Resident Evil Requiem is one of the few games to use GPU data decompression but it's a bit hit and miss as to whether your GPU will ever actually use it

Resident Evil Requiem is one of the few games to use GPU data decompression but it’s a bit hit and miss as to whether your GPU will ever actually use it | PC Gamer Skip to main content Open menu Close main menu PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES US Edition UK US Canada Australia Subscribe Sign in View Profile Sign out Search Search PC Gamer Games Hardware News Reviews Guides Video Forum More PC Gaming Show PC Gamer Clips Software Codes Coupons Movies & TV Magazine Newsletter Affiliate links Meet the team Community guidelines About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine SubscriptionWhy subscribe?Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming magTry a single issue or save on a subscriptionIssues delivered straight to your door or device From$1Subscribe now Don’t miss these Resident Evil Leon Kennedy’s voice actor doesn’t believe AI can replace human performances, and paying ‘for an actor’s voice session is not that big of a deal’ for games as big as Arc Raiders Graphics Cards I’ve tested Resident Evil Requiem with different GPUs and different drivers, but cannot replicate the massive performance loss some PC gamers are reporting Graphics Cards Best graphics cards in 2026: I’ve tested pretty much every AMD and Nvidia GPU of the past 20 years and these are today’s top cards Resident Evil Resident Evil 1’s remake and the OG Resident Evil 4 are still must-plays, and you can make them both look even better with HD remaster mods Hardware Resident Evil Requiem PC performance analysis: Great visuals and decent frame rates all round, though path tracing’s an obvious frame rate killer Gaming Monitors A redditor who found their exact gaming monitor in Resident Evil Requiem finds Reddit image of their monitor inside a monitor inside a monitor in Resident Evil Requiem and now my head hurts Resident Evil Resident Evil Requiem’s The Final Puzzle may be the most convoluted challenge to grace Capcom’s series, and no one’s figured out the answer yet Graphics Cards Third time’s hopefully the charm as Nvidia releases hotfix driver to tackle voltage issues and Resident Evil Requiem performance in one fel swoop Graphics Cards Resident Evil Requiem’s path tracing is tough on GPUs but it probably won’t take as long as ray tracing did to become a mainstream option in games Processors The massive difference between how well Resident Evil Requiem runs on the Steam Deck and an Asus ROG Ally just adds more fuel to the rumour that AMD has abandoned driver support for its Ryzen Z1 chips Gaming Industry An AI-generated review of Resident Evil Requiem written by a fake ‘iGaming and sports betting analyst’ briefly hit Metacritic Resident Evil Capcom’s RE Engine is the gift that keeps on giving: Resident Evil Requiem runs surprisingly well on the Steam Deck FPS After getting Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora on PC Game Pass, unlocking its ‘Unobtanium’ max graphics mode, and then upgrading those stunning visuals even more with mods, I’m convinced this is the ‘But can it run Crysis?’ FPS PC gamers should install today Horror Can Resident Evil Requiem finally make good on Resident Evil 6’s best and most botched idea? Resident Evil 13 years after the disappointment of Resident Evil 6, Capcom is finally fusing survival horror and all-out action again—and this time I think it worked PopularNEW: PC Gamer Clips!MarathonArc RaidersBest PC gearQuizzes Hardware Graphics Cards Resident Evil Requiem Resident Evil Requiem is one of the few games to use GPU data decompression but it’s a bit hit and miss as to whether your GPU will ever actually use it News By Nick Evanson published 10 March 2026 It’s a puzzle worthy of being in a Resident Evil game. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Capcom) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter PC Gamer Get the PC Gamer Newsletter Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. 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Subscribe to our newsletter Resident Evil Requiem is proving to be one of the standout releases of 2026 so far but there’s one aspect of the game that puts it into a very exclusive club: The use of DirectStorage and GPU data decompression. However, what’s going on behind the scenes is a bit of a mystery because it appears to be a bit random as to which GPUs use it, even ones that are theoretically fully capable.I knew that RER was a DirectStorage-enabled game from my own performance testing a couple of weeks ago, but it was Compusemble that spotted the use of GDeflate, using the SpecialK tool to peek underneath the game’s hood. If you’re wondering just what GDeflate is, it’s a data compression algorithm developed by Nvidia that can use the power of a GPU to decompress stuff very quickly.Little known fact: according to SpecialK, Resident Evil Requiem is compressed with GDeflate and uses GPU decompression, but not on every GPU. Left (GPU decompression) is what I see on 5090, 5070, 5060. Right (CPU decompression) is what I see on the 4060 laptop. pic.twitter.com/cCH2awp1EKMarch 9, 2026The idea behind it all, along with the rest of the tech beh