The Dark World KARMA feature
PC Performance Analyses

KARMA: The Dark World Benchmarks & PC Performance Analysis

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Wired Productions has released its latest horror game, KARMA: The Dark World, on PC. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, it’s time to benchmark it and examine its performance on the PC.

For our benchmarks, we used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB of DDR5 at 6000Mhz, AMD’s Radeon RX 6900XT, RX 7900XTX, RX 9070XT, as well as NVIDIA’s RTX 2080Ti, RTX 3080, RTX 4090, RTX 5080 and RTX 5090. We also used Windows 10 64-bit, the GeForce 572.83, and the Radeon Adrenalin Edition 25.3.2 drivers.

POLLARD STUDIO has added a few graphics settings to tweak. PC gamers can adjust the quality of Textures, Shading, Shadows, View Distance, and more. The game also supports NVIDIA DLSS 3, AMD FSR 3.0, and Intel XeSS 2. Plus, it uses both Lumen and Nanite.

KARMA pc graphics settings-1KARMA pc graphics settings-2KARMA pc graphics settings-3

KARMA: The Dark World does not have a built-in benchmark tool. So, for our benchmarks, we used the second in-game cut-scene (it’s the one you look in the mirror). This appeared to be the most GPU-heavy cut-scene we could find. So, consider our benchmarks as the worst-case scenario. For the most part, the game runs way better than that cut-scene.

Before continuing, I should mention a really weird issue that occurs in this game. For whatever reason, the game uses dynamic resolution by default, even if you’ve disabled it. This issue occurs on both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. NVIDIA users will have to enable and then disable DLSS in order to get a real native resolution. Take a look at the following screenshots. On the left, we have a screenshot at 4K without applying the above fix, and on the right, we have a shot with the fix. Notice the aliased shadows on the left screenshot. Not only that, but in motion, there are major Lumen artifacts without applying the fix.

KARMA without fixKARMA with fix

As said, the same thing happens with AMD GPUs. To get a native resolution on AMD GPUs, you’ll have to enable and disable Intel XeSS. For whatever reason, AMD FSR 3.0 will not fix this issue. To prove that this actually works, here is a comparison. On the left we have the bugged version and on the right we have the game with the fix. Notice the better aliasing we have on the right (on all the items that are on the table). Plus, the image on the right is sharper than the one on the left.

KARMA without fix-2KARMA with fix-2

I really don’t know how the devs have messed up something like that. For what it’s worth, I was able to replicate this multiple times. So, this is a real issue that needs to be fixed as soon as possible.

KARMA: The Dark World is a GPU-bound title. At 1080p/Max Settings, all of our GPUs were able to run it with over 60FPS at all times. Yes, even the NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti was able to offer a smooth gaming experience.

KARMA The Dark World benchmarks-1

At 1440p/Max Settings, you’ll need at least an NVIDIA RTX 3080 or an AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX for framerates over 60FPS. As you can see, these two GPUs perform similarly in this title. That’s to be expected as Lumen is a form of Ray Tracing. And, as we all know, the RDNA3 GPUs are not that good at running games with RT. And, that’s where RDNA4 comes in. So, in this title, the AMD Radeon RX 9070XT is 19-29% faster than the AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX.

KARMA The Dark World benchmarks-2

As for Native 4K/Max Settings, the latest NVIDIA GPUs had no trouble at all running it with 60FPS. This means that you can get a smooth experience on the NVIDIA RTX 4090, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090.

KARMA The Dark World benchmarks-3

Graphics-wise, KARMA: The Dark World looks great. At least for a game created by a small studio. The devs have created small environments that are, for the most part, pleasing to the eye. This right here shows why a lot of devs have started utilizing UE5. This engine allows small teams to create games that, visually, can punch above their weight.

Sadly, KARMA: The Dark World suffers from some traversal stutters. As I’ve said before, these stutters have nothing to do with UE5. We’ve seen traversal stutters in A LOT of games using different engines. The good news here is that the traversal stutters in KARMA are not as bad as those we saw in Jedi Survivor or Dead Space Remake. So, this is at least good. Still, they were quite noticeable (at least to me).

All in all, KARMA: The Dark World can run on a wide range of PC systems at native resolutions. Since there is support for all upscalers, you can also use them to further improve your gaming experience. That’s entirely up to you. However, the game does suffer from a couple of minor issues. For instance, it will by default use dynamic res. It also has some traversal stutters. Other than these issues, though, it appears to be running great on PC.

Enjoy!

KARMA: The Dark World - Native 4K/DLAA/Ultra Settings - NVIDIA RTX 5090