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Dragon Age Inquisition cutscene micro stutter during all cutscenes

gatti-man

Member
Not buying this until this is fixed. The story is why i play dragon age games or rpgs in general. Glad i waited the reviews almost got me to day 1. This is getting ridiculous.
 
Love the game but until we get a word on a patch I am going back to Destiny. The cutscenes are completely ruined as it stands right now. I thought my HDD was still installing or something.
 

hlhbk

Member
I can't see how it can break your immersion. It's not exactly a slide show. It is a strange issue tho seeing as the gameplay runs extremely smoothly. But game breaking? Immersion breaking? I don't think so.

It certainly is game breaking and immersion breaking for several in this thread already.
 
I had the problem until I closed FRAPS on pc, after that cutscenes were fine. With FRAPS on I would get a stutter during gameplay as well.

Hopefully it gets patched, because this game is awesome.
 

hlhbk

Member
FYI I have made a thread about this over at the bioware forums. Please feel free to post your experiences there as well.
 

StudioTan

Hold on, friend! I'd love to share with you some swell news about the Windows 8 Metro UI! Wait, where are you going?
It certainly is game breaking and immersion breaking for several in this thread already.

Game breaking means you literally cannot play the game due to a bug, not that you choose to not play it because something annoys you or breaks your immersion.

I noticed the issue on PC when I was streaming with Steam to my projector but when I played on my actual PC yesterday it wasn't there, so I assumed it was happening because of the streaming. Going to try the fix posted earlier in the thread if it happens again.
 

diaspora

Member
I find the "immersion breaking" complaints mildly funny given that this is a Bioware game. Trademark stilted conversations, writing, and faces are a staple of their games, there couldn't possibly be any immersion in the first place to break as irritating as this stuttering might be.

Also, Bioware saying "too much work" to fix is really shitty imo.
 
Thought I might have been crazy, but it only appears to effect cut scenes, I hope there's a patch for this.
Other than that I'm loving the game so far.
(PS4)
 

UnrealEck

Member
I don't get stuttering during cutscenes but I capped the framerate to 60 so maybe tha't fixed the problem. The cutscenes being 30 FPS whilst gameplay is 60 is what's a bit jarring for me.
 

Darklord

Banned
I find the "immersion breaking" complaints mildly funny given that this is a Bioware game. Trademark stilted conversations, writing, and faces are a staple of their games, there couldn't possibly be any immersion in the first place to break as irritating as this stuttering might be.

One of the best regarded RPG developers in gaming who has created multiple series beloved for their immersive world and characters. But you're right, they're total amateurs.
 

diaspora

Member
One of the best regarded RPG developers in gaming who has created multiple series beloved for their immersive world and characters. But you're right, they're total amateurs.

I'm having a hard time believing you're actually trying to argue that the character facial animations and conversations are actually immersive. The world itself is fine, which is why I hadn't mentioned it- and the world obviously wouldn't suffer from cutscene stuttering. It can be a good game but have stiff faces- something that shouldn't surprise anyone.
 

Asbear

Banned
None of the recent bioware games (ME, DA) have had his terrible micro stuttering.

But this is on a brand new engine for Bioware and they say the 30fps limit is due to synchronization (and probably their 30fps console target) but apparently increasing it to 60fps without bugs and glitches isn't as simple as it was in previous games.
 

hlhbk

Member
I find the "immersion breaking" complaints mildly funny given that this is a Bioware game. Trademark stilted conversations, writing, and faces are a staple of their games, there couldn't possibly be any immersion in the first place to break as irritating as this stuttering might be.

Also, Bioware saying "too much work" to fix is really shitty imo.

This thread isn't about hating on Bioware. The game itself is amazing, including the writing. The technical issues however are inexcusable.
 

Wulfram

Member
Schumacher was talking about the cutscenes being 30 FPS, not them stuttering. The stuttering is a bug that should be fixed, the 30 FPS is simply a technical compromise.
 
I'm having a hard time believing you're actually trying to argue that the character facial animations and conversations are actually immersive. The world itself is fine, which is why I hadn't mentioned it- and the world obviously wouldn't suffer from cutscene stuttering. It can be a good game but have stiff faces- something that shouldn't surprise anyone.
So you're actually being serious? You're comparing mediocre animations (though functional) with constant stuttering?

And somehow the latter is redundant because the former is present.
 

RPGCrazied

Member
Ugh. I also get this. Thank god its nothing wrong with my new PS4. But yeah, gameplay is smooth, then a cutscene happens and its a jutter/stutter fest. I also thought it was merely still installing the game, but nope. Installing done, still does it. I really hope this gets fixed, but if not oh well. At least the game has 0 tearing.
 

gogosox82

Member
I had this issue as well but until I played it in borderless windowed mode and I haven't had a problem since. Also the AMD beta drivers helped a ton as well.
 

BigTnaples

Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
Hoping they patch this before I pick this up. Should be finishing Far Cry 4 soon and then I want to finish either MCC or GTA before I buy a new game. Trying to get a grip on my backlog.
 

Kinthalis

Banned
Cutscene stutter on PC goes away if you move Terrain quality from Ultra to high.

It's stil 30 FPS, but no stutter.

And yeah, it's been a while. Where's our patch Bioware?

Iron Bull keeps disappearing from the tavern in my game!
 

epmode

Member
I've found that the cutscene animation stutter is worse in certain cutscenes. Especially at the start of the game.

I tried that command line fix that allows cutscenes to run at 60 FPS and noticed something really strange: There are a few scenes at the start where it's snowing in the background. The snow was moving at 60 FPS while the characters were stuttering along at something clearly below 30 FPS.

Since my framerate didn't approach 60 in many post-intro areas, I dropped the command line tweak and I'm just dealing with the 30 FPS cutscenes. The sub-30 animation stutters are less common as the game goes on.
 

~Kinggi~

Banned
Ive put back playing the game on PC because of this exact problem. Lowering settings doesnt have much of a n impact, and the only thing that helps is the 60 fps unlock which causes some game breaking bugs for me.
 

ymgve

Member
The problem seems to be that certain animations are played at lower than 30 FPS - one perfect example is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XylZSWxlbEA#t=98

You can see that every fifth frame, the bodies freeze for a single frame, while other parts (like the snow flakes) continue moving. It also seems like the freeze frame doesn't lead to a bigger delta movement in the next frame (which low FPS but synced animation would have), so it basically feels like the cutscenes stop briefly six times per second.

Strangely enough, it seems to be only character bodies that are affected by this, not their faces or stuff like snow, which makes it even more odd why this happens in the first place.
 

Mogwai

Member
The problem seems to be that certain animations are played at lower than 30 FPS - one perfect example is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XylZSWxlbEA#t=98

You can see that every fifth frame, the bodies freeze for a single frame, while other parts (like the snow flakes) continue moving. It also seems like the freeze frame doesn't lead to a bigger delta movement in the next frame (which low FPS but synced animation would have), so it basically feels like the cutscenes stop briefly six times per second.

Strangely enough, it seems to be only character bodies that are affected by this, not their faces or stuff like snow, which makes it even more odd why this happens in the first place.
IIRC, Blizzard did a similar thing for Diablo 3 on PS4 and X1. Environments, characters, etc. are processed through separate frames rates.

I think it could be a deliberate move by BioWare to make sure that the game runs decently on the new consoles. Why it still craps out on PC I don't know.
 
I wish I had not bought this game on PS4. As someone who plays Bioware games largely for the story/cutscenes, the microstuttering issue ruins the part I care most about.

Will play on PC eventually... too bad I already unwittingly encouraged this sort of practice with my dollars. Did no review mention this?
 
Definitely noticed this but it doesn't bother me that much. The real awful thing is how poorly characters are animated in cutscenes. From facial animations to movement and body language this looks like shit from 2008. The high quality character models just make it stand out so much. There are nice "specific" animations from time to time, but in general the animations break immersion for me more than anything else.

Yeah I bought this the other day and holy shit a lot of the animations etc are some Mass Effect 1 shit. I mean how are we still getting animations like this from Bioware? They've never been great but with a new generation I would've thought this kinda issue wouldn't be as prevalent in their games.
 
It's terrible, Alien Isolation had the same problem which eventually got patched. I held off playing DA for a month hoping it would get fixed, but alas I gave up because I don't think they will ever address it
 

BigTnaples

Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
I was really concerned about this before buying it, but got it and played it only after the latest patch. Never noticed the stuttering?
 

Caio

Member
I Spent €79,99 for the PS4 Digital Deluxe edition, it doesn't work. It gives me error CE-34878-0, an error has occurred with an application, this is what I'm supposed to do :

Step 1: Close the application, install the latest system software and game update, and restart the system.

Step 2: If a PS Camera is connected to the system, remove it and reboot the system, then go to [Settings] > [User] > [Login Settings] and turn "Enable Face Recognition" OFF.

Step 3: If you have upgraded the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) in your console, please re-install the original HDD.

Step 4: If the error occurs again, back up your saved data, and then go to [Settings] > [Initialization] and choose [Initialize PS4].

Step 5: If the error continues and occurs with every application, or as soon as the application starts, please contact PlayStation Support.

All steps done, the game does not start.

It took 25 seconds to rebuild my database as I inizialized PS4 a week ago and re-installed only 3 games.

I never had a problem with any game on PS3 and PS4, apart from Dragon Age. Now, many people are playing Dragon Age on PS4; so, the question is, what's wrong with the combination DA and my PS4 ??? Can data saved from other games create such an issue ? Is the OS ? If I inizialize PS4, the OS is not touched, right ? But If I rebuild the database, in this case I touch somehow the OS and I might solve the problem ?!

By the way, with PS4 initialization it doesn't work, rebuilding database in safe mode does not work, no way to start this DA.

And even more fantastic,a girl from the Italian Official Playstation assistance told me that the problem is my PS4. DA:I does not start because I have a faulty PS4. But wait, I bought 20 games and all play perfectly, not even half a problem with any application, with anything, Now Dragon Aga does not start, and my PS4 'becomes' faulty...

I'm speechless. Any suggestion is welcome.
 

SOLDIER

Member
I don't have the cutscene stutter problem much, but I have run into this issue:

C1XpXu0.jpg


It specifically happens during cutscenes.
 
D

Deleted member 325805

Unconfirmed Member
The gameplay is so smooth and gorgeous but the cut scenes are a choppy mess. It's a shame they didn't implement 60fps cut scenes with proper animations on PC, it blemishes a masterpiece.
 
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