Silksong PC features: Ultrawide, 16:10 for Steam Deck, uncapped framerate and more

Silksong PC options
(Image credit: Team Cherry)

Hollow Knight: Silksong's PC system requirements are humble enough to run on a decade-old rig with ease, and that was never really in doubt. But we did have questions about some of its technical features leading up to launch. Would it be locked to 60 fps? What aspect ratios would it support other than 16:9, if any?

My first stop after booting up the game was the options menu, and I found some pleasant surprises there. As a 2D action game without need for features like DLSS or ray tracing, Silksong has the key features we'd hope for and some nices bonuses, too.

And yes, it's Steam Deck Verified. ✅

Hollow Knight: Silksong's graphics settings

(Image credit: Team Cherry)
  • Aspect ratio support: 16:9, 16:10, 21:9
  • Screen modes: Fullscreen, Windowed, Borderless Windowed
  • V-Sync: On / Off
  • Particle effects: Normal / Low
  • Blur quality: High / Low
  • Framerate cap: 30 / 60 / 120 / 144 / 165 / Off

While there aren't beefy graphics options to "crank up" here, we're happy to see 21:9 ultrawide support and 16:10, the aspect ratio used by the Steam Deck. Note that the ultraultrawide 32:9 is not supported.

Silksong's framerate cap option likely scales higher than 165 Hz, but that's the highest refresh display we've been able to test on so far. If you're on a 240 Hz+ display, though, you likely have more than enough GPU power to simply set the framerate cap to off and run the game at the full speed of your display.

Hollow Knight: Silksong controller and keyboard bindings

The basics. Silksong only has one controller configuration, but you're free to rebind the buttons if you want.

Upon boot Hollow Knight recommends using a controller, but it does have full keyboard input support. You can also rebind all the movement and action keys on a keyboard, or to mouse buttons.

There are no secondary keybinding options.

Hollow Knight: Silksong gameplay and sound settings

  • Language: English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian
  • Camera Shake: On / Reduced / Off
  • HUD Appearance: Small / Large / Off
  • Show in-game achievement messages: On / Off
  • Kickstarter backer credits: On / Off
  • Master Volume, Sound Volume, Music Volume: 1 - 10
  • Hero Voice: On / Off

Silksong has no difficulty options.

Camera shake is a nice accessibility option for players bothered by jarring screen movements, though Silksong lacks other helpful features like color filters, customizable damage indicators or audio cues, or a screen reader.

I'm always happy to see the option to disable the HUD right in the game menu to make it easier to take clean screenshots, and the two scaling options should help when playing on screens ranging in size from a giant TV to a small handheld.

The Hero Voice option is a funny toggle to include. I guess some folks really don't like the little barks and mumbles of unvoiced characters, huh?

Hollow Knight: Silksong's system requirements

Recommended

  • OS: Windows 10 version 21H1 (build 19043) or newer
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-3470
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GeForce GTX 1050 (2GB), Radeon R9 380 (2GB)
  • DirectX: Version 10
  • Storage: 8 GB available space

Minimum

  • OS: Windows 10 version 21H1 (build 19043) or newer
  • Processor: Intel Core i3-3240, AMD FX-4300
  • Memory: 4 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GeForce GTX 560 Ti (1GB), Radeon HD 7750 (1GB)
  • DirectX: Version 10
  • Storage: 8 GB available space
TOPICS
Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.


When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.