Croteam no longer deserve my money

[Terepin]

I was willing to believe that devs didn't have the manpower to handle both engine and game development. This was apparent with SS3, which ran like ass at release and it took them 6 years to fix it with the release of Fusion. Then SS4 came out and that mess will never run properly. Not on Serious Engine it won't.
My initial response to their decision to switch to UE5 was "f*cking finally", but that excitement was quickly turned into disappointment when I first tried TTP2's demo, which suffered from horrific frame pacing. This was reported by multiple players at the time. Do you know what they did since then to fix it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKrNJ5tqQ-w

I spent hours on top of hours trying to figure out why it runs so horribly and why so many people didn't see it. It was only few days ago when, by total accident, I finally learned why. If the game runs at 60 FPS, it's smooth as baby's butt. But if you unlock the framerate, frame pacing starts to suffer the higher it goes. This is how the game runs at locked 120 FPS with RTSS during (and only) strafing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwk7EhLz7eo

This to me shows that they either didn't bother to optimize the game to run properly at high refresh rate, or they simply didn't know how to resolve it, just like with dynamic skyboxes. In the end, I'm the one who paid the price. In fact, I paid it twice: when I bought the game and when I bought Lossless Scaling, which allows me to play the game above 60 FPS without having to suffer from stuttering every five seconds.

At this point I'm done with giving them second, third, and god knows how many more chances. It's clear to me that they don't value me as a customer, they don't value me as a player, and they don't value me as a long life fan. I feel betrayed, bamboozled and used.

Croteam, fool me once - shame on me. Fool me twice - shame on you.

P.S.: To get the usual "your hardware sux" morons of my back:
Ryzen 7 5800X3D, RTX 4070 Ti, 32 GB DDR4 3600, Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2 TB.

[Silverfish003]

The horrible optimalization is apparent and I can agree. But I think it's unfair to disregard the game itself, because the puzzles are excellent and the writing itself is worth an award on its own. It's a once in a lifetime experience I'd forget and love to play again at any time.

That being said, I can see you have a monitor refresh rate 120hz (or at least I assume the number I looked at is the monitor refresh rate), but mine is even higher, 165hz, and the game runs pretty well, it's not optimal, yeah, but it's not a complete disaster. I did the exact same thing - tried locking it at 60 FPS - and I'm okay with the game. Never understood why is playing at 120 FPS so neccessary to this many people.

That does not mean it shouldn't get improved though. But I doubt it will

[Terepin]

Don't get me wrong, I like the game itself. It's why I bought it and the expansion(!) in the first place. But I cannot a will not in good consciousness support a studio that doesn't invest the same amount of effort into optimization.

My monitor is actually 240 Hz, I was just testing if using RTSS frame limiter will smooth frametime. And the reason why people like me play at high FPS is because of motion clarity. Going down from 120 to 60 is like enabling persistent motion blur. It's an inherent flaw of all LCDs. This is why technologies like nVidia ULBM or BFI exists. It also lowers input lag. And let me tell you: as someone who was playing at 60 FPS since early 2000s, going back to it causes me eye sore.

[Silverfish003]

Originally posted by Terepin:

Don't get me wrong, I like the game itself. It's why I bought it and the expansion(!) in the first place. But I cannot a will not in good consciousness support a studio that doesn't invest the same amount of effort into optimization.

My monitor is actually 240 Hz, I was just testing if using RTSS frame limiter will smooth frametime. And the reason why people like me play at high FPS is because of motion clarity. Going down from 120 to 60 is like enabling persistent motion blur. It's an inherent flaw of all LCDs. This is why technologies like nVidia ULBM or BFI exists. It also lowers input lag. And let me tell you: as someone who was playing at 60 FPS since early 2000s, going back to it causes me eye sore.

Thanks for the clarification.

Enjoy the game :)

[Soüp]

Honestly, Epic's the one primarily at fault here. These sorts of problems are extremely common in UE5 games and difficult for developers to address. It's not Croteam's fault that there aren't really any other options for game engines anymore, though there are surely improvements they can make. I do however at least wish they'd enable hardware RT support to deal with some of the glaring issues with software Lumen that the environments in this series are really prone to exposing. For my part I settled on running Talos 2 locked at 60 fps which seems to clear up about 80% of the stuttering. Unfortunately enabling frame gen brings a lot of it back so I can see why you settled for using Lossless Scaling instead...

[Terepin]

Even though this is true, some devs can work around it. As finnicky as it is, Remnant II runs A LOT better than TTP2. And so does Layers of Fear.

[Soüp]

Yeah Remnant 2 I've heard runs a lot better after patches (was pretty bad at release) and Layers of Fear has relatively small interior environments which makes things a LOT easier to manage. Hellblade 2 is another one that at least runs smoothly but it being a tightly controlled highly linear game helps it a lot there. It's not that it can't be done, just that it's very difficult outside of specific use cases for the engine. It's so bad that CD Projekt even gave a presentation outlining their plans to fix the engine's stuttering issues for their future games.

Now that said, Epic has been making significant improvements over time and one relatively easy (I don't actually know how much work this would be) thing for Croteam to do would be to update to the latest version of the engine. Talos 2 is on UE 5.2 and 5.5 may run significantly smoother. I'm curious to see what version this remaster ends up being and how it runs compared to Talos 2.

[paulaus333]

When I was young, the frame rates in games were so low it would actually make them difficult to control!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HWzJMFeQv8

After Tomb Raider came out in 1996 and I got to experience it with a 3dfx Voodoo2 card two years later I thought I was in gaming heaven. The frame rate was capped at 30 and it seemed like magic. Perfectly playable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFyGSxs31Zo

I support people asking for whatever features and improvements they want in games, but these threads always make me chuckle. You can be much happier about your life circumstances if you just switch off the frame rate counters and real-time graphs / charts. Advice from an old fart.

[Terepin]

Old fart is a correct description, because you have no idea what's the difference between framerate and frametime.

[paulaus333]

Originally posted by Terepin:

Old fart is a correct description, because you have no idea what's the difference between framerate and frametime.

I know what frame-time is . Why so quick to dismiss what I said with a claim of ignorance? I didn't dispute your "data" or observations - I just said I'm amused because I have an old fart's 12 year old CPU & 6 year old GPU and yet Talos 2 ran well enough for me to enjoy it. I am grateful for what I have.

There's no need to bite.

[Chronon]

30 is playable but more so with a controller. I'm used to 60 with consoles so I'm easy to please in that regard. I've always had sub par gaming PC so guess I'm more tolerant in that regard vs someone who has always had 120fps+

[Terepin]

Originally posted by paulaus333:

There's no need to bite.

Yes, there is:

Originally posted by paulaus333:

You can be much happier about your life circumstances if you just switch off the frame rate counters and real-time graphs / charts.

This is gaslighting and I won't tolerate it. The problem isn't framerate and it never was, so you're either clueless or trolling me.

[paulaus333]

Originally posted by Terepin:

Originally posted by paulaus333:

There's no need to bite.

Yes, there is:

Originally posted by paulaus333:

You can be much happier about your life circumstances if you just switch off the frame rate counters and real-time graphs / charts.

This is gaslighting and I won't tolerate it. The problem isn't framerate and it never was, so you're either clueless or trolling me.

Gaslighting? All I'm saying is that my enjoyment of Talos and other games is not tied to them having a perfect, never stuttering appearance. I know what actual bad frame-rates and frame-times are from experience. They make a game unplayable.

You said that the game (Talos 2) runs smoothly at 60 FPS? Yet, you're not happy with that? You're not happy with a smoothly running game. You're lamenting the fact that you can't increase the frames to align with your monitor's 120Hz refresh-rate? What is that going to gain you, when you could already play the game?

No, I don't understand the obsession with these numbers. Aren't you happy to be able to play a game? Some people can't even afford to feed their kids..

[EvaUnit02]

Originally posted by paulaus333:

. Aren't you happy to be able to play a game? Some people can't even afford to feed their kids..

Oh sod off with your "all the starving children in Africa" argument fallacy. You're pretty much making excuses for a serial incompetence from a developer. Nobody can improve if any criticism is shouted down by toxic positivity merchants like yourself.

[paulaus333]

Originally posted by EvaUnit02:

Originally posted by paulaus333:

. Aren't you happy to be able to play a game? Some people can't even afford to feed their kids..

Oh sod off with your "all the starving children in Africa" argument fallacy. You're pretty much making excuses for a serial incompetence from a developer. Nobody can improve if any criticism is shouted down by toxic positivity merchants like yourself.

It wasn't an argument. Merely an observation.

You sound like such unhappy people. :( So quick to anger... It doesn't hurt to put things into perspective and feel a little gratitude sometimes (see the glass half full instead of empty), but of course this can't be forced.

Peace to you both.

Signing Sodding off,

[icycool_q1]

TTP2 has an overwhelmingly positive rating.
If it's the stuttering mess you claim, then perhaps you need better hardware.