The Last of Us Part 1 Patch 1.0.4 Tested – Improved Performance and new PC settings
Notable performance gains at all graphical presets
Below we can see the performance impact of The Last of Us Part 1’s update 1.0.4.0 in our demanding testing area. This area is from the start of the game, when Joel is carrying his daughter Sarah though a built-up area during the early stages of the game. This area is heavily scripted, very CPU-limited, and highly repeatable.Â
At Ultra settings, we see that 1st percentile framerates increase by 14.69% and that the game’s average framerate increases by 6.28%. These are notable performance gains, though they are not enough to stop the game from feeling choppy. Thankfully, at low and medium settings, The Last of Us Part 1 have their framerates shoot up with patch 1.0.4. At medium settings, 1st percentile framerates increase by 39.31%, and average framerates increase by 20.7%, which is a huge increase.Â
We now know that these performance gains come from The Last of Us Part 1’s new Ambient Character Density setting, which lowers the number of non-combat NPCs that are present in areas of the game like this. This decreases CPU load and boosts The Last of Us Part 1’s performance significantly, without having much of an impact on the game and its visuals. Yes, there are fewer NPCs, but these NPCs are merely set dressing, and even at low these areas have plenty of NPCs.
Sadly, The Last of Us Part 1’s Performance levels do not increase significantly at Ultra settings, which means that the game remains hugely CPU-limited in areas like our early game benchmarking area. That said, we can increase the CPU performance of this area significantly by lowering the game’s new Ambient Character Density setting.
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