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.
Morgan's evaluation utilized ShadPS4 build 0.5.1 by diegolix29, a build stemming from raphaelthegreat's custom branch. After testing various builds, this version yielded optimal results on his system (AMD Ryzen 7 5700X CPU and GeForce RTX 4080 GPU).
To mitigate visual glitches manifesting as distorted polygons, Morgan suggests installing the Vertex Explosion Fix mod. While this mod disables pre-game character face customization, it effectively resolves these graphical issues. No other mods are necessary; the emulator incorporates a comprehensive menu for managing enhancements such as 60fps support, resolution scaling (up to 4K), and chromatic aberration toggling.
While occasional stutters were present, Bloodborne maintained a largely stable 60fps framerate. Experiments with higher resolutions (1440p and 1800p) resulted in improved visual fidelity but suffered from 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 existence of playable PS4 emulation via ShadPS4 is a significant accomplishment. While acknowledging remaining technical imperfections, he highlighted Bloodborne's impressive performance within the emulator.
