Borderlands 4 patch offers 20% frame rate boost on PC and reduces crashes - but PS5 players remain unhappy

Gearbox has outlined the performance boost that Borderlands 4 will get from tomorrow's big patch - and PC gamers are in for a major frame rate uplift.

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While the FPS boost will obviously vary depending on your PC's exact hardware, the takeaway is that you can expect around a 20% boost in the average frame rate. That's the conclusion of Gearbox's own testing (highlighted by VideoCardz) with the v1.5 patch (out on March 26) versus Borderlands 4 at launch (v1.0.2).

So, for example, at 1440p resolution (native, no upscaling) and high details, with a rig that hits the recommended spec (Core i7-12700K with RTX 3080) you used to get 45 FPS, but you'll now get 56 FPS. That represents an uplift of almost 25%, getting close to the magic 60 FPS mark.

On top of that, there's also been work in terms of reducing the game's propensity to crash.

Gearbox notes that "we greatly improved stability since launch, reducing how often players encounter crashes". In December 2025, crashes were recorded in 0.63% of all sessions, and that has been reduced to 0.38%, and whereas previously 17% of players were experiencing a crash, that's now down to 9%.

That's undeniably useful progress, and it'll be good to see the results more widely corroborated when gamers out there actually fire up Borderlands 4 with the new patch applied.

The cynics out there still aren't happy with Gearbox, and the time it has taken to get this performance smoothing work in place. Some also argue that the timing of the fix is about promoting the new DLC (Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned).

Little consolation on the PS5 front?

On top of that, console gamers are wondering where their fixes are. You can see comments like this on Reddit: "I play this game on PS5 Pro and it looks rough, reducing to Performance mode is the only way I can hit 60 FPS. The HDR implementation is bad and colors look washed out."

In the same thread, another gamer asks: "When are they gonna fix the FPS and resolution on ps5 pro???"

Hopefully the work done on PC will also apply to the PS5, but it seems there are definite issues that need to be tackled with Sony's console, too.

All in all, Borderlands 4 has not had a great launch or bedding-in period afterwards, and many gamers are still scratching their heads because it's not like the game is some huge visual masterpiece.

It's a typical Borderlands outing in terms of the cartoony art style, of course, and not the most complex task you'd imagine a GPU would have trouble coping with. But trouble they've had, and then some, by all accounts...

Fingers of blame have again been pointed at Unreal Engine 5, naturally enough, but it's not quite as simple as that in reality. As some developers have taken pains to point out, UE5 isn't necessarily the problem itself - rather the complexity of the engine, and the way some devs can misuse it (with poor documentation very much not helping UE5's case).