Digital Foundry: Clair Obscur Expedition 33 PC Tech Review: A Patch Or Two Away From Perfection

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?



Sandfall Interactive's debut has earned every bit of its immense success - it's a fantastic game. However, while it's technologically solid on consoles, the PC version has some issues that need addressing. Alex takes a look, while also delivering his signature optimised settings.

00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:52 Smoothness Issues
00:09:15 Optimised Seetings
00:12:29 The Low-End Experience
00:14:20 Conclusion
 
Last edited:
- Noticeable presentation and PC specific issues mar the final result.
- Real time cut-scenes are capped at 30fps with poor frame limiting causing stuttery and unevenly.
- User mods have been released that fix this issue.

- Gameplay also has frame time hickups and stutters, some are specific to PC only.
- Shader comp issues present any time a new effect / location etc is seen.
- Camera movement stutter only on PC version where if the game's FPS limiter and the FPS your game reaches aren't identical, camera movement stutters.
- UE5's built-in limiter is often wonky and limits 60fps content to 59fps etc, so it can cause judders even if the game's running at full speed.
- This can be remedied by using external software like Nvidia's panel to cap FPS

- Traversal stutter also present, but this one is also present on consoles.
- V-sync'ing can help lessen these stutters with bigger CPU's helping better.
- On console this manifests as minor animation stutters.

- The PC version also has a sharpness filter applied by default that only a mod can remove. This filter is not applied to the console version.
- Filter gives the game a crunchy and aliased look.
- DLAA implementation is also blurry and un-sharp.

* console pre-set comparison segment - see picture *




fsxNNYt.png
 
Another incompetent dev. 🤷‍♂️

With their size this can be excused somewhat but there is NO reason why ALL games don't compile ALL shaders at launch. Even better would be option for people that don't want to wait 5-10 minutes (to have smooth experience) to skip it, options are good. Everyone would win, but of course we can't have that (especially in UE5)...
 
Last edited:
Removing the FPS cap during cut-scenes actually made things worse for me, so I turned it back on.
And the sharpening filter on PC is downright awful.
 
Never faced these issues - game pass version with 4090/64gb ram.
DF sometimes are drama creators. Game is pretty good in terms of performance.
 
Unreal engine strikes again!

A good running game that looks amazing and will even perf on a 8GB GPU?
Lock 60 and the minor stutters are a non issue, so much so I didnt even know the game had them and im playing using a 12400.
 
Thank god for mods, it basically fixed all the issues such as locked cutscene fps, forced sharpening, and camera stutter. I also added ray reconstruction which really helped reduce noise, along with better reflections. The only unsolvable issue was the occasional traversal and shader stutter.
 
Thank god for mods, it basically fixed all the issues such as locked cutscene fps, forced sharpening, and camera stutter. I also added ray reconstruction which really helped reduce noise, along with better reflections. The only unsolvable issue was the occasional traversal and shader stutter.
How did you add RR?
 

This is a must if you play on PC. Simple fixes to the most glaring lazy dev issues in the game.

Does this work for the Xbox app version?

I am loving it on PC, it looks insane vs Series X but the cutscene thing is my main complaint.
 
Does this work for the Xbox app version?

I am loving it on PC, it looks insane vs Series X but the cutscene thing is my main complaint.

Presumably since there's an Xbox version to download it would work. I wouldn't know as I have the Steam version.
ClairObscurFix_v0.0.8_Xbox.zip
 
Last edited:
Thank god for mods, it basically fixed all the issues such as locked cutscene fps, forced sharpening, and camera stutter. I also added ray reconstruction which really helped reduce noise, along with better reflections. The only unsolvable issue was the occasional traversal and shader stutter.

This is a must if you play on PC. Simple fixes to the most glaring lazy dev issues in the game.

Yep, god bless Lyall.

Shader comp stutter was really noticeable in Lumière in the prologue for me. Luckily as you play the first few hours it cleans up.

Interesting that the traversal stutter can be somewhat brute forced in some cases. But it's not worth it since you have to cap the framerate. With a config like that it's much better to play at 120+ FPS and get the occasional travel stutter.
 
- Shader comp issues present any time a new effect / location etc is seen.
That's not what he said. He says it can happen "occasionally". He elaborates and say it isn't very common but shouldn't be there in the first place.
Another incompetent dev. 🤷‍♂️
Except it isn't. It's among the better performing UE5 titles. Minor hitches that are not common and the camera fuckery can be fixed. You can also fixed the oversharpened look, overabundance of post-processing garbage, and get a much better IQ than anywhere else.

How do you fix camera stuttering?
Cap your fps with the in-game setting and make sure you can reach that cap. If you cap it to 60 and are always at 60, it won't stutter.
 
Last edited:
Seems like good PC ports are the exception and not the rule. Imagine spending thousands of dollars just to face issues like these in every release.
 
That's not what he said. He says it can happen "occasionally". He elaborates and say it isn't very common but shouldn't be there in the first place.

Obviously it's a bit of paraphrasing but he says whenever something like a new effect is seen for the first time:



"they can also show up occasionally when you see an effect for the first time"

time stamped:

 
Last edited:
Obviously it's a bit of paraphrasing but he says whenever something like a new effect is seen for the first time:



"they can also show up occasionally when you see an effect for the first time"

time stamped:


Yes, they can show up "occasionally", so where did you get "any time a new effect is present"? The stutters don't happen every time a new effect appears, they sometimes appear alongside a new effect.
 
Yes, they can show up "occasionally", so where did you get "any time a new effect is present"? The stutters don't happen every time a new effect appears, they sometimes appear alongside a new effect.

ok maybe I misunderstood, I assumed the occasional is before the effects like, like "they show up occasionally ...... like whenever a new effect pops up"
 
Hate stutter but can only really recommend the PC version for the amazing RenoDX HDR mod.

The comments in the video also strongly advise against using the black bars removal mod because the game hides culling issues behind them.
 

This is a must if you play on PC. Simple fixes to the most glaring lazy dev issues in the game.
Now, i wonder why the dev havent implemented these by default. I dont believe is laziness, but seeing always some easy fixes for multiple games released by moders in the first week after the game comes out, looks like the have to be a real reason that they dont implement them.
 
The comments in the video also strongly advise against using the black bars removal mod because the game hides culling issues behind them.
This, I think the Lyall fix disables them by default but it's not worth it. Cutscenes are framed in a certain way with black bars in mind (both for the horizontal and vertical bars).
 
Except it isn't. It's among the better performing UE5 titles. Minor hitches that are not common and the camera fuckery can be fixed. You can also fixed the oversharpened look, overabundance of post-processing garbage, and get a much better IQ than anywhere else.
What I quoted told us that there was no pre compilation or is was bugged. If that is not the case...

With their size this can be excused somewhat but there is NO reason why ALL games don't compile ALL shaders at launch. Even better would be option for people that don't want to wait 5-10 minutes (to have smooth experience) to skip it, options are good. Everyone would win, but of course we can't have that (especially in UE5)...
There is no excuse to not do pre compilation at least as option, it that is the case here.
 
I played on Game Pass PC. Ryzen 5600X & RTX 3080.

I had crazy bad stutter in the opening in-game cutscene for a few minutes, but after that, hardly noticeable traversal stutter. It was nothing compared to other Unreal Engine 5 games like STALKER 2 or the Oblivion remake.

Really the only bugbear with this game I have is the getting stuck on geometry. There were a couple times in the open world I got completely stuck and had to "Go To Camp" and hope when I respawned in the open world my character was in a different place.
 
I played on Game Pass PC. Ryzen 5600X & RTX 3080.

I had crazy bad stutter in the opening in-game cutscene for a few minutes, but after that, hardly noticeable traversal stutter. It was nothing compared to other Unreal Engine 5 games like STALKER 2 or the Oblivion remake.

Really the only bugbear with this game I have is the getting stuck on geometry. There were a couple times in the open world I got completely stuck and had to "Go To Camp" and hope when I respawned in the open world my character was in a different place.
Yeah I haven't really noticed any stutter, even in their examples in the video it is barely noticeable. I have got stuck in geometry a couple of times and once floated over a forest and got stuck 100 feet in the air. It's best to just not mess around too much in the world map too much. There isnt really anything to find anyway that isnt obvious. In the actual game I have had no issues.
 
Terrible video. he only covers the first section of the game which has nothing to do with the base game that has zero NPCs outside of one hub world city.

This guy is a fraud and didnt even play the game. Reviewing the prologue. Get a life.
 
When he says that using an external limiter solves the camera issue, does control panel vsync also work or do I still need to limit it? Judging by benchmarks I'm better off going with half refresh rate vsync for this one, so I'm curious if I still need to use the game's 30fps cap, which seems to be terrible. So having to choose between consistent motion and camera hitches would be unfortunate.
 
Top Bottom