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[kyliethicc]

2023 exclusives

 

[rodrigolfp]

2023 exclusives

Who was the slow brain that doesn't know that Zelda and Redfall will be on PC?

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

Who was the slow brain that doesn't know that Zelda and Redfall will be on PC?

With Zelda, I'd say it will probaly be the best version.

(I hate stupid warring pictures like that btw)

 

[Skifi28]

The game runs fine, you just need a strong single core

Pulling out my Pentium 4 from storage, I have been waiting for this day.

 

[Gaiff]

Survivor is another UE4 dud, just like Hogwarts Legacy that is still broken and full of random stutters. Another PS5 buy for me. It's buggy on PS5 too (HDR is a mess), but nothing even remotely touching the problems that occured with a game on my machine.

Here we go again.

Now, a slight side-rant, if I may. As a top-of-the-line PC owner (I work in movie production), I'm kinda upset with the current status of PC gaming. Hell, it started with XO/PS4 gen tbh. Even if we take into the account the last generation, I highly doubt that a PC from 2013 will run most late PS4/Pro ports with the same settings and the same performance. If at all.

Here's RDR2, running at 1080p at much higher settings than on consoles on an old-ass GTX 780 Ti from November 2013.


Here is a full review. It still performs remarkably well even this late despite having no more driver support.

The only problem is the 3GB frame buffer but this card is from almost 10 years ago.

This gen we've gotten the paradigm shift in console architecture and PC APIs and Windows were caught with their pants down. All 3 consoles, including Switch, are using a solid-state drive. All consoles (Switch too) are sharing the fast unified memory pool. All consoles are more or less transparent with their APIs (so no shader cache issue on PS5/XSX).

None of that has anything to do with shader compilation stutters which can be immensely mitigated with pre-compilation. Many devs are just either too incompetent or don't care enough for that. That "paradigm" shift has fuck-all to do with the problems currently happening on ports. It's purely due to a lack of time and polish from the developers.

Then we've got the barrage of all those PC ports that are dealing with lacking and barely released Direct Strorage (locked to Win 11 too), 4 rendering APIs with their specific can of worms (DX12, OGL, Vulcan, Metal) and a lot of propiretary fluff like DLSS sprinkled on top of it. Hell, I own an RTX-capable GPU since tech's launch! And never in my time with 2080/3080 I've seen anything more crisp and next-gen as Rift Apart on way 'weaker' PS5 that is standing right next to my expensive Fractal Design PC-tower. Hell, even ancient tech like HDR is still a lottery if you game on a PC. And my main monitor is LG CX, so it's clearly Windows, not the display that is crapping out with colors or brightness at a random.

Most games still don't take advantage of the fast storage of the new consoles. They still use archaic solutions which is why PCs with standard SSDs but fast CPUs tend to outperform the consoles when it comes to loading times. The fact that DirectStorage is here but nobody uses it is yet another problem with the developers. I also find it hilarious that you call DLSS "proprietary fluff" when it's by a wide margin the best image reconstruction out there and far superior to Insomniac's solution. Try it in the Spider-Man games, they have both DLSS and Insomniac's solution and DLSS utterly embarrasses it.

Honestly, in this enviroment I don't blame the devs. Yes, they are cutting corners and yes Survivor has no right to be this broken. But honestly, PC right now is a dumpster fire where miniscule porting budget is married with problematic APIs and clear lack of solutions that can effectively emulate curren-gen console architecture, like unified RAM or direct data bridge between GPU and SSD.

You don't blame the dev but then admit in the very next sentence that the game shouldn't be this broken. Who the fuck are you blaming then? Oh, the platform? That's probably why we got competent ports such as Returnal or games that run great like A Plague Tale Requiem, Flight Simulator 2020, and others.

The situation of course will be bruteforced in the coming years, but this whole barrage of broken PC releases in recent year is so upsetting.

Yet you decide to direct your rage at the platform and not the developers. If competent PC games were non-existent and or never got fixed, you'd have a point that perhaps PCs need to change their approach, but almost every game gets fixed within a few months and ends up running remarkably well. This tells us one thing and one thing only; that developers/publishers rush out the PC versions knowing full well that they're not ready. The reality is that development has changed and has gotten far more complex than before. Consoles alone have several performance profiles. Saints Row for instance has a whopping 8 performance profiles on the next-gen consoles alone. Add to that the Series S, RT on/off and a slew of other options, it's a tall task that developers seem to overestimate. As such, on release you end up getting half-baked versions on every platform.

Wasn't The Witcher 3 utterly disastrous on consoles? Callisto Protocol was a mess on Series X with missing RT effects. Gotham Knights was an absolute shitshow on every platform but suffered even worse on consoles. One major difference however is that people who pay $3000 for their gaming rigs have much higher expectations than people playing on consoles. A meh looking game running at 1440p/30 on a PS5 is passable. The same is not on a 4090 because it should be capable of so much more. Blame the higher standards that come with more powerful machines that developers often fail to exploit properly.

 

[SlimySnake]

I generally agree with what you said awhile back that devs these day just dont have any "Ambition" anymore. I wanted to move away from calling them lazy and just call out the lack of ambition instead.....and then this shit lands.

Concerning era I have also been banned there multiple times just for calling out developers shortcommings. The mods there protect there resident gaming press just like they do LGBT community shielding them from any possible frustrations what so ever like there all just fragile children.The complacent masses there with there tragicly low standards arent satisfied with just being happy with the games there shlocked but will gang up on anyone who dares to commit the crime of interfering with there hype and will report you at a moments notice. Unfortunatly that last part happens everywhere it seems and Devs and Publishers know this and fully depend on sycophants always comeing to there defense, knowing they wont ever have to change a thing... and then the cycle continues.

I think the tide might be turning. Asmongold literally told them to go do your job.



Yeah, hes just a youtuber, but I get the feeling that people are sick of this shit.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Lol, tell me again why PC gaming is >>>>>?

Because there's far more better/superior games on this platform than the bad ones. Some devs do give a shit or don't treat us like beta testers.

Returnal

Cyberpunk 2077 overdrive

Dead island 2

Plague tale requiem

Forza Horizon 5

Scorn

RDR2

HiFi Rush also kudos for flawless release. Microsoft Flight sim, Atomic heart

I also much prefer the CRPGs hitting PC first like Disco Elysium, Baldur's Gate III, Divinity Original sin or any strategy games worth a damn with a mouse. PC is king of CRPGs, shooters, online competitive shotters, strategy games and sims (flight & racing). In fact for sims, it's so scalable on PC from beginner's gear to 100k$ or more setup because every game parameters of the simulation can be extracted for feedback and motion.

Spoiler: GOAT VR

Not to mention the insane mod community

But sure, wHY pC??

 

[meech]

Who's next?

Well, knowing Betheshda, Starfield will be broken for both, Pc and Consoles.

 

[Otre]

I wish digital foundry gave a score that could be reflected on Metacritic. People just look at the number most of the time. Not that it wouldve go down a lot but a broken port should have some consequence reflected on a review.

 

[lefty1117]

It's crazy I'd rather buy games on PS5 than my 3080 PC.

I honestly think a lot of publishers would prefer that. Consoles easier/cheaper to develop for. PCs big headache. IMO

 

[lh032]

EDIT: joke comment deleted.

 

[Turk1993]

I PRAY that PC hardware skyrocketed even further, would love to see the tears of all these PCMR.

 

[ZehDon]

I PRAY that PC hardware skyrocketed even further, would love to see the tears of all these PCMR.

This is a completely sane opinion from an obviously well adjusted person. There's nothing strange about this post at all.

 

[lh032]

This is a completely sane opinion from an obviously well adjusted person. There's nothing strange about this post at all.

ok fine im just joking to see the response

 

[SmokSmog]

Arrow Lake with 600MB L4 will brute force in this game. Just wait 12-18 months for it to release.

 

[Kataploom]

I PRAY that PC hardware skyrocketed even further, would love to see the tears of all these PCMR.

 

[Ocean Dweller]

oof

 

[TheTony316]

You have too many complaints, PC gaming is not for you... for example, there's people like me for whom tinckering and so on is actually part of the appeal, but others that would rather just turn the machine on and play without thinking on anything else and put it as "a disadvantage" lol.

I think you're just not the target for PC gaming, you have expectations way too different... Though all games work better on PC than on console, it's just a current trend of day 1 lack of optimizations due to tight deadlines.

The thing is, PC used to be my primary platform for almost 15 years. My shift to consoles is fairly recent.

 

[Jigsaah]

Sorry guys, it's my fault for getting a 4090.

First time I get the flashship card in almost a decade and this happens.

I won't let you bear this burden alone

 

[bender]

I won't let you bear this burden alone

GHG might get lucky tonight.

 

[GymWolf]

2023 exclusives

The game hard crash consoles aswell dude, but nice try.

 

[GymWolf]

I think the tide might be turning. Asmongold literally told them to go do your job.



Yeah, hes just a youtuber, but I get the feeling that people are sick of this shit.

I'm sure devs gives many fucks about what bagtallia or that hobo looking streamer have to say

 

[Kataploom]

The thing is, PC used to be my primary platform for almost 15 years. My shift to consoles is fairly recent.

Take a break from PC gaming then, many joke about "the tools" but the thing is truer than it's giving credit, new development paradigms came in this gen and the engines must be properly set up even for consoles but as Sony got better prepared for it, PS5 games come in better state at launch, even if PC version end up being the better version later.

Jedi Survivor is a mess on every platform anyway, I was considering on buying it if it wasn't for the SSR issue and how disproportionally slow RT performs on PC.

 

[damidu]

Well, knowing Betheshda, Starfield will be broken for both, Pc and Consoles.

in glorious 30fps too

 

[Doctor Hades]

Ouch! Good on Digital Foundry for being as objective as possible in pointing out the (numerous!) issues with this terrible PC version. The crime is that the game is otherwise excellent but any enjoyment I've had from the 8.5 hours played so far has been severely tarnished by the constant performance issues.

 

[Doctor Hades]

As for Starfield and Redfall, I think this will release in a much better state on PC due to being from Microsoft. However, with Bethesda's repetutation for releasing buggy games I am 100% confident that both will have lots of bugs and glitches, including game-breaking ones, that will never be fixed by the developer.

 

[Skifi28]

As for Starfield and Redfall, I think this will release in a much better state on PC due to being from Microsoft. However, with Bethesda's repetutation for releasing buggy games I am 100% confident that both will have lots of bugs and glitches, including game-breaking ones, that will never be fixed by the developer.

When Bethesda releases are our hopes for working games, you know we've reached rock botton.

 

[Senua]

Great video, glad to see Alex really going in on these broken games now, in the past DF have always been so soft on the devs/pubs in these situations. Intro made me ugly laugh (or just laugh)

Richard needs to start being harsher on Nvidia/AMD in his gpu reviews though he still gives them way too much benefit of the doubt

 

[buenoblue]

I'm enjoying the game it's great. Could performance be better....sure but it's totally playable and it really is a great game

 

[SlimySnake]

Ouch! Good on Digital Foundry for being as objective as possible in pointing out the (numerous!) issues with this terrible PC version. The crime is that the game is otherwise excellent but any enjoyment I've had from the 8.5 hours played so far has been severely tarnished by the constant performance issues.

The game is phenomenal. The designers knocked out out of the park. What a shame.

 

[GymWolf]

The game runs fine on my end, not perfect, but perfectly playable.

 

[simpatico]

I have a theory as to what's happening generally:

My suspicion is that its a result of a couple of things: First of all the disruption of Covid has led to a general time-squeeze on dev, which is exacerbated by the new console platforms and the additional SKU's that need to be supported.

What's really biting PC ports in the ass though is that I think that its likely the last SKU in the chain for optimization as its the hardest to get in good shape due to the multiplicity of configs. PS5 is pretty straightforward: 1 setup and "done", its also the one with the fewest pitfalls due to relatively fast i/o and a large homogenous memory pool. Xbox is slightly more challenging due to needed 2 target profiles, and split ram allocations with i/o impact when accessing outside of its "fast" areas.
Then comes PC which is infinitely more variable with different vendors needing to be supported top-to-bottom.

What I'm getting at is, if you imagine a situation where the job is to make the same game, with the same engine and assets for all these platforms, and where fine-tuning performance is the last step of a very busy schedule, the one with the clearest and simplest path to the finish line is going to be in much better shape than the one that has a whole bunch of variables to cover.

I think the final twist of the knife has something to do with an underestimation of the potential for weirdness with the i/o pipeline when porting to PC. That just uprating the CPU and GPU isn't necessarily a "magic bullet" as stalling/bottle-necking seems more likely when porting from console.

My 10c is that this is a problem only publishers can solve.

Everything is coming in hot and PC is getting the brunt because its the platform with the most things to test and validate in terms of performance. They need to make a decision based on the reality that delivering day-and-date across all SKU's means the product as a whole is going to get judged based on the least performant and buggy one.

AA games manage to make it work all the time. There's really not much need to grasp for explanations other than "they're bad at their job". Atomic Heart winks again!

 

[Schmendrick]

I hoped this could be my gapfiller until D4 releases...
Well that's certainly not gonna happen now. Not touching this pos release with a ten foot pole.

 

[Jigsaah]

GHG might get lucky tonight.

You'd love that wouldn't you. I was thinking more like Avengers or something, but I guess everybody can have their own take.

 

[bender]

You'd love that wouldn't you.

Yes. GHG deserves all the happiness in the world. If you hurt him, I'll cut you.

 

[TexMex]

Love the ire and tone of this video. More people need to start digging in on these devs. Hold them accountable. Fuck this.

 

[Denton]

Lmao the game is dropping framerate to teens on PS5 while barely rendering 1440p...

and in "performance mode", it is dropping to 30s while running sub720p...

Now I get why the so called "PC port" is so "poor". It is not the PC port. It is the fucking game, on all platforms.

And it makes sense, right? After all, this is only the biggest IP in the world by one of the biggest publishers in the world.

Meanwhile, Dead Island 2 and Atomic Heart run flawlessly on all platforms including lastgen..

 

[Senua]

Lmao the game is dropping framerate to teens on PS5 while barely rendering 1440p...

and in "performance mode", it is dropping to 30s while running sub720p...

Now I get why the so called "PC port" is so "poor". It is not the PC port. It is the fucking game, on all platforms.

And it makes sense, right? After all, this is only the biggest IP in the world by one of the biggest publishers in the world.

Meanwhile, Dead Island 2 and Atomic Heart run flawlessly on all platforms including lastgen..

And console warriors came in here gloating at first, for shame

 

[BennyBlanco]

And console warriors came in here gloating at first, for shame

Now that we know this runs at under 720p on ps5 I'm sure they'll all come back and apologize to PCGaf

 

[Haint]

Lmao the game is dropping framerate to teens on PS5 while barely rendering 1440p...

and in "performance mode", it is dropping to 30s while running sub720p...

Now I get why the so called "PC port" is so "poor". It is not the PC port. It is the fucking game, on all platforms.

And it makes sense, right? After all, this is only the biggest IP in the world by one of the biggest publishers in the world.

Meanwhile, Dead Island 2 and Atomic Heart run flawlessly on all platforms including lastgen..

It wishes it were 1440. Resolution mode is sub-1080p (972p) and only reaches 1242p (still far below 1440p) when looking at the sky.

 

[Otre]

I'm sure devs gives many fucks about what bagtallia or that hobo looking streamer have to say

Unfortunately not, especially when mindless drones pay for the latest AAA bugfest cause of "hype". Only money influences.