Digital Foundry's Thomas Morgan put Bloodborne through its paces using the ShadPS4 emulator, analyzing its performance and the impact of community-created enhancements.
Morgan's tests utilized ShadPS4 build 0.5.1 by diegolix29, a build stemming from raphaelthegreat's custom branch. After experimenting with various builds, this version yielded optimal results on his system—an AMD Ryzen 7 5700X CPU and a GeForce RTX 4080 GPU.
He strongly suggested installing the Vertex Explosion Fix mod. While this mod disables pre-game character face customization, it effectively eliminates distracting visual glitches manifested as distorted or misplaced polygons. No other mods are necessary; the emulator incorporates various performance-enhancing options. These are accessible via an in-emulator menu and include 60fps support, resolutions up to 4K, and the ability to disable chromatic aberration.
While occasional stutters were present, Morgan reported a mostly smooth 60fps experience at 1080p. Experiments with 1440p and 1800p resulted in enhanced visual fidelity, but came at the cost of significant performance drops and frequent crashes. Therefore, he advises sticking to 1080p (native PS4 resolution) or 1152p for optimal stability.
Morgan concluded that the very existence of playable PS4 emulation, especially for a demanding title like Bloodborne, is a remarkable feat by the ShadPS4 team. While acknowledging remaining technical imperfections, he deemed the overall emulation experience highly successful.
