Digital Foundry's Thomas Morgan recently put Bloodborne through its paces on the ShadPS4 emulator, analyzing its performance and the impact of community-created enhancements.

Morgan's evaluation utilized ShadPS4 build 0.5.1 by diegolix29, a build stemming from raphaelthegreat's custom branch. After testing various builds, this version yielded optimal results on his system (AMD Ryzen 7 5700X CPU and GeForce RTX 4080 GPU).

He strongly suggests installing the Vertex Explosion Fix mod. While this mod disables pre-game character face customization, it effectively eliminates bothersome visual glitches manifested as distorted or misplaced polygons. No other mods are strictly necessary; the emulator incorporates numerous performance enhancements accessible via an in-game menu. These options include 60fps support, resolution scaling up to 4K, and chromatic aberration toggling.

While occasional stutters were present, Morgan observed largely consistent 60fps gameplay. Experiments with 1440p and 1800p resolutions revealed improved visuals, but at the cost of significant performance degradation and increased instability. Therefore, he recommends sticking to 1080p (native PS4 resolution) or 1152p for the best balance of visual fidelity and stability.

Morgan concluded that the very existence of functional PS4 emulation for Bloodborne is a remarkable feat by the ShadPS4 team. While acknowledging remaining technical imperfections, he deemed the emulator's performance impressive.