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

Castlevania Lords Of Shadow Ultimate Edition |OT| Now at 60 FPS!

This game looks utterly stunning. I tried playing it through on console after getting it through Lovefilm, but the unexpected length put me off, and I wasn't expecting it to be quite so heavily God of War influenced, and the low fps really impacted the combat. Going into it now knowing what to expect, with some grunt work pushing it to look and run incredibly well I'm having a far more enjoyable time.

Mind I'm remembering a few legitimate gripes, namely considering how much they take notes from GoW, its a bit irritating they didn't take the right stick dodge mechanic from it, since it's completely unused in this game from what I remember, and it's always seemed a lot quicker to me than having to hold a modifier before dodging. That, and how irritating some of the fairly essential collectables are to find, in that they're randomly placed just off screen without being able to see the path, so the only way to find it is to run around the arena pushing against the walls (especially in forest areas). And the bog is still a complete arse to navigate.

Beside those few minor points, I really am enjoying this loads.
 
Bummer the cutscenes are still compressed, were they that way on the PS3 as well? I played the 360 version. And it's weird because MSI afterburner says they're running at 60 FPS but they clearly aren't.

Actual gameplay benefits immensely though, the framerate is such a wonderful improvement. Can't downsample anymore than 2560x1440 though while keeping a steady 60 FPS. The included AA settings aren't as good as they should be. Playing with a 4GB GTX670 and a i5 3570K, what performance is everyone here getting?
 

emag

Member
Can you cite specific examples? I played through LoS five times (on all difficulties, did all trophies) and I can't remember encountering any hitbox/hit detection problems. It was all pretty spot on.

It's trivial to detect the hitbox/hit detection issues. You can try either recording footage and playing it back in slow motion or getting Gabriel down to a sliver of health and then tracking the animation of an attack vs. the registered point of impact. They're off by a huge number of frames -- this is extremely obvious when fighting against the wolves in the forest/chase sequence. Of course you can get used to it and press buttons way ahead of time, but that doesn't excuse the sloppiness of the combat design.
 

MadOdorMachine

No additional functions
It's trivial to detect the hitbox/hit detection issues. You can try either recording footage and playing it back in slow motion or getting Gabriel down to a sliver of health and then tracking the animation of an attack vs. the registered point of impact. They're off by a huge number of frames -- this is extremely obvious when fighting against the wolves in the forest/chase sequence. Of course you can get used to it and press buttons way ahead of time, but that doesn't excuse the sloppiness of the combat design.

I know what you're saying. It's particularly apparent when blocking, but is that a timing thing or a hit detection thing. I thought it was intentionally made that way - pressing buttons ahead of time. The higher framerate does make it a lot more noticeable now though.
 

Bedlam

Member
It's trivial to detect the hitbox/hit detection issues. You can try either recording footage and playing it back in slow motion or getting Gabriel down to a sliver of health and then tracking the animation of an attack vs. the registered point of impact. They're off by a huge number of frames -- this is extremely obvious when fighting against the wolves in the forest/chase sequence. Of course you can get used to it and press buttons way ahead of time, but that doesn't excuse the sloppiness of the combat design.
You can't really compare that on-rails sequence with the normal gameplay. Gabriel has totally different moves during that sequence and the Wargs behave differently as well. Do you equal the sloppy motorcycle levels in Bayonetta to the actual gameplay as well? I doubt it.

I think what some people wrongly perceive as "hit detection issues" is rather a muted sense of impact compared to games like GoW or Bayonetta. I've played LoS enough to know that hits are detected correctly in this game. It's just that the visual feedback sometimes (depending on the particular enemy) is not as immediate and "harsh".
 

Raptor

Member
It's trivial to detect the hitbox/hit detection issues. You can try either recording footage and playing it back in slow motion or getting Gabriel down to a sliver of health and then tracking the animation of an attack vs. the registered point of impact. They're off by a huge number of frames -- this is extremely obvious when fighting against the wolves in the forest/chase sequence. Of course you can get used to it and press buttons way ahead of time, but that doesn't excuse the sloppiness of the combat design.

This is completly right and the only thing, "ONLY" thing I want fixed on LoS2, that damn Frame or frames out of sync of what its happening on screen.

For advanced countering and timing is very annoying, you can't time parrys or blocks unless you adapt and press ahead of the animation.

LoS is even with that flaw, my favorite action/adventure game of this generation even ahead of the Bayonetta, GoWs, DMCs, etc.

I absolutely love this game.
 

emag

Member
You can't really compare that on-rails sequence with the normal gameplay. Gabriel has totally different moves during that sequence and the Wargs behave differently as well.

I was referring to the on-foot (standard combat) portions of that sequence. Apologies for not making that clearer.
 

Gattsu25

Banned
I just had a problem where my controller inputs stopped working (except for the guide button which brings up the nigh useless bigpicture mode overlay...I can navigate through big picture mode with the controller just fine btw) and I couldn't ALT+TAB or WIN KEY away from the game.

Whenever I pressed ALT+TAB, I would see the mouse pop up over the game but as soon as I let go then mouse would vanish and the focus would be back on the game.


Okay...so that is the problem...everything after this is just flavor text:

I bring up the task manager by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL and it doesn't become visible but the mouse does appear whenever I mouse over the area of the screen that the task manager is in.

Eventually, I was able to recover by logging off from the CAD menu and quickly cancelling the logoff process as soon as Castlevania closes.



Please tell me I am not the only one having this problem
 

hlhbk

Member
So I just finished chapter 1 and holy shit WHAT AN AMAZING PORT. Its like night and day when compared to the consoles!

FYI if you played the demo and want to start from the beginning follow the instructions at the link below to clear out your could save for this game. It comes in handy other times as well. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2470784

Finally a screenshot that is not a spoiler! The image quality is amazing! I am playing maxed out and never dropped below 60 FPS!

bmu.jpg
 

Gattsu25

Banned
Outside of that one issue that I mentioned (which admittedly is a bit of a pain) the game runs at 150+frames per second for me with maxed settings and looks phenomenal in motion
 

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
I was referring to the on-foot (standard combat) portions of that sequence. Apologies for not making that clearer.

I think he also might be missing the fact that you're talking about enemies hitting Gabriel, not Gabriel hitting enemies. (That's what you're talking about, right?)
 

Toki767

Member
Just finished Chapter 1. That ice titan was pretty easy. This game plays splendidly at 60fps. The only thing I'm not fond of is the fixed camera.
 
Just finished Chapter 1. That ice titan was pretty easy.

The Titan battles are fuckin' cake. People complain about them so much I guess mainly because they find them to be taken from Shadow of the Colossus (one of my favorite games ever) but there are only
3 of them
and they are mostly very short and simple. I really don't get the problem other than "lol SOTC ripoff" and I guess that's understandable, being a subjective issue and all, but they really didn't bother me.
 

stuminus3

Member
People talking about how they'd live with 30fps if it meant 1080p in the next console gen need to sit down and play this next to the PS3/360 version side by side. Somewhat a moot point considering you get image quality AND framerate with this port, but it's a great example of the ENORMOUS difference 60fps can make to an action game.

How do you start a new game? It's like they took the save progress for the demo and kept it?
Oddly there doesn't seem to be a way to start afresh within the game itself. Turn off cloud saving in the Steam client for the game, then browse to the save folder in the Steam directory and delete it - for this game it should be:

Steam\userdata\8548385\234080

Delete that and start the game and you'll be starting from scratch. You can turn cloud saving back on next time you exit the game.
 
People talking about how they'd live with 30fps if it meant 1080p in the next console gen need to sit down and play this next to the PS3/360 version side by side. Somewhat a moot point considering you get image quality AND framerate with this port, but it's a great example of the ENORMOUS difference 60fps can make to an action game.
My measly laptop can't run it at 60fps consistently, but even running it above 30fps all the time, with some AA on makes a huge difference in IQ and playability. (I already loved it to death on 360 though).

Does anyone use RadeonPro? I'm trying to get it to work with the full game. It worked with the demo just fine, but does nothing for the release version. :/
 
Can't downsample anymore than 2560x1440 though while keeping a steady 60 FPS. The included AA settings aren't as good as they should be. Playing with a 4GB GTX670 and a i5 3570K, what performance is everyone here getting?

I'm playing at 2560x1440 as well, have yet to try and find custom downsamples above that in general, so I'm rocking 2560x1440 for now. All settings max, 60fps without as much of a blink up or down, absolutely solidly locked. GtX770 2gb & i5 4670, so quite similar to your rig. My monitor's refresh rate goes up to 75mhz though and like I said, only haven't tried a higher resolution yet, so I'm gonna see what else I can squeeze out of the hardware. The game looks like a dream though, it really is fantastic looking, I can't wait to get to [spoiller] the castle [/spoiler].

EDIT:Managed to get a quick go onf the opening level with 3200x1800@60, smashed it. Getting realllly amped for the sequel off of this haha. Even going into the nvidia control panel and putting on some of the extra bell and whistles in there on full, and rock solid 60.
 

Vitor711

Member
Anyone playing this on a mobile GPU?

I just ask because my 680m had some issues with the demo in terms of performance and I just wanted to see if that had improved at all.
 

F!ReW!Re

Member
Played some of it this morning.
Finished Chapter one.
Having fun so far even though I know "I aint seen nothing yet"

Looks like a really great port so far.
Only thing I could bitch about would be that the cutscenes look horrible compared to the actual game. Minor annoyance but still..
 
Played some of it this morning.
Finished Chapter one.
Having fun so far even though I know "I aint seen nothing yet"

Looks like a really great port so far.
Only thing I could bitch about would be that the cutscenes look horrible compared to the actual game. Minor annoyance but still..

Is this you're first time through it? You really haven't haha, it really really picks up. If your enjoying it now, you're in for a treat, especially once you get all the components to the battle system.
 

Bedlam

Member
This fuckin' level man. Pictures just don't do it justice.
I really want to see a side-by-side comparison of the console/pc versions.

Something about the lighting in this level looks... off. Not as warm or something. I can't quite put my finger on it.

Here's a shot from the console version of that level:

http://gamaganda.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/castlevania-lords-of-shadow-5.jpg


Maybe someone could make a screencap of this little grove (it's a semi-hidden area to the right when you're looking at the bend like in the first one of your screenshots).
 

F!ReW!Re

Member
Is this you're first time through it? You really haven't haha, it really really picks up. If your enjoying it now, you're in for a treat, especially once you get all the components to the battle system.

Yeah first time :)
May have to just abandon thread until I finished it though :)
 
Maybe someone could make a screencap of this little grove (it's a semi-hidden area to the right when you're looking at the bend like in the first one of your screenshots).

Absoltue screenshot idiot here, but I took a pic in your glade and one of Gabriel as close up as I could get him. My camera angle seems to sit much higher than in the pic you provided, not sure how I change that.


Just straight from my steam photo thing so account for compression etc.

Here I made one. But the camera perspective seems to be different from your example:


Hasha, I need to refresh these threads before I post
 

Bedlam

Member
Thanks, guys!

Apparently the camera is a bit further away from Gabriel in the PC version, at least in some places of that level. Maybe that's why it looks slightly different to me.

Anyway, gorgeous game and a good port it seems. Definitely going to double-dip.
 

Wray

Member
Question....does the retail version show your fps with Fraps? I remember trying to figure out how to get fps to show and I could never get it working with Fraps, despite other games working fine.
 

b0uncyfr0

Member
Anyone got sweetfx working? Also whats the consensus on the in-game AA. Im getting a constant 60 fps and everything is already maxxed out. Wouldnt mind some more AA or better image quality ftw.
 

Addnan

Member
Question....does the retail version show your fps with Fraps? I remember trying to figure out how to get fps to show and I could never get it working with Fraps, despite other games working fine.

Final game works fine with fraps.
 
Anyone got sweetfx working? Also whats the consensus on the in-game AA. Im getting a constant 60 fps and everything is already maxxed out. Wouldnt mind some more AA or better image quality ftw.

I'm happy with the AA, everything looks great. I have menu options on full, downsampling from 3200x1800 and I stuck on fxaa in nvidia control panel. I'm no good at telling which is doing the msot but in combo, the picture I'm seeing is top stuff as a result.
 

TheIconizer

Neo Member
I'll be picking this one up for sure. I hope my rig is still strong enough. Well it was for BF3 but not strong enough for Amazing Spider-Man...(???). I hope it's optimized well.
 
Top Bottom