God of War is a god-tier port
God of War (2018) is one of the most celebrated games of our generation. After being treated with so much love and awarded with numerous rewards, the beloved game that features Kratos and his son, Atreus, finally arrived to the PC this January 2022.
We received a review code from Sony Interactive Entertainment last December for us to play through the game again on our PC. While the code was provided to us by Sony, please note that we are not paid to may influence our thoughts about this game.
For the uninitiated, God of War was originally released for the PlayStation 4 in 2018. The game tells the story of Kratos, who is now fulfilling his duties as mentor and protector to his son, Atreus. In this game, you will enter into the Norse realm where you’ll encounter memorable characters who will shape the course of the story
God of War Recommended Specs
Having played the game and checked out its published recommended specifications, God of War can be played using a PC using either an Intel i5-6600K or an AMD Ryzen 5 2400 G.
If you wish to be able to play this game for at least 1080p at 30fps, apart from the recommended CPU, your setup should have at least an NVIDIA GTX 1060 or AMD RX 570 and an 8GB RAM. Fortunately, this setup is not very expensive to build; and there are, in fact, some laptops that sell for less than PhP50,000 with this specs like this one. For PC Builds, you can check out this link.
Benchmark Setup and Methodology
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5900X [review] |
| COOLER | ASUS ROG Ryujin 240 |
| MOTHERBOARD | ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Wifi |
| MEMORY | GSkill 32GB(2x16GB) 3600Mhz DDR4 | TeamGroup Inc T-Create16GB (2x8GB) 3600MHz DDR4 |
| GPU | ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3080 (Non-OC) |
| STORAGE | Samsung SSD 970 EVO 1TB |
| POWERSUPPLY | ASUS ROG Strix 1000W |
| OPERATING SYSTEM | Windows 11 Pro (Version 21H2) |
| DISPLAY | ASUS ROG XG27VQ / Huawei Mateview GT |
We used the latest NVIDIA Graphics Driver Version 511.23 for our benchmark and CapFrameX 1.6.6 as our framerate capture tool. This article will not explore the story of the game, but will talk about how the game performs on our PC. It should be able to help you gauge if your current system can play this game.
Settings Preset Benchmark
In this segment of our performance benchmark, I will present 4 specific scenes during the initial part of the game. I will start Wildwood and traverse through the Shores of Nine until the World Serpent manifests itself to Kratos and Atreus. The level of hardware demand, as you will see in the charts below, will be in escalating fashion.
For the first time, God of War is playable at 120fps 1080p, which is a huge departure from PS4, PS4 Pro and PS5. Even using PS5 using backward compatibility, God of War is not playable beyond 60fps in 1080P or 4K until now
The game managed to be more than consistent in terms of frametimes with manageably small amounts of blip and dips during my gameplay, making this one of the best console ports to PC.
TAA vs DLSS Performance
If you happen to own a RTX GPU, there is no reason why you should not try playing this game with DLSS enabled. I played the game using DLSS favoring Quality using my RTX 3080 and the graphics are even more stunning. While standard TAA does the job of giving the game visual pump, DLSS managed to further smoothen the graphics without significantly affecting gameplay performance.
A close look at TAA vs DLSS comparison charts below further solidify this claim. You can also check out graphics comparison in our “Standard TAA vs DLSS Graphics Comparison” segment.
Scene 1 – Wildwoods
Standard TAA vs DLSS – Ultra Settings
Standard TAA vs DLSS – High Settings
Standard TAA vs DLSS – Original Settings
Standard TAA vs DLSS – Low Settings
Scene 2 – Shore of Nine
Standard TAA vs DLSS – Ultra Settings
Standard TAA vs DLSS – High Settings
Standard TAA vs DLSS – Original Settings
Standard TAA vs DLSS – Low Settings
TAA Preset Benchmark Comparison
If you want to be able to see the differences in terms of FPS and frametimes using standard TAA, I have also prepared several charts below. As you can see, the sweet spot is really playing the at Ultra Settings on my system. However, I would say prefer playing the game at either DLSS (Quality) – High/Ultra Settings than playing at TAA.
Scene 1 – Wildwoods
Standard TAA
Scene 2 – Wildwoods Edge
Standard TAA
Scene 3 – Shores of the Nine
Standard TAA
Scenes 4 – The World Serpent
Standard TAA
Graphics Comparison
God of War (2018) has been regarded as one of the most stunning-looking games of all time. While it fantastically managed to appear good on both PS4 and PS5, God of War on console heavily relies on checkerboard rendering. This makes the game riddled with artefacts, fuzziness and unwanted blur on texture surfaces. This is gone on the PC port of God of War, thanks to the games’s visual upgrade using standard TAA or via DLSS.
Turning on DLSS make the images appear better both in 1080P and 4K. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, we do not have a 4K monitor to test it but we will definitely come up with a separate article or update this review that include 4K performance and rendering.
DLSS provides visual boost to games without significant effect on performance, as evidenced in the charts above and the comparison images below. Textures are given better definition than standard TAA.
Standard TAA vs DLSS Graphics Comparison
Scene 1
1080P – 100% Render Quality/TAA – Low Quality vs 1080P DLSS – Quality – Low Quality
1080P – 100% Render Quality/TAA – Ultra Quality vs 1080P DLSS – Quality – Ultra Quality
Scene 2
1080P – 100% Render Quality/TAA – Low Quality vs 1080P DLSS – Quality – Low Quality
1080P – 100% Render Quality/TAA – Ultra Quality vs 1080P DLSS – Quality – Ultra Quality
Standard TAA Preset Quality Comparisons
Scene 1
Low Settings vs Ultra Settings
Original Settings vs High Settings
Scene 2
Low Settings vs Ultra Settings
Original Settings vs High Settings
Scene 3
Low Settings vs Ultra Settings
Original Settings vs High Settings
Scene 4
Low Settings vs Ultra Settings
Original Settings vs High Settings
Other Features
NVIDIA Reflex and Controller Support
God of War (2018) features full support for the DualShock 4 and Dualsense wireless controllers. You can also further customize your keys to make it more personalized. With NVIDIA Reflex Support, you are assured that you will not have latency issues while swing the Leviathan Axe or giving commands to Atreus. This works very well on my PS5 DualSense controller.
Ultra-Wide Support
I used my the ROG Flow X13 with the Mobile RTX 3080 and the Huawei Mateview GT to the game in ultra-wide ratio. The game came out to look even better with this setting. This feature compensates for the game’s lack of FOV settings.
Verdict
God of War (2018), in my opinion, is the best console port that ever came out for the PC. Conversely, this game is one of the best PlayStation games on the PC right now. If you do not have a PlayStation 4 or the elusive PlayStation 5, and you want to play the story of the iconic Kratos, be sure to get this game!
God of War is now available at Steam or Epic Game Store for PhP2,490.
Giancarlo Viterbo is a Filipino Technology Journalist, blogger and Editor of gadgetpilipinas.net, He is also a Geek, Dad and a Husband. He knows a lot about washing the dishes, doing some errands and following instructions from his boss on his day job. Follow him on twitter: @gianviterbo and @gadgetpilipinas.
