Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Performance Benchmark

[W1zzard]

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the best RPG this year so far. It's like a blend of a souls-like with a JRPG, and is turn-based, with some additional mechanics from other genres. In our performance review, we examine its graphical fidelity, VRAM usage, and how well it runs on a variety of modern GPUs.

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[dirtyferret]

nice review, thanks

is this more a controller game or a keyboard game?

 

[nguyen]

Game is awesome, one of the most emotional intro I have ever seen
I could count on one hand the number of time I actually watched the intro of any game and this is one of them .

Game play well enough at 4K Epic DLSS4.Balanced on my 4090 with ~100FPS, I just turn off the OSD and enjoy.

 

[Mrgravia]

Game is awesome, one of the most emotional intro I have ever seen
I could count on one hand the number of time I actually watched the intro of any game and this is one of them .

Game play well enough at 4K Epic DLSS4.Balanced on my 4090 with ~100FPS, I just turn off the OSD and enjoy.

I admit I cried a bit in the opening, they absolutely nailed the emotions the prologue elicits. Actors and music were exceptional.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Game looks stunning, I love the art style, and the idea of JRPG gameplay but with western story/characters/sensibility is very appealing.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Performance seems rediculous for the visuals, it looks nothing special, its fine...but stuff that get 50 fps on 1440p should be bumped to 70 atleast to make it somewhat acceptable.
Like seriously, how can a 5060Ti only get 30 fps on 1440p....how is that possible? Nothing from what I can see impresses me at all, all visuals are just average at best, looks like any other AC game or what have you...this is rediculous.

Honestly I feel the devs did not bother and just relied on upscaling to make up for their own lack of effort.

Is this again just UE5 crap? (edit, just checked, yep it is)

also anyone else just weirded out how little difference between low and epic there seems to be?
Like look at the textures...there is no difference between the lowest setting and the highest, all I see is reflection, maybe shadow and just stuff on the floor that is a difference.
4k on Epic only uses 8.5 gb of vram....come on....give us then atleast a texture pack.

 

[ThomasK]

"Quite unexpectedly, some Blackwell GPUs kept crashing during map loading. It doesn't look like a memory issue, because both 8 GB and 16 GB models are affected. What does help sometimes is loading the game at low settings/low resolution and once loaded, restore the desired settings."

My guess it's a driver issue. But just imagine the outpouring of rage we'd be getting here, if it once again was Amd with its awful drivers. Since it's the mr. crocodile leather jacket's company, we get radio silence.

This just goes to show that Nvidia's efforts are going elsewhere, with all that cash flooding in from AI and datacenter customers.

 

[nilo]

All settings maxed out.

 

[Nostras]

Personally I had some horrendous stuttering in cutscenes, but after updating the drivers to the Oblivion update that issue went away.
I'm unsure if that was related or whether I just had to reboot my PC or something.

nice review, thanks

is this more a controller game or a keyboard game?

Both steam and the game will nag you to use a controller on startup, so I'm using my PS4 controller.
But frankly, I don't really see why (yet?) you couldn't use a KBM.

I do want to say that I'm really frustrated by the xbox prompts when I'm using a PS4 controller, how the f- is this still an issue in 2025?
Like seriously? I hope I won't get shafted by QTEs...

 

[Red Hood]

Nice benchmark review but no FSR doesn't get the same treatment as a game not having DLSS

From the CIV 7 benchmark review

Civilization VII Performance Benchmark Review - 35 GPUs Tested

Civilization VII is new fodder for lovers of the turn-based strategy genre. In our testing the game ran very well on virtually all graphics cards. In our performance review, we'll look at the game's graphics quality, VRAM consumption, and how it runs across a range of contemporary graphics cards.

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Denver]

I miss CPU benchmarks, could you at least keep core scaling or something?

Honestly, it looks like an interesting game; it would be much better if it wasn't based on the Unreal Stutter Engine. Oh, It’s really strange that they haven’t implemented FSR, especially considering how relatively easy it is when DLSS is already in place...

 

[Jarmer]

I don't like any kind of upscaling or frame generation at all in my games, so as a player, it was very confusing/frustrating to go into the settings and NOT have the ability just to set all that stuff to "off" like it almost every other game these days. I was forced to leave it on dlss or xess, and unsure at that point what to even set the settings at since I don't even want any of it to begin with.

After I set it to who-knows-what, I got into the game and man alive that intro is just amazing! They absolutely nailed it. The world building seems wonderful as well. Unfortunately right now I'm so put off by the qte's I'm taking a break from it since I was starting to get into ragemode last night missing like 99% of them and dying constantly. I know I suck at real time timing stuff like that, but I just would never have thought this kind of qte would be in a turn based game at all. It's really NOT turn based, the real time combat qte's are absolutely 100% required to survive. And this is in the beginning intro area!

I'm going to hopefully wait for a mod that disables the qte's or makes them autocomplete, then I can enjoy all the other absolutely wonderful parts of the game!

 

[TSiAhmat]

Both steam and the game will nag you to use a controller on startup, so I'm using my PS4 controller.
But frankly, I don't really see why (yet?) you couldn't use a KBM.

I do want to say that I'm really frustrated by the xbox prompts when I'm using a PS4 controller, how the f- is this still an issue in 2025?
Like seriously? I hope I won't get shafted by QTEs...

is there no manual setting to change the controller layout? (Automatic, xbox, playstation or nintendo layouts) Most games have that option (even some really small ones)

Interested in the game and will definitely try it out at some point.

Also: sadly no fsr... ):

 

[Rjc31]

I'm going to hopefully wait for a mod that disables the qte's or makes them autocomplete, then I can enjoy all the other absolutely wonderful parts of the game!

The game has an auto complete QTE option built in

 

[theglaze]

What is SUPER distracting though is that they're applying some sort of sharpening filter on the image, which makes it look terrible, like upscaled with sharpening, plus loss of detail, halos, ghosting and bleeds around everything. I've turned off all the settings that are visually distracting, and I still hate this post-effect filter. If you imagine the game without it, it must look stunning...

Yikes.

 

[Makaveli]

All settings maxed out.

View attachment 396789

Nice

What are you using for that display info in the top left corner?

is that afterburner?

 

[Lokiwoodplan]

Why there is no RX 6600 recently on the performance benchmark?

 

[Quicks]

Mod that fixes many issues: https://github.com/Lyall/ClairObscurFix

Features​

• Skip intro logos.
• Enable developer console.
• Remove 30fps cap in cutscenes.
• Disable letterboxing/pillarboxing in cutscenes.
• Disable forced sharpening.
• Fix FOV issues when using ultrawide resolutions.

 

[mate123]

"Expedition 33" doesn't mean that you missed 32 games

you had me for a second, not gonna lie

Any reason why the 3060ti is missing from these charts? It would be great to see the progess as 3060ti 4060ti and 5060ti are not that much apart

 

[Frick]

"bringing together elements from JRPGs, souls-like, turn-based with QTEs, deck building like Final Fantasy VII, sprinkled with some puzzles and exploration on top."

This sentence alone make it sound like total slop to me, but I am tempted to test it.

 

[danc]

another game that likes memory bandwidth.

 

[nguyen]

I don't like any kind of upscaling or frame generation at all in my games, so as a player, it was very confusing/frustrating to go into the settings and NOT have the ability just to set all that stuff to "off" like it almost every other game these days. I was forced to leave it on dlss or xess, and unsure at that point what to even set the settings at since I don't even want any of it to begin with.

After I set it to who-knows-what, I got into the game and man alive that intro is just amazing! They absolutely nailed it. The world building seems wonderful as well. Unfortunately right now I'm so put off by the qte's I'm taking a break from it since I was starting to get into ragemode last night missing like 99% of them and dying constantly. I know I suck at real time timing stuff like that, but I just would never have thought this kind of qte would be in a turn based game at all. It's really NOT turn based, the real time combat qte's are absolutely 100% required to survive. And this is in the beginning intro area!

I'm going to hopefully wait for a mod that disables the qte's or makes them autocomplete, then I can enjoy all the other absolutely wonderful parts of the game!

You need high FPS in order to time those dodge and parry events in time, so better lower your settings or use more agressive upscaling

I play at the hardest difficulty and I find it easy enough, only take a few tries for those bigger bosses

 

[Nostras]

is there no manual setting to change the controller layout? (Automatic, xbox, playstation or nintendo layouts) Most games have that option (even some really small ones)

Interested in the game and will definitely try it out at some point.

Also: sadly no fsr... ):

Nope, you can search for it for more people complaining about it.

XeSS is fine and usable tbh. You can't really go below 50% on 4k though, it'll look like shite.

you had me for a second, not gonna lie

Because you missed the first 67 right?

 

[AusWolf]

I could count on one hand the number of time I actually watched the intro of any game

What?

The intro is a living breathing part of any game. I can't imagine ever playing a game without watching the intro first. It's like skipping the first half hour of a movie and jumping straight into the battle scenes.

 

[john_]

I was expecting to see a mention of those crushes in the conclusion.

Nice benchmark review but no FSR doesn't get the same treatment as a game not having DLSS

The last few years publications try to be friendly to Nvidia. And while I am usually very harsh on that and probably my reaction to that is usually the only reason I get banned left and right(never for behavior), looking from their point of view, you don't upset the 2.5 trillion company that controls 90% of the market and it is rumored to be very vindictive against even it's own partners. AMD tried in the past to do the same, I think with TPU, withholding their Vega64(?) sample for review, only to be forced to apologize later(if I remember correctly). Nvidia is a different beast and even HUB that gone public against them, the last two years advertise DLSS like it is the only feature you need in a card.

I was forced to leave it on dlss or xess, and unsure at that point what to even set the settings at since I don't even want any of it to begin with.

Doesn't offer DLAA?