Elden Ring received an update today (open in new tab) that brings a bright light to The Lands Between. This 1.09 patch fixes various bugs and makes various adjustments to Elden Ring's weapons and combat. There is just one problem. You probably don't want to actually use it.

You can toggle ray tracing on from Elden Ring's graphics menu, but what you'll find there is not a toggle for Nvidia DLSS or AMD FSR support, but a toggle for maintaining a playable frame rate even with the most demanding graphics functions on. It's a miracle frame generation technology. In other words, actually enabling ray tracing can make a game as slow as a slide show, especially at higher resolutions.

Perhaps that is why From Software recommends that the minimum and recommended specs for the new raytracing mode in "Eldenring" both be played at 1080p: any higher would sacrifice too many frames.

To be fair, this is From Software's recommendation for builds based on Nvidia 30 series and AMD 6000 series GPUs. Players using state-of-the-art 40-series and 7000-series graphics cards will probably be fine with a slight increase in resolution. However, given that few of us are still using these cards (open in new tab), most of us will have to work it out one way or another. Here are their minimum and recommended specs:

Minimum specs

Recommended specs

So, at least for now, we will have to be prepared to sacrifice either resolution or delicious trace rays. With any luck, a future update will support DLSS and FSR and we will really be off to the races.

Besides those related to ray tracing, this patch brings a number of balance changes and fixes. In brief, From Software has made the wonderful axe even more powerful than before, and the community is quite excited (opens in new tab).

PvP-Specific Balance Adjustments The adjustments in this section do not affect single-player or cooperative play.

General Balance Adjustments

Ashes of War Adjustments

Bug Fixes [23]