SILENT HILL: Townfall DLSS & FSR – Upscaling Settings

St. Amelia's fog is the whole point of SILENT HILL: Townfall, so the upscaler you pick decides whether every drifting wisp stays sharp or smears into soup. The PC port ships with three temporal upscalers — DLSS, FSR, and TSR — and the recommended-spec config on the SILENT HILL: Townfall Steam store page explicitly calls out DLSS/FSR Balanced as the path to 4K 30fps High on an RTX 3080 or RX 7800 XT. This guide breaks down how each upscaler behaves inside the Unreal Engine 5 fog volumetrics, what to run at 4K versus 1080p, and where the PC port still trails the PS5 build.

Silent Hill Townfall DLSS, FSR, and TSR — How the Three Upscalers Actually Compare

The Silent Hill Townfall PC port exposes three temporal upscaling options under Display → Upscaling. All three reconstruct a lower-resolution internal frame and then refine it with motion vectors, but they take very different paths to get there. Picking the wrong one at 1080p is what makes staircase edges appear on the railings of the ferry terminal, and picking the wrong one at 4K is what makes volumetric fog shimmer when Simon walks past a streetlamp.

DLSS is the recommended path for RTX owners because the Unreal Engine 5 Lumen reflections inside the St. Amelia alleyways are very motion-vector heavy, and DLSS reads those vectors more conservatively than the open-source FSR 2.2 implementation. FSR is the default for AMD Radeon and older GeForce cards, and it holds up well on static fog because the temporal history is stable. TSR is the catch-all for cards that do not support DLSS or FSR — it is better than native 540p, but it trails both competitors on the CRTV scanline shader that is the visual signature of the whole game.

Why the PC port offers all three

KONAMI and Screen Burn Interactive shipped a unified Unreal Engine 5 build for PS5 and PC, and the engine's default temporal upscaler is TSR. DLSS and FSR are added on top because the Steam page advertises them in the recommended spec block, and reviewers at PC Gamer specifically called out the UE5 port's reliance on temporal upscaling to hit a smooth frame time on mid-range GPUs. If you want a deeper look at the broader graphics stack — texture quality, ray tracing, shader quality, ultrawide behavior, and crash workarounds — the port quality breakdown covers the parts the upscaler leaves behind.

Silent Hill Townfall 4K Settings — Picking the Right Preset for Your GPU

The recommended 4K spec is Ryzen 7 5700X / i7-9700K, 32GB RAM, RTX 3080 / RX 7800 XT, with DLSS/FSR Balanced. That is a 30fps High target, not a 60fps target, and the choice of upscaler is what gets you there without dropping into the 20s during fog-heavy chapters.

The 4K target is the one where DLSS pulls the clearest lead over FSR. The ferry chase in Chapter 6 features heavy particle fog and a panning camera, and DLSS keeps the lantern glow stable on Simon's coat while FSR introduces a one-frame ghost trail when the camera whips between railings. For RTX 3080 owners who want to stay at 4K, DLSS Balanced plus High preset is the closest match to the recommended spec.

When to drop from 4K to 1440p

If you own an RTX 3070 or below, the 4K DLSS Balanced path becomes 1664 × 936 internal resolution upscaled to 3840 × 2160, which is roughly a 65% horizontal scale. That scale is the threshold where fog volumetrics start to look soft, and you are better off running 1440p native with DLSS Quality than 4K with DLSS Balanced. The general rule is: pick the upscaler preset that keeps the internal render resolution at 1440p or higher for fog-heavy scenes, and accept a lower output resolution if it means a sharper internal frame.

Silent Hill Townfall 1080p Settings — Maximizing a Mid-Range GPU

The minimum spec on the SILENT HILL: Townfall Steam store page is Ryzen 5 3600 / i7-8700K, 16GB RAM, RTX 2060 Super / RX 6600, 1080p 30fps Low. That is a 30fps target on Low preset without any upscaler, but community testing shows that a mid-range card like the RTX 3060 or RX 6600 XT can comfortably hit 60fps at 1080p Medium with the right upscaler engaged.

At 1080p the choice between DLSS and FSR narrows because both upscalers are running their largest scale factor (roughly 50% horizontal at Performance). DLSS still wins on motion-vector reconstruction — the difference shows up on the CRTV scanline shader when the camera pans — but FSR is close enough at this resolution that AMD Radeon owners should not feel pressured to switch. TSR is the option to avoid at 1080p: it is the default when neither DLSS nor FSR is available, and it is the upscaler that introduces the most temporal instability on the CRTV overlay.

The 1080p 60fps sweet spot

For most players running an RTX 3060-class card, the 1080p Medium preset with DLSS Balanced is the configuration that gets you to a locked 60fps without obvious fog artifacting. The internal render resolution ends up at 960 × 540, which is low, but DLSS's neural network does enough reconstruction to keep Simon's coat and the lantern flame readable. If you find that 60fps is unstable in Chapter 4 (the indoor hospital sequence), drop shadow quality from Medium to Low — shadow rendering is the second-biggest cost after fog volumetrics, and the fog is non-negotiable for the atmosphere.

Silent Hill Townfall PS5 vs PC — What the Upscaler Choice Hides

The PS5 build does not use DLSS, FSR, or TSR. It uses Sony's PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) checkerboard renderer, which is closer to DLSS in approach but tuned specifically for the PS5's RDNA 2 GPU. The result is a 4K 30fps High target on PS5 that PC matches with DLSS Balanced on an RTX 3080, and a 1440p 60fps Performance mode on PS5 that PC matches with DLSS Quality on an RTX 4070.

The headline takeaway is that the PS5 build is essentially a locked 4K 30 experience with PSSR, and the PC port at the recommended spec mirrors that experience almost exactly when DLSS Balanced is enabled. The PC port pulls ahead only when you have an RTX 4080 or above and can run 4K native or 4K DLSS Quality at 60fps, which the PS5's RDNA 2 GPU cannot match. The PC port trails PS5 in one area: console-side shader pre-compilation means PS5 has fewer stutter moments on first-time shader loads, while the PC port can hitch when a new volumetric fog emitter enters the frame. The DirectX 12 and GPU comparison guide goes deeper into that shader compile behavior and the frame-pacing fixes that smooth it out.

Where the PC port pays for its flexibility

PC pays for the choice of upscaler with a stutter cost on first-time asset loads. When you walk into a new room in St. Amelia and the engine streams in a new fog volume, the UE5 shader compiler kicks in and the framerate dips for 200-400ms. This happens on PS5 too, but the pre-compiled shader cache is more aggressive on console. The fix on PC is to enable Shader Pre-Caching in the Nvidia driver panel (for RTX cards) or to let the game run for 15-20 minutes after first launch so the cache builds up naturally. After the cache is warm, the framerate stabilizes and the upscaler choice becomes the dominant performance variable.

Tuning Fog Clarity — Advanced Upscaler Settings That Most Guides Skip

The default upscaler presets are tuned for general-purpose use, but the fog volumetrics in St. Amelia reward a few manual tweaks. These are the settings that PC Gamer's review specifically called out as the difference between a sharp 4K image and a soft one, and they apply whether you are running DLSS, FSR, or TSR.

Sharpness slider

DLSS and FSR both expose a sharpness slider in the driver-level or engine-level upscaler menu. The default is 0.5, and most players leave it there. For SILENT HILL: Townfall, dropping the sharpness to 0.35-0.4 actually helps the fog volumetrics because the engine's TAA pass is already adding edge contrast — a lower sharpness slider prevents the upscaler from doubling that contrast and creating halo artifacts around the lantern glow. FSR is more sensitive to this slider than DLSS, so Radeon owners should start at 0.4 and adjust up by 0.05 increments.

Frame generation

DLSS 3 Frame Generation and FSR 3 Frame Generation are both supported in the Silent Hill Townfall PC port, and they roughly double the perceived framerate by inserting interpolated frames. For a 30fps 4K experience, frame generation pushes the perceived framerate to ~60fps. The catch is input lag: the interpolated frame is not "real" in the sense of being a frame the engine rendered, so mouse-look and controller stick response feel slightly behind. For a slow-paced horror game like Townfall, this is acceptable, and the fog volumetrics interpolate cleanly because the motion vectors are stable. If you are playing on a high-refresh-rate monitor and prefer responsiveness, leave frame generation off and target native 60fps instead.

Volumetric fog quality

The fog quality dropdown in Graphics settings is independent of the upscaler, and it has a disproportionate impact on performance. On the High preset, fog volumetrics consume roughly 35-40% of the frame budget at 4K. Dropping to Medium cuts that to about 20% with a visible loss of fog density in the alleyway scenes. The recommended move for mid-range GPUs is to keep fog at High, drop shadow quality to Medium, and let the upscaler handle the resolution cost — fog is the visual identity of the game, and shadows are not.

Recommended Silent Hill Townfall PC Port Configuration by GPU

This summary table consolidates the recommendations from the Steam spec block and community testing into a single cheat sheet. Pick the row that matches your GPU and you will land within 5% of the optimal configuration.

The PS5 build sits between the RTX 3080 and RTX 4070 rows — its 4K 30 High experience with PSSR is what the recommended-spec PC configuration reproduces with DLSS Balanced. The PC port's advantage is the ability to drop to a 1080p 60fps path on a mid-range GPU, which the PS5's PSSR implementation cannot match without dropping to its Performance mode (which is a 1440p 60 target internally).

If you want to verify whether your system meets the spec, the system requirements and best settings guide has the full minimum and recommended spec breakdown plus per-GPU benchmarks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I use DLSS, FSR, or TSR in Silent Hill Townfall on PC?

Use DLSS if you have an RTX 20-series or newer GPU, because it preserves fog volumetric detail better during fast camera pans and produces the sharpest CRTV scanline texture. Use FSR 2.2 if you are on AMD Radeon or a pre-RTX GeForce card — it trails DLSS slightly on motion vectors but is the best open alternative. Avoid TSR unless neither DLSS nor FSR is available on your hardware, because it shows visible temporal instability on the CRTV overlay and fog particle pops.

What is the best upscaler preset for 4K 30fps in Silent Hill Townfall?

DLSS Balanced or FSR Balanced is the correct preset for the recommended 4K 30fps High target, matching the spec on the Steam store page exactly. The internal render resolution at Balanced is roughly 2560 × 1440, which is the lowest input that still keeps the fog volumetrics readable. Drop to DLSS Performance only if your GPU cannot hold 30fps at Balanced, and avoid DLSS Ultra Performance at 4K because the internal render drops to 1080p and the fog becomes visibly soft.

Can I get 60fps at 4K in the Silent Hill Townfall PC port?

Yes, but only on an RTX 4080 or above with DLSS Quality (or native resolution on an RTX 4090). The RTX 3080 recommended spec targets 4K 30fps, not 60fps. For a stable 4K 60 experience, you need the extra shader power of the 4080/4090 tier, and the upscaler should be DLSS Quality rather than Balanced to keep the fog sharp at the higher internal resolution. The PS5 build tops out at 4K 30, so a locked 4K 60 is a PC-exclusive path.

Is the Silent Hill Townfall PC port better than PS5?

The PC port is better for players who want 60fps at 4K or who own a high-refresh-rate monitor, because the PS5 build is locked to 30fps in Standard mode and 60fps at 1440p in Performance mode. The PS5 build is better for players who want plug-and-play stability with zero configuration, because the console's pre-compiled shader cache avoids the first-time stutter that the PC port can show on new asset loads. The visual quality at the recommended spec is nearly identical because both use a temporal upscaler (DLSS on PC, PSSR on PS5) at roughly the same internal resolution.

How do I fix fog shimmer in Silent Hill Townfall on PC?

Drop the sharpness slider in the upscaler menu from 0.5 to 0.35-0.4, which prevents the upscaler from doubling the TAA edge contrast on the lantern glow. If shimmer persists, switch from TSR to DLSS or FSR at the same preset — TSR is the upscaler most prone to fog particle popping. Finally, make sure Volumetric Fog is set to High rather than Ultra, because Ultra adds a second fog raymarch that interacts poorly with the temporal history buffer.