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Nvidia RTX 4000 and 5000 series owners instructed to lower quality settings in Hell is Us demo — Developer urges users to turn down settings and disable DLSS during cinematic intro to resolve crashing issue

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Demanding new Unreal Engine 5 game demo is causing problems for players on the green team.

Hell is us screenshot
(Image credit: Rogue Factor)

The developers behind the demanding new open-world adventure game Hell Is Us have issued a workaround for Nvidia GeForce RTX 50 and RTX 40 users experiencing start-up crashes with their freshly released PC demo. In an update on the Steam page for Hell is Us, the devs suggest ratcheting down the graphics quality settings in the main menu of the demo to get past the cinematic intro, as well as turning off all forms of upscaling. Meanwhile, the Hell is Us team at Rogue Factor promises to continue investigating the problem.

Hell is Us already has something of a hardware hog reputation, even though it won’t be released until September 4, 2025. Germany’s PCGH.de notes that the Unreal Engine 5-powered title “requires at least an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 for 4K/UHD at 30 frames per second” (machine translation).

We looked at the official recommended specs and, in terms of GPU muscle and VRAM, gamers are advised to equip an Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti (11GB) or AMD RX 6750 XT (12GB) to enjoy this title, some more fuel for the 8GB VRAM GPU fire. 32GB of system RAM is also a recommended requirement.

(Image credit: Rogue Factor)

The (temporary) workaround

The temporary workaround for those facing crashing issues, shared by the Hell is Us team, is to first reduce all your graphics settings from the main menu and then deactivate all the upscaling features supported by the demo. That means turning off DLSS, XeSS, FSR, and more. See the screenshot above.

Once you have successfully navigated that menu configuration click-fest, seen the cinematic intro, and reached the point where you are in control of main character Rémi, feel free to crank your quality settings back up, say the devs.

Hell is Us | Investigation Gameplay - YouTube Hell is Us | Investigation Gameplay - YouTube
Watch On

Hell Is Us is a single-player action-adventure in a semi-open world with both melee combat and investigatory elements to enjoy. Check out the above video for a few minutes of ‘investigation gameplay.’

Available to pre-order on Steam/PC now, with the title unlocking on September 4, 2025, the game will also be released on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. Hopefully, glaring issues like crashing in the intro when played on the PC’s most popular, and some would say the best graphics cards, will be a distant memory by then.

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Mark Tyson
Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

47 Comments Comment from the forums
  • -Fran-
    Since it's directly related, may as well:
    WFIsLr3l1QAView: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFIsLr3l1QA

    Our fav math teacher talking about it as well with a more "hands on" experience.

    Regards.
    Reply
  • RoLleRKoaSTeR
    So, if one has say a 3090FE with 24GB ram it should run OK?
    not running 4k, but ultra-wide 5760x1080 144hz
    Reply
  • Makaveli
    was playing this demo last night.

    With a 9800X3D + 7900XTX at 3440x1440 @ 144 hz Very high, Native AA no FG

    doing 76-80 fps
    Reply
  • John Nemesh
    Gee, imagine that. More instability and crashes on Nvidia...whodathunkit?
    Reply
  • derekullo
    John Nemesh said:
    Gee, imagine that. More instability and crashes on Nvidia...whodathunkit?
    Historically it was AMD/ATI that had unstable drivers :P
    Reply
  • Roland Of Gilead
    I like the 'look' of what UE5 engine gives, but the performance is brutal. There are other game engines out there that look just as good IMO, (ID Tech 8 for example), that offer much better performance, and just as good wow-factor GFX looks that work better with more recent GPU's with a little DLSS/FSR trade off.
    Reply
  • VizzieTheViz
    Is this game just awfully optimized?

    The graphics in this game are in no way proportional to the amount op processing power required to generate those graphics.

    A 4090 should be able to do graphics like these at 4K60 or more easily.

    A game that brings such a gpu to its knees should look miles better than anything else, and this game really doesn’t.
    Reply
  • DS426
    VizzieTheViz said:
    Is this game just awfully optimized?

    The graphics in this game are in no way proportional to the amount op processing power required to generate those graphics.

    A 4090 should be able to do graphics like these at 4K60 or more easily.

    A game that brings such a gpu to its knees should look miles better than anything else, and this game really doesn’t.
    Well, in short, yes. They have about three months to optimize the game's graphics/performance. Between devs' internal optimizations and working with AMD and nVidia on drivers, it could very well see 20% higher fps at the same graphics settings or even far higher given the seemingly low-ish bar that's been set. It might also be a game like Cyberpunk that takes years to stable for most everywhere... we'll just hope that isn't the case.
    Reply
  • DS426
    Fuel to the fire of the 8 GB VRAM problem, lol.
    Reply
  • valthuer
    That’s Unreal Engine 5 for you: either it barely runs and looks mediocre, or barely runs and looks great, but it always barely runs.
    Reply