Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered PC performance review

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No other franchise can rake in cash faster than Spider-Man and Sony’s little golden goose has finally decided to lay its egg to whet every PC gamer’s appetite. Although it’s a 4-year-old game, much like God of War (2018), Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered has gone through necessary tweaks for PC hardware support and unrestrained graphical oomph.

We’ve covered the game extensively during its launch back in 2018 so there’s little left to talk about the story and the gameplay, although Insomniac Games has changed Peter Parker’s face completely in the Remastered version and the Remastered version also includes all the DLCs that have launched for the game. So we’ll mostly be talking about the PC performance and what can you expect in terms of graphical adjustments.

Performance

Unlike God of War (2018), Marvel’s Spider-Man is actually quite graphic intensive. Don’t get us wrong, both games are wonderfully crafted with enough graphical grunt to chew through our desktop Nvidia RTX 3080 but Spider-Man is a wee bit more demanding because of its fast-paced map traversal and tons of buildings with reflective glass.

With Ray Tracing at 4K and graphics set to their highest possible setting, our Nvidia RTX 3080 barely manages 20fps. This is comical because we know this is too intense for any gaming PC. Although, now you know the threshold. We quickly scurried down to the DLSS menu and set it to Quality. In an instant, the frame rate shot up to 55 to 60 fps without any noticeable visual downgrade. So it’s apparent that the game is optimized with upscale technologies like DLSS, FSR and Insomniac’s own IGTI (Insomniac Games Temporal Injection). Playing without one on 4K is nearly impossible. We tried DLSS on our Nvidia card and the results are wildly different on 4K resolution. IGTI is great too but DLSS reaped 8-10% more frame rate performance.

Support

You can manage 2K gaming without DLSS to get around 45 to 60FPS depending on the scene. Casual web-slinging across New York won’t drop the frame rate below 55FPS but once you catch a group of thugs, it FPS can pendulum anywhere from 45FPS to 60FPS with an average of 50. Enabling DLSS will kick the FPS ticker upwards of 60 obviously. The game also supports different aspect ratios and multi monitor setups as well. You can play on 16:9, 16:10, 21:9, 32:9, and 48:9 resolutions. It’s also Steam Deck compatible. The game also supports Nvidia’s latest DLAA anti-aliasing tech which makes everything look sharper and clean. It works beautifully but might drop the frame rate by 15% and most GPUs won’t be able to handle it.

Keep in mind that all these numbers are tested with the graphics and ray tracing settings on their highest possible options. There’s even a menu option for hair quality. The graphics menu is full of options and customisations that would put even the best local restaurant to shame. We wish there was an Original preset setting like God of War (2018) which sets the graphics to how it was on the PlayStation.

That said, there are a fair amount of bugs when it comes to the ray tracing department. Large shiny metal surfaces can sometimes have reflection problems but it’s not game-breaking. Following Sony’s track record, it should be patched soon. If you’re playing on a budget gaming laptop like most Indians, we recommend playing without Ray Tracing and you’ll see the frame rate rise.

Needless to say, the game looks absolutely gorgeous with Ray Tracing. The Photo Mode in particular is jaw-dropping. It has more options to tweak and fiddle with lighting and camera controls than Horizon Forbidden West and Gran Turismo 7. You can spend the whole time clicking pictures of Spider-Man in true Peter Parker style.

Verdict

As expected from PlayStation Studios PC. The Spider-Man Remastered for PC isn’t simply a cut copy of the original console game. This game has included graphic menu controls that only a PC gamer demands and those menu options to tinker with are seemingly endless. No matter if you’re rocking a top-tier desktop RTX 3080 or a laptop with RTX 3050, the game will let you adjust the settings to fit your gaming PC’s output. This level of porting quality is unparalleled, even third-party studios and even Xbox have not caught up to Sony here.

The control schemes have all been included as well. The Xbox controller works fine with all the vibrations as well. If you connect the PS5 controller via a cable, you’ll get DualSense Haptics just like you do on the PS5 with dynamic trigger haptics as well. It’s better you don’t play this game with a keyboard and mouse because it’s meant to be enjoyed with a controller.