Gearbox confirms 20% FPS gains in Borderlands 4 since launch
PC updates have boosted Borderlands 4’s PC performance by 20% since launch
Gearbox has confirmed that its upcoming March 26th (1.5) update for Borderlands 4 will deliver new performance optimisations to the looter-shooter. Since launch, Gearbox claims to have boosted Borderlands 4’s PC performance by 20% across a range of hardware configurations, and their work is not finished. Borderlands 4 players can now enjoy higher FPS numbers and more stable performance.
What’s even better is that Borderlands 4’s framerate stability has been improved significantly. The game’s 1st- and 0.1st-percentile framerates have seen huge increases. Stutters and hitches feel less intrusive, and the game now runs much more smoothly. With lower percentile framerates being much closer to average framerates, Borderlands 4 now feels much better to play on PC.
We’ve been listening to the community since launch and have seen the comments about optimization and performance. We take this seriously, and want to take a moment and talk about the strides and advancements we’ve made.
A lot of our optimization work for PC players has centered on providing meaningful improvements in frame rate without noticeable sacrifices to the game, including visual fidelity, that are fundamental to the artistic intent of Gearbox’s developers. Our primary objective is to strike the balance between making sure players can notice the frame rate improvements we’re making without disrupting their experience.
Over the past several months, these optimizations have improved average FPS by approximately 20% across the board, including on our minimum and recommended specifications.
But this is just the start. We’ve also greatly improved stability, reducing the amount of crashes affecting players.
We know we have work left to do, and we’re continuing to optimize for the future.
– Gearbox
Gearbox has also claimed that it has “nearly halved the crash rate” in Borderlands 4, giving PC gamers a much better gameplay experience. The crash rate has been reduced from 0.63% of all sessions to 0.38%.
If you want to see Borderlands 4’s performance gains in action, you can watch Gearbox’s video on the topic here. For unknown reasons, the video has been listed as an age-restricted video. This means that it cannot be played or embedded on external websites (including the official Borderlands 4 website).
The roughly 20% increase in average FPS comes from combined efforts focusing on GPU, CPU, and general efficiency, with the Optimization Team identifying specific refinements to improve performance without being too noticeable in terms of visual fidelity.
In addition to improving average FPS, we reduced stutters, improving the 1% and 0.1% lows in frame rate. These are the bottom 1% and 0.1% of frames generated during our benchmark test and are indicators of frame stability. The closer these numbers are to the average FPS, the smoother and more responsive the game will feel, reducing stutters and hitches.
Hitching is among the top challenges impacting performance, as a stuttering frame rate can really take you out of the action. We reduced hitching by refining our PSO (Pipeline State Objects) process to avoid overloading the game system with too many effects.
– Gearbox
Solid improvements, but more optimisations are welcome
When Borderlands 4 launched, we called the game “a mess” in our PC performance review. Low framerates and constant stuttering ruined the gameplay experience. Optimised graphical settings were a must for all PC players, as was upscaling. Now, it looks like the game runs much more smoothly.
Hopefully, Borderlands 4 will continue to receive optimisation updates. If that is the case, perhaps Gearbox can resume development of the game’s Switch 2 version. While the game runs much better today, Borderlands 4 is still a performance hog.
You can join the discussion on Borderlands 4’s PC performance improvements on the OC3D Forums.
