As a result of it’s one way or the other my job to fret in regards to the technical constancy of digital toys, I’ve been eyeing the long-overdue arrival of Cranium and Bones with some nervousness. After almost a decade of delays, you’d in all probability simply wish to get it out the door, proper? Skip straight to the open-world pirate adventuring, none of that ‘making it work on a variety of graphics playing cards’ nonsense.
However nope. For all its different shortcomings, Cranium and Bones performs alright on PC, fairly often extra easily than its system necessities recommend. Although I’d nonetheless suggest abiding by its SSD storage requirement – following the foundations may not be very piratey, however putting in on a tough drive will curse you to some fairly tedious load display screen waits. Geoffrey Rush would hate it, truthfully.
Whereas Edwin sequesters himself within the beginning space, let’s head beneath deck for a more in-depth have a look at Cranium and Bones’ PC particulars. That features a full rundown of its graphics choices – which embody ray tracing and DLSS – and a fast information to the very best settings for a great prettiness-to-performance ratio.
Cranium and Bones PC efficiency and system necessities
Ubisoft’s official specs don’t scream “quadruple-A” almost as a lot as their executives do. These PC necessities are completely middling, asking for some semblance of gaming energy however to not the extent of different latest open-worlders, equivalent to stablemate Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Granted, Cranium and Bones is nowhere close to as visually luxurious as Avatar, nevertheless it’s no unhealthy looker both.
Cranium and Bones minimal specs (1080p / 30fps, Low preset)
- OS: Home windows 10
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 / Intel Core i7-4790
- RAM: 8GB (dual-channel mode)
- GPU: AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT (8GB) / Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB)
- Storage: 65GB (SSD required)
- DirectX model: DX12
Cranium and Bones really helpful necessities (1080p / 60fps, Excessive preset)
- OS: Home windows 10 / Home windows 11
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 / Intel Core i7-8700K
- RAM: 16GB (dual-channel mode)
- GPU: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT / Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070
- Storage: 65GB (SSD required)
- DirectX model: DX12
Strictly talking, an SSD is just not a lot required as it’s strongly recommendedas there’s nothing stopping you from putting in and working Cranium and Bones off a mechanical HDD. This isn’t Starfield, the place a scarcity of stable state speediness renders the whole factor unplayable – there aren’t any megastutters or dysynced audio points, so far as I can see.
Nonetheless, even when Cranium and Bones isn’t outright damaged on laborious drives, it will possibly get a complete lot extra boring. In addition to the considerably stretched-out launch instances, most sorts of loading transitions – even those that kick in while you converse to a service provider or questgiver – had me watching black display screen for a number of seconds, when those self same transitions had been close to sufficient instantaneous on an SSD. This will get really tiresome while you’re attempting to do enterprise round a bustling port, as you’ll be tripping over a number of these load screens in fast (figuratively talking) succession. You probably have or could make room on an SSD, critically, drop anchor there as a substitute.
In any other case, Cranium and Bones runs… fantastic? There’s a little bit of a framerate drop in these hub ports, in comparison with out on the seas, however since most of your time will likely be spent on the latter that’s no horrible factor. Utilizing the built-in benchmark instrument and the Low preset, I additionally clocked the entry-level 6GB GTX 1060’s 1080p efficiency at 76fps – leagues forward of the 30fps recommended by the minimal specs.
Low, like all of the presets, does give itself one thing of a synthetic benefit by together with temporal upscaling by default. On this case it employs the mildly blurry Efficiency mode, whereas Medium and Excessive each use Balanced, and Very Excessive and Extremely Excessive share the High quality setting. I’ve complained earlier than about video games leaning too closely on upscalers to maintain framerates up, although it’s extra forgivable right here because the TAA High quality setting genuinely appears like native 1080p – and after I manually switched the Low preset’s Efficiency mode to High quality, the common-or-garden GTX 1060 nonetheless produced a clean 60fps.
Newer, quicker GPUs will scale fairly properly too. The RTX 3070 averaged 82fps at 1080p with the Extremely Excessive preset, solely dropping to 70fps at 1440p, and changing TAA upscaling with DLSS on High quality mode pushed that as much as 78fps. The RTX 4060, Nvidia’s least expensive current-gen card, may additionally deal with Extremely Excessive with 70fps at 1080p and 60fps at 1440p. Conserving the extra demanding decision, it may attain as much as 125fps on Low, although that entails making Cranium and Bones look worse than it actually must. I believe most trendy PCs will get by with at the least a mixture of Medium and Excessive settings.
There are solely two additional disappointments. The primary is that whereas DLSS is as helpful as ever, and the AnvilNext engine’s TAA upscaler is surprisingly glorious, AMD FSR 2 has a comparatively weak displaying. It’s quicker than TAA, as we’ll see within the settings information checks beneath, but in addition appears noticeably grainer, with duller detailing.
The second is that Cranium and Bones doesn’t wish to play ball with the Steam Deck. Putting in the Ubisoft Join launcher is simple sufficient, due to Lutris, however the recreation itself invariably crashes withing seconds of beginning up. A disgrace, contemplating it was only recently that Ubisoft’s personal Murderer’s Creed Mirage performed completely properly on the SteamOS handheld.
Cranium and Bones: greatest settings information
Let’s go together with, oh I don’t know, say the RTX 4060 as our settings efficiency guinea pig for this one. Utilizing that 60fps at 1440p outcome, through the Extremely Excessive preset, we are able to decrease particular person high quality settings to see that are price firming down and which you’ll afford to maintain up.
I’ll say proper now that ideally, we wish to preserve upscaling high quality as excessive as potential – it’s not so unhealthy at 1440p however you’ll simply see the distinction between High quality and Efficiency at 1080p, and it ain’t fairly. As a substitute, then, let’s mine the remainder of Cranium and Bones’ graphics settings for potential FPS features.
Adaptive high quality: Depart this off. In addition to the jarringly sudden dips in visible high quality that happen everytime you fall beneath the goal framerate, I truly averaged barely lower than the Extremely Excessive preset’s 60fps whereas the adaptive goal was 60fpsending up with 58fps as a substitute. Ignore.
Shadows: There’s a teeny framerate improve up for grabs right here, the RTX 4060 averaging 62fps on Medium shadows and 63fps on Low. The standard drop is noticeable, thoughts, so I’d recommend making different, extra fruitful modifications earlier than resorting to those.
Upscaling kind/mode: As per regular, Nvidia DLSS is the very best of the bunch right here, with its High quality mode blasting common efficiency as much as 77fps. High quality-mode FSR 2 can be quicker than the default TAA, producing 70fps, nevertheless it’s not almost as sharp within the particulars. In case your GPU lacks DLSS help, TAA Balanced could also be a greater choice than FSR – this scored 70fps as properly.
You’ll be able to set the mode to Native, should you don’t need any upscaling in any respect, however DLSS and TAA can adequately recreate native decision, so that you may as properly use one in all them. Even when native TAA is simply barely slower than High quality, averaging 56fps.
Surroundings particulars: Right here’s one you may drop. Switching from Extremely Excessive to Medium bought my RTX 4060 as much as 66fps, a ten% bump all by itself, and with out knackering the visuals. There’s a Low choice as properly, although it’s no quicker than Medium.
Muddle: This doesn’t appear to have an effect on efficiency someway, each Medium and Low averaging 60fps. Follow Excessive.
Water: Contemplating it is such an ocean-going recreation, reducing water high quality in Cranium and Bones could be a shrewd transfer. Each Low and Medium improved efficiency from 60fps to 67fps, so clearly, go together with Medium.
Display screen area reflections: That is a kind of uncommon events the place you may wish to depart additional frames on the desk. Whereas disabling SSR bought my RTX 4060 as much as 67fps, it – in contrast to Medium water high quality – quantities to a significant drop in visible high quality, filling the display screen with a weirdly clean, flat-looking sea. Preserve reflections on should you can afford it.
Volumetric clouds: These, however, could be turned down freely. I solely bought an additional 3fps dropping from Excessive to Medium, however the high quality distinction is even smaller.
Ambient occlusion: Switching this off didn’t have an effect on efficiency in any respect, nonetheless averaging 60fps. Depart this on.
Depth of discipline: Likewise, nonetheless 60fps from turning this off, so by all means preserve it enabled.
Movement blur: Simply the tiniest 1fps improve got here from disabling movement blur. Nonetheless, it doesn’t serve a lot of a function, so chances are you’ll as properly ditch it.
Ray-traced world illumination: The one and solely ray tracing impact in Cranium and Bones, and an pointless indulgence. The standard distinction between this and ‘commonplace’ lighting is negligible, and disabling it pushed the RTX 4060 as much as 68fps.
Even with a comparatively quick checklist of PC graphics choices, there are nonetheless a number of tweaks that may critically put the wind into your framerates. Right here’s what I’d contemplate the very best settings for Cranium and Bones:
- Upscaling kind/mode: DLSS High quality or TAA Balanced
- Surroundings particulars: Medium
- Water: Medium
- Volumetric clouds: Medium
- Movement blur: Off
- Ray-traced world illumination: Off
- All the things else: Extremely Excessive preset equal
This mishmash nonetheless appears good – undoubtedly extra just like the Excessive/Very Excessive than Medium – however lets Cranium and Bones run far faster than should you used the previous presets as they arrive. The RTX 4060, as an example, averaged 109fps with them (together with DLSS), nearly doubling Extremely Excessive efficiency and dramatically smoothing out visits to these hardware-intensive hub cities.
Older rigs will profit, too. Utilizing these settings, the GTX 1060 may common a slick 57fps at 1080p, which is about as quick because the Low preset with TAA on High quality. Solely, y’know, much better wanting.
