Firewatch's PS4 performance is terrible

Just as a PSA for people that haven't bought it yet.

some impressions:

The framerate goes from 50ish to 10-20ish every couple of seconds, or basically every time you use the right stick. If you intend to use the right stick for camera control, it's going to be really bad. As long as you don't move your head, performance is okay. In a first person game however, using the right stick is hard to avoid.

Excellent so far, really engrossed. But I'd recommend not playing it off the back of COD, the frame rate really sticks out (PS4) and I've just hard crashed my PS4 loading day 33 that not even the power button works

I know a few people have asked, so I thought I'd drop in and say that this game runs pretty bad on PS4, seems to be an unlocked 60fps with lots of stuttering, and when combined with the even worse controls it doesn't feel good to play at all. There's some crazy fast camera acceleration when looking horizontally, the default sensitivity is way too low, and looking vertically feels like the character's head ways a ton. It's a shame how many developers overlook camera controls. Especially when they seem to put so much effort into everything else.

I think I'm gonna wait for the patch before I continue. For most people I'm sure the things I've stated aren't a big issue and the game is completely playable, but I thought I'd give a heads up to the people who are sensitive to shit like this.

(Auto-save was turned off)

So I took an hour to play a bit on my lunch break. As others have mentioned PS4 performance is not good. I didn't have any crashes but it stutters and tears lot and takes quite a while to load into the next day. The camera controls don't feel very good either.

I hope there is a patch soon.

This is really unfortunate. I bought it as soon as it went up on PSN but i don't think i can enjoy it in this state.
I'd recommend waiting for a patch. I hope Campo Santo delivers quickly.
 
Stuttering, hard crashes, and apparently bad controls as well?

Man, I've been anticipating this game for months (I bought a $20 PSN card over the weekend specifically for this game) but I've now lost all interest.
 
I dont know why devs choose an unlocked framerate with Unity games on the PS4. It was totally fucked on Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey - New 'n' Tasty on the PS4, too.

Just lock it to 30 and call it a day
 

danowat

Banned
I was tempted to buy this, but I read about the performance issues on release day.

Could really do with a demo to see how badly they affect me.
 
Kind of glad I held off on this now, couldn't justify getting this and renewing my plus subscription in the same day. Loved the look of it from the start so once a patch comes out with reasonable improvement I'll jump on it,
 

Roxas

Member
The devs say they will try and fix it ASAP but its too late for that, they shouldn't release a product unless it is fucking ready.
 

danowat

Banned
I hope for a patch but have any poorly performing unity engined games been successfully patched in the past?
 

kiguel182

Member
I don't have money for this this month so hopefully it will get fixed when I do buy it. It really sucks to hear this.
 

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
Have the devs already announced a patch or is hope everything we have at this point?
 
The performance definitely is not great. Though it's not hindering my experience with it that much. It stutters from area to area and while rappelling or climbing sometimes. Dialogue seems fine and doesn't skip. Controls are ok to me. I'm not noticing any problems with camera control. The unlocked frame rate is probably the biggest issue. A 30fps cap would be much better or at the least less jarring.
 
It's really weird to me how a game like this couldn't run well on the PS4. Its good looks seem to come from its art direction rather than any graphical powerhouse? And how can a linear adventure game with no action have "bad controls?"

The devs say they will try and fix it ASAP but its too late for that, they shouldn't release a product unless it is fucking ready.

God damn, chill bro lmao
 
I think Sony QA is more like, "Does this open the system or our network to any security issues?"

yeah, cert just checks that there aren't any exploits and that you follow their accessibility guidelines, like moving objects on load screens and Press X to Start title screen stuff.

If youre game runs poorly that's not their business
 
I really wanted to play this tonight too, but I can't support devs that release stuff in this crappy state and think it's okay. I can forgive bad PC performance on rigs sometimes because there are more things to take into account, but the PS4 is a standardized platform where the specs are known. This kind of shit should not be acceptable.
 
I think I'll be fine tonight. I rarely take GAF performance impressions seriously after things like The Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 being described as "unplayable" and Bloodborne as having "shit" framerates on here.
 

thenameDS

Member
Really want to play this, but I'm happy to wait for a patch I guess. If nothing comes out I'll get it for PC when I upgrade my rig sometime this year.
 
I wouldn't expect a patch to really fix things.

then they might want to at least lock the game to 30 fps if they can't get it to hold a steady 60.

I think I'll be fine tonight. I rarely take GAF performance impressions seriously after things like The Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 being described as "unplayable" and Bloodborne as having "shit" framerates on here.

off the top of my head, the only other Unity game i've played on the PS4 was the Oddworld remake and it suffered from similar issues: an uneven framerate that can fluctuate between 30ish and 60 but mostly around the middle of those two. It was especially bad in that game as there are moments that require precise platforming and the uneven framerate would cause input problems, leading to a frustrating experience. It also suffered from Vsync issues, too, but i dont know if Firewatch is also dealing with those problems.

If you can't hold 60 for a majority of the time then lock at 30. Rather have a steady framerate with responsive and consistent inputs.
 
damn shame PSN doesn't do refunds.
next time i'll know better but i just assumed a game like that should run well enough on a PS4.
 
Really hyped for this game, so I'm going to play it after work anyways. I have a fairly high tolerance for performance issues, so unless I find that they're really hindering my enjoyment of the game, I'll probably stick it out. I'll reserve judgment until playing it, though.
 

owlbeak

Member
I think I'll be fine tonight. I rarely take GAF performance impressions seriously after things like The Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 being described as "unplayable" and Bloodborne as having "shit" framerates on here.
Exactly. Thank you for being a voice of reason here.
 

Jigolo

Member
I think I'll be fine tonight. I rarely take GAF performance impressions seriously after things like The Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 being described as "unplayable" and Bloodborne as having "shit" framerates on here.

yep. mostly overblown nonsense here
 

packy34

Member
If you want to play it and have the option, the PC version is running great for me, including maxed out settings/2715x1527 resolution downsampled to 1080p. Unfortunate that the PS4 version came out sloppy.
 
God damn, chill bro lmao
It's lax attitudes like this that result in games being released in such a shoddy state. Seems like I've recently played a lot of games near launch where the performance has been shit, and had to wait for several patches before it was actually acceptable, XCOM 2 being the most recent (though that's only just come out, so still waiting on fixes for the shit performance).
 
Exactly. Thank you for being a voice of reason here.

multiple people have reported that the game is crashing and the fps is really janky.
it's a game all about immersion and for me having crashes and a really weird framerate that jumps all over the places ruins the entire game.
 

elohel

Member
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multiple people have reported that the game is crashing and the fps is really janky.
it's a game all about immersion and for me having crashes and a really weird framerate that jumps all over the places ruins the entire game.

I'm starting to notice that a lot of people simply don't care about poor performance and apparently that makes you "the voice of reason". I'll never understand it, but whatever.

Stuttering is one thing. I hate it but it's not necessarily a deal-breaker. Hard crashes on a console game? Yeah, I'm not dealing with that.
 
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