Ghost of Tsushima PC Performance Review: Slice Smoothly

Ghost of Tsushima, the open-world masterpiece set during the 1274 Mongol Invasion of Japan, has finally been released on PC. Originally here as a PlayStation exclusive, the game is hereafter, and fans have eaten Sony’s ears off. However, many of Sony’s PC ports of PS-exclusive games have often faced performance issues on release. Well, we were concerned about that, too. Thanks to a copy provided by Sony, we got the game and decided to put it through its paces to provide you with a complete performance review. So, with that, let’s begin testing!

Ghost of Tsushima PC: A Brief Overview

While I think most of you know the game, let me give you a small recap. Ghost of Tsushima is an open-world RPG set in 1274 feudal Japan during the Mongol Invasion. The story follows the young Samurai, Jin Sakai, who is trying to free the land of Tsushima from the Mongols. One of the antagonists is Khotun Khan, a fierce Mongol who has trapped Jin’s uncle, Shimura.

A big part of the story focuses on Jin Sakai transforming into a Ghost, a stealthy operative who performs assassination, going against his Samurai code of honor. While the story begins slowly, it quickly gets intense and gripping and doesn’t let go. So, regardless of who you are, you’ll love it.

Ghost of Tsushima PC Performance (Tested)

Now that you have a basic understanding of the game, let’s begin discussing our tests and results. For our performance tests, we used a system with the following specifications:

Test Setup:

CPU: Intel i3-8100 (8th Gen) @3.60 GHz
GPU: RTX 4060 @8GB
RAM: 8GB
SSD: 480GB Wester Digital

We tested Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut PC on our desired resolutions of 1080P and 2K with the highest graphical settings. Our testing also included running with and without DLSS to measure AI frame generation and the lack of it. While we also wanted to test 4K, certain errors stopped us from doing so. With that, here are the results:

Ghost of Tsushima PC: 1080p Highest Settings

Almost as expected, Ghost of Tsushima on PC ran comfortably at 1080p on the Highest Settings, giving a stable 60-65 FPS without DLSS upscaling. The GPU temperature remained around 56-58 Celsius, with utilization sitting at 45-55% in most areas. While it would spike a few times to 70% while traveling through the beautiful grass meadows, overall, it remained stable.

The CPU utilization comfortably sat around 47-50% of usage, occasionally spiking to 60% when going through the grass meadows.

Using DLSS, on the other hand, caused a massive spike, with the game getting 100+ average FPS without problems. This is a massive increase, and we could easily feel it while playing. The GPU temperature remained mostly unaffected with DLSS On at 60 degrees Celsius.

However, with DLSS and Frame Generation On, the GPU utilization spiked to 65-75%, while the CPU utilization remained mostly unaffected.

Ghost of Tsushima PC: 1440p Highest Settings

Compared to 1080p at the highest setting, the game saw a distinct drop in performance at 1440p at the highest setting. We began with DLSS off and saw Ghost of Tsushima run at an average FPS of 30-35. This was barely playable, and I could feel the drop in frames.

The GPU temp soared to 65 degrees, and so did the fans. The GPU was used about 65%, with the CPU in the 55-60% range.

Thankfully, turning on DLSS for frame generation was a much better experience. On average, the frames spiked to 55-60 and occasionally dropped to 40 while traveling through some areas. The CPU utilization remained around 60%, spiking a couple of times to 80%. The GPU utilization sat mostly between 70-80%, touching 100% several times. The GPU temperature soared to 68 degrees, occasionally spiking over 70 degree Celsius.

However, with DLSS at 2k, you could sometimes feel the unresponsiveness of generative frames, which was a bit annoying. Compared to that, the game ran much smoother at 1080p with DLSS On.

Ghost of Tsushima PC: Playable Settings

Compared to the Highest Settings, Ghost of Tsushima ran comfortably well without DLSS on 1080p at the preset “High Setting.” The game noticed a big jump in performance when turning down the Volumetric Fog option to High from Ultimate, receiving a spike of 15 FPS.

The game ran easily in the preset High Setting without DLSS, with an average of 70 FPS. While there was a dip here and there, it was minor. The GPU utilization remained constant at around 50%, occasionally spiking to 70%. The GPU temperature was also comfortable at 56 degrees.

The CPU utilization also remained around 47-50% without much change, and I didn’t notice it spike.

Ghost of Tsushima PC Performance Verdict: Worth the Trip to Japan?

Ghost of Tsushima is almost a perfect PC port. Why do I say almost? Well, it would be fully perfect if it didn’t have its set of issues. My time with the game included minor glitches, such as textures not loading in a few scenarios and the screen flickering in dark cutscenes (especially at the start of the game). Thankfully, they weren’t that frequent to harm the game’s overall experience.

Additionally, the FSR 3.1 frame generation is currently not working for many players, crashing the game after selecting the settings. Other than that, I faced a particular issue of textures and shaders not loading, replaced by green flashes. This was not frequent, but it definitely put my experience off, especially during cutscenes where you are engrossed in the story.

All these issues aside, the game feels particularly smooth during the combat, and the occasional spikes and drops only occur while traveling through the beautiful graphically intensive areas in the game, keeping the game unaffected.

Putting a few problems aside, the Ghost of Tsushima port is a fantastic game, and I would recommend it to every gamer. The game can run completely offline and doesn’t require a PSN account if you only want to play the single-player version.