It is usual that in many genres and in many video games there has to be a coordination between what is shown and what is calculated. In the case of Elden Ring, an element very similar to that of fighting games occurs, and that is that pressing the buttons at the right time to dodge an enemy’s attack or make a parry is very important. Believe us that playing the PC version of the game at a frame rate below 60 FPS is going to put you at a disadvantage.
At the same time, running the game at 60+ FPS is also not an advantage in and of itself, as the game engine is designed to run at that speed. Neither more nor less, so if your graphics gives you more frames per second, take the opportunity to increase the graphic load in the form of placing the graphic presets higher or, failing that, the resolution. If the opposite is the case and you move away from 60 FPS then try to lower the graphic quality in the game.
What processor to use?
Elden Ring is a game whose PC version is a direct conversion of the Xbox Series games that make use of an 8-core Zen 2 CPU. Therefore, it is not optimized for the computer and, therefore, it will make each of the execution threads of a CPU of equivalent power. At the time of writing this article we have found that From Software has not optimized that aspect of the game very well.
So which CPU will I have the least problems with? If you are an Intel user then an Intel Core 10, 11 or 12 with 8 cores, so we will move in the orbit of the i7 from now on. On the other hand, if we are AMD users, a CPU or APU Ryzen 3000 to 6000 with a configuration also of 8 cores and 16 execution threads. It’s not that you can’t run the game on worse processors, but you’re going to notice the performance plummet.
Performance in Elden Ring: what graphics card do I need?
To begin with, we are going to answer that if you have one of less than 4 GB then discard it to play Elden Ring, what is more, if you are looking to play at 4K we recommend a card of more than 6 GB. Although this is more of a truism on our part, as the GPUs that run the game at that resolution without issue have more than that amount of memory.
In general, the performance of the game on the different graphics cards denotes a conversion made in a hurry and quickly from console to PC that does not take advantage of the power capabilities of the different gaming graphics cards that exist on the market. It is not a game that is visually cutting-edge, since we are not facing a graphic beast. So the game not only performs worse than it should, but also as we go up in power, we see how the percentile in the use of graphic hardware goes down.
| Graphics card and VRAM | 1080p | 1440p | 2160p |
|---|---|---|---|
| AMD RX 580 8GB | No | No | No |
| AMD RX 5500 XT 4GB | No | No | No |
| AMD RX 5600 XT 6GB | Yes | No | No |
| AMD RX Vega 64 8GB | Yes | Yes | No |
| AMD RX 5700 XT 8GB | Yes | No | No |
| AMD RX 6500 XT 4GB | No | No | No |
| AMD RX 6600 8GB | Yes | No | No |
| AMD RX 6600 XT 8GB | Yes | No | No |
| AMD RX 6700 XT 12GB | Yes | Yes | No |
| AMD RX 6900 XT 16GB | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AMD RX 6800 XT 16GB | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AMD RX 6800 16GB | Yes | Yes | No |
| NVIDIA GTX 1660 6GB | Yes | No | No |
| NVIDIA GTX 1070 8GB | Yes | Yes | No |
| NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti 11GB | Yes | Yes | No |
| NVIDIA RTX 3050 8GB | Yes | No | No |
| NVIDIA RTX 2060 6GB | Yes | No | No |
| NVIDIA RTX 2070 8GB | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| NVIDIA RTX 2080 8GB | Yes | Yes | No |
| NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti 11GB | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB | Yes | Yes | No |
| NVIDIA RTX 3060 Ti 8GB | Yes | Yes | No |
| NVIDIA RTX 3070 8GB | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti 8GB | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| NVIDIA RTX 3080 10GB | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| NVIDIA RTX 3090 24GB | Yes | Yes | Yes |
If you have doubts about whether your graphics card can run the From Software game with ease, and, therefore, at a rate close to 60 FPS, then you only have to consult the table above these lines. And as we have said before, although the game can be played at a lower speed, the game system is designed to give us the best of itself with a speed close to 16.67 ms per frame.
1080p or Full HD
Starting with the most basic resolution we have a demonstration of the lack of optimization of the game, so an NVIDIA RTX 3050 8 GB or a GTX 1660 Ti of the same brand will allow you to play the game at 58 FPS, but an RTX will be necessary 3090 to get to a fixed 60 FPS. So don’t worry about this couple of frames, it’s a completely negligible difference in gameplay.
However, in Team AMD we have to rule out the 8 GB RX 580, it is placed over 45 FPS, the RX 5500 XT and the RX 6500 XT. None of the three exceeds 53 FPS and this negatively affects the gameplay as we have already mentioned above. Nor do we need to see the results to tell you what the performance would be with the integrated GPUs. In any case, you can try with somewhat lower resolutions such as 1600 x 900 or 1280 x 720 to get closer to the desired 60 FPS on average.
1440p
In the intermediate resolution we see several models drop in our quest to achieve 60 FPS. So in the case of NVIDIA we are going to need a 12 GB RTX 3060 to achieve a frame rate that does not harm us in the game. On the other hand, if we use a Radeon, an RX 6600 or later. Again the delta in terms of frame rate again demonstrates the lack of optimization especially if we take into account the differences between the different models that have been tested.
2160p or 4K
Here things get more difficult and the game of chairs makes a lot of NVIDIA and AMD gaming graphics cards lose their seats. Starting with the NVIDIA one, an RTX 3070 Ti is needed to be able to reach a minimum figure of 58 FPS. On the AMD side, the game requires an RX 6800 or better to run at its recommended speed.
