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For a while now, PC ports have launched with various issues to the point where the day one experience is often disappointing, if not downright broken. We've already seen promising signs of improvement in The Last of Us Part 1, but what about the rest of the triple-A titles we've got issues with? Patches have been forthcoming across the weeks and months for The Callisto Protocol, Forspoken, Returnal and the Dead Space Remake, so in this content, Alex revisits them all. Does the PC experience improve over time? Do games mature into solid experiences? As you may imagine, the reality is complicated.

00:00 Introduction
00:42 The Callisto Protocol
05:03 Dead Space
08:00 Returnal
13:09 Forspoken
19:29 Summary + Conclusion

 

[adamsapple]

Callisto Protocol:
- Shader issues mostly fixed, graphical options not being tweak-able in-game still not fixed.
- No DLSS or XeSS support so far, only FSR
- CPU related performance are 10, 12% better than launch
- Moderately improved and recommendable on mid-range CPUs.

Dead Space:
- Still stuttering and scarcely fixed.
- 0 patching done to fix. Large stutters and frame time spikes still present.
- The game supposedly compiles shaders pre-launch but that function doesn't work.
- At least the VRAM overflowing issue has been fixed.
- Still juddery on PC and feels unfinished.

Returnal:
- Didn't have the kind of issues as above games, but still not perfect
- FSR and XeSS reconstruction did not work anywhere near as good as DLSS
- DLSS has actually gotten worse with newer patches. DoF buggy and flickery.
- Mid-range CPU performance is largely unchanged since launch
- Spikes, traversal stutter, combat stutters still present
- Minimal improvement since launch. Recommend using DLSS frame generation if available.

Forspoken:
- At launch, textures would not work properly at 8GB Vram
- The game works much better now, uses less VRAM and loads higher quality textures in 8GB textures
- Not loading the highest textures, but definitely much better than at launch @ 8GB
- Streaming and texture loading issues still present at 8GB GPUs when doing fast traversal
- CPU performance sees up to 35% improvement since launch.
- XeSS and DLSS flickering also fixed since launch. AO also improved since launch
- Went from unreasonable to a competent version

 

[Mr Hyde]

The stuttering in Dead Space looks awful. What the fuck is EA doing? The game launched six months ago. Can't believe they are asking 70 bucks for that broken piece of shit.

 

[T4keD0wN]

EA have been about as bad as most japanese publishers lately with superb ports like Wild Hearts, Jedi Survivor, old gen FIFAs and even Dead Space being a shitshow.

 

[Whitecrow]

Im gonna buy Forspoken.

 

[Senua]

Im gonna buy Forspoken.

 

[The Cockatrice]

SO basically minimal effort to fix their shit. I can atest to Jedi Survivor as well, as I just finished it. It's better but again, minimal effort and the amount of bugs, animation issues and stutters is insane. Thank you gamers for preordering games. Enjoy your shitty launches.

 

[Bojji]

Im gonna buy Forspoken.

I completed main game and dlc yesterday (on pc).

Game is really underrated, it should be above 75 on MC. Visualy it looks great most of the time. Gameplay gets quite good after unlocking more skills and story is interesting enough.

Dlc is much different than main game in gameplay structure (just like FFXV dlcs) and better in my opinion. Overall it's surprisingly good title, much better than many shit games released this year.

 

[Whitecrow]

I completed main game and dlc yesterday (on pc).

Game is really underrated, it should be above 75 on MC. Visualy it looks great most of the time. Gameplay gets quite good after unlocking more skills and story is interesting enough.

Dlc is much different than main game in gameplay structure (just like FFXV dlcs) and better in my opinion. Overall it's surprisingly good title, much better than many shit games released this year.

I'm getting that vibe from the game.
I've never been bothered with the 'I can move shit with my mind' meme, so hopefully I disagree also with the opinion that the game is awful : )

 

[clarky]

I have tried to play Returnal serveral times, whilst the stutter is not horrendous this type of game needs to run like butter, which it unfortunately doesn't.

Shame as it seems like a really fun game, hopefully it gets fixed at some point and ill get back to it.

 

[Kilau]

Forespoken will be mine.

On pc game pass.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

I have no problems playing these on my 4090 and 7800X3D.

Don’t hate me cuz I’m beautiful.

 

[Stuart360]

I played the 2 hour Dead Space trial the other week and there was barely any stutters.
I have said this before but i think playing at vsynced 60fps (i play on a 60hz tv) eliminates a lot of shader stuttering in games. I rearely get it bad, sure i can still get the odd single frame stutter here and there when enteringa new area etc but i rarely get any of this bad multi second stuttering. I think its something that really effetcs unlocked framerates, something that obviously a lot of PC usrers use.

 

[Mr Hyde]

I played the 2 hour Dead Space trial the other week and there was barely any stutters.
I have said this before but i think playing at vsynced 60fps (i play on a 60hz tv) eliminates a lot of shader stuttering in games. I rearely get it bad, sure i can still get the odd single frame stutter here and there when enteringa new area etc but i rarely get any of this bad multi second stuttering. I think its something that really effetcs unlocked framerates, something that obviously a lot of PC usrers use.

Would you recommend locking it to 60?

 

[Stuart360]

Would you recommend locking it to 60?

Yeah for sure. I play all games at vsynced 60fps anyway as i play on a 60hz tv.

You will def see a lot less stuttering, assuming you were playing it at unlocked framerates and was getting a ton of stutering.

 

[midasmulligan]

go ahead an throw Jedi Survivor into that mix as well, straight garbage performance on ps5, my goodness. Do people stand behind the quality of this work? I'd be so embarrassed if my name was attached to it.

 

[Mr Hyde]

You will def see a lot less stuttering, assuming you were playing it at unlocked framerates and was getting a ton of stutering.

I haven't bought it yet, due to the issues with the PC version. I was thinking getting it on PS5 instead but I was hoping EA would patch the game instead bc I would prefer having the PC version in this case. But if locking it to 60 helps with the stuttering maybe I'll pull the trigger.

 

[Gaiff]

I have no problems playing these on my 4090 and 7800X3D.

Don’t hate me cuz I’m beautiful.

Yeah, same here. 4090 and 13900K and I seldom encounter major problems. Returnal for some was a stutterfest but I barely encountered any besides the odd traversal stutter which also occurs on PS5. Forspoken also runs fantastically and I never had any issue with TLOUII. Granted, our configurations don't represent the average PC nor do we have the average experience.

 

[Tarin02543]

I can confirm the following solution to minimize screen tearing (edit: i meant stuttering) in Dead Space Remake:

1: Go in game and turn motion blur off!
2: Go to C:\Users\YOURNAME\Documents\Dead Space (2023)\cache
3: Delete everything thats in the "Cache" folder
4: start the game up and dont touch any key, let it do the shader compilation again.
5: Play the game and do not change any of the settings or you will have to repeat this entire process.

It's still there but heavily reduced

 

[Roxkis_ii]

Im gonna buy Forspoken.

I actually feel the same.

Ive been waiting to grab it since it came out, I just haven't been able to afford yet.

 

[Clear]

I have tried to play Returnal serveral times, whilst the stutter is not horrendous this type of game needs to run like butter, which it unfortunately doesn't.

Shame as it seems like a really fun game, hopefully it gets fixed at some point and ill get back to it.

Unlikely I'd say as the reason for the stutters on entering new "rooms" is due to the way the lighting system needs to pull in a chunk of pre-computed data every time you enter. Its actually a pretty clever solution but requires really tight timing and I suspect with all the additional load placed on the bus to support the other visual enhancements its not something that can be easily patched -especially when trying to push past 60fps.

 

[SuperSaiyanWithDreads]

Still my personal favorite game of the year right next to dead island 2. Frey really feels like a crazy overpowered super hero, better yet the Avatar on super serum. Unlocking her powers is fun and using them in different combinations and scaling structures running super fast, man, it’s a fun game.

 

[skneogaf]

I've been tweeting motive studios for months asking for any news on a patch for dead space, I want to see the newest version of dlss included so I can select dlaa as well as get a perfect no traversal stutter issue game

 

[Whitecrow]

Still my personal favorite game of the year right next to dead island 2. Frey really feels like a crazy overpowered super hero, better yet the Avatar on super serum. Unlocking her powers is fun and using them in different combinations and scaling structures running super fast, man, it’s a fun game.

I guess playing on console doesnt make the game any favours, but playing on a good gaming PC, I'm having a blast, honestly : /

 

[Porticus]

And Battaglia still doesn't care about Hogwarts, incredible, did the game hurt him in any way while sleeping?

 

[SuperSaiyanWithDreads]

I guess playing on console doesnt make the game any favours, but playing on a good gaming PC, I'm having a blast, honestly : /

That’s good

 

[simpatico]

Shame about Dead Space. Only game I really care for in that list and not even a single patch. Good job EA.

 

[StereoVsn]

Callisto Protocol:
- Shader issues mostly fixed, graphical options not being tweak-able in-game still not fixed.
- No DLSS or XeSS support so far, only FSR
- CPU related performance are 10, 12% better than launch
- Moderately improved and recommendable on mid-range CPUs.

Dead Space:
- Still stuttering and scarcely fixed.
- 0 patching done to fix. Large stutters and frame time spikes still present.
- The game supposedly compiles shaders pre-launch but that function doesn't work.
- At least the VRAM overflowing issue has been fixed.
- Still juddery on PC and feels unfinished.

Returnal:
- Didn't have the kind of issues as above games, but still not perfect
- FSR and XeSS reconstruction did not work anywhere near as good as DLSS
- DLSS has actually gotten worse with newer patches. DoF buggy and flickery.
- Mid-range CPU performance is largely unchanged since launch
- Spikes, traversal stutter, combat stutters still present
- Minimal improvement since launch. Recommend using DLSS frame generation if available.

Forspoken:
- At launch, textures would not work properly at 8GB Vram
- The game works much better now, uses less VRAM and loads higher quality textures in 8GB textures
- Not loading the highest textures, but definitely much better than at launch @ 8GB
- Streaming and texture loading issues still present at 8GB GPUs when doing fast traversal
- CPU performance sees up to 35% improvement since launch.
- XeSS and DLSS flickering also fixed since launch. AO also improved since launch
- Went from unreasonable to a competent version

So Callisto and Dead Space are still meh. And so is Jedi Survivor . Sigh...