A Plague Tale: Requiem PC Performance: RTX 2080 Ti Runs Smoothly at 1080p

Focus Entertainment’s A Plague Tale: Requiem runs surprisingly well on PC hardware, lowering the entry bar for players who might assume the title demands top-tier components. The game avoids ray tracing entirely, relying instead on pre-baked lighting to create its atmosphere, which significantly reduces the load on graphics cards. This technical choice means that even older GPUs can deliver a smooth experience at standard resolutions, making the title accessible to a wider range of PC gamers.

Pre-baked lighting lowers hardware demands for PC gamers

DSOGaming conducted performance tests using a Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor paired with 32GB of DDR5 6000 memory on Windows 10 64-bit. The testing suite covered a wide spectrum of graphics cards, ranging from the older RTX 2080 Ti and RX 6900 XT to the latest RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 4090, RX 7900 XTX, and RX 9070 XT. This broad range allows us to see exactly where the performance bottlenecks lie across different generations of hardware.

• Test CPU: Ryzen 9 7950X3D
• Test RAM: 32GB DDR5 6000
• Test OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• Graphics Cards Tested: RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 4090, RX 6900 XT, RX 7900 XTX, RX 9070 XT
• Ray Tracing Support: None

At 1080p resolution with maximum settings, all tested GPUs run the game smoothly. The RTX 2080 Ti provides a solid experience when paired with G-Sync, proving that the game is not strictly bound by the most powerful modern cards. Performance issues at this resolution appear to be CPU-bound rather than GPU-bound, which explains why even mid-range systems can handle the load without significant frame drops.

Moving to 2K resolution, most graphics cards maintain 60 frames per second or higher at maximum settings. The older RTX 2080 Ti and RX 6900 XT struggle to hold a steady 60 FPS but remain playable when using FreeSync technology to smooth out frame pacing. At native 4K with maximum graphics, only the highest-end cards can run the game smoothly. The RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 4090, RX 7900 XTX, and RX 9070 XT meet this threshold, with the RX 9070 XT dipping to 58 FPS but remaining playable with FreeSync enabled.

The absence of ray tracing is the core reason for this favorable performance profile. As DSOGaming noted, the performance threshold is far lower than expected, and an RTX 5090 is not even required to clear the game at 4K. This confirms that the game’s visual fidelity relies on efficient lighting techniques rather than real-time ray calculations, offering a practical path for players to enjoy high-resolution gaming without upgrading to the absolute latest hardware.