Digital Foundry's Thomas Morgan recently put Bloodborne through its paces using the ShadPS4 emulator, analyzing its performance and the impact of community-created enhancements.
For his evaluation, Morgan utilized ShadPS4 build 0.5.1 by diegolix29, a build stemming from raphaelthegreat's custom branch. After testing various builds, he found this version to yield optimal results on his system (AMD Ryzen 7 5700X CPU and GeForce RTX 4080 GPU).
Morgan suggests 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 significant mods are needed; the emulator incorporates a dedicated menu for managing performance enhancements, including 60fps support, resolutions up to 4K, and chromatic aberration toggles.
While occasional stuttering was observed, Bloodborne generally maintained a stable 60fps frame rate. Experiments with 1440p and 1800p resolutions resulted in enhanced visual fidelity, but came at the cost of significant performance drops and increased instability. Therefore, Morgan advises sticking to 1080p (native PS4 resolution) or 1152p for the best balance of performance and visuals.
Morgan concluded that the very feasibility of PS4 emulation for Bloodborne represents a remarkable achievement by the ShadPS4 team. While acknowledging remaining technical imperfections, he deemed the emulator's performance impressive.
