The Last of Us Update Brings Much-Needed CPU & GPU Optimisations

I think it’s fair to say that Naughty Dog has milked this cow for quite some time now, having played and loved the original PlayStation release, then the remastered release, and now the next-gen and PC release, I must also admit that I’m a total sucker for the franchise having now played it… again. Alas, Iron Galaxy has released Title Update 1.0.4.0 for the PC version of The Last of Us Part I, and as I’m sure some of you are aware, it is much needed, as the game has the usual modern-day issues, such as stuttering, poor optimisation, crashing, etc. etc. ad nauseam.

The Last of Us Part I

Thankfully, the release notes do promise a lot, such as a wave of CPU and GPU optimisations for the game that should finally smooth things out. The pesky crash that can happen during shader compilation has also been fixed, as well as some general UI bugs too.

I am interested to see what the new Texture Streaming setting can do, but overall Naughty Dog also say they’ve improved the fidelity and the resolution of Low and Medium graphics profiles. And of course, that means people with 8GB or lower VRAM can now enjoy the game with better visuals.

The patch is a big one at 24GB, so be sure to give your Steam client time to do its thing before you sit down to play.

The Last of Us Part I Patch 1.0.4.0 Release Notes

PC

• Optimized CPU and GPU use throughout the game
• Improved texture fidelity and resolution on in-game Low and Medium settings
• Improved graphical fidelity on the in-game Low graphics preset, particularly water surfaces no longer appear black
• Fixed a crash that may occur during shader building
• Fixed a crash that may occur when quitting to the Main Menu
• Also fixed a crash that may occur when dying after combat
• Fixed an issue where, on first boot, players may experience longer wait times to load into the game
• Added an option for players to lock and unlock performance stats simultaneously in the HUD menu (Options > HUD)
• Added descriptions in the Graphics menus to better explain when certain settings may affect another (Options > Display)
• Also added a Texture Streaming Rate setting (Graphics > Texture Settings)
• Fixed an issue where skipping cutscenes during a critical load may cause the game to hang
• Fixed an issue where the shader load warning did not appear while relaunching the game
• Updated the VRAM bar to more accurately display the OS+Apps usage
• Fixed an issue where the Screen Reader read values for locked settings which may imply those same locked setting were active
• Fixed an issue where aiming downward while using keyboard and mouse (KBM) may increase camera sensitivity
• Refined the handling of certain commands that are assigned the same KBM keybinding
• Corrected Brazilian Portuguese, Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Hungarian, LATAM Spanish, Spanish, Thai, and Traditional Chinese translations for multiple menu options
• [Ultrawide Displays] Corrected the Rangefinder reticle position for the bow

AMD

• Fixed a crash that may occur on AMD CPUs with affinity limited to X3D cores
• Fixed an issue where textures may render incorrectly on AMD GPUs

Steam

• Fixed an issue where the “It Can’t Be For Nothing” achievement did not trigger, despite acquiring all other achievements

Steam Deck

• Fixed an issue on Steam Deck where resetting Display settings to Default no longer enabled AMD FSR 2 (Options > Display)