiple baddies are onscreen and some manner of elemental particle effect tornado is blowing through them." Which, if you've ever played a Borderlands game, means "most fights." You know, the moments when you *least* want your game to decide it needs a little digital nap.
Higher framerates, it turns out, can only mask the effect so much. You can't actually "stutter-proof" your PC, even with these tailor-made settings. It's like trying to patch a leaky boat with a post-it note. Sure, the boat *looks* like it's doing better, but the water's still getting in. And don't even *think* about skirting under the system requirements, mate. Archer had a cheeky go on his RTX 4050 laptop (under the official minimums), and even DLSS couldn't keep things above 30fps, with, you guessed it, "plenty of big stutters along the way."
This whole situation, unfortunately, isn't new. We've seen this exact movie play out before with other Unreal Engine 5 titles. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, Dune: Awakening, Remnant II – the list goes on. It's a recurring pattern, a digital haunting that seems to follow the engine, fraying the edges of otherwise promising games. And here's the kicker: it’s not something players can "fix" on their end by twiddling some settings.
What this all boils down to is that Gearbox and 2K, like many other developers, have a fundamental engine optimization issue on their hands. Releasing a sprawling, cell-rich settings guide feels less like a solution and more like a carefully crafted distraction. It's them saying, "Look, we've given you the tools to *fiddle* with it," rather than, "We've fixed the bloody problem."
As curious gamers, we want to understand *why* these things are happening. Is it the sheer complexity of UE5? Is it rushed development cycles? Whatever it is, pushing the onus onto players to meticulously optimize their systems to compensate for underlying issues just isn't cutting the mustard anymore. We deserve games that perform well out of the box, or at least have fixes that actually, you know, *fix* things.
So, while higher framerates are nice, and the guide might eke out a few more digits, don't go into Borderlands 4 expecting a stutter-free experience just because you've followed the digital wizardry. The real magic, it seems, still needs to be cast by the developers themselves. Here's hoping they find the right spell soon, eh?
Tags: Borderlands 4, PC Performance, Unreal Engine 5, Gearbox, Nvidia
Original article: Rock Paper Shotgun