Crimson Desert GPU Benchmarks, Bugs, Simulation Error Tests, & Intel Arc Gets Screwed (Gamers Nexus) [Video]

Gamers Nexus (2.6m subscribers)

March 22, 2026

Video length: 34m 30s

Crimson Desert just launched. We tested the day 1 patch and launch version of Crimson Desert across 25 GPUs, 3 resolutions, all graphics presets, and also tested for simulation time error (alongside frametime spike issues and framerate). During the testing, we encountered numerous bugs across 3 test computers and 2 GPU vendors; Intel was immune to these bugs, which is because Intel Arc simply doesn't work at all for Crimson Desert. When GN emailed Intel, the company put together a statement and distributed it to all of the media to state that Pearl Abyss refused to grant the company early access. Crimson Desert bugs include crashing to desktop, hard system resets, all objects turning pink or yellow at times, game freezes without a crash, and silent settings reductions spread across both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. This does not appear to be a driver or computer issue, but rather a game issue. In these benchmarks, we look at the best GPUs for Crimson Desert and some of the preset settings optimizations and performance of the game. We used the latest public drivers for testing, which would be the game-ready drivers for both AMD and NVIDIA.

00:00 - Crimson Desert Technical Analysis

03:04 - Test Setup and Plan

04:30 - Intel Arc Blocked by Pearl Abyss

06:37 - A Buggy Mess, Loading Time, and Pop-In

09:10 - Test Methodology and Researching Test Areas

09:45 - Game Performance Analysis on 5060 Ti

12:00 - Frametime Plot of Massive Stutter

13:22 - Game Performance Analysis on 9070 XT

14:24 - Crimson Desert Preset Settings Scaling on 5060 Ti

16:50 - Crimson Desert Preset Settings Scaling on 9070 XT

17:23 - Simulation Time Error Explainer

18:20 - Good Simulation Time Error on 5060 Ti in Abyss

19:40 - Simulation Time Error on 5060 Ti in City

20:50 - Bad Simulation Time Error on GTX 1070

21:49 - All GPUs Simulation Time Error Per Frame

23:00 - All GPUs Percent Time with Simulation Errors

23:30 - Crimson Desert 1080p GPU Benchmarks ft. GTX 1080 Ti

26:04 - Crimson Desert 1440p Best GPUs

27:08 - Crimson Desert 4K GPU Comparison NVIDIA vs AMD

27:52 - Crimson Desert 4K Cinematic Benchmark

28:31 - Crimson Desert 1440p Cinematic Best Video Cards

28:47 - RT on vs Off on 7900 XTX

29:38 - Conclusion

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Posted Sunday 22 March 2026 at 5:36 pm AEST (my time).

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