• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

First Baldur's Gate 3 PS5 Impressions - "No Stable 60FPS - Performance vs Quality Mode"

Really good compared to the jaguars, but that's like saying a piss bath is better than a poop bath. I kid but they were decent on release unlike the jaguars which were shite on release
Yes, I'm perhaps being overly harsh. I know they're far better than the situation back in 2013, and most games do at least run acceptably at 60 in some form or other. Just doesn't help that two of the big games I'm about to dive into (BG3 and Starfield) either struggle to hit 60, or don't even bother giving the option.
 

Senua

Member
Yes, I'm perhaps being overly harsh. I know they're far better than the situation back in 2013, and most games do at least run acceptably at 60 in some form or other. Just doesn't help that two of the big games I'm about to dive into (BG3 and Starfield) either struggle to hit 60, or don't even bother giving the option.
These games are rather heavy on the CPU side, it's just inevitable I'm afraid. 30 for BG3 especially isn't the end of the world though.
 

SRTtoZ

Member
I would absolutely buy this if there was a physical version. I just can't justify spending another $70+ on the game when I already have the PC version but i'd love to farm the trophies.
 

Vblad88

Member
I'm playing 2nd playthrough of FF 16 on the crucified "unplayable" Performance mode and... I decided to take fps counters with grain of salt from now on. Not a single slowdown for first few hours into the game. No gameplay advantage either, because game apparently ain't as fast as it looks + as for resolution, when you sit further from screen you don't really see a difference. I think it is the same in Baldur's gate in reality, maybe minus tearing. Def not something you should consider a new console for.
 
Fast travelling between acts like he does in the video takes 19 seconds on my PC so still not exactly fast but more than twice as fast as the PS5. Within the same map it's not worth measuring as it fades to black and then is back instantly.

That bit in act 1 when he drops to 35fps at the Roadside Cliffs checkpoint runs at 130 to 195 fps on a 7800x3d and 4080 at 1440p DLAA (so native 1440p with AI antialiasing) - I guess the console CPU is crumbling under the pressure as the difference shouldn't be that much.

A lot of act 3 is going to suck balls on console unless there's an engine re-write before people get that far.
 
I really don't understand why Larian added a performance mode for the PS5 version of Baldur's Gate 3 personally.

It's not like the game is a twich-shooter, it's a tactical turn-based RPG which works perfectly fine with 30 fps. The Performance mode on this game lets the final product down in my opinion as the PS5's rather barebones VRR implementation means that even it can't prevent the game from stuttering when it (frequently) drops below 48 fps. I think a 40 fps mode at 120 Hz might have been better but even then the game is still going to drop below 40 fps so having a locked 30 fps would have been the best all-round option. Also, having just one mode would have meant more time for optimisation and less time wasted on the Performance mode.

As for the split-screen mode: I wonder just how many people will even bother to use that given that Baldur's Gate 3 is very dialogue heavy. I'd say about 70% of my 122 hour playtime on PC has been dialogue which doesn't really work in a co-op game.
 

Duellist

Member
Wow lol, I must be blind then cause I’ve been playing all weekend and it looks and plays awesome to me in performance mode. I guess being a gamer from back to the original Atari 2600 puts things in perspective. Lol Yes the Initial load time is a little long but after that it’s really not that bad. Divinity 2 was way worse. Loving this so far and it’s been, well since divinity 2 that I’ve laughed this much at the game. Some parts are hilarious 😂 Going to have so much fun with this.
 
Last edited:

StereoVsn

Member
I really don't understand why Larian added a performance mode for the PS5 version of Baldur's Gate 3 personally.

It's not like the game is a twich-shooter, it's a tactical turn-based RPG which works perfectly fine with 30 fps. The Performance mode on this game lets the final product down in my opinion as the PS5's rather barebones VRR implementation means that even it can't prevent the game from stuttering when it (frequently) drops below 48 fps. I think a 40 fps mode at 120 Hz might have been better but even then the game is still going to drop below 40 fps so having a locked 30 fps would have been the best all-round option. Also, having just one mode would have meant more time for optimisation and less time wasted on the Performance mode.

As for the split-screen mode: I wonder just how many people will even bother to use that given that Baldur's Gate 3 is very dialogue heavy. I'd say about 70% of my 122 hour playtime on PC has been dialogue which doesn't really work in a co-op game.
Performance mode is fine to have as a choice. There should be a locked 30fps mode as well..and yeah it would suck on OLED.

For co-op play, a lot of folks love doing that for Larian games. Watch Angry Joe review on YouTube, the team did entire playthrough in co-op and loved it.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
He is an American living in Germany for quite a while.
Hmm alright. He sometimes expresses himself in ways that don't seem 100% grammatically correct, so I thought maybe he was just really good at English but not perfect. But maybe that's just a consequence of not speaking a lot of English on a daily basis for many years.
 
Last edited:

Mossybrew

Member
Well I guess I just realized I have no idea what mode I've been playing in the last few days, whatever the default is.

I think the one thing still bothering me is R2 for main menu, just hard to get used to.
 

MarkMe2525

Member
Just a reminder to everyone that the game isn't even out yet and there might be a day 1 patch to fix many of the issues. I don't have skin in the game, but 10 pages of performance discussion on an unreleased game is silly.
 
Last edited:

Portugeezer

Member
Just a reminder to everyone that the game isn't even out yet and there might be a day 1 patch to fix many of the issues. I don't have skin in the game, but 10 pages of performance discussion on an unreleased game is silly.
The artificially delayed pleb version is what you're talking about.

The more expensive version is out already on PS5 for superior people.
 
Last edited:

Moses85

Member
John and Alex are Americans living in Germany.
Season 4 Andy GIF by The Office

Alex is american?
 

Roxkis_ii

Member
I really don't understand why Larian added a performance mode for the PS5 version of Baldur's Gate 3 personally.

It's not like the game is a twich-shooter, it's a tactical turn-based RPG which works perfectly fine with 30 fps. The Performance mode on this game lets the final product down in my opinion as the PS5's rather barebones VRR implementation means that even it can't prevent the game from stuttering when it (frequently) drops below 48 fps. I think a 40 fps mode at 120 Hz might have been better but even then the game is still going to drop below 40 fps so having a locked 30 fps would have been the best all-round option. Also, having just one mode would have meant more time for optimisation and less time wasted on the Performance mode.

As for the split-screen mode: I wonder just how many people will even bother to use that given that Baldur's Gate 3 is very dialogue heavy. I'd say about 70% of my 122 hour playtime on PC has been dialogue which doesn't really work in a co-op game.
Most people are going to probably play this at 30 fps and be fine, but I personally do appreciate the option for a higher framerate mode, regardless of the trade offs.
 
We will see how much the RAM pool actually makes a difference since the CPU in the XSS is essentially the same as the one in the PS5.

It has less ram though and a much weaker GPU. It's definitely going to run the game at lower settings. I don't really expect stable performance from any of these consoles. However it might be acceptable on all three. That would depend on what your looking for.
 

twilo99

Member
It has less ram though and a much weaker GPU. It's definitely going to run the game at lower settings. I don't really expect stable performance from any of these consoles. However it might be acceptable on all three. That would depend on what your looking for.

Of course, there is no way it will run as well as on the PS5, I'm just curious how much worse..

And no, this was obvious from the moment we got the game on PC.. unless they can fix this somehow, the game requires a good CPU to run well.

I don't think it needs 60FPS, but stable 30FPS would be nice instead of these dips in the teen range...
 
Of course, there is no way it will run as well as on the PS5, I'm just curious how much worse..

And no, this was obvious from the moment we got the game on PC.. unless they can fix this somehow, the game requires a good CPU to run well.

I don't think it needs 60FPS, but stable 30FPS would be nice instead of these dips in the teen range...

I don't see a stable 30FPS being possible though. But it might not be bad enough where the game is unplayable. I don't believe the PS5 is unplayable BTW.
 

twilo99

Member
I don't see a stable 30FPS being possible though. But it might not be bad enough where the game is unplayable. I don't believe the PS5 is unplayable BTW.

They wouldn't release it in an unplayable state.

locked 30 might be possible with a future patch, lower settings..
 

vkbest

Member
The current patch has improved the framerate in PS5. I remember an area ( in the city where Druids are summoning some kind of magic field) where the framerate was about 40-45 fps moving the camera around, now is 60 with some tearing.

I don’t know if they reduced quality graphics until I play more.
 
Last edited:

devilNprada

Member
Seems like I'll wait some months to play this then
It's turn based combat.. and when not in combat you're rolling for saves, not sure why everyone is crying about frame rates "IT'S D&D"! The load times really suck though but maybe intentionally made that way to discourage re-loads to maximize rolls.
 

StereoVsn

Member
This is screaming "buy the first time it goes on sale". By then there will have been tons of patches and should be in much better shape. Everything sounds so good about the game, but I can wait.
Realistically first couple of acts should be fine. Well, not sure about split screen to be fair.

By the time you get to Act 3 it will be patched up enough, lol. That said, totally understand waiting. I am doing the same with Starfield.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
The same channel from the OP has done a test on the split screen as well.





- Split Screen is capped to 30 FPS
- Most of the time it runs at 30 FPS
- Still prone to drops and hiccups, in cities it can drop to low 20s in worst case.
- Reportedly the performance degrades with more drops and stuttering later into the game (hearsay, video OP said he can't verify that at the moment)
 
Last edited:

RobRSG

Member
Angry Season 4 GIF by The Office


He is a fucking German, like I am.
In one of the countless DF Directs, John points out that Alex didn’t have to suffer with the terrifying 50hz versions of games because he comes from the US as well.

He is just another American that feels like a Berliner after living here long enough. This is not something unusual.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
It's turn based combat.. and when not in combat you're rolling for saves, not sure why everyone is crying about frame rates "IT'S D&D"! The load times really suck though but maybe intentionally made that way to discourage re-loads to maximize rolls.

The performance is far from the only thing that's broken in the PS5 version. There's broken audio, broken tutorials, broken account linking, multi-second freezes, crashes (that can bring the entire PS5 down), etc.

It's just not an acceptable version of the game yet.
 
Sony should’ve send a few engineers to help out

Well to be fair the engineers were only sent for the XSS version because they asked for help.

Edit: Thinking it a little bit more the XSS situation was much worse due to the parity clause. If it wasn't for the reversal the game would have been delayed or even worse. So I understand why the devs asked for help in that situation.
 
Last edited:

skit_data

Member
After having played for a while longer I think it's safe to say there's room for improvement when it comes loading times and performance. Some bugs also needs ironing out, the ones I've encountered are minor(audio cutting out, wierd UI ones like not being able to examine stuff, etc) and solved by restarting the game but they are prevalent enough to make me manual save quite often.

My biggest gripe with the game atm is actually the unwieldy camera. I can usually get the camera alignment right to for example jump to a floor above but it takes a lot of experimenting from different angles and having the camera jumping all over the place before finding the exact right angle to click the surface intended.
Am I missing some camera control modifier button? Using only the right and left stick feels very limited. Maybe it's just old habit from being used to switching floors in XCOM.
 
Last edited:
Is this games graphics significantly better than Divinity Orig Sin 2? Because that was a nice looking crpg on the Xb1X and was 4k/30.

I know this game is more demanding than DOS2, but is it really that much more that we can only get 1440/30 with dips? That's lower res and on system that's supposed to be 2.5x more powerful than xb1x. This is a common thread this gen. The visual upgrade doesn't seem commensurate with the power of these consoles, nor does it seem commensurate with what last gen pro consoles achieved, despite having more power and less bottlenecks (cpu +ssd).

I don't know the ins and outs of the tech and what makes these games demanding so im talking a little out my ass here but this has bothered me this gen.
 
Top Bottom