Helldivers 2 analysis on PC: what you need to play (and comparison with PS5)

Helldivers 2 is an online third-person shooter to play cooperatively with friends, and in this post we will test its graphics and performance on the PC, as well as compare it with its status on the Playstation 5, the other platform on which the game is available.

The game, even though it had Sony as a producer, took many people by surprise with its success. Not being one of the Playstation owner’s medallions, it became Sony’s biggest release on PC, beating all the house’s medallions, including the former best-seller, God of War.

The game already appears among the 3 most played on Steam, with a peak of 458 thousand simultaneous players and counting!

Requirements to play

To everyone’s delight, the game has very modest requirements. To play in 1080p at 30fps, we are surprised by names that we hadn’t heard of in a while, such as Radeon RX 470 and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. In memory, 8GB is once again sufficient, after several launches requiring 16GB.

Even in storage, we finally see HDs being suggested, after seeing practically all recent releases recommending SSDs.

For processors, things are more demanding, we have the Core i7-4790K, a very old quad-core, and the Ryzen 5 1500X, a hexa-core with the limitations of the first generation Zen. Although it seems like a modest requirement, it’s good to remember We are talking about the recommendation to run at just 30fps.

To aim for 60fps, we now have at least a Core i7-9700K or a Ryzen 7 3700X, that is, we now have eight-core CPUs that are not that old anymore.

We started by taking a look at the game in its maximum quality, pulling out our PC with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 and an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D. The game isn’t ugly, but it has another priority. Its focus on more frenetic multiplayer with lots of monsters and physics on the screen means it doesn’t need to overuse graphic quality.

Graphics engine was a drag

A factor that influences the graphics, and also the resources it has available, is its graphics engine. He died. The game is built on Autodesk Stingray, a graphics engine discontinued in 2018! It became 3DS Max Interactive, but even with the new name it was discontinued (again) in 2022. Some examples of games that were made using this engine include Warhammer: Vermintide 2 It is Magick 2.

The graphics aren’t bad, but forget about using recent technologies like Ray Tracing and even upscaling filters like DLSS and FSR 2.0. Only FSR 1.0 is present.

Despite not being named in mine, looking through the game’s files, people found evidence of the FSR, and from the final result, it is clear that it is version 1.0. The anti-aliasing defect is very noticeable, with some very bad edges. Certainly FSR 2.0 and DLSS would solve this much better.

But if we don’t have good upscaling or even advanced lighting effects, the game makes up for it well in other factors. It delivers very good visuals in the fog and smoke effects, which give a volume that the lighting effects don’t deliver, and the game even looks really cool thanks to the destruction physics.

The game has a lot of particles on the screen during heavy shooting moments. The enemies dismantle with each bullet in a very satisfying way, and explosions throw pieces of monsters and even the scenery everywhere. The final balance is a very satisfactory look, in my opinion, despite not being something that we can call cutting-edge graphics technologies.

Playstation 5 vs PC

To compare the implementation of the game on the Playstation 5 versus the PC, we first have to take a look at how the game looks on the Sony console. The game is divided into two modes: performance mode and quality mode.

The PC has no new filters compared to the PS5

In quality mode, we focus on high resolution, seeking to render the maximum number of pixels for a 4K experience with great clarity. On the other hand, you give up the frame rate and play at 30fps.

In performance mode there is a large reduction in image resolution, going to something around 1080p, and now the frame rate is aimed at 60fps. In our testing, the game jerks from time to time, especially with a lot of combat and enemies scrolling across the screen. But the gameplay usually drops to around 50fps. It’s noticeable, but nothing compromising.

In quality mode the game hit 30fps, and in our captures we were unable to find any signs of performance fluctuation.

The advantage of the PC is not having to choose between resolution and FPS (if your PC is powerful)

And the PC? The truth is that Helldivers must make use of the extra power of computers. With the old engine, there are no Ray Tracing graphic filters or upscaling that have been used in more recent games, so the game on the computer and on the Playstation is basically the same.

What changes is that, having a powerful enough computer, you can now play without having to choose between resolution and frame rate.

Our tests

We had no difficulty running Helldivers 2. We were able to handle it even with very popular and cheap parts, such as the AMD Ryzen 5 5500, a R$500 processor, and the GTX 1650 video card, a popular entry-level card. especially on notebooks.

Going further, however, may be forcing your hand too much. We also tested on the Crisis PC, our machine based on Ryzen 5 4600G and its integrated graphics, and then we were only able to run at 1080p with FSR 1.0 at ultra-performance and minimum quality. The result is an image with little detail and a horrible aliasing effect. And even then it fluctuates slightly, going up to 24 or 25FPS.

Helldivers is available on PC, through the Steam store, and also on Playstation 5, on the Playstation Store. The game is available for R$199.50.