Digital Foundry's Thomas Morgan recently put Bloodborne through its paces on the ShadPS4 emulator, meticulously analyzing its performance and the impact of community-created enhancements. His tests utilized ShadPS4 build 0.5.1 by diegolix29, based on raphaelthegreat's custom branch, chosen for its optimal performance on his AMD Ryzen 7 5700X and GeForce RTX 4080 system after experimenting with various builds.

Morgan strongly suggests installing the Vertex Explosion Fix mod. While this disables pre-game character face customization, it effectively eliminates distracting visual glitches manifested as distorted or misplaced polygons. No other mods are necessary; ShadPS4 incorporates a built-in menu allowing adjustments such as 60fps support, resolutions up to 4K, and chromatic aberration toggling.

While occasional stutters were present, Bloodborne largely maintained a stable 60fps frame rate in Morgan's testing. Experiments with higher resolutions (1440p and 1800p) yielded sharper visuals but resulted in significant performance drops and frequent crashes. Consequently, Morgan recommends sticking to 1080p (matching the PS4) or 1152p for the best balance of visual quality and stability.

Morgan concluded that ShadPS4's ability to run Bloodborne is a remarkable feat of emulation, praising its overall functionality while acknowledging the presence of ongoing technical refinements.