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[adamsapple]

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Cronos: The New Dawn sees Bloober doing what it does best in delivering an excellent survival horror experience. However, unfortunately, it also sees Bloober repeating many of the UE5 problems from Silent Hill 2. Alex shares his experiences and delivers some optimised settings that can literally double performance.

00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:59 What kind of a game is Cronos: The New Dawn?
00:03:32 Technical qualities
00:07:16 Hello stuttering my old friend...
00:10:27 Optimised Settings
00:14:00 Conclusion

 

[adamsapple]

- Technical makeup kind of similar to SH2's PC port, both good and bad.

- Good: Shader comp works, hardware lumen option, multiple scalers and frame-gen options, all of UE5's graphical suite used.
- The setting and granularity is basically the same as SH2's PC settings

- Lumen can struggle tho and cause splotches in shadow areas
- Virtual shadow maps are also grainy, not full RT quality
- Some animated things in the world like curtains also animate at 20fps regardless of in-game FPS
- The game is very GPU heavy and even using DLSS can cause dips into 50's on a 5090 GPU
- 5090 not able to maintain 60 without frame-gen

- Traversal stutter present but to a lesser degree than SH2's, they're present in both big and small areas
- Hardware Lumen causes more stutters, the shader comp only seems to cover software lumen path, and don't cover the hardware path
- All CPU's, even the newest ones, suffer from traversal stutter
- Even using a frame-rate cap, some animation stutter still observed even if the frame-time line shows steady
- Nothing the user can really do here as this seems to be a UE5 issue, not as bad as games like SH2 or the Dead Space remake, but it's still there

- 4060 on Ryzen 3600 sees drops to 20's using 1080p/TSR when using hardware Lumen
- Dropping to SW Lumen gives 70% perf increase, recommended to use SW Lumen on all but the biggest GPU's in the market
- Other setting optimizations shown in the video to get a good performance on 4060 (Shadows, shader quality etc)
- Alex's optimized settings can increase performance as much as 113% (see in video), bringing tested scene from 32fps to 68fps

- 8GB GPU's should use Low texture setting to avoid saturation and massive performance spikes.

 

[roosnam1980]

tim sweeney................

 

[Bojji]

HW lumen seem borked. For some reasons runs better on Radeon GPUs

Other than that game is very scalable so that's a plus. Traversal stutters situation is at least better than in SH2 and DS remake according to Alex.

 

[Gaiff]

HW lumen seem borked. For some reasons runs better on Radeon GPUs

Other than that game is very scalable so that's a plus. Traversal stutters situation is at least better than in SH2 and DS remake according to Alex.

This site is garbage.

 

[Bojji]

This site is garbage.

Is there anything better?

Edit: Answering my own question:

Very similar results.

 

[Gaiff]

Is there anything better?

Yes, everywhere. Those guys have been caught lying multiple times by posting fake results they later updated. They will post benchmarks of 50 GPUs at 4 resolutions 1 hour after a game has come out and that's impossible. They extrapolate most of the data or outright make shit up. Wait a few hours or until tomorrow. By then, they might have updated their results or you'll have more reliable sources.

 

[Bojji]

Yes, everywhere. Those guys have been caught lying multiple times by posting fake results they later updated. They will post benchmarks of 50 GPUs at 4 resolutions 1 hour after a game has come out and that's impossible. They extrapolate most of the data or outright make shit up. Wait a few hours or until tomorrow. By then, they might have updated their results or you'll have more reliable sources.

They are very fast, maybe too fast. Still, most of their data seems to be in line with others.

PurePC is very legit on the other hand, veterans of the polish PC sites.

 

[Gaiff]

They are very fast, suspeciouls so. Still, most of their data seems to be in line with others.

PurePC is very legit on the other hand, veterans of the polish PC sites.

It is because they update it. You probably forgot, but when HFW came out on PC, they had a bunch of benchmarks showing the 7900 XTX outperformed a 4090. This was within an hour of the game coming out. A few days later, the tables were updated with real data.

 

[kevboard]

oh look... a UE5 game... stutters, bad performance while looking worse than last gen games, worst GI in the business...

 

[Kataploom]

oh look... a UE5 game... stutters, bad performance while looking worse than last gen games, worst GI in the business...

Srsly, next gen can't come soon enough so Epic stop thinking of the poor GTX owners and start using optimizing it for RT hardware, even Nintendo is ready for it, they have no excuse (phones maybe?)

 

[Bojji]

It is because they update it. You probably forgot, but when HFW came out on PC, they had a bunch of benchmarks showing the 7900 XTX outperformed a 4090. This was within an hour of the game coming out. A few days later, the tables were updated with real data.

That makes sense. This is similar to all those youtube channels that have fake performance videos with unreleased GPUs, lol.

oh look... a UE5 game... stutters, bad performance while looking worse than last gen games, worst GI in the business...

Yeah, HW lumen in this game sucks both in performance and quality.

Other engines have better RTGI, both in quality and (often) performance, you are 100% right about this.

 

[Soren01]

If UE5 is so bad, why use it instead of UE4? Either way, the developers are to blame… Another needlessly performance-heavy game

 

[Bojji]

If UE5 is so bad, why use it instead of UE4? Either way, the developers are to blame… Another needlessly performance-heavy game

UE4 performs bad when you try to scale it beyond PS4 quality. Stuttering is the same.

 

[Arsic]

Shame the pc is struggling. My SH2R sessions were rough too so I decided to go ps5 pro performance mode with cronos.

Have had no issues playing on console.

Curious if I'm just not as sensitive to shit as these guys or if they are just over sensationalizing some of the problems?

Like mgs3 delta I would've skipped if I had listened to them for the pro version. Yes, the shagohod chase definitely stuttered but the rest of the game was buttery smooth and looked amazing.

Then something like ES4 remaster they were 100% right - it's really bad lol.

I guess just take it with a grain of salt when it comes to their console reports. Their pc reports seem much more valuable IMO.

 

[adamsapple]

If UE5 is so bad, why use it instead of UE4? Either way, the developers are to blame… Another needlessly performance-heavy game

UE5 native tools like Nanite, Lumen etc help speed up dev times. Cuts time needed to bake individual light maps etc etc, and Nanite helps manage LoD systems.

 

[Bojji]

UE5 native tools like Nanite, Lumen etc help speed up dev times. Cuts time needed to bake individual light maps etc etc, and Nanite helps manage LoD systems.

Yeah, making this game on UE4 or any other engine without real time lighting would take longer for sure.

 

[Soren01]

UE5 native tools like Nanite, Lumen etc help speed up dev times. Cuts time needed to bake individual light maps etc etc, and Nanite helps manage LoD systems.

So yeah... it's on the devs. They took the easy route instead of delivering an optimized game. Tim Sweeney isn't entirely wrong

 

[rodrigolfp]

Shame the pc is struggling.

Is it??

 

[Arsic]

So yeah... it's on the devs. They took the easy route instead of delivering an optimized game. Tim Sweeney isn't entirely wrong

Based off what I was able to read here, I mean yes? 5090 can't do 60fps without frame gen seems pretty rough.

As long as you can scale it to run and look good on multiple rigs it's all gravy to me, but if I'm a 5090 owner I want to be able to boot shit up max no problems.

The jury is still out on frame gen I believe. I have a brokie 3080 so I wouldn't know.

 

[Mister Wolf]

HW Lumen not working properly is completely on the developer.

 

[kevboard]

UE5 native tools like Nanite, Lumen etc help speed up dev times. Cuts time needed to bake individual light maps etc etc, and Nanite helps manage LoD systems.

yes, and it also makes games run and look worse...
UE5 is the new Unity Engine. looks like shit, runs like shit... but hey, it's easy to use!

 

[bender]

Is it??

 

[adamsapple]

yes, and it also makes games run and look worse...
UE5 is the new Unity Engine. looks like shit, runs like shit... but hey, it's easy to use!

At the end of the day UE5 is just a tool, it's up to the devs to use it.

Hellblade 2, SH2 Remake and plenty more great and unique looking UE5 games in the market as well.

 

[Bojji]

Game has new dlss files but for some reason uses preset E (DLSS3). Change to preset to K is required for DLSS4.

Nvidia App, DLSS Swapper or Nv inspector is needed. Simple option in the menu is too much for many developers...

 

[Stuart360]

To be honest i can get 60fps at 1080p with High settings and DLSS on quality, with my 3700x and RTX 3070. There is even quite a bit of GPU headroom according to Rivatuner so could probably use DLAA, or maybe even max the game with DLSS.
I have only played about 30mins so i guess it could get worse later on. I was just surprised how well it ran after all the moaning about performance. Same thing happend with MGS Delta which ran pretty well for me.

I was weary about buying this becaise of the supposed performace problems too.

 

[Bojji]

To be honest i can get 60fps at 1080p with High settings and DLSS on quality, with my 3700x and RTX 3070. There is even quite a bit of headroom according to Rivatuner so could probably use DLAA, or maybe even max the game with DLSS.
I have only played about 30mins so i guess it could get worse later on. I was just surprised how well i ran after all the moaning about performance. Same thing happend with MGS Delta which ran pretty well for me.

I was weary about buying this becaise of the supposed performace problems too.

People are setting ultra/epic settings with native resolutions and then suprisedpikachu.jpg

High is the sweet spot in UE5. I don't know what is happening with HW lumen in this game, in SH2 performance drop was far less severe.

 

[Stuart360]

People are setting ultra/epic settings with native resolutions and then suprisedpikachu.jpg

High is the sweet spot in UE5. I don't know what is happening with HW lumen in this game, in SH2 performance drop was far less severe.

The good thing with UE5 games (probably the ONLY good thing imo) is that you can turn down settings without it really effecting how the game looks much.

I'm going to try ultra later though and see how it does.

I do get the odd loading stutter, but its nothing worse than other UE5 games, at least for me.

 

[Mister Wolf]

People are setting ultra/epic settings with native resolutions and then suprisedpikachu.jpg

High is the sweet spot in UE5. I don't know what is happening with HW lumen in this game, in SH2 performance drop was far less severe.

It's an ego problem for a lot of PC gamers.

 

[The Cockatrice]

HW lumen is trash on all games that I played. Just use SW lumen and med shadows on all UE5 games and youll be good to go performance-wise.

 

[Buggy Loop]

- Hardware Lumen causes more stutters, the shader comp only seems to cover software lumen path, and don't cover the hardware path

Incredible oversight

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

The sound and music are excellent, and the atmosphere is spot on. However, I have mixed feelings about the graphics, and the game could be better optimised.

- Geometry can look rough sometimes. This game is not a good showing for nanite technology.
- The depth of field filter is overdone. Only the centre of the screen stays sharp, and you can't even see the character details clearly. There no separate switch to turn DOF off; you have to use the low settings preset to turn it off.
- The blacks are lifted too much, resulting in a washed-out contrast. This means that to the eye the graphics may look much worse than those of old games, but that's only because of incorrect black levels. With adjust gamma settings graphics look decent.
- Software Lumen has serious troubles in dimly lit ares, light and noise flickers intensively. I have never experienced noise anywhere near as bad as this in any other UE5 games.
- The HW lumen is more stable, but the problem is still there. Also HW Lumen cause more stutters, and is extremely heavy in this game, comparable to Path Tracing in Black Myth Wukong, while providing much worse lighting quality.

As for performance, the game is very demanding when maxed out, but at the lowest settings it should run on a potato. I however noticed some strange results with the lowest settings. I turned off supersampling and the game was supposed to run at the native resolution (that's what the menu description says) but the performance is shockingly good (262fps at 4K native, and 398fps at 1440p). If I use DLSSQuality instead of native resolution my performance actualy droped a lot and that doesnt make sense, because DLSS supposed to run faster than native resolution.

My PC specs 7800X3D, 4080S

4K native, ultra low - 262fps

https://i.ibb.co/Hpf4T4SL/4-K-ultra-low-settings.jpg

4K DLSSQ, ultra low - 192fps

https://i.ibb.co/R4dc4wG7/4-K-DLSSQ-ultra-low-settings.jpg

1440p Native, Ultra Low - 398fps

https://i.ibb.co/B5ZfWBxF/1440p-Ultra-low.jpg

1440p DLSSQ, Ultra Low - 312fps

https://i.ibb.co/X1LPs1Q/1440p-DLSSQ-ultra-low.jpg

With low settings preset (intead of ultra low) framerate is drastically lowered and DLSS finally worked as intended (it improved performance).

4K native, low settings - 76fps

https://i.ibb.co/tp1qhYDp/4-K-Native-low-settings.jpg

4K DLSSQ, low settomgs 104fps

https://i.ibb.co/YBXJdwX1/4-K-DLSSQ-low-settomgs.jpg

4K Native, high settings - 57fps

https://i.ibb.co/75pZLZW/4-K-native-high-settings.jpg

4K DLSSQ, high settings - 79fps

https://i.ibb.co/67VR00MZ/4-K-DLSSQ-high.jpg

4K DLSSQ + FGx2, high settings - 132fps.

https://i.ibb.co/VW8Ljt4v/4-K-DLSSQ-fg2-high.jpg

4K native, high settings, HW lumen (HW RT) - 46fps

https://i.ibb.co/wNXtS0Y8/4-K-native-hw-lumen-high.jpg

4K DLSSQ, high settings, HW lumen, 60fps (104fps with FGx2).

https://i.ibb.co/Df0MxtjD/4-K-DLSSQ-high-HW-lumen.jpg

Different location

4K native, high settings - 47fps

https://i.ibb.co/hJkRGX2P/4-K-native-high.jpg

4K DLSSQ, high settings - 73fps

https://i.ibb.co/Z67V3hhJ/4-K-dlssq-high.jpg

4K DLSSQ + FGx2, high settings - 123fps

https://i.ibb.co/219jqRft/4k-dlssq-high-fg.jpg

4K native, high settings, HW Lumen - 33fps

https://i.ibb.co/ksJ5yNrd/4-K-native-HW-lumen-high.jpg

I playing Cronos at 4K DLAAQ + FGx2, software lumen and high settings. I cant complaing about performance (120-130fps), but that lumen flickering / noise is really distracting and I hope they can fix it. I played many UE5 games and only this one has this problem.

 

[anyasok]

This is UE5 yet the models are a generational difference behind from SH2R reminding me of PS4 or PS3 days. What gives?

 

[Mister Wolf]

This is UE5 yet the models are a generational difference behind from SH2R reminding me of PS4 or PS3 days. What gives?

Time/Budget

 

[kevboard]

SH2 Remake and plenty more great and unique looking UE5 games in the market as well.

did you just use Silent Hill 2 as a positive example? a game that has streaming stutters quite literally every 2 or 3 seconds? a game that requires insanely low resolutions and still can't hit a decent 60fps on console? a game with Lumen GI boiling issues that can only be solved by going into the engine.ini file and changing the lumen settings? a game that, like Cronos, doesn't have proper delta time, leading to stuttering animations, with the only workaround being locking the engine tick rate to a fixed rate as a launch parameter?

 

[anyasok]

Time/Budget

They didnt use metahuman which is one of the easiest built in tools UE5 offers. Even clair obscure used it

 

[adamsapple]

did you just use Silent Hill 2 as a positive example? a game that has streaming stutters quite literally every 2 or 3 seconds? a game that requires insanely low resolutions and still can't hit a decent 60fps on console? a game with Lumen GI boiling issues that can only be solved by going into the engine.ini file and changing the lumen settings? a game that, like Cronos, doesn't have proper delta time compensation, leading to stuttering animations, with the only workaround being locking delta time to a fixed rate as a launch parameter?

Silent Hill 2*


* On console.

 

[Mister Wolf]

They didnt use metahuman which is one of the easiest built in tools UE5 offers. Even clair obscure used it

Incompetence then.

 

[kevboard]

Silent Hill 2*


* On console.

864p, unstable 60fps, streaming stutters, animation stutters due to broken delta time, low quality lumen GI.
these aren't only PC issues, this is how it runs on console.

on PC, you can at least somewhat fix these if you have a top end GPU and a good CPU... of course it's UE5, so you can't completely fix it, as it's tainted by being UE5

 

[anyasok]

Incompetence then.

We should stop supporting mediocrity. Gaming industruly and humanity at large are hella frustrating

 

[GymWolf]

So look and perform worse than sh2 remake uh?

I'm gonna try and see if the stuttering is super noticeable, it wasn't in delta so there is hope...

 

[Mister Wolf]

We should stop supporting mediocrity. Gaming industruly and humanity at large are hella frustrating

Im willing to extend some grace because i rarely pay full price for games anyway.

Cronos: The New Dawn PC

Buy Cronos: The New Dawn PC CD Key. Digital code delivered instantly. Best prices on game keys. Get your Cronos: The New Dawn PC code now at Loaded.

www.loaded.com

 

[GymWolf]

This is UE5 yet the models are a generational difference behind from SH2R reminding me of PS4 or PS3 days. What gives?

I have no idea how they made a worse looking game than sh2 a year later with the same engine, this must be blooper b team.

 

[adamsapple]

864p, unstable 60fps, streaming stutters, animation stutters due to broken delta time, low quality lumen GI.
these aren't only PC issues, this is how it runs on console.

on PC, you can at least somewhat fix these if you have a top end GPU and a good CPU... of course it's UE5, so you can't completely fix it, as it's tainted by being UE5

My original post was about UE5 based games looking good, when you said 'look worse'.

SH2 Remake is a good looking game, I'm not sure many people will disagree with that.

I have no idea how they made a worse looking game than sh2 a year later with the same engine, this must be blooper b team.

Budget + time I suppose.

This is reportedly < $30m for its budget, which is 1/10th or what major games are reportedly made for.

 

[anyasok]

I have no idea how they made a worse looking game than sh2 a year later with the same engine, this must be blooper b team.

And DF will of course never point that out. They became so useless

 

[GymWolf]

And DF will of course never point that out. They became so useless

The human frame counters have always been only useful for framerate and resolution counting and nothing more so it's not like i'm surprised.

 

[GymWolf]

My original post was about UE5 based games looking good, when you said 'look worse'.

SH2 Remake is a good looking game, I'm not sure many people will disagree with that.






Budget + time I suppose.

This is reportedly < $30m for its budget, which is 1/10th or what major games are reportedly made for.

I doubt sh2 had horizon type of budget or even close to that, it's still blooper...

Yotei type of budget sound more possible

 

[Gaiff]

I have no idea how they made a worse looking game than sh2 a year later with the same engine, this must be blooper b team.

And DF will of course never point that out. They became so useless

Most of SH2's budget went to graphics and animations since it's a remake of an existing game. This is a new game from the ground up with a mid-tier budget that also went to level design, writing, pre-production, and more. SH2 was backed by Konami, a multi-billion dollar company. This is produced and published by Bloober.

Not exactly a fair comparison.

 

[GymWolf]

Most of SH2's budget went to graphics and animations since it's a remake of an existing game. This is a new game from the ground up with a mid-tier budget that also went to level design, writing, pre-production, and more. SH2 was backed by Konami, a multi-billion dollar company. This is produced and published by Bloober.

Not exactly a fair comparison.

Fair point (although the remake had more chamges than just graphic)

Still, a graphic channel should point out this stuff, a graphic whore watching their channel maybe want to know if the game look better or worse tham their previous game.

 

[kevboard]

My original post was about UE5 based games looking good, when you said 'look worse'.

SH2 Remake is a good looking game, I'm not sure many people will disagree with that

it's a good looking game if you look at it in screenshots. when you actually play it it doesn't... which is true for most UE5 games.

Lumen is simply so unstable and low fidelity that you are constantly seeing artifacts the moment anything moves, sometimes even when standing completely still.
the first time I got to the first save spot, I literally Alt F4ed the game, and looked for ini tweaks that fix the shitty lumen GI.
it legit looked broken. not even low fidelity, just broken. and that's with settings higher than the console... it's with hardware lumen

and even in situations where it looks decent, at no point does it look good enough to justify its GPU and CPU requirements