FromSoftware has released an important new elder ring It was patched earlier this morning on all platforms. The servers were down for three hours for extended maintenance, but the real news is what the patch brings to the game.
The proper patch notes have just been released. Of course, the headlining change is the arrival of ray tracing.
As Souls modder Lance McDonald pointed out on Twitter, patch 1.09 officially adds ray tracing support to the game. So far, it’s only been confirmed for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X. The patch on PS5 is much larger at 5GB compared to 200MB on PC.
This is likely because the console patch includes precompiled shaders, which means that the PC version needs to compile shaders the first time it launches after installing the patch, similar to many other modern games.
Elden Ring 1.09 is out now on PS5 and PC. It adds support for ray-traced ambient occlusion and ray-traced shadows. No ray traced reflections. DLSS is not supported to help improve performance.
The update is 5GB for PS5 and 200MB for PC. The PS5 is larger due to the inclusion of precompiled shaders. https://t.co/4oIMOcWgq8 pic.twitter.com/0fM7mV0qBM
– Lance Macdonald (@manfightdragon) March 23, 2023
iGamesNews
The game’s graphics menu on PC now has a ray tracing quality option that players can tweak to their liking. Interestingly, however, while there are general settings for ray tracing, the menu doesn’t state what ray tracing is specifically for.
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According to McDonald’s earlier in-depth look at the recent Elden Ring patch, ray tracing is available for ambient occlusion and shadows – but not for ray traced reflections.
Unfortunately, today’s update doesn’t support any upscaling tech on PC, which means no DLSS or FSR. This is especially disappointing because Elden Ring doesn’t have its own rebuild technology, so the performance cost is quite high for many players. Hopefully something like this will be added in a future patch.
FromSoftware is certainly aware of the cost, and warns players that this may affect resolution and performance. The developer has even released updated PC specs when it comes to running ray tracing. The two sets of specs we’ve added below are for 1080p resolution. Considering the PC parts listed, this is pretty disappointing.
Elden Ring Minimum Ray Tracing Specifications
- Operating system: Windows 10
- CPU: Intel Core i5-10600K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT
- Memory: 16GB
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060Ti 8GB or AMD Radeon RX6700XT 12GB
- Target Graphics Settings: 1080p – Low Quality – Low Ray Tracing
Ray Tracing Specs Recommended by Elden Ring
- OS: Windows 11
- CPU: Intel Core i7-10700K or AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT
- Memory: 16GB
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070Ti 8GB or AMD Radeon RX6900XT 16GB
- Target Graphics Settings: 1080p – High Quality – High Ray Tracing
You can view the full changelog for patch 1.09 at the link. It’s mostly focused on PvP balance, but also has a ton of bug fixes and balance tweaks to the main game.
You may recall that ray tracing support was announced back in November 2021, months before Elden Ring was released. Since then, however, FromSoftware has never revealed any details about the feature.
FromSoftware of course likes to take its time, having just recently announced Shadow of Erdtree DLC – which doesn’t even have a release window, and doesn’t appear to be until after the studio’s Armored Core 6 release, which doesn’t have a release date either.
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