Cronos The New Dawn - A "Strange" Port with Hidden Options That Degrade Performance
85In this technical and graphical analysis of Cronos The New Dawn, I review how it looks and performs on different GPUs and presets, and why in this game, visual quality changes very little between LOW and EPIC settings, despite the dramatic performance drops. I also test Lumen/Ray Tracing, FSR/DLSS/XeSS, and Frame Generation, and discuss some strange behavior I encountered in various graphics.
Key Points to Know
• LOW vs. EPIC: The visual difference is surprisingly small; still, the performance jump between the two presets is significant. I recommend prioritizing FPS without fear of lowering the preset.
• Hardware Lumen (RT): In my tests, it can cost ~40% in performance and barely adds any noticeable improvements; in this game, I don't see it justified for most people.
• Shader Compilation & Stutter: There is initial shader compilation that helps, but if you enable hardware Lumen, additional compilations appear; Additionally, there are occasional stutters (less severe than in SH2).
• Upscaling and FG: Supports FSR, DLSS, and XeSS in both reconstruction and frame generation. Nvidia's 5000 series enables "multiple FG," although it doesn't allow you to choose the multiplier. In my case, Intel's FG (XeSS) didn't work properly.
• Anomalies between GPUs: I found scenarios where the GTX 1060 delivered higher FPS than the RTX 2060 in the same region and settings, and very solid results on an RX 9060 XT; something is happening at the game/driver level that warrants patches or investigation.
Highlighted Tests
• 4K with DLSS Performance, EPIC + RT + FG on the 5090: 120 FPS most of the time (noticeable RT penalty).
• 1080p LOW + TSR on GTX 1060: ~70–80 FPS with a surprisingly solid display.
• 1080p/1440p with Balanced FSR and a variety of GPUs (1660S, 2060, RX 9060 XT, Arc B580): inconsistent behavior on some Nvidia cards; AMD's FSR was very loose; Intel's FSR had no effect in my case.
Your experience matters.
Did you play it? Did you see anything similar with your GPU/driver? Leave it in the comments so the community has more information and hopefully the game will receive patches that clarify these discrepancies.
Thanks to the studio for the key to perform this analysis.
#CronosTheNewDawn #UnrealEngine5 #Lumen #DLSS #FSR #XeSS #Benchmark