Black Myth: Wukong – NVIDIA introduces PC version of the game, path tracing quality and performance of GeForce RTX 4000 cards

Next week, Black Myth: Wukong will be available for sale, which will be another production, after Alan Wake 2, that shows off the capabilities of path tracing (also called Ray Tracing in full in marketing). A few days ago, the Game Science studio published a special test on Steam that allows you to test the performance of graphics cards in the upcoming game. Now NVIDIA is promoting the title, presenting the path tracing features and publishing the initial performance results of GeForce RTX 4000 graphics cards.

NVIDIA has released a new trailer for Black Myth: Wukong, showing off the quality of path tracing on the PC version. A few screenshots have also been released to compare RTX ON/RTX OFF and initial performance on GeForce RTX 4000 graphics cards.

Black Legend: Wukong Tested on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 This Game Will Destroy Your PC

The PC version of Black Myth: Wukong uses, among other things, indirect multi-reflection lighting, allowing light to be reflected twice, thus creating more realistic lighting and ambient occlusion. Particle effects can also be ray-traced in the PC version, allowing reflections from attacks, explosions, and fires to be displayed. After turning on path tracing, all shadows and reflections, for example, look more natural. The latter, after PT is activated, features an advanced caustic material, which highlights areas of refraction and reflection on the surface. There are a lot of changes, but this comes at the cost of a significant performance drop.

Black Legend: Wukong Free for GeForce RTX 4000 Series Buyers Boasts In-Game Path Tracing Performance

For this reason, the game uses different scaling techniques to improve performance. The default setting, which is part of Unreal Engine 5, is TSR (temporal super resolution) scaling, and we also have NVIDIA DLSS in the latest version, AMD FSR 3.1 and Intel XeSS 1.3. When TSR, DLSS or FSR are activated, users can also use the frame builder at the same time. While promoting the latest game, NVIDIA presented the performance results of the GeForce RTX 4000 graphics cards from the Ada Lovelace generation.

Black Myth: Wukong PC – Path Tracing OFF vs Path Tracing ON

Black Myth: Wukong PC – Path Tracing OFF vs Path Tracing ON

Black Myth: Wukong PC – Path Tracing OFF vs Path Tracing ON

Black Myth: Wukong PC – Path Tracing OFF vs Path Tracing ON

Black Myth: Wukong PC – Path Tracing OFF vs Path Tracing ON

The charts below are based on tests performed at maximum graphics settings, with path tracing and DLSS (both ultra-high resolution and frame generation) enabled. In Full HD, DLSS SR was set to Quality and in this case all cards except the GeForce RTX 4060 would achieve more than 60 fps. Quad HD also used Quality mode to measure the resolution and here, at least for the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, the result given is in line with what we observed in the benchmark, but on the slightly weaker GeForce RTX 4080. With frame generation, the maximum 60 fps should be exceeded with at least the GeForce RTX 4070. At 4K upscaled, with DLSS in performance mode and a frame generator, you need at least a GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER to achieve an average of over 60fps (though there are potential dips below 60fps, considering the fact that the more powerful GeForce RTX 4080 already balances on these limits). Even on a GeForce RTX 4090, when using DLSS performance and a frame generator, you can’t count on exceeding 100fps.

Source: Nvidia