The Evil Within locked at 30fps, but you can change it manually
Shinji Mikami’s The Evil Within launches next week, and by now you’ve probably assessed whether your PC will be capable of running it. The game’s a hungry beast at high settings, but Bethesda has today announced that it’ll be locked at 30 frames per second - though you’ll be able to configure these manually at your own risk.
“Shinji Mikami and the team at Tango designed The Evil Within to be played at 30fps and to utilize an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 for all platforms,” the announcement read. “The team has worked the last four years perfecting the game experience with these settings in mind. For PC players, we’ll provide debug commands on how you can alter the framerate and aspect ratio, but these commands and changes are not recommended or supported and we suggest everyone play the game as it was designed and intended for the best experience.”
Meanwhile, the publisher has explained the 4GB VRAM requirement, drawing parallels with the Xbox One and PS4 editions. “The PS4 and Xbox One both have 8 GB of unified RAM which can be used as both system and video memory. Because our PC version is functionally identical to those platforms, we recommend 4 GB of system memory, and 4 GB of VRAM for the best experience.”
Regarding the game’s letterboxing, you can override it manually but Bethesda cautions you to leave it be, especially since certain gameplay prompts appear in the black areas of the screen. And finally: The Evil Within does support 4K resolutions.
To get you in the mood for pain, suffering and jump scares, check out the most recent trailer for The Evil Within.
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Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.