Shadow Warrior 3 is a first-person shooter developed by Polish game developer Flying Wild Hog, and while the "Elden Ring" that debuted at the same time attracted the most attention from players, Shadow Warrior 3 relied on elements such as mysterious oriental magic style, tight rhythm, flesh-and-blood melee combat, and a dazzling free movement system, and the unique "violent aesthetic" still attracted the attention of some players.
The new generation of shadow samurai series has made a lot of improvements in the combat system, simplifying the operation, players do not need to think too much about completing the task, making the game more pure and refreshing to play. Shadow Samurai 3 is based on Unreal Engine 4, and the overall picture quality has also been greatly improved compared to the previous game. As a game with high requirements for speed, what level of graphics card is required to play Shadow Samurai 3?
Test platform with description
In terms of test platforms, the CPU uses the Intel Core i9-11900K, and the motherboard is MSI's MAG Z590 TORPEDPO, which installs two DDR4-3600 16GB of memory. Graphics cards are the latest generation of NVIDIA and AMD architecture products, with Soutel's GeForceRTX 3080 Ti/RTX 3070 Ti/RTX 3060 Ti/RTX 3060/RTX 3050, and AMD's Radeon RX 6800 XT/RX 6700 XT/RX 6600 XT/RX 6500 XT.
Pictured: Tested Sotecté RTX 30 Series graphics cards
Image options and picture effects
Judging from the configuration requirements given by the official, "Shadow Samurai 3" does not have high hardware requirements, the minimum needs GeForce GTX 760, and the highest needs GeForce RTX 1080. Since Shadow Samurai 3 is a multi-platform game that also supports Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Xbox One consoles, the lower limit should be on par with the console. The official configuration reference standard is based on 1080P resolution, and the overall requirements for the platform will certainly be higher for players with 2K or even 4K monitors.
Shadow Samurai 3 added support for NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex and AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), but when it was first unblocked, there were problems with the use of NVIDIA DLSS and FidelityFX Super Resolution in the initial version, and it was necessary to use them normally through the official update patch. If players find that their Shadow Samurai 3 cannot turn on NVIDIA DLSS or FidelityFX Super Resolution properly, it is recommended to update it first.
Shadow Samurai 3 provides three preset schemes in the choice of picture quality, namely "Low", "Normal" and "High", players can also adjust the light and shadow quality and material quality and other special effects, if you make changes to the preset plan, it will be classified as "Custom". Overall, shadow samurai 3 offers a normal range of options, and the number is not particularly large. In order to facilitate the comparison of test data and take care of the player's actual game selection, the preset scheme of the game is preferentially selected in the test, and no separate adjustment of non-essential items is made.
DLSS and FSR screen display
Primitive screen
DLSS quality
The above screenshots are based on 4K resolution and high image quality, including native, three DLSS modes, and four FSR modes. In the comparison of picture quality, the difference between static pictures is not as obvious as that of dynamic pictures. Compared to other games, the difference in image quality in shadow samurai 3 does not seem to be particularly obvious.
Graphics requirements testing
In addition to the highest native image quality tests at 4K, 2K and 1080P, the frame rate of GeForce graphics cards at 4K resolutions after DLSS or FSR is turned on, and the test scene is the first level of Shadow Samurai 3. During the test, the settings are adjusted to the preset scheme "High Quality" and vertical synchronization is turned off, in addition to the adjustment of DLSS and FSR.
2160P resolution test
In 4K resolution, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti has reached the level of 60 frames, while the AMD, Radeon RX 6700 XT has a performance close to 60 frames. In the case of the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, the average frame count will exceed 100 frames, and the Radeon RX 6800 XT will also be above 90 frames. From the overall performance point of view, the requirements for the configuration of "Shadow Samurai 3" are not high, and the performance of the current high-end graphics card can meet the needs of 4K resolution.
1440P resolution test
All the graphics cards participating in the test this time ran the game at 2K resolution, on the one hand, the game is relatively friendly to the graphics card requirements, on the other hand, 2K resolution is the main choice for many PC players in the future period of time. At 2K resolution, Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3050 hit the threshold of 60 frames, while the GeForce RTX 3060 exceeded 90 frames. In terms of AMD, the Radeon RX 6600 XT exceeded 90 frames, but the Radeon RX 6500 XT only had 50 frames, which was a big gap with other Xiankara who participated in the test. Whether it is the Ampere architecture or the RDNA 2 architecture, the mainstream level GPU has a satisfactory performance in 2K resolution.
1080P resolution test
You can see that at 1080P resolution, any GeForce RTX 30 series or Radeon RX 6000 series graphics card on the market is very smooth. For many PC players who are still using the old platform, if paired with a 1080P resolution monitor. It's not a big problem to want to play Shadow Samurai 3.
DLSS and FSR testing
The updated Shadow Samurai 3 is a game that supports both NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). After a long period of continuous promotion by NVIDIA, I believe that many players are very familiar with the technology of DLSS, hardware acceleration through a dedicated AI processing unit, plus the addition of algorithms, the low-resolution rendered images into high-resolution images, while maintaining higher resolution image quality. FidelityFX Super Resolution uses low-resolution images for multi-frame synthesis, which is not the same as the principle of NVIDIA DLSS.
In Shadow Samurai 3, DLSS and FSR are divided into three and four gears, respectively. The three gears of DLSS are "Quality", "Balance", and "Performance", which lacks many of the "super performance" in the game. The four gears of FSR are "Super Quality", "Quality", "Balance", and "Performance", which are the general settings of games that support FSR. Players can only choose FSR if they use AMD graphics cards, NVIDIA graphics cards can choose DLSS and FSR respectively, GeForce RTX 3050 will be used in the test, set at 4K resolution and high image quality, by selecting different options for DLSS and FSR, see how much it will affect the number of frames.
Judging from the test results, after opening DLSS, the GeForce RTX 3050 has a normal frame rate increase at 4K resolution, which is not outstanding, but the difference in frame number between "quality", "balance" and "performance" is small. If you switch to FSR, the increase in the number of frames will be greater. In general, DLSS and FSR in the same gear, DLSS actual game graphics will be better than FSR. Whether it is DLSS or FSR, the minimum frame count of 1% will also be increased after opening, which means that the picture will be more stable and smoother during the game.
summary
Pictured: Sotecté RTX 3050 X-GAMING OC participating in the test
Shadow Samurai 3 sets the picture quality to the highest level at 4K resolution, without opening DLSS or FSR, and the mid-to-high-end graphics card is also enough to cope. Even if it is slightly insufficient, turn on DLSS or FSR. Shadow Samurai 3 will be better for NVIDIA's graphics card optimization overall, and the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti already has a good performance. At 2K resolution, the mainstream-level GeForce RTX 30 series and Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs both meet the needs of the game well, and players don't need to worry about frame count.
For players using NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060/RTX 3050, if you want to play Shadow Samurai 3 in 4K resolution, you can try to turn on DLSS or FSR to guarantee the frame rate. Compared with many new games, the configuration requirements of Shadow Samurai 3 are more reasonable, even if there is only 4GB of video memory, running at 1080P resolution is not a big problem, and it is friendly to those who are still using old graphics cards, reducing the threshold of the game.