Best Wuchang Fallen Feathers settings for PC and Steam Deck

Finding the best Wuchang Fallen Feathers settings on PC is no easy task, due to some initial performance issues rearing their ugly heads. The game is also a non-starter on the Steam Deck, but we're hoping future updates could change this situation.

Check out our Wuchang Fallen Feathers review to see what we think of this latest soulslike game, and be sure to check out the Wuchang Fallen Feathers system requirements to make sure your gaming PC can handle it before you commit to a purchase. While you won't need the best GPU from our buying guide to run it, the specs in the system requirements are also deceptively low, thanks to the inclusion of Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR.

• Lock Frame Rate: Unlimited (VSync must be disabled)
• VSync: Off
• Overall Quality: High
• Motion Blur: On
• Depth of Field: On
• Oversampling Resolution: 80
• Super-Resolution Oversampling: Nvidia DLSS if available, if not use FSR or TSR
• Frame Generation: On if available
• DLSS Frame Generation: x2 if available
• Anti-Aliasing Quality: Mid
• Sharpening: 3
• Post-Processing: High
• Shadow Quality: Mid
• Effects Quality: High
• Viewing Distance: Mid
• Texture Quality: High
• Vegetation Quality: High
• Volumetric Fog: High
• Global Illumination: Mid
• Ambient Occlusion: High
• Reflection Quality: Mid

Using the above settings on our RTX 4070 testing rig, we obtained an average frame rate of 85fps with 1% lows of 45fps at 1,920 x 1,080. That average is fine, but the 45fps 1% low is right on the borderline when you consider that we had to use frame gen to achieve it. Moving up to 2,560 x 1,440, the frame rate dropped to an average of 69fps with unacceptable 1% lows of 29fps. Finally, at 4K, performance dropped to an average of just 49fps with 1% lows of 13fps.

Right now, Wuchang Fallen Feathers feels like a game suffering from poor optimization on PC. The performance isn't so bad that it's unplayable, at least not with our specs, but the game was difficult to run smoothly without enabling Nvidia DLSS, and there are some noticeable moments where the game grinds to a halt, seemingly when loading in content.

A big contributing factor to the struggles many gamers may be having, especially those on older or low-spec gaming PCs, is the need for DLSS or FSR to be used. It wasn't specified in the system requirements what level of upscaling was used, and we fear it may have been quite aggressive, given the initial feedback from players on less powerful PCs. We had the resolution slider set at 80 to achieve our results, which equates to the typical 'Quality' setting.

The only way around this is to lower the in-game settings to the lowest preset and gradually increase them until you reach a level of performance with which you're happy. Ideally, we would like to have a 1% low of at least 60fps with frame gen, and 45fps without it, but we were unable to achieve this across all the resolutions and graphics presets, showing there's plenty of room for this game to be better optimized.

Another strange issue specifically concerns running the game at a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution, which is extremely blurry. This would sometimes fix itself, but more often than not, when switching to this resolution, the image clarity would fall off a cliff, as seen in the image below (right-click the image and open it in a new tab to see more detail).

Best Wuchang Fallen Feathers settings for Steam Deck

• Lock Frame Rate: 30
• VSync: On
• Overall Quality: Low
• Motion Blur: On
• Depth of Field: Off
• Oversampling Resolution: 50
• Super-Resolution Oversampling: FSR
• Frame Generation: Off
• Anti-Aliasing Quality: Low
• Sharpening: 5
• Post-Processing: Low
• Shadow Quality: Low
• Effects Quality: Low
• Viewing Distance: Low
• Texture Quality: Low
• Vegetation Quality: Low
• Volumetric Fog: Low
• Global Illumination: Off
• Ambient Occlusion: Low
• Reflection Quality: Low

Currently, it is not worth attempting to run Wuchang Fallen Feathers on the Steam Deck. While the above settings sometimes result in a frame rate of 30fps, for the most part, this is incredibly unstable and often drops to single digits as you enter combat or when multiple enemies are on screen.

Changing the Proton version didn't improve performance either, and increasing the level of AMD FSR upscaling only helps up to a certain point, after which the image becomes too distorted.

Future updates could aid performance, but right now we'd recommend sticking to one of the best gaming PC or best gaming laptop picks from our buying guides.

Wuchang Fallen Feathers graphics presets

There are five total graphical presets in Wuchang Fallen Feathers.

• Low
• Medium
• High
• Ultra
• Extreme

There are some substantial leaps in quality when moving between these graphical presets, particularly from medium to high and ultra to extreme. The image below shows the difference between the highest and lowest preset, which also mainly shows the huge difference in lighting quality and character detail.

Moving between the presets also has a big performance impact, with the extreme profile returning a frame rate of 49fps with 1% lows of 13fps, whereas the low preset returns an average of 128fps with 1% lows of 51fps.

How we tested Wuchang Fallen Feathers

At PCGamesN, we use dedicated gaming rigs to test the best settings for performance and gameplay in the latest releases. The test rig used to play Wuchang Fallen Feathers includes the following components: Intel Core i7-11700F, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 12GB, 32GB of DDR4 3,200MHz RAM in dual-channel configuration, and an MSI B560 motherboard. We also test using Windows 11 64-bit.

We always run our testing first at 1,920 x 1,080 to identify the best settings for this entry-level resolution, then again at 2,560 x 1,440 using the same setup to gauge the difference in performance. Finally, we also test in 4K. We use CapFrameX to capture frame data and compare testing sessions.

Does Wuchang Fallen Feathers need an SSD?

Wuchang Fallen Feathers does not require an SSD, but one is recommended, as per the system requirements. Due to the long loading times you can experience without one, it's highly recommended that you upgrade if you still currently use a mechanical drive.

If you grab yourself the best gaming SSD from our buying guide for your existing gaming PC, it will really help keep game loading times in check while also providing some minor performance boosts.

How to monitor performance in Wuchang Fallen Feathers

If you want to keep an eye on performance in Wuchang Fallen Feathers, we have an easy method that works whether you're using an Nvidia or AMD graphics card.

For Nvidia cards, ensure you have the Nvidia App installed and the in-game overlay enabled, and then hit ALT + R in-game to bring up your performance monitor. With AMD cards, you can enable performance monitoring via the Radeon overlay using the shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + O.

Alternatively, you can download free software such as CapFrameX or Nvidia FrameView, to get a cleaner, more simplified benchmarking tool that works with any graphics card.

With handheld gaming PCs, most will have a dedicated button to access a quick menu from which performance monitoring, sometimes called real-time monitoring, can be accessed.

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