Borderlands 3 Benchmark Test & Performance Analysis

[W1zzard]

Borderlands 3 is the latest installment in the epic loot-and-shoot series. The graphics are greatly improved and you are free to pick between DirectX 11 or DirectX 12. We took the game for a spin using 23 of the latest graphics cards, testing 1080p, 1440p, and 4K in both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12.

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[E-curbi]

Outstanding review W!zzard.

BL3 is a must-play for me.

Your performance review helping me decide on which card to buy for 2560x1440, thanks man.

 

[Cheeseball]

Some critics will say that Borderlands 3 is "more of the same," which is absolutely right, and I love it.

This. I don't care about the stupid EGS controversy. I just block any ports the telemetry uses, like I do for Steam's.

The game is pretty much Borderlands 2++++ so I'm quite satisfied. Moze is complete crack with her mech!

Runs great on the G5 5587 with a GTX 1060 Max-Q on high settings. 5700 XT runs good on the desktop, but has weird dips but no crashes. AMD needs to optimize their driver more.

 

[Imsochobo]

Think it's a long delay for playing this for me.
not because EGS, but just because the performance is so crap.

 

[64K]

It doesn't seem that BL3 has as much content as BL2. A site that I use to get a general idea of how long the game is says that it's around 20 hours for the main story and 27 hours for the main story plus extras whereas with BL2 it was 30 hours for main story and 48 hours for main story plus extras.

How long is Borderlands 3? | HowLongToBeat

How long is Borderlands 3? HowLongToBeat has the answer. Create a backlog, submit your game times and compete with your friends!

howlongtobeat.com

Still, it's the quality of the content that really matters and so far I'm hearing good things about that. 20-27 hours of gameplay is still quite considerable and then there's replay value as well and I imagine there will be a flood of DLC for anyone who wants more Borderlands play.

 

[Agent_D]

Personally, I like BL3 much more than BL2. It feels like a more well constructed game in many facets, including story. The story might have been a bit predictable, but I enjoyed every minute of it. I just finished my first play through and it took around 30 hours with a bit of exploring and doing probably 60% of the side quests, which are also really enjoyable and don't feel like random tossed in things. For the initial release, it feels great. I'm going to start working on finishing things up 100% before starting next level of difficulty and working through those.

Turning off Motion Blur and setting Volumetric fog to medium had a pretty big increase in FPS. On a Radeon VII at 2025/1200 my in-game benchmark averaged 84.5FPS at 2560x1440 with Badass preset with Motion blur off and Volumetric Fog at Medium.

Edit: That's with DX12; didn't test DX11.

Edit 2: This is with 19.9.2 drivers. 19.9.1 was a 74.5FPS average. Just did a few runs of the in-game benchmark. Volumetric Fog at Off and at Medium had a less than 1fps difference. Going to Volumetric ultra dropped to 64fps. Changing motion blur and image fidelity had no effect on fps averages.

 

[Blueberries]

That's a big jump in hardware demand from Borderlands 2 that I was able to play 1080p with Intel HD 530 integrated.

 

[dj-electric]

BL3's graphics don't justify the performance one bit. Something there is hogging all the resources in an ugly way.
With how this game looks, I expected RX 590 and GTX 1660 to lock in 60FPS at 1080P and RTX 2060 \ 5700 to do the same at 1440P.

 

[Deleted member 158293]

BL3's graphics don't justify the performance one bit. Something there is hogging all the resources in an ugly way.
With how this game looks, I expected RX 590 and GTX 1660 to lock in 60FPS at 1080P and RTX 2060 \ 5700 to do the same at 1440P.

Have to agree, with how this game looks like, I don't see why the requirements should be that much more than BL2.

 

[Agent_D]

To be fair on the performance. The screenshots and videos don't do the in-game visuals justice. Also, like with Monster Hunter World, volumetric fog is a big performance drop, and with it set to low/off, the 590 and 1060 will likely be above 60fps at 1080. I can verify later today, I have other PC's I can test with around the house with a 570 4GB, 590, and Vega 56.

 

[Sithaer]

It doesn't seem that BL3 has as much content as BL2. A site that I use to get a general idea of how long the game is says that it's around 20 hours for the main story and 27 hours for the main story plus extras whereas with BL2 it was 30 hours for main story and 48 hours for main story plus extras.

How long is Borderlands 3? | HowLongToBeat

How long is Borderlands 3? HowLongToBeat has the answer. Create a backlog, submit your game times and compete with your friends!

howlongtobeat.com

Still, it's the quality of the content that really matters and so far I'm hearing good things about that. 20-27 hours of gameplay is still quite considerable and then there's replay value as well and I imagine there will be a flood of DLC for anyone who wants more Borderlands play.

Keep in mind that BL 2 had multiple DLCs over the years but if you compare relase vs relase then BL 2 did not have more and there are 4 DLCs announced for BL 3 already.
Developers mentioned it that BL 3 is their biggest BL game yet.

Also theres no point in playing on simply Ultra/Badass Preset unless someone likes to have less FPS for virtually no reason.

I'm yet to finish my first playtrough since I like to take my time and explore,etc.
Somewhere around 20+ hours spent and lvl 31+ atm.

Graphics wise the game does look a lot better than BL 2,ppl really need/should look further than the same 'art' style thing.

So far I'm yet to run into any serious issues with the game other than the not so good optimization but with tweaked settings based on that Vid its more than playable even on my hardware.

To be fair on the performance. The screenshots and videos don't do the in-game visuals justice. Also, like with Monster Hunter World, volumetric fog is a big performance drop, and with it set to low/off, the 590 and 1060 will likely be above 60fps at 1080. I can verify later today, I have other PC's I can test with around the house with a 570 4GB, 590, and Vega 56.

This.
I'm playing the game on a UltraWide monitor and the game looks significantly better than BL 2 maxed out,played BL 2 very recently before the relase of BL 3 so its not like my 'memories' are faded or something.

 

[64K]

Keep in mind that BL 2 had multiple DLCs over the years but if you compare relase vs relase then BL 2 did not have more and there are 4 DLCs announced for BL 3 already.
Developers mentioned it that BL 3 is their biggest BL game yet.

The site I used lists time played in DLCs separately. The hours reported that I posted are for main story and main + extras (side quests). People are only just beginning to report their time in game with BL3 so it could change.

 

[phanbuey]

the graphics style in this game seems to be very simple/artistic, but the frame-rates say otherwise.

I think i need to see it in person.

 

[Wyverex]

We tested the public Steam release version of Borderlands 3 (not a press pre-release). We also installed the latest drivers from AMD, which both have GameReady support for the game.

I'm guessing that's a typo in the review @W1zzard

Other than that, as usual - great review. Thanks!
I look forward to the time BL3 comes to Steam

 

[moob]

To those of you that have not heard and still want to buy this game from Epic dont the Denuvo DRM will install a keylogger which will spy on you and the Denuvo DRM also needs a 20 mega bit upload for the game to work because its constantly sending data and if you dont have that much upload speed the game will not work

This game has DRM that are so extreme it will crawl up your butt and spy on everything you do even when not playing the game

Please stop spreading this unfounded nonsense. Even in the thread the OP got called out for not knowing the difference between bits and bytes: source.

Second, this is the anonymous wall of text I've seen quoted: source

Great. An anonymous wall of text that only speculates on the existence of a keylogger.

I'm not saying that it couldn't be, but since there's no real evidence evidence, just stop.

 

[Sithaer]

To those of you that have not heard and still want to buy this game from Epic dont the Denuvo DRM will install a keylogger which will spy on you and the Denuvo DRM also needs a 20 mega bit upload for the game to work because its constantly sending data and if you dont have that much upload speed the game will not work

This game has DRM that are so extreme it will crawl up your butt and spy on everything you do even when not playing the game

Sigh..I wish ppl would stop spreading that nonsense.

The person who first started spreading that thing checked wrongly and it was more like 2megabit and also you CAN play the game fully offline as I checked out today with my Ethernet cable disconnected from my PC and it works perfectly
Rest I wont even bother to comment,have fun with the paranoia.

 

[W1zzard]

The game works perfectly fine blocked in the firewall, that's how I play it. 2 Mbit/s = 250 KB/s. I don't know anyone that presses keys that fast, so kinda unlikely it's a keylogger. But "keylogger" = clicks

Looks like some kind of telemetry to me, not a keylogger.

typo in the review

Fixed. Thanks!

 

[bug]

44fps on a 2080Ti gains an automatic "FU, too" from me.

 

[Cheeseball]

44fps on a 2080Ti gains an automatic "FU, too" from me.

That's at 2160p and Ultra.

i7-8750H & GTX 1060 Max-Q at 1080p, High, I get between 70 to 90 FPS.

i5-8400 & RX 5700 XT at 1080p, mix of High and Ultra settings, I get around 80 to 110 FPS. Adrenalin 19.9.2 drivers.

 

[Agent_D]

Testing with an RX590 at Badass preset with some volumetric fog lower levels.

CPU: Intel Core i5 8400
Memory: Corsair 16GB DDR4 2400
GPU: Sapphire RX590 Nitro+
Resolution: 1080p

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overclock: None
Fan Profile: Default
Drivers: 19.9.2
API: DX12
In-game settings: Badass
Volumetric Fog: Medium
In-Game Benchmark: 52fps average
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overclock: None
Fan Profile: Default
Drivers: 19.9.2
API: DX12
In-game settings: Badass
Volumetric Fog: Off
In-Game Benchmark: Can't complete - Crashes
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overclock: None
Fan Profile: Default
Drivers: 19.9.2
API: DX11
In-game settings: Badass
Volumetric Fog: Medium
In-Game Benchmark: 51fps average
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overclock: None
Fan Profile: Default
Drivers: 19.9.2
API: DX11
In-game settings: Badass
Volumetric Fog: Off
In-Game Benchmark: 52fps average
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mind you, these numbers are with a system much less powerful than the test system, so that 9fps with VF at Medium over the 42 listed in the testing done with VF at max, could be more like 20fps given the same processor/memory combo. As was already stated, but wanted some quick numbers to actually have some tangible evidence, getting extra fps without sacrificing visual quality is pretty easy to do. The video linked above should do well for users with this type of hardware.

 

[bug]

That's at 2160p and Ultra.

True, but look at the graphics.

 

[Cheeseball]

True, but look at the graphics.

There is no real discernible difference between High, Ultra and Badass from what I can see. I'm always moving in-game so I don't really stop to check if there is a change TBH.

@Agent_D You should be able to get around 80 to 90 FPS with the RX 590, just place volumetric fog to medium and a mix of high & ultra for the rest. Badass is kinda useless.

 

[Agent_D]

Oh definitely. I just wanted to do some quick tests for comparison sake with just altering 1 setting that literally changes nothing in visuals to show it's a big hit for no pay-off.

Just testing on one of the other systems in the house since it runs really well on the R VII with VF set to medium.

 

[Th3pwn3r]

I'm surprised no reports of crashing here. I went through a good 2 hours of tweaking before I could get the game to run stable but after capping at 60fps. After I posted my 'fix' on the Gearbox forum others started posting it as a fix as well. The game is super broken for the most part but runs stable just fine on another one of my computers which is slightly less powerful than the machine that was crashing constantly.

 

[Hockster]

I run 3440X1440 and all the cut scenes are not centered in the screen. It's like the game is trying to render correctly but cant. During the scenes where you meet a new character/boss and the name flies in it's partially out of frame. Not a huge deal though, everything outside of the cut scenes has been fine.