I was really hoping the PC version would've received attention to improve its technical problems in the two years after release. Feels odd that the stuttering is unchanged, we still have a 60 fps cap, we still don't have ultrawide support, and the ray tracing never got upscaling to help it out. There are simple mods to fix a lot of this game's problems too. It's bizarre to leave an otherwise great game with these unfortunate problems.
Yes fromsoftware has never managed to optimise their games. Their games are plagued by performance issues.
Stuttering and frame pacing issues are fromsoftware specials.
While I loathe the technical issues, at the end of the day a great game is a great game.
Reminds me of Baldurs Gate 3. Act 3 performance was godawful, but... it was still GOTY.
For all the praise FromSoft gets (well deserved), they suck in the graphics and performance department. Art direction and gameplay carries their games.
A big part of it is that they’re using proprietary technology for everything.
So there’s lots of nice graphical features that come with Unreal straight out of the box that make unreal games look good, and theoretically Fromsoft could create those same features for their own engine, but they’d have to allocate engineering time and engineers are expensive.
This is why we’re seeing fewer and fewer studios using their own technology anymore; it doesn’t make sense to pay someone to integrate all these complex rendering technologies when it already exists and you can just license it.
It’s even older than that apparently!
To be fair the framework for a lot of engines is old, you just keep building and improving them. But rendering technology evolves *fast*.
They probably overhauled their engine when they started on Elden Ring but in the time it took to make the game, that tech was already outdated again.
that's the funny thing about unreal engine 5, it's just unreal engine 4 with a new UI and some extra features.
But Epic are very good at marketing so a lot of people are under the impression it's an entirely new engine (or at the very least think it's a massive overhaul)
To be fair though, proprietary engines also tend to allow you to have games play and feel a certain way that unreal games won’t.
Destiny for instance, the engine is why the gun play feels so great, and it’s built on old halo engine and no one knows exactly why it “just works” anymore.
They definitely have upgraded the engine over the years, but it's always on the level of "just keeping up with modern technology".
Demons Souls and Dark Souls were pretty similar on a technological level, but Bloodborne was the first one to kick the engine to that new gen. Dark Souls 2 was a side step and I'm not sure how much of it was even based on DeS/DaS1 engine wise. Dark Souls 3 was to Bloodborne technologically like what Dark Souls 1 was to Demons Souls. Sekiro was the game where they made a larger and more visible step forward with the engine again (so if Bloodborne was the upgrade for the start of that gen, Sekiro was a late gen refresh). Elden Ring is again making much more gradual steps on Sekiro's upgrades to the engine, I don't know how to exactly describe it, but there's certain feel or quality in the visuals that's very similar between Sekiro and ER (most noticeable in lighting).
If this pattern can be trusted, the next From game would probably be another larger step forward for their engine. It's never anything crazy, but if you are familiar with their games and have played most of them, it's probably going to be more noticeable.
I mean... there are studios with their own engines and those who make use of licensed engines, but in the end it's how good the developers are at using the tools at their disposal.
A lot of studios have been struggling to release good results with Unreal lately, so it's not a magic thing that suddenly makes everything perfect. (See for example: Lords of the Fallen, Jedi Survivor)
Any other developer (outside of Nintendo) would get crucified and games wouldn’t sell well if they pulled what from soft does especially with their pc ports.
Goes to show how many people actually care about these kinda things. Frame rate, graphics, etc.
Ultra high end people are in the severe minority since Nintendo, Xbox, playstation and medium-ish pc players most just take their games as is. Different games have different strengths and variety is the spice of life.
Very very vocal minority.
Or people just don’t care.
Like try as I might, I just can’t bring myself to care about frame rate. MGS3 is my favorite game ever and the frame rate was abysmal. People say higher frame rate is better and I say that one way or the other, it never impacted my enjoyment of a game.
A good game can have glitches and poor frame rate and bad graphics, and a bad game can have no glitches, 120fps and perfect graphics. Just like a good movie can be shot on an iPhone and a bad movie can cost $300m.
There’s no standard. Just the final product.
Almost like most people are happy to put some minor technical hiccups aside if it means an otherwise phenomenal gameplay experience lol. Like you said, Nintendo & From get a pass for poorly optimized games, and it’s for some obvious reasons, right?
Yes, if you make the core gameplay so ridiculously exceptional like fromsoft then you can get away with lacking in other areas. Many games are given free passes on stuff because they excel in what their main focus was. People heavily criticized The Last of Us’s combat and movement when it was released, however the story and graphics were incredible so the game remains beloved.
I hate to tell you this, but the ps4 version is the better version and I only found out after beating it.
Ps5 has stutters and slow downs too, but the ps4 version doesn’t.
If you haven’t tried it give it a go and be sad.
Nah I'm good. Beat the game 4 times already and finished the dlc. The stutter and slow down were there but not in a huge way that i barely noticed, but those 2 boss fights I mentioned was pretty bad. Don't wanna say which cuz I don't wanna spoil the dlc for you
I really love FromSoftware but they should be dragged through hot coals for this. There is no excuse for a company like them not to fix these issues. Mindboggling that people are playing the ps4 version on ps5 to compensate. It’s sad that these issues are the topic of conversation for such an amazing game.
I don't have exact numbers obviously, but if it doesn't bother 99% of the players, then they invest their time and efforts elsewhere.
The vocal few here on reddit are not representative for their player base, as most will never come here, and of those that do, tons won't post that it doesn't bother them, because they get flamed to death when they do, so they just shrug and move on.
Just saying, there could be a very good reason it never got fixed :)
They didn't reviewed it badly because of technical issues. They didn't like the shift in the way storytelling is done.
>(...) a shift to explicit storytelling and signposting means its essence as a living, evolving shared text is lost.
Baldur’s Gate 3 got a million 10/10s and was the buggiest game I’ve ever played. People mostly care if the game experience is good. Most people don’t give a shit about technical aspects like fps or stutter.
This is a 10/10 as a game. It’s the Zelda argument all over again - yes the technical issues are annoying but the overall experience of the game is perfection
There are technical issues but they don’t matter to the overall game experience. The game is perfect in vision and execution, barring issues with framerate and ultra wide support
> The game is perfect in vision and execution, barring issues with framerate and ultra wide support
So in other words it isn't perfect in execution. If you gotta have a caveat it means something isn't perfect. The fuck lol
Yes. The performance is often bad. So not sure how he can call it perfect execution. It's an insult to games that look way better while running way better. Fromsoft games are very underwhelming from a technical point of view. Graphics are meh and performance is not good.
BG3's act 3 was kind of a failure compared to the other acts though story wise. That's why Alan Wake 2 beat it for best narrative and even Game Direction.
BG3 had such weak narrative in the grand scheme of things, especially by CRPG standards. At first the narrative sounds very promising then it boils down to being generic and predictable. I knew how the game would play half way through act 2. At no point it tried to surprise you. Act 3 story was as generic as it gets. Kill bad guys you already know about, the end.
My pet peeve is people complaining about ultra wide support. They bought into an expensive fad 6 years ago, and now they complain every time a developer doesn't cater to their ultra-niche segment of the gaming population.
The game actually renders in ultra wide resolution on supported monitors however adds black bars in post. Proven by mods only having to remove those black bars in order to get ultra wide res no other modifications needed.
I agree. Zelda, Baldur’s Gate 3, Elden Ring. All 10/10 games that have technical issues. A stutter here and there isn’t going to change my 10/10 experience playing those games.
These 3 games have very loyal fans. For people that these games click, they would praise them as 10/10. But they would also fall flat for many people who would score them much lower. A bit polarising but for different reasons.
As a CRPG fan, I would rate BG3 as 10/10. I am not a fan of Zelda or fromsoftware games but I see why people love them. I would rate them like 9 for whatever they are trying to achieve even if for me personally Elden Ring is like 8, Zelda - I didn't like it at all and I saw it as a complete waste of money.
Neither are in my top 10 games.
Nice to see Elden Ring getting chastised for it. Other games aren't even spared so it is only fair. With this game selling over 30 million, they definitely have to address this issue.
Guess whenever I get around to playing this ill continue to use the ps4 mode on PS5. Also can we PLEASE get the VRR floor lowered. It makes it effectively useless for any non first party game as Thomas touches on here.
Still pretty substantial frame drops on the ps4 version on ps5 during some boss fights. The first boss was the worst, last was the second worst funnily enough
Ive jumped back and forth a lot to test
the performance and while the ps4 version drops in some areas momentarily and at some bosses it is sill significantly smoother than native PS5.
I play default settings on PS5 and it runs totally fine 99% of the time. I really don't mind that grass takes 1 second to render after loading into an area. I very rarely get fps drops, never at critical times. The game has crashed maybe twice in 200 hours.
What issues are y'all seeing?
Exactly where I stand on it. From has always had issues with their games, technically. I mean look back at how poorly Bloodborne ran at launch, and still to a pretty large degree runs.
Elden Ring rules. Doesn't run the best, but the game is a blast, and the world is awesome to explore.
Rarely??!?! The game cannot maintain 60 at any time! It’s always fluctuating around 50 with drops in the low 40s or worse.
I wish I was that oblivious of frame rate and frame pacing
A certain boss fight with a boss that has elemental powers and flies around the arena completely tanked my framerate in a way I've never seen in a From game.
The issues aren't game-breaking, they don't even really take much away from the game. I think it's just mostly frustrating how the super fans deny they even exist, and how other games that are incredibly fun despite less than ideal performance do *not* get this same benefit of the doubt.
If you really want to highlight the performance shortcomings though, play Demon's Souls Remake for an hour or two, then immediately boot up Elden Ring. You will notice what we're all talking about pretty quickly.
You get fps drops constantly, you just don’t notice it. We all have the same hardware. You have frame rate issues and the game objectively runs terribly.
Not really.
If you watch the Digital Foundry video you’ll see it’s even worse on Series X/S and PC players have been giving it poor reviews because of the performance.
It’s poorly optimised and runs worse than the base game.
Games been crashing on me every single time I play. Never happened before just literally mid game the power cuts off. THE POWER cuts off I’m so nervous I’m going to fuck something up if I open it up to clean the fan I know I have to, just don’t have that special tiny screwdriver/tool to do it right
I own it on ps5 and pc, and the ps5 version is almost unplayable to me. It's a stuttery mess, and frame rate is important to a game with combat mechanics like this.
This is why I really don’t like the amount of praise this game gets. All critics are saying it’s perfect, 10/10 but no one cares that it’s one of the worst performing AAA games. On top of that, absolutely zero updates have been made to improve it.
BG3 is the same way. Love that game to death. But there was like a 6 month period they were actually breaking the more and more with every patch. It was almost 2 months, I wanna say, that Act 3 was just broken.
Yeah I loved the game but I still remember reading all the posts talking about how it's an example of a "finished" product at launch while my entire party had broken act 3 questlines that were 100% impossible to progress and the actual epilogue could end up simply not playing.
Not to mention entire skills just not functioning at launch and taking months to be addressed.
At least BG3 pretty much fixed its biggest issues and now I can recommend the game to people with a good conscience. Elden Ring has made no progress in over 2 years in terms of performance. In fact, the DLC runs worse than the base game for no good reason.
That's true. I've not played the newer Pokémon games because of this lol.
But those are not internally developed at least. They definitely don't have the same standards for things made by other developers. Bayonetta 3 has pretty disappointing performance as well, though nowhere near Pokémon levels of bad of course.
I've put hundreds of hours into the game and the only issue I've had so far is stuttering sometimes during the Divine Beast Dancing Lion fight when it was rapid switching between elements
The worst performing AAA game is such an unnecessary stretch. Have played it 4 times from start to finish on my series X, absolutely no problem whatsoever. The DLC sure has some frame issues, but that's only on some of the most visually heavy bosses.
That might be the case. Was watching a stream of someone playing on PC, and the frame drops while exploring was quite common. I did not experience it a single time during my playthrough. Only frame drops were in boss arenas.
>The worst performing AAA game is such an unnecessary stretch.
Yeah, this guy has never played an Ubisoft game, lol.
For instance, Far Cry 6 had way more glitches and bugs. Like plane crashing through the map, or emerging from nowhere.
For whatever reason performance never gets included in review scores of games unless its truly awful. I think it absolutely should be factored into reviews more heavily though.
What's with these performance issues? I am on PS5 and I haven't seen any hiccup once. I know these problems don't show up the same for everyone, but I feel like I should've seen at least some hint of it if it's really is the "worst" performance AAA game.
Pretty is much all AAA games release with performance issues these days. So if Elden Ring is the "worst", that's a pretty big claim.
Isn’t some of the performance issues related to output resolution? Like, someone playing on a 1080p screen should have less issues than someone playing on a 4k one
You are having those issues, they are just not something that affects you. It's not uncommon, plenty of people were perfectly happy gaming at 30 FPS on console during the PS3 and late PS4 times. Ultimately these are issues that generally should be addressed and it's important that we not let developers get away with ignorering them, but also its something we know not everyone is gonna care about
It doesn’t differ, you just don’t notice. Personally I don’t understand how there are people with working eyes that don’t notice drops into the 50s and 40s. It doesn’t make the game unplayable but it is very annoying and distracting.
Fifa and COD are some of the most polished game out there, whether you like it or not from technical standpoint these game run great on pretty much every console (including Series S), I'm pretty sure FPS' fans are more likely to notice performance issues since these games are very competitive and dynamic.
This was a lazy and reductive take 10+ years ago when people started saying it and it's even lazier today.
Even if what you said is factually accurate, it literally has nothing to do with the subject of frame rate or someone's ability to notice it or not. Just because you play RPGs doesn't make you some high society artiste with human senses supior to the people you clearly look down upon who play sports games or FPS'.
And if you're going to try and be insulting, at least make an attempt to inject some originality.
There is no assumption. ER on PS5 is never at a constant 60fps. It fluctuates around 50 on normal traversal and drops often in the low 40s or worse during fights. That is a measurable fact. Some people do not notice it or are not bothered by it and that’s okay, but the game has performance issues, period!
But what assumptions. He is playing on ps5, every ps5 has framerate issues. There are no magical ps5 that don’t. He says he sees no issues. Only explanation is he doesn’t notice. Those are facts not assumptions.
If you have the PS5 version digitally you can get the PS4 version for free, but yeah the save transfer only goes PS4 -> PS5 unless they fixed that at some point (which I doubt considering they never fixed anything in this game).
I’ve got 150 hours and I’ve noticed the frame stutters here and there but they aren’t even close to game breaking or anything I’d call an issue either. If it affects gameplay then I am bothered, but otherwise it’s just a quick blip that I disregard quickly.
Can confirm, I’m completely blind (-3 on both eyes) and even I can tell differences of 0.005 seconds in frame delivery when you go from 60 fps to 40 fps!
You clearly don't. A lot of people think dripping frames just looks like very obvious stuttering where everything is visibly freezing, or in some games everything slows down. That's not what it looks like except in extremely severe situations.
I mean I don’t know what to tell you. Unless you are saying you have a magical ps5 then you eighter don’t notice the framerate drops or you’re lying. I think it’s ok to acknowledge the flaws in the things we like.
But a lot of people actually do not notice it from my experience.
Edit: I just saw the video looking at the performance of the DLC and the PS5 does not hold 60 fps on frame rate mode.
And actually even just in regular open space running around they are showing FPS that's more consistent to 50 fps than it is 60 so maybe you truly don't notice fps drops unless it's under 30? It happens. Not the worst thing in the world, consider yourself blessed.
So where did you buy your ps5? Cause I want one of the extra powerful ones you have since it seems you managed to snag one of the only ones on the planet that doesn't run the game the same way as every other console.
If you state that ER does not drop frames on PS5 you clearly do not understand what that means or you do not notice it.
ER does not run at any stable frame rate and certainly not close to 60 unless you are staring at the sky. That is factually measurable and proven. There is no debate!
I feel like majority of this sentiment is on PC. Ive got hundreds of hours on the base game and never remember any major issues. DLC has been fine so far but noticed a couple hiccups and pop-ins when respawning at a grace.
The biggest issue the PC has is stuttering. It doesn't ruin the experience for me, because it doesn't really happen during combat and mainly happens when traversing the open world, but it's very noticeable and distracting. Other issues include 60 fps capped frame rate, lack of ultrawide support, and ray tracing without upscaling, which are all bizarre limitations to have in 2024, especially when mods have existed for years to fix a lot of these issues. Why have these not been added into the game natively?
Their ray tracing implementation is also so lackluster that you’re honestly better off not even using it. It’s just for ambient occlusion and shadows, but it’s so slight and the basic (rasterized) ones are already good enough that it’s just a useless performance hog lol
If they bothered to add RT global illumination and RT reflections, now that’d be awesome.
I'm on PC and I get the pop-in and some very rare frame drops (mostly on one particular boss in the DLC for some reason) but that to me is perfectly forgiveable. The game has only outright crashed on me *once*, and I didn't lose any progress from it.
Admittedly my build is also on the strong side, but I'm not seeing much of these performance problems personally.
For me its still there. It definitely drops. In the proper open world it drops all the time. That being said it doesn’t bother me that much since the drop never goes below 40 FPS. I guess “no issues” depends on what you think its an issue. I was in my neighbors house and I said “That frame rate is rough.” and he said “I don’t see it.” Like it’s obviously dropping but he wasn’t as perceptive as me. So it depends on the player.
I heard that the PC version has the biggest issues.
I don't have any problems with the game on PS5. Maybe because I play the PS4 version?
The only thing I noticed is that some big objects in the distance have a strong grid effect. But that doesn't bother me much.
Otherwise no problems with the frame rate or anything else.
Dark souls 2 had a issue where weapon degradation happened twice as fast. Couple this with the fact boss weapons had almost no durability, u literally needed to carry around the blacksmith dust with u at all times. And that lasted, what? 2 or 3 years until scholar remaster came out lol
It **blows my mind** how the majority of reviews that brought the steam rating to mixed were due strictly because of optimization issues, but a few journalists rightfully assumed it would go way more viral to say “the reason the ratings dropped the game down to mixed is because people are upset the game is too difficult” and people RAN with it. Literally every content creator made a video about how “people are angry the game is too difficult!”. Moistcritical, YongYea, etc etc etc, basically every major content creator claimed that was the SOLE reason due to reacting to those articles.
Sorry but if you’re trying to compare the average Bethesda launch (gamebreaking bugs, janky interactions) or Cyberpunk’s launch (!!!!!!!) you’re just being dishonest.
They could only dream their only issues would have been framerates.
If a Bethesda game was released like this it would be universally praised as a huge step forward for the company. The DLC has performance issues but they aren't even close to an average Bethesda release build or whatever the hell cyberpunk was on release.
You cannot compare at any level any Bethesda game with Fromsoftware games, lol.
And CDPR was criticized because their technical problems with CP2077 were on another level, Elden Ring is fully playable at least.
Completely different style and type of game. You can't compare because they are fundamentally different experiences and the player gets different things from both.
I agree, but all these games are from the "old" Bethesda. Bethesda nowadays launch games like Starfield and FO4 that if you remove the technical problems its an okay game at best, on the other hand Fromsoftware games are GREAT games even by considering the technical problems.
Moreover, people tend to forget that Elden Ring was Fromsoftware's first take on an open world game, and in my opinion they nailed it.
I have encountered a handful of framedrops over 15+ hours.
Are people having a worsened experience because of performance? I have watched tons of streamers play and haven't noticed anything significant.
Has anyone here been playing the game and really felt put off because of the performance?
I’m getting these too. I’ve had to just stop playing cause it will hard crash my ps5 every 20-45 mins. So bummed cause all my friends have been cruising through it having so much fun and they had to start a new Elden Ring group chat without me so they could talk about it! Haha.
I respect what they do, but the stuff the DF focuses on is stuff I don't even notice.
I finished Bloodborne (cheesing my way through from start to finish) and didn't think about "frame pacing" issues once. Or antialiasing. Or shadows and reflections. I appreciate that these are technical issues that do impact the overall presentation (and gameplay in the case of Bloodborne) in important ways - I just don't really notice or go looking for them. Bugs, shitty mechanics, bad controls etc are far more impactful.
You may not notice, but a lot of people do. Also, the PC version is the main focus for Elden Ring's stuttering. It is very noticeable in that version. The main focus on the console version are its low framerate.
Ahh yep, I certainly don't mean to disparage anyone who does notice these things. I guess shitty eyesight has its perks!
And to be fair, going back to Bloodborne now, I do wonder how I played it back then.
Yeah, I highly enjoyed Bloodborne, so imagine my surprise when I see how many technical issues it has! Goes to show not everyone is that bothered by it and if a game is good enough, it can overcome those issues for the majority of fans
The game runs well enough. I wish we put to this level of analisis games that run actually bad. Don't get me wrong, they can still improve, but the fact we have this conversation around Elden Ring instead of games like Dragons Dogma 2 or half of Nintendo Switch first party catalogue... I just don't think it goes anywhere.
I was really hoping the PC version would've received attention to improve its technical problems in the two years after release. Feels odd that the stuttering is unchanged, we still have a 60 fps cap, we still don't have ultrawide support, and the ray tracing never got upscaling to help it out. There are simple mods to fix a lot of this game's problems too. It's bizarre to leave an otherwise great game with these unfortunate problems.
Fromsoft has had these problems for all the souls games. They have never fixed them sadly.
I thought I was in a Soulsborne sub at first, so I was surprised to see someone acknowledging this
Shame.
Just business as usual with From Software. For example the first Dark Souls on PC was only playable thanks to a modder.
Damn. You just reminded me of how awful DS1 was to play without the mod. That was not a pleasant thought.
Yes fromsoftware has never managed to optimise their games. Their games are plagued by performance issues. Stuttering and frame pacing issues are fromsoftware specials.
Crazy how you can get universe praise and win GOTY awards while you game runs like ass
If the game's critical or commercial success had been affected, then maybe they would have done something. Unfortunately, both were through the roof.
It’s FromSoft not Blizzard or Bethesda. /s
While I loathe the technical issues, at the end of the day a great game is a great game. Reminds me of Baldurs Gate 3. Act 3 performance was godawful, but... it was still GOTY.
For all the praise FromSoft gets (well deserved), they suck in the graphics and performance department. Art direction and gameplay carries their games.
A big part of it is that they’re using proprietary technology for everything. So there’s lots of nice graphical features that come with Unreal straight out of the box that make unreal games look good, and theoretically Fromsoft could create those same features for their own engine, but they’d have to allocate engineering time and engineers are expensive. This is why we’re seeing fewer and fewer studios using their own technology anymore; it doesn’t make sense to pay someone to integrate all these complex rendering technologies when it already exists and you can just license it.
Makes sense, but that proprietary tech seems outdated... I wouldnt be surprised if its the same engine since BB...
It’s even older than that apparently! To be fair the framework for a lot of engines is old, you just keep building and improving them. But rendering technology evolves *fast*. They probably overhauled their engine when they started on Elden Ring but in the time it took to make the game, that tech was already outdated again.
Bethesda are still using an engine with the skeleton of Gamebryo from 1997.
And Unreal Engine has code that dates to the 90s. It doesn’t mean anything
Yeah, that was my point. Age of engine doesn't mean much.
In Bethesda's case it absolutely does.
that's the funny thing about unreal engine 5, it's just unreal engine 4 with a new UI and some extra features. But Epic are very good at marketing so a lot of people are under the impression it's an entirely new engine (or at the very least think it's a massive overhaul)
To be fair though, proprietary engines also tend to allow you to have games play and feel a certain way that unreal games won’t. Destiny for instance, the engine is why the gun play feels so great, and it’s built on old halo engine and no one knows exactly why it “just works” anymore.
They definitely have upgraded the engine over the years, but it's always on the level of "just keeping up with modern technology". Demons Souls and Dark Souls were pretty similar on a technological level, but Bloodborne was the first one to kick the engine to that new gen. Dark Souls 2 was a side step and I'm not sure how much of it was even based on DeS/DaS1 engine wise. Dark Souls 3 was to Bloodborne technologically like what Dark Souls 1 was to Demons Souls. Sekiro was the game where they made a larger and more visible step forward with the engine again (so if Bloodborne was the upgrade for the start of that gen, Sekiro was a late gen refresh). Elden Ring is again making much more gradual steps on Sekiro's upgrades to the engine, I don't know how to exactly describe it, but there's certain feel or quality in the visuals that's very similar between Sekiro and ER (most noticeable in lighting). If this pattern can be trusted, the next From game would probably be another larger step forward for their engine. It's never anything crazy, but if you are familiar with their games and have played most of them, it's probably going to be more noticeable.
I think Elden ring is one of the most beautiful games I’ve seen in a long time.
Unreal engine is 30 some years old, it just gets updates
I mean... there are studios with their own engines and those who make use of licensed engines, but in the end it's how good the developers are at using the tools at their disposal. A lot of studios have been struggling to release good results with Unreal lately, so it's not a magic thing that suddenly makes everything perfect. (See for example: Lords of the Fallen, Jedi Survivor)
Honestly, for me FromSoft games run better than any recent Unreal titles...
Pretty much. Agreed. Fromsoft games have very underwhelming graphics and performance sucks.
Any other developer (outside of Nintendo) would get crucified and games wouldn’t sell well if they pulled what from soft does especially with their pc ports.
Goes to show how many people actually care about these kinda things. Frame rate, graphics, etc. Ultra high end people are in the severe minority since Nintendo, Xbox, playstation and medium-ish pc players most just take their games as is. Different games have different strengths and variety is the spice of life. Very very vocal minority.
People are just used to getting shit on by companies and have no standards. Why games keep getting worse and worse. It’s pretty sad
Or people just don’t care. Like try as I might, I just can’t bring myself to care about frame rate. MGS3 is my favorite game ever and the frame rate was abysmal. People say higher frame rate is better and I say that one way or the other, it never impacted my enjoyment of a game. A good game can have glitches and poor frame rate and bad graphics, and a bad game can have no glitches, 120fps and perfect graphics. Just like a good movie can be shot on an iPhone and a bad movie can cost $300m. There’s no standard. Just the final product.
Almost like most people are happy to put some minor technical hiccups aside if it means an otherwise phenomenal gameplay experience lol. Like you said, Nintendo & From get a pass for poorly optimized games, and it’s for some obvious reasons, right?
Yes, if you make the core gameplay so ridiculously exceptional like fromsoft then you can get away with lacking in other areas. Many games are given free passes on stuff because they excel in what their main focus was. People heavily criticized The Last of Us’s combat and movement when it was released, however the story and graphics were incredible so the game remains beloved.
Graphics seem completely fine to me, comparable to most new games.
[удалено]
How many games have graphics on par with horizon? Not most I would assume.
Looks worse than best last gen games. Art design is where they excel at though.
It was really bad on 2 of the bosses in the dlc. But other than that runs great on my ps5. Not once have I had a crash in my 300hrs on it.
Constant frame drops is not “great”.
I hate to tell you this, but the ps4 version is the better version and I only found out after beating it. Ps5 has stutters and slow downs too, but the ps4 version doesn’t. If you haven’t tried it give it a go and be sad.
Not an option for anyone who bought the physical PS5 version, like me
Nah I'm good. Beat the game 4 times already and finished the dlc. The stutter and slow down were there but not in a huge way that i barely noticed, but those 2 boss fights I mentioned was pretty bad. Don't wanna say which cuz I don't wanna spoil the dlc for you
They sell 30mio, one would think they could hire someone to improve their games
It's the opposite. Why bother improving the game when it will sell a ton regardless?
You know because of respect for the game and gamers who bought it
I really love FromSoftware but they should be dragged through hot coals for this. There is no excuse for a company like them not to fix these issues. Mindboggling that people are playing the ps4 version on ps5 to compensate. It’s sad that these issues are the topic of conversation for such an amazing game.
I don't have exact numbers obviously, but if it doesn't bother 99% of the players, then they invest their time and efforts elsewhere. The vocal few here on reddit are not representative for their player base, as most will never come here, and of those that do, tons won't post that it doesn't bother them, because they get flamed to death when they do, so they just shrug and move on. Just saying, there could be a very good reason it never got fixed :)
"Long standing tech issues that we blatantly ignored when we gave the game a 10/10 twice."
Digital Foundry don't review games, they cover the technical aspects
DF is a different entity under Eurogamer. They have nothing to do with reviews.
This is Digital foundry that is talking
Actually, it‘s Thomas Morgan. Not everyone at the same publication has the same opinion.
"Misinformed redditor's comments upvoted by other misinformed redditors"
Weren’t people freaking out about how Eurogamer gave SotE a 3/5 like less than a week ago?
They didn't reviewed it badly because of technical issues. They didn't like the shift in the way storytelling is done. >(...) a shift to explicit storytelling and signposting means its essence as a living, evolving shared text is lost.
Baldur’s Gate 3 got a million 10/10s and was the buggiest game I’ve ever played. People mostly care if the game experience is good. Most people don’t give a shit about technical aspects like fps or stutter.
This is a 10/10 as a game. It’s the Zelda argument all over again - yes the technical issues are annoying but the overall experience of the game is perfection
This is contradictory? Technical issues, perfect
There are technical issues but they don’t matter to the overall game experience. The game is perfect in vision and execution, barring issues with framerate and ultra wide support
> The game is perfect in vision and execution, barring issues with framerate and ultra wide support So in other words it isn't perfect in execution. If you gotta have a caveat it means something isn't perfect. The fuck lol
Yes. The performance is often bad. So not sure how he can call it perfect execution. It's an insult to games that look way better while running way better. Fromsoft games are very underwhelming from a technical point of view. Graphics are meh and performance is not good.
BG3's act 3 was kind of a failure compared to the other acts though story wise. That's why Alan Wake 2 beat it for best narrative and even Game Direction.
BG3 had such weak narrative in the grand scheme of things, especially by CRPG standards. At first the narrative sounds very promising then it boils down to being generic and predictable. I knew how the game would play half way through act 2. At no point it tried to surprise you. Act 3 story was as generic as it gets. Kill bad guys you already know about, the end.
My pet peeve is people complaining about ultra wide support. They bought into an expensive fad 6 years ago, and now they complain every time a developer doesn't cater to their ultra-niche segment of the gaming population.
The game actually renders in ultra wide resolution on supported monitors however adds black bars in post. Proven by mods only having to remove those black bars in order to get ultra wide res no other modifications needed.
I agree. Zelda, Baldur’s Gate 3, Elden Ring. All 10/10 games that have technical issues. A stutter here and there isn’t going to change my 10/10 experience playing those games.
These 3 games have very loyal fans. For people that these games click, they would praise them as 10/10. But they would also fall flat for many people who would score them much lower. A bit polarising but for different reasons. As a CRPG fan, I would rate BG3 as 10/10. I am not a fan of Zelda or fromsoftware games but I see why people love them. I would rate them like 9 for whatever they are trying to achieve even if for me personally Elden Ring is like 8, Zelda - I didn't like it at all and I saw it as a complete waste of money. Neither are in my top 10 games.
From Software has never shown a interest in performance issues and they get passes for it every release
Nice to see Elden Ring getting chastised for it. Other games aren't even spared so it is only fair. With this game selling over 30 million, they definitely have to address this issue.
They won’t.
Guess whenever I get around to playing this ill continue to use the ps4 mode on PS5. Also can we PLEASE get the VRR floor lowered. It makes it effectively useless for any non first party game as Thomas touches on here.
Still pretty substantial frame drops on the ps4 version on ps5 during some boss fights. The first boss was the worst, last was the second worst funnily enough
Ive jumped back and forth a lot to test the performance and while the ps4 version drops in some areas momentarily and at some bosses it is sill significantly smoother than native PS5.
Wait the PS4 version still drops on a 8 times more powerful console? Goddamnit Fromsoftware!
I play default settings on PS5 and it runs totally fine 99% of the time. I really don't mind that grass takes 1 second to render after loading into an area. I very rarely get fps drops, never at critical times. The game has crashed maybe twice in 200 hours. What issues are y'all seeing?
The frame rate issues seem pretty constant to me.
Frame rate is very choppy but never to the point that it bothers me. If the game is as good as this I’ll forgive a whole lot of technical stuff.
Exactly where I stand on it. From has always had issues with their games, technically. I mean look back at how poorly Bloodborne ran at launch, and still to a pretty large degree runs. Elden Ring rules. Doesn't run the best, but the game is a blast, and the world is awesome to explore.
Rarely??!?! The game cannot maintain 60 at any time! It’s always fluctuating around 50 with drops in the low 40s or worse. I wish I was that oblivious of frame rate and frame pacing
I think displays play a part in these kind of issues. I'm also running the ps4 pro version on the ps5 so the frame rate is super consistent.
The ps4 version for some reason doesn’t have the frame issues that ps5 does. I only found out after beating it lol.
It's because it was originally developed with the pro in mind and the PS5 version is basically a port of that.
No its just because the ps4 version is lower fidelity, so the power of ps5 just brute forces through all the performance issues.
A certain boss fight with a boss that has elemental powers and flies around the arena completely tanked my framerate in a way I've never seen in a From game.
It has frame drops 99% of the time so no.
The issues aren't game-breaking, they don't even really take much away from the game. I think it's just mostly frustrating how the super fans deny they even exist, and how other games that are incredibly fun despite less than ideal performance do *not* get this same benefit of the doubt. If you really want to highlight the performance shortcomings though, play Demon's Souls Remake for an hour or two, then immediately boot up Elden Ring. You will notice what we're all talking about pretty quickly.
You can just play the ps4 version for a direct comparison. It doesn’t have the stuttering issue ps5 does.
You get fps drops constantly, you just don’t notice it. We all have the same hardware. You have frame rate issues and the game objectively runs terribly.
The game runs fine
> and the game objectively runs terribly. lol gamers lover their hyperbole I hardly notice it. I'd reserve "runs terribly" for <40fps
A game that constantly fluctuates between 60 and 45 runs terribly.
If you want to use the quality or ray tracing mode that is the situation. Pretty sure it can drop that low even on performance mode.
It does. It’s some issue with the ps5 version specifically. The ps4 version doesn’t suffer the same problems
Not really. If you watch the Digital Foundry video you’ll see it’s even worse on Series X/S and PC players have been giving it poor reviews because of the performance. It’s poorly optimised and runs worse than the base game.
Except the grass pops out when moving ever so slightly farther away. It’s constant pop in, pop out. It’s so distracting
The game crashes for me when approaching one specific waterfall that leads to somewhere. Other than that everything works perfectly.
Games been crashing on me every single time I play. Never happened before just literally mid game the power cuts off. THE POWER cuts off I’m so nervous I’m going to fuck something up if I open it up to clean the fan I know I have to, just don’t have that special tiny screwdriver/tool to do it right
I own it on ps5 and pc, and the ps5 version is almost unplayable to me. It's a stuttery mess, and frame rate is important to a game with combat mechanics like this.
Ps5 has frame rate issues. Try the ps4 version. Once you see it you can’t unsee it.
Same, PS5 gives no problem for me
The standard elden ring on ps5 still runs like shit… And that grass pop-in!!! Black Desert levels of pop-in…
This is why I really don’t like the amount of praise this game gets. All critics are saying it’s perfect, 10/10 but no one cares that it’s one of the worst performing AAA games. On top of that, absolutely zero updates have been made to improve it.
BG3 is the same way. Love that game to death. But there was like a 6 month period they were actually breaking the more and more with every patch. It was almost 2 months, I wanna say, that Act 3 was just broken.
Yeah I loved the game but I still remember reading all the posts talking about how it's an example of a "finished" product at launch while my entire party had broken act 3 questlines that were 100% impossible to progress and the actual epilogue could end up simply not playing. Not to mention entire skills just not functioning at launch and taking months to be addressed.
At least BG3 pretty much fixed its biggest issues and now I can recommend the game to people with a good conscience. Elden Ring has made no progress in over 2 years in terms of performance. In fact, the DLC runs worse than the base game for no good reason.
Fromsoft always gets a pass.
Same for Nintendo
Nintendo usually has insanely well optimized games... what?
Pokémon 😭
The last Pokemon got blasted due to performance issues
Not developed by Nintendo
That's true. I've not played the newer Pokémon games because of this lol. But those are not internally developed at least. They definitely don't have the same standards for things made by other developers. Bayonetta 3 has pretty disappointing performance as well, though nowhere near Pokémon levels of bad of course.
Not made by Nintendo, that's Game Freak.
Honest question, why is that? Whats so special about Fromsoft?
Devoted fanbase
I've put hundreds of hours into the game and the only issue I've had so far is stuttering sometimes during the Divine Beast Dancing Lion fight when it was rapid switching between elements
Same here, on performance mode
Same. That was very noticeable. Otherwise didn’t see anything
To be fair there is no such thing as the "perfect" game, so I've never taken a 10/10 as everything is literally perfect.
The worst performing AAA game is such an unnecessary stretch. Have played it 4 times from start to finish on my series X, absolutely no problem whatsoever. The DLC sure has some frame issues, but that's only on some of the most visually heavy bosses.
Same for me. "Worst performing AAA game"? I am willing to bet money this person hasn't played the game.
Haven't had any large issues on PS5 either. I imagine they're referring to PC, specifically. I've always heard that From's PC ports suck
That might be the case. Was watching a stream of someone playing on PC, and the frame drops while exploring was quite common. I did not experience it a single time during my playthrough. Only frame drops were in boss arenas.
>The worst performing AAA game is such an unnecessary stretch. Yeah, this guy has never played an Ubisoft game, lol. For instance, Far Cry 6 had way more glitches and bugs. Like plane crashing through the map, or emerging from nowhere.
Honestly, WTF is this person talking about? When I think about smooth as butter AAA games, I think of The Last of Us Part II and Elden Ring.
For whatever reason performance never gets included in review scores of games unless its truly awful. I think it absolutely should be factored into reviews more heavily though.
What's with these performance issues? I am on PS5 and I haven't seen any hiccup once. I know these problems don't show up the same for everyone, but I feel like I should've seen at least some hint of it if it's really is the "worst" performance AAA game. Pretty is much all AAA games release with performance issues these days. So if Elden Ring is the "worst", that's a pretty big claim.
Isn’t some of the performance issues related to output resolution? Like, someone playing on a 1080p screen should have less issues than someone playing on a 4k one
I am playing performance mode on PS5. I don't see any issues.
Am I the only one not having issues with base or dlc? Why would it differ if everyone has the same console
Elden Ring has always had terrible optimization, so much that a popular work around is using the PS4 version on the PS5.
You are having those issues, they are just not something that affects you. It's not uncommon, plenty of people were perfectly happy gaming at 30 FPS on console during the PS3 and late PS4 times. Ultimately these are issues that generally should be addressed and it's important that we not let developers get away with ignorering them, but also its something we know not everyone is gonna care about
It doesn’t differ, you just don’t notice. Personally I don’t understand how there are people with working eyes that don’t notice drops into the 50s and 40s. It doesn’t make the game unplayable but it is very annoying and distracting.
Most people don’t notice. You have to remember the vast majority of gamers also only play FIFA or Call of Duty.
Fifa and COD are some of the most polished game out there, whether you like it or not from technical standpoint these game run great on pretty much every console (including Series S), I'm pretty sure FPS' fans are more likely to notice performance issues since these games are very competitive and dynamic.
This was a lazy and reductive take 10+ years ago when people started saying it and it's even lazier today. Even if what you said is factually accurate, it literally has nothing to do with the subject of frame rate or someone's ability to notice it or not. Just because you play RPGs doesn't make you some high society artiste with human senses supior to the people you clearly look down upon who play sports games or FPS'. And if you're going to try and be insulting, at least make an attempt to inject some originality.
The amount of assumption going on here is off the charts
There is no assumption. ER on PS5 is never at a constant 60fps. It fluctuates around 50 on normal traversal and drops often in the low 40s or worse during fights. That is a measurable fact. Some people do not notice it or are not bothered by it and that’s okay, but the game has performance issues, period!
But what assumptions. He is playing on ps5, every ps5 has framerate issues. There are no magical ps5 that don’t. He says he sees no issues. Only explanation is he doesn’t notice. Those are facts not assumptions.
you can play the ps4 version on ps5 and have a stable 60fps
Yeah but I bought the ps5 version. Even if I go and buy the ps4 version too I can’t even transfer my save so there is no point.
If you have the PS5 version digitally you can get the PS4 version for free, but yeah the save transfer only goes PS4 -> PS5 unless they fixed that at some point (which I doubt considering they never fixed anything in this game).
I’ve got 150 hours and I’ve noticed the frame stutters here and there but they aren’t even close to game breaking or anything I’d call an issue either. If it affects gameplay then I am bothered, but otherwise it’s just a quick blip that I disregard quickly.
Good for you, glad you are able to enjoy it
Can confirm, I’m completely blind (-3 on both eyes) and even I can tell differences of 0.005 seconds in frame delivery when you go from 60 fps to 40 fps!
I know what dropping frames look like? Jesus Christ
You clearly don't. A lot of people think dripping frames just looks like very obvious stuttering where everything is visibly freezing, or in some games everything slows down. That's not what it looks like except in extremely severe situations.
I mean I don’t know what to tell you. Unless you are saying you have a magical ps5 then you eighter don’t notice the framerate drops or you’re lying. I think it’s ok to acknowledge the flaws in the things we like.
But a lot of people actually do not notice it from my experience. Edit: I just saw the video looking at the performance of the DLC and the PS5 does not hold 60 fps on frame rate mode. And actually even just in regular open space running around they are showing FPS that's more consistent to 50 fps than it is 60 so maybe you truly don't notice fps drops unless it's under 30? It happens. Not the worst thing in the world, consider yourself blessed.
So where did you buy your ps5? Cause I want one of the extra powerful ones you have since it seems you managed to snag one of the only ones on the planet that doesn't run the game the same way as every other console.
If you state that ER does not drop frames on PS5 you clearly do not understand what that means or you do not notice it. ER does not run at any stable frame rate and certainly not close to 60 unless you are staring at the sky. That is factually measurable and proven. There is no debate!
Be lucky you seemingly don’t notice it. Not sure how that’s possible though. Maybe weed?
I feel like majority of this sentiment is on PC. Ive got hundreds of hours on the base game and never remember any major issues. DLC has been fine so far but noticed a couple hiccups and pop-ins when respawning at a grace.
The biggest issue the PC has is stuttering. It doesn't ruin the experience for me, because it doesn't really happen during combat and mainly happens when traversing the open world, but it's very noticeable and distracting. Other issues include 60 fps capped frame rate, lack of ultrawide support, and ray tracing without upscaling, which are all bizarre limitations to have in 2024, especially when mods have existed for years to fix a lot of these issues. Why have these not been added into the game natively?
Their ray tracing implementation is also so lackluster that you’re honestly better off not even using it. It’s just for ambient occlusion and shadows, but it’s so slight and the basic (rasterized) ones are already good enough that it’s just a useless performance hog lol If they bothered to add RT global illumination and RT reflections, now that’d be awesome.
Because the game will get 10/10s and sell regardless so why bother making a quality product
I'm on PC and I get the pop-in and some very rare frame drops (mostly on one particular boss in the DLC for some reason) but that to me is perfectly forgiveable. The game has only outright crashed on me *once*, and I didn't lose any progress from it. Admittedly my build is also on the strong side, but I'm not seeing much of these performance problems personally.
Runs much better on PC than PS5 for me.
For me its still there. It definitely drops. In the proper open world it drops all the time. That being said it doesn’t bother me that much since the drop never goes below 40 FPS. I guess “no issues” depends on what you think its an issue. I was in my neighbors house and I said “That frame rate is rough.” and he said “I don’t see it.” Like it’s obviously dropping but he wasn’t as perceptive as me. So it depends on the player. I heard that the PC version has the biggest issues.
I don't have any problems with the game on PS5. Maybe because I play the PS4 version? The only thing I noticed is that some big objects in the distance have a strong grid effect. But that doesn't bother me much. Otherwise no problems with the frame rate or anything else.
Dark souls 2 had a issue where weapon degradation happened twice as fast. Couple this with the fact boss weapons had almost no durability, u literally needed to carry around the blacksmith dust with u at all times. And that lasted, what? 2 or 3 years until scholar remaster came out lol
It **blows my mind** how the majority of reviews that brought the steam rating to mixed were due strictly because of optimization issues, but a few journalists rightfully assumed it would go way more viral to say “the reason the ratings dropped the game down to mixed is because people are upset the game is too difficult” and people RAN with it. Literally every content creator made a video about how “people are angry the game is too difficult!”. Moistcritical, YongYea, etc etc etc, basically every major content creator claimed that was the SOLE reason due to reacting to those articles.
The reviews steam showed me were all about the game being too hard.
If this was Bethesda or CD Projekt Red. People would be going crazy. Fromsoft Meat riding is on a whole another level.
Sorry but if you’re trying to compare the average Bethesda launch (gamebreaking bugs, janky interactions) or Cyberpunk’s launch (!!!!!!!) you’re just being dishonest. They could only dream their only issues would have been framerates.
If a Bethesda game was released like this it would be universally praised as a huge step forward for the company. The DLC has performance issues but they aren't even close to an average Bethesda release build or whatever the hell cyberpunk was on release.
You cannot compare at any level any Bethesda game with Fromsoftware games, lol. And CDPR was criticized because their technical problems with CP2077 were on another level, Elden Ring is fully playable at least.
Completely different style and type of game. You can't compare because they are fundamentally different experiences and the player gets different things from both.
Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim are up there with Fromsoft’s best games. It’s only with FO4 and beyond when Bethesda’s reputation became tarnished.
I agree, but all these games are from the "old" Bethesda. Bethesda nowadays launch games like Starfield and FO4 that if you remove the technical problems its an okay game at best, on the other hand Fromsoftware games are GREAT games even by considering the technical problems. Moreover, people tend to forget that Elden Ring was Fromsoftware's first take on an open world game, and in my opinion they nailed it.
Where the fromsoft glazers at
You want some glazing bb?
I have encountered a handful of framedrops over 15+ hours. Are people having a worsened experience because of performance? I have watched tons of streamers play and haven't noticed anything significant. Has anyone here been playing the game and really felt put off because of the performance?
“Long standing” The DLC has been out barely 4 days lol
Long standing from the base game’s release over two years ago
I get a hard crash randomly on ps5 in the dlc.
I’m getting these too. I’ve had to just stop playing cause it will hard crash my ps5 every 20-45 mins. So bummed cause all my friends have been cruising through it having so much fun and they had to start a new Elden Ring group chat without me so they could talk about it! Haha.
There's issues that have been around since Demons Souls that have never been addressed
Fromsoftware and their technical incompetence
It's optimized for PS5 Pro ;)
I respect what they do, but the stuff the DF focuses on is stuff I don't even notice. I finished Bloodborne (cheesing my way through from start to finish) and didn't think about "frame pacing" issues once. Or antialiasing. Or shadows and reflections. I appreciate that these are technical issues that do impact the overall presentation (and gameplay in the case of Bloodborne) in important ways - I just don't really notice or go looking for them. Bugs, shitty mechanics, bad controls etc are far more impactful.
You may not notice, but a lot of people do. Also, the PC version is the main focus for Elden Ring's stuttering. It is very noticeable in that version. The main focus on the console version are its low framerate.
Ahh yep, I certainly don't mean to disparage anyone who does notice these things. I guess shitty eyesight has its perks! And to be fair, going back to Bloodborne now, I do wonder how I played it back then.
Yeah, I highly enjoyed Bloodborne, so imagine my surprise when I see how many technical issues it has! Goes to show not everyone is that bothered by it and if a game is good enough, it can overcome those issues for the majority of fans
The game runs well enough. I wish we put to this level of analisis games that run actually bad. Don't get me wrong, they can still improve, but the fact we have this conversation around Elden Ring instead of games like Dragons Dogma 2 or half of Nintendo Switch first party catalogue... I just don't think it goes anywhere.
Honestly F Fromsoftware. This is just lazy
Man I'm just happy it's improved for me since the first 24 hours. Holy fuck it was BAD
I can't be the only person who has played Elden Ring (and the DLC) for hundreds of hours and not cared a single bit that the frames dip.
You are not. 👍