The new "Dead Space" is a brilliant remake (open in new tab) of the survival horror classic, and I have few complaints about the first 90 minutes of chopping up necromorphs on the PC. It's epic, gorgeous, bloody, and perhaps a little too easy on the default difficulty. But until yesterday's 1.03 patch (open in new tab), there was also one annoying graphical flaw. The forced variable rate shading (open in new tab) (VRS) caused textures to blur and flicker in the dark corners of Ishimura.

In a detailed technical analysis video, Digital Foundry specifically pointed out Dead Space's VRS problems. Just one day later, EA had already issued a patch that allows PC players to turn off VRS entirely, and disabled it in the console versions. In fact, on PC, this option seems to be off by default.

Honestly, I can hardly tell any difference in my setup. Games definitely look better with VRS turned off, but whether the blur is noticeable at all on PC depends on whether you have other graphical tricks turned on, as pointed out in an informative comparison video by YouTuber Sholva (opens in new tab) As noted in YouTuber Sholva's informative comparison video (open in new tab), the fuzzy VRS textures were most noticeable in combination with the DLSS performance mode.

That makes sense, given that they are layering two different technical solutions that optimize performance: VRS renders parts of the screen with lower fidelity, and the DLSS performance mode exacerbates this during upscaling, causing some edges to large pixelation. I had DLSS set to Quality, and with VRS enabled, the blurring was barely noticeable. However, with standard TAA anti-aliasing, it became apparent.

Dead Space will probably look very good no matter what settings you run it on; VRS may increase the average fps by an order of magnitude, but can be comfortably kept off for cleaner textures and fuzzy darkening, especially if you are running DLSS simultaneously . As for the PS5 version, which Digital Foundry mainly discussed VRS issues in its video, DF staff writer John Linneman reports that it has improved considerably since patch 1.03 (opens in new tab).