Gears of War: E-Day has a 'Ludicrous' graphics setting, and it brings the mighty GeForce RTX 5090 to its knees

The Gears of War: E-Day Open Beta kicks off this weekend, and with some players already gaining Early Access to the game, we now know that Gears of War: E-Day will ship with a built-in benchmark tool. The tool will also be available on PC for gamers jumping into the Open Beta, and we've also learned that the game includes a graphics setting above 'Ultra' called 'Ludicrous.'

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Developer The Coalition built Gears of War: E-Day from the ground up to take full advantage of the latest Unreal Engine 5 engine, from advanced lighting to ray-tracing, destructible environments, and significantly more geometry and detail than any previous Gears game. This includes Unreal Engine's MegaLights, Lumen, and Nanite, and in terms of cutting-edge visuals, the 'Ludicrous' graphics mode is shaping up to be something more for the next-generation of PC gaming hardware.

And we say that because it basically brings the powerful GeForce RTX 5090 to its knees, with it unable to hit a steady 60 FPS in 4K even with upscaling. Per the benchmark results from a new video posted by Elegant Egotist, who got early access to the Open Beta on Steam, with the 'Ludicrous' setting, the GeForce RTX 5090, paired with an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 CPU, only manages to hit an average frame rate of 44.5 FPS.

Weirdly, this is with FSR 4's Quality preset and not DLSS, even though the game supports DLSS, FSR, and XeSS. Dropping the graphics setting to 'Ultra' brings the average frame rate, with DLSS 4.5's Quality preset this time, to a more impressive 67.5 FPS. But as we're talking about the GeForce RTX 5090 paired with a Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 CPU, it points to Gears of War: E-Day requiring a beast of a rig to play in 4K, with upscaling technology like DLSS to boost performance.

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Question #1

What is the "Ludicrous" graphics setting in Gears of War: E-Day and how does it differ from "Ultra"?

"Ludicrous" is a graphics preset above "Ultra" that pushes Unreal Engine 5 features like advanced lighting, ray tracing, destructible environments, and increased geometry/detail (MegaLights, Lumen, Nanite) for next-generation visual quality. It is significantly more demanding than "Ultra": in benchmarked testing a GeForce RTX 5090 with an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 averaged 44.5 FPS in 4K with FSR 4 Quality on "Ludicrous," versus 67.5 FPS in 4K with DLSS 4.5 Quality on "Ultra."

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Question #2

Does the Open Beta on PC include a built-in benchmark tool and where can I access it?

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Question #3

What were the benchmark results for an RTX 5090 + Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 at 4K with the "Ludicrous" setting and FSR 4 Quality?

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Question #4

How does performance change when switching from "Ludicrous" with FSR to "Ultra" with DLSS 4.5 Quality in the reported test?

In the reported test, performance rises from an average of 44.5 FPS on Ludicrous with FSR 4 Quality to 67.5 FPS on Ultra with DLSS 4.5 Quality, an increase of 23 FPS (about 52% faster).

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On the plus side, Gears of War: E-Day is also shaping up to be one of the most visually impressive PC game releases of 2026, so the fact that it pushes today's flagship GPUs with its 'Ultra' and 'Ludicrous' settings is a good reason for PC gamers with high-end rigs to jump into the action.