Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy PC Performance Review

Conclusion

The Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is the franchise’s first release on the PC platform, bringing the marsupial to a new world where higher resolutions and framerates are not only possible but easily achievable. 

Right now, the only major flaw with the N.Sane Trilogy’s PC version is the lack of an unlocked framerate, which while fixable using the Nvidia Control Panel is not addressable on Radeon hardware, at least as the time of writing. We will address update this review if a workaround is eventually discovered.

Right now the game is locked to a maximum framerate which lines up with the user’s display refresh rate, which in the case of most PC gamers is 60FPS, though when we used a 75Hz monitor this maximum decreased to 37Hz, half of what the display is capable of. We have also heard reports of 144Hz users being locked to a maximum framerate of 48, a third of what the display is capable of. 

When playing the game with an unlocked framerate using our Nvidia control panel workaround we found no gameplay issues within the N. Sane Trilogy, leaving us scratching our heads as to why Vicarious Visions and Iron Galaxy released the game without a fully unlocked framerate option. We hope that this performance niggle will be addressed with a future patch. 

Some of our regular readers will be wondering where our CPU testing is. To make a long story short, the CPU benchmarking was pretty much unnecessary given the game’s framerate lock. Even on a quad-core system, we could only find high levels of CPU usage when the game was loading new stages, with the game making use of minimal CPU resources in-game. 

The N. Sane Trilogy’s low CPU requirements are due to the game’s nature as a PS1 remaster. The game isn’t a lot more complicated than its original PS1 counterpart, with additional resources being given to the graphics side of the equation, keeping CPU requirements low. CPU testing is redundant in this case, as all we would be showing you is a chart that says 60 across the board, if you have a reasonably modern processor you will have no trouble with the N. Sane Trilogy. If anything limits you, it will be your graphics card, not your processor.

Graphically the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy has four graphical preset, three of which offer almost identical visuals in-game. When mowing from Medium to High or Ultra the only settings that change is the title’s shadow quality and FXAA settings, both of which offer a minimal impact on the game’s overall visuals. Moving from Low to Medium is where the most significant changes happen, activating Fur Blur, Depth of Field, Bloom lighting and Ambient Occlusion, all of which have a considerable impact on the game’s visuals. 

If you need to lower any single setting to access more performance, the easy pick is Shadow Quality, as this setting has by far the smallest impact on the game’s visuals. Shadows in the N. Sane Trilogy use soft edges, allowing even the game’s lowest shadow settings of offer pleasing visuals. Yes, higher quality shadows look better, but not enough to notice outside of a side-by-side comparison or to be worth any performance hits. 

We were able to run the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy at 60FPS on every graphics card that we attempted to run the game on, which is great news for PC gamers. Both the PS4 and PS4 Pro versions of the game operate at a static 30FPS, giving PC gamers a considerable boost in visual smoothness and controller response. PC is easily the best platform to play the N. Sane Trilogy, as no console version of the game currently offers 60FPS playback. 

Outside of the game’s resolution niggles, the only complaint that can be levelled at the N. Sane Trilogy is a lack of graphical options and its lack of native support for 21:9 monitors. Only seven graphical options are available, and five of these options are simple on/off switches while another offers three versions of FXAA. 

Users of 21:9 monitors will only be able to play the game in 16:9 mode using black bars on both sides of the screen, a logical choice given the game’s origins. A wider field of view would allow players to see areas of the map that the game’s developers never intended to show, or would present the same image with a lower vertical field of view, which would impact gameplay. With the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy originating as a PS4 exclusive, we can understand why the PC version suffers from a little consolitis. 
 
The Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy offers PC gamers their first chance to experience the franchise, providing the ability to push the game to higher framerates and resolutions than any version of the game before it, with 4K 60FPS framerates being easily achievable on today’s high-end hardware. While the game’s framerate locking niggles are annoying, PC gamers will regardless receive a better gameplay experience than their console rivals, acting as the only version of the game to offer 60FPS framerate support. 

If you want to revisit this classic series, there is no reason to stay away from the N. Sane Trilogy’s PC version, as nowhere else can offer the full-fat 60FPS gameplay experience. 

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