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[Duchess]

SteamOS is pretty good at bypassing shader stutter by crowd sourcing shaders from what I understand.

I was actually going to ask if this is a thing on PC. It seems like the most obvious solution, to be honest.

 

[CompleteGlobalSaturation]

I love my PC but the performance this gen has been atrocious.

I was able to play every single game in the PS3 and PS4 era with a butter smooth 60FPS WITHOUT stuttering and drops.

Devs: Do better.

 

[OverHeat]

I just recommended to someone on gaf to get a PS5 pro instead of a PC …that’s how shitty the latest releases have been on pc

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

I bet 80% of people who play games on PC are because they have a PC that happens to be capable of playing games.

The so-called PC Master Racer needs to wake the fuck up and realize that games are not really designed to take advantage of their systems. (they are not really the videogame costumers)

 

[MiguelItUp]

Devs just need to be better about PC testing and overall development. It's a shame to see releases perform so poorly, especially when we know they can, and should be, totally opposite of that. You'd think the more bad ports that happen, the more it'd push devs to be better. It hasn't happened yet, but hopefully it still does, lol.

 

[Elog]

At some point the reality will hit that the basic PC architecture is subpar to deliver gaming performance. Without architecture changes, performance will plateau. The PC is built around several monoliths (CPU, GPU, RAM, storage) with so-so communication between them. This will have to change to improve for example micro-stutters. This does not mean that coding cannot improve - of course it can - but the architcture is not made for what is going on right now.

 

[brenobnfm]

I'm being realistic, so far my experience with performance modes on consoles have been awful, and this is cohoborated by what i see online. Most of the time its better to just stick with quality mode as performance looks to be some form of compromise.

Which games?

 

[HogIsland]

I bet 80% of people who play games on PC are because they have a PC that happens to be capable of playing games.

The so-called PC Master Racer needs to wake the fuck up and realize that games are not really designed to take advantage of their systems. (they are not really the videogame costumers)

this master race thing is something trolls on forums promote. the best reasons to be a PC gamer have nothing to do with graphics.

 

[MadchesterManc]

My PC is fine, just a 5800X3D & RTX 3090, but I understand its limits and don't push beyond them like others seem to try and do with their systems.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

this master race thing is something trolls on forums promote. the best reasons to be a PC gamer have nothing to do with graphics.

oh i know. and that's the point. but it's not only trolls or forums, is how PC Gaming is promoted by PC YouTubers too.

 

[Gaiff]

At some point the reality will hit that the basic PC architecture is subpar to deliver gaming performance. Without architecture changes, performance will plateau. The PC is built around several monoliths (CPU, GPU, RAM, storage) with so-so communication between them. This will have to change to improve for example micro-stutters. This does not mean that coding cannot improve - of course it can - but the architcture is not made for what is going on right now.

This wouldn't help resolve microstutters whatsoever. There's already a solution for shader compilation causing frame time spikes when they are compiled at runtime. Jetpack who ported GOWR said the following:

Digital Foundry: Speaking of resources, DX12 has explicit compilation of PSOs, and it's my bugbear on PC. I hate it when it doesn't work and you get shader compilation stutter. I'm only early on, but I've noticed zero frame-time spikes during my playthrough, which is what you want to see. What exactly are you doing for PSOs?

Steve Tolin: Do we only have 30 minutes? [laughs] We're in the same camp as you - we use the #StutterStruggle hashtag the same as you and we take it to heart, because it's not something we want to see in our games. The biggest issue and hurdle for a lot of that is that you need to have a full representation of all of your runtime render passes and everything offline, so that you can run all your materials through it to generate all the permutations for everything and then catch everything that's done. Very early on we decided not to just have QA play the game and accumulate PSOs that way, then ship some pre-known set and hope in the wild that players don't look off into a corner. We did the full build offline and created the PSOs offline, so all of the data is known beforehand in the pipeline for us, and it took us a substantial amount of time to get that right..

You're attributing what is a dev problem to the PC platform. Nothing needs to change on PC for stutters to go away. Developers just need to do proper QA and pre-compile their shaders. Not that your solution would even solve the problem anyway.

 

[Elog]

This wouldn't help resolve microstutters whatsoever. There's already a solution for shader compilation causing frame time spikes when they are compiled at runtime. Jetpack who ported GOWR said the following:

The point is that shader compilation is one of the causes - and that is fixable within the current monolithic design through better software.

The other causes are for the most part not. The traffic is increasing exponentially between the monoliths for the average game - that is the fundamental challenge that the PC architecture is facing.

 

[proandrad]

He’s right, and it doesn’t help we have gaslighting trolls that claim a game with shader compilation/ traversal stutters works fine on their magical PC.

 

[Gaiff]

The point is that shader compilation is one of the causes - and that is fixable within the current monolithic design through better software.

Yeah, and that's the most common cause of microstutters.

The other causes are for the most part not. The traffic is increasing exponentially between the monoliths for the average game - that is the fundamental challenge that the PC architecture is facing.

No, it doesn't. The bandwidth demands don't even come close to saturating the communication buses, even considering the latency brought about the components being separate. It's 100% a dev problem. If it weren't, you'd see it in every single game, but you don't because UE4/5 being so easy to use invite incompetence. As the tools get better, the people using them get worse because they don't have to know as much. There was this video of a former Bethesda dev telling a story about that one time he asked a programmer for a script and the programmer said it would take him 2 weeks to do when the guy could do it in an hour. There's also a very strong sentiment among developers that the industry is experiencing a brain drain, especially on the technical side, and that the newer devs are far less adept than the old ones.

It's not a platform problem. It's 100% a dev problem.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

I like that he is pushing for this bullshit to be removed from PC gaming. PC gaming is far too huge to be suffering from this shit. UE4 / 5 can do one.

Thank you. Stuttering is an annoying issue and should be called out.

Alex can’t make enough of these videos.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

The whole this isn’t a thing mentioned by some here is baffling. Wouldn’t the prudent options as group is to acknowledge more openly so it’s remedied more quickly by developers?

 

[Revolutionary]

My PC is fine, Alex. Cry more ya little bitch

 

[Guilty_AI]

Which games?

Jedi Survivor, Elden Ring, Dead Space Remake. Also watched Alan Wake 2 and Wukong and those also seem to have the same frame-drop and stutter issues i experienced personally.

 

[Interfectum]

 

[CompleteGlobalSaturation]

Jedi Survivor, Elden Ring, Dead Space Remake. Also watched Alan Wake 2 and Wukong and those also seem to have the same frame-drop and stutter issues i experienced personally.

Wukong has a lot of framedrop and stuttering. It's the worse Unreal Engine game I've played in terms of performance.

I personally found Dead Space Remake to run well, I didn't find it too troublesome - this was played 3 months ago so it's possible any performance issues were ironed out.

 

[Guilty_AI]

I personally found Dead Space Remake to run well, I didn't find it too troublesome.

It is "acceptable". It'll have frame drops in specific situations and micro-stutters in some occasions of traversal. Ultimately didn't even seem worth the drop in image quality, like i said these performance modes often feel like compromises.

 

[XXL]

Was he crying while writing this?

 

[SlimySnake]

He’s right, and it doesn’t help we have gaslighting trolls that claim a game with shader compilation/ traversal stutters works fine on their magical PC.

No he's not. The real reason for this meltdown is that he was called out for saying FF7 Rebirth has a lot of shader stutters when no one else including his fellow reviewer Oliver Mickenzie experienced it.

What happened is that he used Oliver's save files to load directly into later areas of the game, and experienced stutters. No one else is doing this. People who are normal play the game in sequence and clearly the game was compiling shaders in the background as you played through the game. he didnt and fast forwarded to later stages and saw shader stutters literally no one else will ever see.

Shader struggle was a real thing, but has been mitigated recently thanks to developers adding shader compilations. Now we have traversal stutters in some games which do indeed get fixed by having powerful CPUs. But thats a different story.

Right now, he's pissed and throwing a fit because he was rightfully called out over his retarded testing process.

 

[cormack12]

No he's not. The real reason for this meltdown is that he was called out for saying FF7 Rebirth has a lot of shader stutters when no one else including his fellow reviewer Oliver Mickenzie experienced it.

What happened is that he used Oliver's save files to load directly into later areas of the game, and experienced stutters. No one else is doing this. People who are normal play the game in sequence and clearly the game was compiling shaders in the background as you played through the game. he didnt and fast forwarded to later stages and saw shader stutters literally no one else will ever see.

Shader struggle was a real thing, but has been mitigated recently thanks to developers adding shader compilations. Now we have traversal stutters in some games which do indeed get fixed by having powerful CPUs. But thats a different story.

Right now, he's pissed and throwing a fit because he was rightfully called out over his retarded testing process.

 

[Salz01]

I wish somebody else or a new team make a DF like channel. Nx gamer is decent but he doesn’t always make content. I think elisabits is sometimes too wrong? Anyways, DF channel is becoming more and more insufferable. There is opportunity there.

 

[wowbaggerBR]

What an insufferable prick.

 

[cireza]

 

[DirtInUrEye]

Or maybe just be sensible and get a PS5 Pro?

700 quid for a CPU out of the Middle Ages doesn't sound that sensible to me

 

[lh032]

thats the problem of PC gaming, which PCMR just dont want to admit.

DUHHH the game runs fine on my 4090!!!! nothings wrong with it DUHHHH

 

[DirtInUrEye]

DEI is to blame.

 

[OverHeat]

thats the problem of PC gaming, which PCMR just dont want to admit.

DUHHH the game runs fine on my 4090!!!! nothings wrong with it DUHHHH

Not true look at what I said…

I just recommended to someone on gaf to get a PS5 pro instead of a PC …that’s how shitty the latest releases have been on pc

 

[Clear]

No he's not. The real reason for this meltdown is that he was called out for saying FF7 Rebirth has a lot of shader stutters when no one else including his fellow reviewer Oliver Mickenzie experienced it.

What happened is that he used Oliver's save files to load directly into later areas of the game, and experienced stutters. No one else is doing this. People who are normal play the game in sequence and clearly the game was compiling shaders in the background as you played through the game. he didnt and fast forwarded to later stages and saw shader stutters literally no one else will ever see.

Shader struggle was a real thing, but has been mitigated recently thanks to developers adding shader compilations. Now we have traversal stutters in some games which do indeed get fixed by having powerful CPUs. But thats a different story.

Right now, he's pissed and throwing a fit because he was rightfully called out over his retarded testing process.

That's hilarious.

Especially as the basic reason why PC's suffer from shader comp stutter is because... wait for it... THEY ARE PC's and as PC is not a fixed hardware spec shader programs need to compiled specifically for the run host. Unlike consoles which can be fully precompiled.

The reality is that there is no "fix", its a strict pick-your-poison type of deal because you either burn microseconds doing it dynamically, or seconds/minutes doing an initialization pass. Its just a huge rock for developers backs and is going to remain that way unless the hardware/OS vendors change how the entire graphics sub-system works.

 

[adamsapple]

thats the problem of PC gaming, which PCMR just dont want to admit.

DUHHH the game runs fine on my 4090!!!! nothings wrong with it DUHHHH

Sure, but Alex is literally saying not to do that and look at the replies in this thread against him

 

[DirtInUrEye]

Has anyone else noticed how Alex will always laugh his tits off over absolutely nothing during the weekly podcast episode? The other two just keep talking while he gets on with it, the oddball.

 

[Fafalada]

As the tools get better, the people using them get worse because they don't have to know as much.

This isn't novel or even recent though (and it's seasonal to boot). We had an entire period in transition to 'HD' consoles where most early software was abysmally suboptimal on consoles because PC development that was entering the fray was accustomed to UE3 + brute force approaches.
Hell traversal stutter originates back in mid 00s (basically the moment people started doing UE + streaming), and it never went away at all.

There's also a very strong sentiment among developers that the industry is experiencing a brain drain, especially on the technical side, and that the newer devs are far less adept than the old ones.

This may be true as well, but there's systemic reasons for it (underpaid and aging workforce being a big part though)

It's not a platform problem. It's 100% a dev problem.

It's systemic. Platform (significantly) increased the amount of rope you can hang yourself with in the last 15 years. On top of that - fragmentation always plagued PC and contrary to popular belief - this never got better - 'optimising for PC spec' is an oxymoron, pretty much, commercial pressures are less concerned with technical polish (especially with adoption of GaaS everywhere) etc.
I know preference is to have one convenient scape-goat to blame everything on(oh it's this piece of hw, oh it's the dev laziness etc.) but really, it's a messy and convoluted sequence of issues that compound.

 

[Zacfoldor]

I have a pro…and would rather play at high framerate and high resolution on my PC…

A PC? I can't play that stuttery shit.

 

[UnrealEck]

Cap the game at console settings and frame rate then.

 

[SoloCamo]

I've been playing The Last of Us and it's one of the most visually impressive games I have ever played, but it has some real ugly moments of stuttering or straight up freezing in areas.

In the sniper scenario where you run to the house my game was shitting it's framerate until eventually I died and the game just straight up froze. When I restarted the game's framerate was back to normal.

That port has been out for over a year and TLOU2 is out soon and they haven't updated the game in a hot minute. Really sad because otherwise it's again, just so damn pretty to play. They really did a good job on the Remaster regardless of how unnecessary it was.

What GPU are you running? This sounds more like a VRAM issue.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Piss up a rope

I did that once. Quickest $20 bucks I ever made. But I think the guy just wanted to see me take a piss though, regardless of the outcome.

 

[UnrealEck]

thats the problem of PC gaming, which PCMR just dont want to admit.

Console games have performance issues too. Frequent dips into the 40s and 50s (and other technical issues) and you can't do anything about it other than wait for a patch from the dev.

 

[brenobnfm]

Jedi Survivor, Elden Ring, Dead Space Remake. Also watched Alan Wake 2 and Wukong and those also seem to have the same frame-drop and stutter issues i experienced personally.

Those 3 first games are fundamentally broken on PC and nowadays they're basically 60fps locked on a PS5 Pro, the best way to play them.

 

[SHA]

The alternative is when they get limited resources to make their games on consoles and the pc version by default run butter smooth.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Those 3 first games are fundamentally broken on PC and nowadays they're basically 60fps locked on a PS5 Pro, the best way to play them.

Played Elden Ring on PC and its fine, whatever problems it has i've also seen in the console version.

Whenever i hear "pc port is broken", first thing i do is check the console version and, lo and behold, exatct same issues on the exact same places 90% of the time.

 

[viveks86]

So if you want to piss Alex off, all you gotta do is s-s-s-stutter. Funny that FF7 rebirth is what caused the meltdown

 

[DirtInUrEye]

We can all take the piss out of him, but at the end of the day PC players do recognise his service to the PC gaming platform. Progress has been made and it has nothing to do with the cringy DEI variety. Battaglia arguably contributed a lot to the efforts to improve the optimisation bs that has been happening, after for example his shining the spotlight on shite like UE5.

 

[mayham2199]

Source: Purple asylum (archive.is)

Highlights
5 years ago he was raising the issues with stuttering



Often down to poor shader compilation
Leads to frame hitches causes freezing in the render pipeline
Can easily be in excess of 100ms on a 9800X3D
It will take one full magnitude of CPU performance upgrades over the 9800X3D until these frame-time hitches become "less obvious" when targeting 60 fps.
These hitches will be around for a decade or more probably in all games that have them.
Games can be smooth! We can let developers know that it can and SHOULD be done.

Closing
The truth of the matter is that frame-time hitches affect all PCs, but not every user notices them or cares. It is fine to not care. But you can passively help those WHO DO CARE. Maybe keep "this runs fine on my PC" to yourself?

lol literally just watched this episode of the office today.

Excluding indies, i’d say around 95-99% are 60 or higher. It’s extremely rare to find any targeting a max of 30FPS.

Edit: This is almost a year old but you get the point.

Yep which is why I find it hard to believe that GTA wont have a performance mode.

 

[bender]

When you simp for AI upscaling and frame generation, you get what you deserve.

 

[bundylove]

I ran out of jokes regarding alex.

But once he becomes alexis ....now we are talking

 

[Kabelly]

What GPU are you running? This sounds more like a VRAM issue.

3080 12gb

Generally the game is running fine. I've had issues since first getting the game. Had a crash when Joel jumped over a pipe in the intro. Then it was fine. That whole downtown area I was it ran fine but then I got to that scenario and it just started shitting the bed. When I restarted the game it ran fine again. I am using DLSS as well.

The game tells me I'm within the limits of my VRAM. 10GBS are being used. Stuttering and crashes are a known issue for this port.

 

[TGO]