Crimson Desert looks really beautiful, but with some tricks, you can make the world even more realistic. This is especially true for the washed-out representation of ray tracing effects in the game.
Anyone using Crimson Desert with full details and ray tracing will have probably noticed that the game leaves a lot of potential on the table when it comes to graphics. Specifically, the lighting looks somewhat flat and lacking in detail.
Some testers, such as ComputerBase, report that this is due to the internal denoising software of Crimson Desert: ray tracing consumes little performance, but also leaves out details.
With some mods and settings, this can be counteracted. But there are a few problems: on the one hand, not all mods are available for free, and moreover, the nicer graphics consume performance. If you’re already playing at the lower end of the official Crimson Desert system requirements, you will only benefit to a limited extent.
Crimson Desert looks significantly better with certain mods but requires more performance
Which mods are we talking about exactly? Specifically, we are talking about the two modifications Complete RT and ReSTIR GI. These are specially adapted shaders that the developer has customized. The developer showcased the graphical improvements in an official YouTube video:
The advantages are quite obvious: The graphics look significantly more detailed, the shadows appear more natural, and the lighting is stronger.
The downside: The two mods are behind a Patreon paywall, and you can only use them if you subscribe.
Are there free alternatives? Yes, the most well-known and popular alternative is ReShade. This is open-source software that improves graphic details like colors, lighting, sharpness, and contrast in real time. The installation is relatively simple, and you do not need to alter game files. ReShade is among the best mods you can download for Crimson Desert.
Is there a fundamental downside? You should be aware that these graphic adjustments generally consume performance. If you are playing with mid-range hardware, such as a Radeon RX 9070 or a GeForce RTX 5070, you will get about 80 to 90 FPS in WQHD at high details. With activated mods, you lose about 15 to 20 FPS. Thus, Crimson Desert remains playable, but the performance noticeably decreases.
Crimson Desert looks really beautiful, but you can make the game world much more atmospheric. However, the better atmosphere costs you significantly in performance. In the test, we had to find that both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards are equally affected: In Crimson Desert, one option decides whether the game looks good or delivers many FPS
