Digital Foundry's Thomas Morgan recently put Bloodborne through its paces on the ShadPS4 emulator, analyzing its performance and the impact of community-created enhancements.
Morgan's evaluation utilized ShadPS4 build 0.5.1 by diegolix29, 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).
He strongly suggested installing the Vertex Explosion Fix mod. While this disables pre-game character face customization, it effectively eliminates bothersome visual glitches manifested as distorted or misplaced polygons. No other mods are necessary; the emulator incorporates a comprehensive menu for managing performance tweaks. This includes options for 60fps gameplay, resolutions up to 4K, and chromatic aberration toggling.
While occasional stuttering was observed, Morgan reported a mostly stable 60fps experience at 1080p. Experiments with 1440p and 1800p yielded sharper visuals but came at the cost of significant performance drops and frequent crashes. Therefore, he recommends sticking to 1080p (native PS4 resolution) or 1152p for optimal stability.
Morgan concluded that the very feasibility of PS4 emulation for Bloodborne is a remarkable feat by the ShadPS4 team. While acknowledging remaining technical imperfections, he praised the emulator's overall performance with the game.
