Batman: Arkham City PC release date now Nov 18 - Steam version uses Steamworks

I know I'm complaining a lot about the Rendering Thread Exception bug but that's because I'm getting it constantly and it never fails to completely wreck a play experience. Fuck. This. Shit.
 
So has anyone figured out how to restore a Steam cloud save when you're eventually hit by the "oh, let's delete your game for the shit of it" bug?

Because that just happened to me and I am kinda angry. I've already backed up my local .sdg file from Steam, I just need to know where to put it.
 
Dumb noob question - but what can I sacrifice, settings-wise, to make the game still look great but retain a decent framerate? Disabling ambient occlusion seems to help, but then it looks kinda bad. What affects performance the most, while making the least noticeable difference?

Gosh, I hope that makes sense.
 
Dumb noob question - but what can I sacrifice, settings-wise, to make the game still look great but retain a decent framerate? Disabling ambient occlusion seems to help, but then it looks kinda bad. What affects performance the most, while making the least noticeable difference?

Gosh, I hope that makes sense.

I'd also like to know this. The game looks great but I want to improve performance without sacrificing too much.
 
So has anyone figured out how to restore a Steam cloud save when you're eventually hit by the "oh, let's delete your game for the shit of it" bug?

Because that just happened to me and I am kinda angry. I've already backed up my local .sdg file from Steam, I just need to know where to put it.

Does this game actually use steam cloud or GFWL for saving? I thought it was the latter.
 
New drivers are a bust for DX11.

PhysX runs a lot better though. I can run on high now and it feels like it did on Normal before.
 
Game kept crashing at the GFWL login screen today.

I verified game cache, shut down my antivirus/firewall, and logged in before it finished the pre-game logos and it worked.

Not sure which of those is the one that helped.
 
Game kept crashing at the GFWL login screen today.

I verified game cache, shut down my antivirus/firewall, and logged in before it finished the pre-game logos and it worked.

Not sure which of those is the one that helped.

Had the same issue, what I did was let the game login into GFWL first and then start the game, problem solved.
 
New drivers are a bust for DX11.

PhysX runs a lot better though. I can run on high now and it feels like it did on Normal before.

Can we put this in the OP please? "Unacceptable DirectX 11 performance is the result of a game bug and cannot be rectified by a driver, hence why it occurs on both NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards."
 
Does this game actually use steam cloud or GFWL for saving? I thought it was the latter.

Well, it's weird. It is definitely saving a copy of the save file to a special folder in the Steam directory, which is then synced to Steam Cloud. However, it seems mostly useless as it doesn't sync back to the master save file that GFWL uses.

I thankfully was able to pull the save file from my harddrive before the new, blank save had been saved to the Steam directory and uploaded to the cloud. But they hide where they put their save files (most likely using securom to do it, too), so it is pretty much useless.
 
I thankfully was able to pull the save file from my harddrive before the new, blank save had been saved to the Steam directory and uploaded to the cloud. But they hide where they put their save files (most likely using securom to do it, too), so it is pretty much useless.
. . . I was considering asking whether the PC problems were bad enough that the console version was preferable, but if Steam cloud DOESN'T counteract the issue Arkham Asylum had there (possibly making it worse actually via Steamcloud) then I think I'd rather just go with the console version afterall. Not unless issues like corrupted saves ARE more common than I assume they are on console.
 
Sorry for the double but is there any way to disable to local surveillance chatter? It's getting really irritating.
 
I really hope there is. After you beat the game and just want to fly around, you'll hear a ton of repeat comments.

Yeah, I want to enjoy the music and atmosphere as I navigate through Arkham City, but the constant surveillance chatter is a total immersion killer. Why do I need to hear Joker's thugs having a conversation.
 
Yeah, I want to enjoy the music and atmosphere as I navigate through Arkham City, but the constant surveillance chatter is a total immersion killer. Why do I need to hear Joker's thugs having a conversation.

I'm actually the opposite. I like the chatter. Especially the beginning of the game where all the thugs won't shutup about how much they want to fuck Harley Quinn. It's hilarious haha.
 
I really like that the game lets you go back to locations out of sequence and stuff. Like, going back to the Museum while you should be tracking one of the exhibits lets you chat with a dude in a cage and references Two-Face's goons moving through the museum.
 
Those convo's got on my nerves. Shut the hell up already, or at least let me turn whatever gadget I'm using off....they repeat far too often. And it's especially annoying when you move one direction to abruptly stop the convo, turn down a street and abruptly end the other one that started, only to hear the beginning of the one that stopped previously.
 
Just finished the install. Played for about 20 minutes or so. I'm running an older system. Dual core 2.5 and gtx 460. Getting lots of frame rate issues, sadly. AA ran perfectly on this rig. I disabled physx and that helped just a hair but it's still bad. Maybe I'll see if triple buffering helps.
 
I really hope there is. After you beat the game and just want to fly around, you'll hear a ton of repeat comments.

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I'm getting full 60 fps, including DX11 and PhysX on high. I'm using the new Nvidia Drivers
iXRWksBw8uuSQ.jpg


GTX 460 + GTS 250 PhysX card.

This was the first time I tried DX11. Is it still broken or did these new drivers help?
 
Well, DX11 is on like my screenshot shows. I thought you can turn it on, but it didn't work properly. Does the setting just not work right now?

If you have a minimum framerate of 0-5 fps in the benchmark, then DX11 is still borked, no matter what your average is.
 
what a fucking mess this game is now. Wish I hadn't preordered, but I had forgotten from which site I had put the money on, so I got it and gave it a try...sigh

when's the patch coming out? Sure as hell Rockstar has some incompetent fellas working among them
 
I think there is some weirdness going on now. With the new drivers and DX11 on, I am getting the same performance I was getting with DX9 before these drivers. Everything maxed with physx on high.

The reason I say it is weird, the game doesn't seem to be applying the changes I make to the settings before launching. I lowered the resolution so I could play on my 3dtv, and even though it says 1280x720, it stays locked at 1920x1080 when the game actually launches. Then when I reset to defaults, it goes to 1600x900 I think.

Is there a way to tell if the DX11 stuff is actually working? I'm new to PC gaming so I can't really just look at it and tell. I think it looks pretty amazing with DX11 disabled.
 
I think there is some weirdness going on now. With the new drivers and DX11 on, I am getting the same performance I was getting with DX9 before these drivers. Everything maxed with physx on high.

The reason I say it is weird, the game doesn't seem to be applying the changes I make to the settings before launching. I lowered the resolution so I could play on my 3dtv, and even though it says 1280x720, it stays locked at 1920x1080 when the game actually launches. Then when I reset to defaults, it goes to 1600x900 I think.

Is there a way to tell if the DX11 stuff is actually working? I'm new to PC gaming so I can't really just look at it and tell. I think it looks pretty amazing with DX11 disabled.

Press ALT + ENTER, look at the top of the window. It'll say (32-bit, DX11) or (32-bit, DX9).
 
Beatdown is probably the lamest thing added to the combat, enemies that required it I would always just use a takedown on them. The multi-enemy counter is alright I guess but it doesn't actually add anything to the combat. The new special move options are alright like you said.. but its just more special moves that you do after every set amount of critical strikes. I am on the warpath through the challenge maps right now and I can say it doesn't really feel like a new experience when it comes to the combat. I kinda feel like I am doing the same challenge maps from AA over again almost.

Of course I have no pretense about it. All of the fights in AA (other than the titan fights) boiled down to getting into a position where you are flying across the map using critical strikes and then just bouncing back and forth (and killing the special guys with takedowns) and you won the fight with max combo. I feel the same way about AC.

From a scoring perspective I think it's much much better. In AA it was pretty much all about making sure you do each move once for the variation bonus, getting a high combo and finding ways to get some ground takedowns throughout the combo. You have many many more options in AC if you wanna try to get a high score like aiming for a freeflow combo, doing beatdowns against armoured guys (difficult to pull off, but can boost your combo with nearly 20), choose which weapons to break and not to break (hint: blade counter takedowns are worth a ton. if you can manipulate enemies to keep picking up knives and doing the knife take down against them, you'll get a huge score boost).

I also like that you've got better options for crowd control. Each character has some variant of the bat swarm which stuns everybody around you. You can use the ultra stun to stun specific enemies for a very long time.

I think they've drastically improved the enemies too. AA could be annoying with its combat as its difficulty primarily came from blade guys, stun guys and the titans which you could only fight in extremely specific ways. It felt more like rock paper scissors as the only challenge was not to hit them accidentally and remember that one specific move you have to do to hurt them. I really really like how AC has far more diversity in enemies but you also have more options in how to deal with them.

My only complaint is that I think Batman probably has way too many gadgets at his disposal and it can feel overwhelming if you're gonna try to use all of them, while Catwoman has so few. They should have given Catwoman a weapon break special move at the very least. She's still fun to play as though.
 
fucking PC gaming...I rolled back my drivers, and still no changes are taking place when I alter them before launching. WTF, I'm so sick and tired of the constant tinkering and scouring of message boards trying to make games run the fucking way they are advertised. I wasn't having any of these issues (with this game at least, of course every PC game released in the last year has myriad issues) till now, and of course I have no idea why this is happening.
 
DX11 still broken for me after new beta nVidia drivers.

With DX11 if I spin the camera around Batman, I get like 5 FPS and 20-30 while gliding around with a ton of minor stuttering. Also get 1 FPS minimum in the benchmark.

With DX9 and even high PhysX with only 1 560ti, I get 50-60 FPS while doing everything, but there is still minor stuttering.

Is there any way to remove these logos that play every time when starting the game? Gets old having to sit through 30 seconds of logos every time I want to try a new setting graphically.
 
Loving the game so far, got it cracked everything on high and it runs smooth and looks gorgeous.The chatter between thugs is a little irritating but other than that what an epic game.Seriously a contender for my game of the year.By the way is mouse and keyboard better than controller ?
 
Okay, so, I fixed my PhysX problem. As it so happens, no matter what I tried, the nvidia drivers would appear to install correctly but would in fact be corrupt. Not only was PhysX not at all working in Arkham City, but I was experiencing severe visual artefacts in Skyrim, and even woke up one morning to find pink pixels peppered throughout my desktop wallpaper. I was prepared to RMA my card when I figured I ought to first try a reinstall of Win7; fortunately, that fixed everything.

It also just so happens that setting PhysX to "High" literally halves my framerate, so it's staying off - only now not out of necessity.
 
I'm getting full 60 fps, including DX11 and PhysX on high. I'm using the new Nvidia Drivers
iXRWksBw8uuSQ.jpg


GTX 460 + GTS 250 PhysX card.

This was the first time I tried DX11. Is it still broken or did these new drivers help?

There is no way you're getting that kind of performance with DX11 features on. I have two GTX 560s, and like everyone else, my minimum FPS is 1.

I turned off DX11 and set everything to max (FXAA High, no need to set it higher honestly). When I do that, yeah, performance is butter smooth and pretty much flawless.
 
Has anyone played this game in 3D with the Nvidia 3D Vision?

It looks bloody fantastic! But after an hour of playing I had to lay down for at least an hour makes me feel unbelievably sick. I think it has to do with trying to focus on things in the distance whilst in 3D driving my eyes crazy.
 
There is no way you're getting that kind of performance with DX11 features on. I have two GTX 560s, and like everyone else, my minimum FPS is 1.

I turned off DX11 and set everything to max (FXAA High, no need to set it higher honestly). When I do that, yeah, performance is butter smooth and pretty much flawless.

DX11 is on but doesn't seem to work from what people are saying. PhysX doesn't really effect my FPS since I have a dedicated card for it. When I get home, I'll run the benchmark because it doesn't seem to be running during the game.

Hopefully they fix DX11 soon though.
 
There is no way you're getting that kind of performance with DX11 features on. I have two GTX 560s, and like everyone else, my minimum FPS is 1.

I turned off DX11 and set everything to max (FXAA High, no need to set it higher honestly). When I do that, yeah, performance is butter smooth and pretty much flawless.

I have 3-Way GTX 580 SLI and I get about 20fps in DX11.

Has anyone played this game in 3D with the Nvidia 3D Vision?

It looks bloody fantastic! But after an hour of playing I had to lay down for at least an hour makes me feel unbelievably sick. I think it has to do with trying to focus on things in the distance whilst in 3D driving my eyes crazy.

This is one of the best 3D games I've ever tested. The problems you're having suggest that you need to reduce the convergence/depth, and/or sit a bit further from your screen, and perhaps close the curtains/turn off the light.
 
Err.. I don't even get a GFWL login screen when I start the game and when I hit the GFWL menu button nothing happens. How do I get around this? Also why are developers still using GFWL? I thought it died a couple years ago.
 
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