Can the NVIDIA RTX 5090 Run Gears of War: E-Day at 4K/60FPS on Ludicrous Settings with RTX Mega Geometry?

Microsoft has made Gears of War: E-Day available to those who have pre-ordered its Premium Edition. Powered by Unreal Engine 5.6.1, I benchmarked the Ludicrous Settings on the NVIDIA RTX 5090 before publishing our PC Performance Analysis. So, what do you need to hit 60FPS at 4K with those settings? Let’s find out.

For these early 4K benchmarks, I used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB of DDR5 at 6000Mhz, NVIDIA’s RTX 5080, and RTX 5090. I also used Windows 10 64-bit and the NVIDIA Game Ready 617.14 driver.

Gears of War: E-Day is one of the first games that support RTX Mega Geometry. RTX Mega Geometry can improve ray-traced shadows, reflections, and global lighting. It helps fix many visual issues that can appear without it.

RTX Mega Geometry resolves shadows that were previously missing or were incorrect. It can also remove gaps where shadows should appear. Some extra shadows may also show up in areas where they were missing before. Small objects can now cast more accurate shadows. This includes objects in tight spaces and small gaps. Shadows can also look more stable across complex shapes.

RTX Mega Geometry also improves reflections. Shadows and reflections can keep a more natural look as they move across complex objects. Silhouettes can also look more stable, especially in areas that become visible as the camera moves. Reflections can also show more detailed geometry. This can make reflected objects look more accurate and less rough.

In short, RTX Mega Geometry can make ray-traced lighting look more complete and stable. It adds missing shadows, improves small details, and helps reflections show more accurate geometry.

Gears of War: E-Day comes with a built-in benchmark tool. So, that’s what I used for our 4K/Ludicrous benchmarks. I should also note that the Ludicrous Settings are really demanding. These settings are for the high-end – and future – GPUs. For our upcoming PC Performance Analysis, I’ll use the Ultra settings (without RTX Mega Geometry as this is exclusive to NVIDIA’s GPUs).

At Native 4K/Ludicrous Settings, the NVIDIA RTX 5090 pushes a minimum of 28FPS and an average of 34FPS. By using DLSS 4.5 Quality Mode, I was able to get to 49/56FPS. And then, with DLSS 4.5 Balanced, I was able to get a smooth gaming experience (57/65FPS).

Since DLSS 4.5 Quality Mode pushes frame rates over 40FPS, you can use Frame Gen to improve the game’s smoothness. At the same time, you won’t notice any major input lag issues.

So, with DLSS 4.5 Quality Mode and MFG X2, I was getting a minimum of 90FPS and an average of 104FPS. With MFG X3, I was able to hit 150FPS. And then, with MFG X4, I came close to 200FPS.

If you own an NVIDIA RTX 5090, the best way to play the game is at 4K/Ludicrous Settings with DLSS 4.5 Quality Mode and MFG X4. At least in my opinion. Most of you won’t notice any input lag issues, and you’ll have high frame rates, even when using these demanding settings at 4K.

If you want to gain some extra frame rates, you can lower some settings to Ultra. However, I suggest staying away from RT Reflections and RT Shadows. If you lower them, you will get noticeable visual artifacts. Lowering the quality of DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution can also introduce additional noise artifacts. So, if you can, stick to the DLSS 4.5 Quality Mode.

It’s really a shame Gears of War: E-Day does not support NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction. This would greatly reduce the noise artifacts we see here. So, let’s hope that NVIDIA will work with The Coalition to add support for it via a post-launch update. That, or we might see a mod that can enable it.

All in all, you need to use NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution to get a 60FPS experience at 4K/Ludicrous Settings. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, Gears of War: E-Day uses Hardware Lumen, Ray Tracing, Nanite, MegaLights, and RTX Mega Geometry. If you thought an NVIDIA RTX 5090 is powerful enough to run them at Native 4K on the highest possible settings, you are delusional.

Our PC Performance Analysis for Gears of War: E-Day will go live later this week. So, stay tuned for more!

John Papadopoulos

John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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