The Plague of Poor PC Ports: Why Recent Games Keep Launching with Technical Issues?

[Doctor Mantis Toboggan]

What do Lords of the Fallen, Cyberpunk, Elden Ring, Jedi Survivor, Forspoken, AC Mirage, Warhammer 40K Darktide, Gotham Knights, Callisto Protocol, and other "AA-AAA" games have in common?

Poor PC performance / technical optimization at launch.

This trend of poor PC ports seems to stem from a few factors:
(1) aggressive release targets that don't allow enough testing time
(2) console versions taking priority over properly optimizing for PC
and (3) increasing complexity/scope of games introducing new technical hurdles.

Games are also launching on a wider variety of PC hardware configurations now, making optimization more challenging. Whether due to ambitious scope, prioritizing consoles, or the genre - history suggests gamers may need to temper expectations around initial technical performance on PC for the coming years...

The core issues clearly center around subpar optimization, stability problems, uneven frame rates, visual bugs, and crashes - all of which point to games being pushed out before they have been properly tested and fixed to perform smoothly on the wide array of PC hardware. Rushing games to meet release dates rather than ensuring they are polished and optimized for PC seems to be a root cause.

It's incredibly frustrating, I even upgraded to a 4080 from a 3070 hoping to overpower these issues with OP hardware, but it's not enough. Publishers need to STEP UP and stop releasing BAD, UNFINISHED PRODUCTS year after year. Prioritize optimization and testing time for the PC version equally with consoles. Don't treat the PC as an afterthought. Hire teams dedicated to PC optimization.

Do better. Please?

- a very weary gamer

[BiGwalt1993]

Except this isn't one of those games.

I started playing this on day 1 and haven't had a crash, bug or uneven frame rate in over 30 hours playtime. Why? Because I tempered my expectations of what my PC could "graphically achieve" and toned down my settings. Not to mention DLSS.

I completely agree there has been an influx of overly-crappy optimised releases lately and for the most part, it is slowly becoming the new norm on PC.
But since the age of the internet and digital downloads, nearly all newly released games have had some minor technical issues on launch.

Comparing this launch with Forspoken or even worse Cyberpunk though? That's just taking the biscuit.

The reviews aren't doing this game justice, it's a 10/10 all day long and I will die on that hill!

[Sebastian Peril]

Originally posted by BiGwalt1993:

Except this isn't one of those games.

I started playing this on day 1 and haven't had a crash, bug or uneven frame rate in over 30 hours playtime. Why? Because I tempered my expectations of what my PC could "graphically achieve" and toned down my settings. Not to mention DLSS.

I completely agree there has been an influx of overly-crappy optimised releases lately and for the most part, it is slowly becoming the new norm on PC.
But since the age of the internet and digital downloads, nearly all newly released games have had some minor technical issues on launch.

Comparing this launch with Forspoken or even worse Cyberpunk though? That's just taking the biscuit.

The reviews aren't doing this game justice, it's a 10/10 all day long and I will die on that hill!

Why do people have this "hasn't happened to me so it's literally impossible that it happened to anyone else" mentality when it comes to games? I'm running a 13900k, RTX 4080 and 32gb and have personally experienced a couple of the many issues I've seen reported.

Day 1 - Couldn't get into the game at all because of the well documented shader bug crashing the game to desktop before reaching the main menu.

Day 3 - Played for a few hours then came back after an update to find my save file is now labelled as 'incompatible'

I will admit that the developers have been on the ball with quickfire patches, but these issues are game-breaking and inexcusable

[Necromancin]

Originally posted by Sebastian Peril:

Originally posted by BiGwalt1993:

Except this isn't one of those games.

I started playing this on day 1 and haven't had a crash, bug or uneven frame rate in over 30 hours playtime. Why? Because I tempered my expectations of what my PC could "graphically achieve" and toned down my settings. Not to mention DLSS.

I completely agree there has been an influx of overly-crappy optimised releases lately and for the most part, it is slowly becoming the new norm on PC.
But since the age of the internet and digital downloads, nearly all newly released games have had some minor technical issues on launch.

Comparing this launch with Forspoken or even worse Cyberpunk though? That's just taking the biscuit.

The reviews aren't doing this game justice, it's a 10/10 all day long and I will die on that hill!

Why do people have this "hasn't happened to me so it's literally impossible that it happened to anyone else" mentality when it comes to games? I'm running a 13900k, RTX 4080 and 32gb and have personally experienced a couple of the many issues I've seen reported.

Day 1 - Couldn't get into the game at all because of the well documented shader bug crashing the game to desktop before reaching the main menu.

Day 3 - Played for a few hours then came back after an update to find my save file is now labelled as 'incompatible'

I will admit that the developers have been on the ball with quickfire patches, but these issues are game-breaking and inexcusable

It's because people are stupid dude... I havent had any issues or crashes either. Streamed game day 1

[Arhat]

Generally I advice that playing the console version is the safe option, but even that is not true anymore, cyberpunk 2077 being a good example.

[Jrm]

There is a pretty big / mega thread in here somewhere about 13th gen intel cpus having issues on UE5 games. I posted the issue would happen to this game before it was even released on steam and I was right. It didn't affect everyone, but there was a large number of people crashing and getting the "out of memory" error.

The 13th gen cpu's are the blame. If you come across this issue the fix for this game is to downclock the cpu slightly. On other games you will need to disable the Ecores. It is a known issue and even gamers nexus made a video about it on Counter Strike 2 which is on the source engine, well after I posted about the problems on numerous game forums.

[Karumati]

This game had a good launch.

[Laurence I of Yharnam]

Originally posted by Karumati:

This game had a good launch.

And you a good puff, right?

[Arhat]

Originally posted by Laurence Fishblurgh:

Originally posted by Karumati:

This game had a good launch.

And you a good puff, right?

Actually as a potato pc user I had zero crash or problems vs ppl who has the latest tech

[Karak Sonen]

To quote Todd Howard:"We'll keep making it if you keep buying it" (or something like that).

Publishers do not care about quality, they care about profit margins.

The moment gaming went mainstream it attracted business suit wearing f-'s who only care about how to make maximum profits, and not artists who love the hobby.


You can tell just by the date they choose to release LOTF; You just know there was a marketing guy who convinced the ceo that this dark fantasy spooky scary game just HAS to release on a friday the 13th in an october, as that will boost sales massively.

Having worked in the tech sector for quite a while i can assure you of one thing; The leadership is always a bunch of uneducated boomers who only got into that position due to having money from somewhere else and buying themselves into it, and they will disregard tech personnel opinions simply because "You haven't made that much money, what could you possibly know?".
And if the firm goes under, who cares? They always have golden parachutes at the ready.

[Karumati]

Originally posted by Laurence Fishblurgh:

Originally posted by Karumati:

This game had a good launch.

And you a good puff, right?

Not blazing