I bought my PC a couple of years ago while finishing college and would rather upgrade it than move to the next generation of consoles. I'm happy with the system overall, but I'd like to improve its performance, especially in Crimson Desert. My current setup is a Ryzen 7 7700, Radeon RX 7800 XT with 16GB of VRAM, 32GB of DDR5 memory, and a 144Hz 1440p monitor. I'm also considering buying a high-quality 4K OLED display eventually, but I'm not sure whether I should upgrade the PC first or what component to prioritize. In Crimson Desert, I've noticed frequent frame-time stutters and a somewhat hazy-looking image. I may also be dealing with poorly tuned settings, since I'm still learning how to optimize games properly. What would be the best first upgrade or adjustment?
3 Answers
Before upgrading, spend some time adjusting the game settings and checking whether the stuttering is caused by shaders, upscaling, frame generation, or an overly demanding option such as shadows or global illumination. That hardware should already be capable of running the game at 1440p, and with compromises it may even handle 4K. Online gameplay videos may also be using different settings or image-enhancement features, so they aren’t always a direct comparison.
For a future 4K display, the graphics card would be the first major upgrade. Your current GPU is still a strong 1440p card and can probably manage 4K with sensible settings, but a faster GPU will give you smoother frame rates and more headroom. If you want to stay with AMD, a Radeon RX 9070 XT would be the logical step up. I wouldn’t replace the CPU or memory yet.
That makes sense. I’m still trying to tune the game before buying anything, since I’m getting stutters and a hazy image and may simply have the settings configured badly.
Since Crimson Desert is the main reason you’re considering an upgrade, focus on the GPU rather than the processor. Your Ryzen 7 7700 and 32GB of RAM are still more than adequate for gaming. Monitor your GPU usage, CPU usage, temperatures, and frame times first; if the GPU is consistently near full utilization, that confirms a graphics-card upgrade will help.
I’ll go through the settings more carefully. I had it running reasonably well when I first tried it, but I haven’t played in a couple of months and didn’t have time to finish troubleshooting.