13 Ways To End Lousy PC Ports in 2023 - Improved Settings, Smoother Gameplay, Essential Features
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- Опубликовано: 10 июл 2024
- 2022 was a dire year for the quality of PC ports, from awful scalability to missing features to the inevitable #StutterStruggle. We're looking to kick off 2023 by trying to make a difference! In this video, Alex Battaglia puts together a list of 13 best practise points, cherry-picking the best in PC gaming to deliver the best options, stutter-free gameplay, improved tweakability and much more.
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00:00:00 - Introduction
00:01:00 - No shader compilation stutter
00:02:57 - Include visually responsive graphical options
00:04:52 - Include convention driven menu navigation
00:05:44 - Do not overly nest graphical menus
00:06:58 - Include refresh rate and resolution as separate options
00:08:10 - Include a field of view option
00:08:42 - Include a variable aspect ratio and variable framerate
00:09:43 - Include 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4 v-sync options
00:10:47 - Include multiple quality levels for heavy effects like ray tracing
00:12:26 - Include dynamic resolution if it is also used on console
00:13:15 - Include HDR and surround sound if consoles have it
00:13:38 - Include console settings
00:14:30 - Include all vendor variants of image reconstruction (DLSS, FSR, XESS)
00:15:15 - Conclusion 
Игры
A dedicated video like this is exactly what we needed. We gotta bring attention to this because a lot of recent ports have been absolutely unacceptable.
PC ports, generally speaking, are BETTER than they ever have been.
Want to play a bad port? Play the PC version of Street Fighter 2. You have NO sense of history or what you're talking about.
@@donvanvilet8466 it's both extremes. There are a lot of ports really pushing quality of life features. Surprisingly, a lot of them are from Sony.
But at the same time there are tons of games that simply aren't playable, no matter the hardware, due to shader compilation stutter.
Broadly speaking, the last few years have improved, but last year specifically was awful.
Been needing these for years.
@@user-hx9no6mh1z lol ok, go look at csgo's 2012 version and say that again
i hope this will be shared enough so more devs could get inspired
For HDR I'd like to add: Don't hide your HDR settings if Windows isn't already in HDR mode. This makes it look like the game doesn't support it. Toggling HDR settings in game should trigger Windows/monitor to switch over.
Absolutely. There are far too many games where activating HDR is a more of a chore than it should be, whereas a handful of games (such as Doom Eternal) show it can be done with a simple in-menu toggle no problem, which should be the standard method for all supported games. HDR on PC at the moment is a mess and it doesn't have to be.
@Ryan Harris This is because you'd need to use nvapi hdr for that. Which is worse.
Exactly this and the HDR ports also need to have the correct black level = no raised blacks. They often don‘t get that right on consoles, but it also has been messed up in ports to PC like in Metro Exodus.
@@ledooni COD Black Ops Cold War raises blacks for me and I'm not playing it in HDR because of this. The HDR settings are in the menus, but they still don't work years later despite constant huge micro-transaction updates. Greedy devs don't care.
@@birthdaycereal
Haven‘t played it but I can very easily see that since it‘s in quite a few other titles as well. At least we‘re getting a great amount of Mini-LED and OLED PC monitors this year that all finally deliver actual HDR for PC gamers so the focus on and demand for this should get bigger.
Great points. One more to add: have a visual indicator to show the lowest or highest setting is reached. Some options go beyond "Ultra" with an "Extra" setting I wasn't even aware. Have a little progress bar below setting and turn the selection arrows grey. Then the limits are clear.
Yes! Way too often after selecting a maximum quality preset, I'd fiddle with the settings further to discover that they go beyond what the preset chooses - so I've had to get into the habit of going through every setting myself when I shouldn't have to.
I find these also very important:
1. Raw input mouse support, some games unfortunately emulate analog sticks and include deadzone, acceleration etc which sucks
2. Make sprint, crouch and aim toggable, rarely I see games that include all three settings
3. Make in-game cinematics pausable instead of skipping them with ESC key.
😊
One overlooked excellent addition was the search feature in Modern Warfare 2 for options. These days with so much settings and preferences its essential. Wish every game had that.
This is the first time I'm hearing that function being in any game. Respect to the team and the publisher.
@@erttttt Yep, MW2/warzone would be an excellent PC port without the game crashing every hour or so
@@Chocapic_13 Is it really a port if it's created for pc?
@@erttttt CSGO has had it since the panoroma HUD update in like 2017. The search has saved me so much time over the years when settings randomly change.
search option is nice, but the menus are still terrible.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
1:00 - No shader compilation stutter
2:57 - Include visually responsive graphical options
4:52 - Include convention driven menu navigation
5:44 - Do not overly nest graphical menus
6:58 - Include refresh rate and resolution as separate options
8:10 - Include a field of view option
8:42 - Include a variable aspect ratio and variable framerate
9:43 - Include 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4 vsync options
10:47 - Include multiple quality levels for heavy effects like ray tracing
12:26 - Include dynamic resolution if it is also used on console
13:15 - Include HDR and surround sound if consoles have it
13:38 - Include console settings
14:30 - Include all vendor variants of image reconstruction (DLSS, FSR, XESS)
15:15 - Outro
Legend
sincere thanks
Doing what DF couldn't be arsed to do. Thanks
@@JAYCEEDOUBLE I did some timestamps for the PSTriple 1080p videos, got zero recognition from DF, got discouraged.
EDIT: and by recognition I do not mean anything more than just putting my timestamps in the video description so that they are integrated in the video. And hearting my comment would be a nice bonus ;)
@@JAYCEEDOUBLE It's a 15 minute video. If you didn't care enough to watch the video then why even click it?
People need to stop acting like you need timestamps for every short video or like comments who post them are heroes or some shit.
I think one important one is to make sure to add a toggle for controversial settings such as chromatic aberration, motion blur, depth of field, and vignette.
Don'tt forget film grain....
How come this doesn't have more likes? People mostly only talk about not liking motion blur but those other settings are just as bad if not worse if you know what to look for and it makes playing the game unbearable if you hate these effects.
Chromatic aberration is the worst. 🤕
Yes! I can second this one!!
@@HickoryDickory86 That's the ONE that I just don't understand? Do gamers really want to simulate the experience of playing on a bad CRT monitor, or poorly calibrated projection TV from the early 2000s?
Chromatic Aberration is what I used to get on my first HDTV when the RGB colour 'guns' weren't correctly aligned!
I also hate 'film grain' (at least during gameplay), and I'm from an age when 'motion blur' was often just a CRUTCH to make games with low FPS appear less 'choppy'.
One thing that I find really important: do not make the settings loop, when the user has the setting at its highest another click should not loop around to the lowest possible settings, you should be able to just go through the menu and mash right cursor and press down every now and then to max out (or min) the settings
My favourite way of avoiding this is to have drop-down menus. This way you can also quickly see if for a certain setting "High" is the highest option or if it goes up to "Ultra".
@@Sk8erBoiALX A greyed-out side arrow works for that too.
All eyes on HOGWARTS LEGACY !
It's an UE4 game, very prone to have shader compilation stutters & issues!
Let's wait & see if they listened...
Chances r they didn't!
At least in some games like Cyberpunk they add hints on the bottom of these controls to show the number of options and highlight the one you're on. But I do wish more games used drop downs, or segmented controls if the number of options is small like 2-3, that show all the options at the same time. If I have a mouse, I just want to jump straight to the option that I want, not cycle through 10s of them until I find the right resolution.
@@IronMan-jj2fd And does it completely eliminate stutters if the games performs those 'lengthy' shader compilation processes the first time you play, or change certain settings?
I know people expect things to load INSTANTLY these days, but do developers think customers PREFER frequent in-game stutters, rather than waiting 15 minutes for everything to configure before being allowed to start the game?
14. *PLEASE* allow the user to change *controller button prompts* with a setting. Not everyone uses the ABXY glyphs from the Xbox controller, many use XO□∆ from the PlayStation controller. Bonus points for supporting BAYX from the Nintendo's Controllers, and/or supporting auto-controller detection with the steam input api (while keeping in tact the ability to manually select the controller glyph type). Examples: Persona 5 Royal, and Days Gone.
This annoys me so much. Some games detect the PS5 controller and then default to the xbox buttons because they only have ps4 button prompts encoded, and the xbox are the "default if no match found" So yeah. Just use steaminput and it's prompts, why reinvent the wheel every time
I mean, that's really only an issue for very casual players. who doesn't know the controller layout of the current consoles?
Yes! It especially kills me when there is a PlayStation version of a game that exists, and they don't bother to load those prompts as an option in the PC version. At this point we're lucky if someone even makes a mod for some games to address this discrepancy, since developers usually don't bother.
@@kevboard no, its annoying as shttt
@@kevboard Imagine if a game on a PS5 showed the Xbox button prompts. Accessibility is a great thing because the more barriers you remove, the better - for both sales and players. Plus, it's just weird when a game doesn't support this.
I hope this video goes viral and reaches as many developers as possible.
Its not like developers don't know what needs to be done, its just they don't care and neither do gamers. Only 5% of gamers really care about experience and quality of games, other 95% dont give a fuck and developers know it. That is why we have bad ports, or bad games in general.
@@vasilije94It’s a shame, but very true.
@@vasilije94 I get what your saying, but I have a hard time believing that 95 percent of gamers wouldn't notice compilation stutter. Especially in games like Calisto Protocol.
@@vasilije94 I really wish people would also stop saying that developers don't give a fuck or are lazy when developers are the hard working people its the publishers who don't give the art time to be properly created, Say publishers, not devs.
@@caseygoddard Its actually even worse than that because you also have elitists who will say any problems you have must be your personal issue with the classic "works on my machine" line.
This was much needed. I wish every developer would watch this.
You really think they don't know this? There is no budget to do all these things! Money comes in from the console versions...
@@zeus1117 no budget to precompile shaders or make the menus bearable? Don't make me laugh.
@@zeus1117 delusional
@@zeus1117 Most, if not all of these things don't require money! I can't believe what I'm hearing from you.
@@zeus1117 for real. Everyone knows this but it’s all about $. If people are still going it buy it, what’s the incentive to spend more man hours on fixing these issues? Lol
Thank you! I hope this will reach to many developers, Japanese studios should really listen to this carefully
they can listen, but 98% of those guys don't speak english.
This video should be made mandatory to learn for every japanesese develop because boy are they bad at respecting conventions and porting games. Honestly it's pathetic the way they don't care about porting.
A Japanese dev like Fromsoft sold millions of copies of Elden Ring and won GOTY. This is despite the game's technical issues, like shader compilation on PC and the settings menu being barebones. Even Digital Foundry's own John Linneman gave Elden Ring GOTY. Other Japanese devs will see that and realize there's no incentive to change their ways. You can say they should listen, but when it comes to sales and review scores (the two metrics companies care about most), why should they?
@@WolverineBatman and that's why videos like this should exist and more people need to highlight these issues so they realize they won't keep getting away everytime.
@@malithaw that’s a disingenuous assumption. part of it is the pc gaming market doesn’t really exist in japan the way it does in the west. they are less experienced. also a lot of the advanced technical info is not available in japanese. why do gamer’s always assume devs are “lazy” with sinister intent? lazy people do not work in this industry. fromsoft employees work a ton of overtime. don’t always assume the worst of people.
#2 is big for me, i would love if all games had this implemented. Being able to see what each setting is changing is also educational for people who are new to graphics as well.
Recently Bought Days Gone and yes being able to see how the game looks as I change options and having a custom graphics setting I feel is acceptable is a huge win.
borderlands 3 had a good way of doing that
Been learning UE5 for about half a year. I made this a priority when making my first playable project. It really was as simple as just not adding a backdrop image to occlude the game running underneath. It is probably the easiest thing on this list to accomplish.
My number 1 on his list.
Also tells me what component I need to upgrade when my singular goal is to get game X at Ultra settings.
This should be a required training video that all developers making a PC game should watch.
I would add 1 more crucial point to that list:
14. Do not force TAA and other post-processing.
@@Scorpwind I'd rather go with "don't force anything".
@@CrabJuice83 Yes. That's actually even better.
Respectfully, this is all info most devs know. In fact they probably know a lot more than Alex here. It’s almost always a time/resource thing.
@@CrabJuice83 exactly, i don't want to have to see any textures or lighting for that matter, just give me untextured grey polygons with vertex lighting only.
This was a such a fantastic video Alex, Bravo for starting the year off on an optimistic note and offering something tangible that developers can aim to improve!
Wow... Those are the right things Alex. I have the idea that devs take more and more notes of what you guys put out even though you had a year full of these problems. I don't think it's the Devs that don't want to do this but the 'higher-ups' just don't allow them to do the things you mention.
I hope the Devs will step up and can convince those that it's great marketing when a game is released in a state with most of these features.
At first I thought DF was a bit too gamefocussed and a bit nerdy but the more I watch the more I appreciate the work you guys do and believe me... That's a huge compliment.
Keep it up and hopefully they will answer our prayers (even if it's 50 % of the points you mention).
Happy 2023 to you guys and I'm now going to click the subscribe button as you totally deserved it.
Another thing to note with FOV is that for consoles, players are typically sitting several meters away from a television so it would be very hard to make out certain elements on screen with a high FOV so a low one is used instead. It's essentially the opposite on PC where players are sitting right up against their screen and can afford to "pixel peep" if you will so the FOV can be increased to an acceptable level.
The distance reason comes down to monitor size in most cases. Traditional PC monitors are generally smaller than regular TVs so naturally, one requires a shorter/longer viewing distance than the other. These days, it's easier than ever to plug your PC into a large TV monitor to mitigate such issues. Other than that, I agree.
@@notsyzagts7967 tv's usually have low refresh rates at 60 hz, long input delay and bad response times.
It could also just be simple geometry. If you're far away from your TV then the natural viewing angle (formed by the player and both screen borders) is narrower than when you're close to a PC monitor. Setting the FOV lower could help with motion sickness.
Also low FOV means less rendering iirc which would help in console optimization.
Ironically, I've seen quite a few console gamer complain about text font being too small in games, attributing it to devs most likely looking at the game on a close by PC monitor during developpement.
@@HalfpennyTerwilliger It's this. Higher FOVs are needed on PC because desktop monitors take up a wider portion of your vision.
I don't think it's any of these options. The default FoV setting in the overwhelming majority of games no matter the platform is fine as is whether you're playing up close on a tiny monitor or very far away on a TV screen. I don't know anyone gave a s••• about this at all to be honest.
I really wish DF would finally start using Time Stamps for all their videos, it makes navigation so much better and gives a more accurate insight into the video's content.
Still this is great content and a really good topic to bring up. Here's hoping things improve, especially considering how much growing income comes from the PC platform.
You should make a RUclips manifesto they can refer to.
What an ironic video to make this point on lol
this comment should get more likes
most ppl watch their video only for resolution and fps comparisons
i get why they dont put timestamps
I have been posting this on most of their content, some videos have great timestamps, but most don't have them which is a pain, timestamps are the best feature youtube introduced in last 10 years :D
Covered everything I believe is essential, great video Alex doing astounding work as always hope this year of PC ports is a lot better making your work in covering said ports easier as well.
These are all excellent and I hope this video becomes popular enough to be seen by executives and producers who will allow developers to implement these things.
That moment when Playstation exclusive games have the best settings menu and suffer least from shader compilation.
"The games do the talking" Jim Ryan 🤣🤣🤣
I mean what about the Sack Boy game... Literally garbage on launch and still isn't great (Other commenters are stating the game was "fixed" a week after launch, like they didn't have enough time to address the issues before it came out, the usual make a deadline or hope nobody notices crap with console ports . The as per usual console port treatment.)
@@RegularDudeInTraffic sackboy what? Dude, we're talking about real games
Good you say exclusive games because crossgames 98 percent of time run better on Series X
@@r.daneel.90 LOL
The 1/2 V-Sync option with perfect frame pacing should be absolutely mandatory. Brilliant video DF.
Half rate v sync would add a lot of latency
an option to lock to 24fps
@@helloguy8934 yeah but works for single player games
@FitGirl I still find it distracting. Even in single player games.
Im half V-Synced all my games at 72 FPS (half of my monitor maxed 144Hz) basically using RTSS to avoid higher unnecesssary CPU and GPU usage
Incredible video Alex. I hope you can make more of this similar format, they're very interesting and useful.
What a godsend! Really *nice, compact video* for reference or, like you said, as a manifesto of sorts. Danke schön Alex, we can all just hope this gets the traction it deserves! 💚
this video basically showed me that nixxes is a amazing pc porting dev and that we all should give those guys at nixxes props
I had a bad time with their Spider-Man ports for the simple fact that they did not include a fps limiter option. My laptop ( 3060 mobile) has a 144hz refresh rate but ran the game buttery smooth at 60 but for some reason windows 11 switches the refresh rate back to 144 no matter which setting i used. Nvidia control panel frame rate limiter causes drops in Spider-Man. An inGame fps limiter hugely improves the experience and should be present in pc ports.
Nixxess is overrated..spider man and miles morales to this date has constant stuttering issues after playing for 40-50mins....the time is even shortened if you trigger cut scenes.....only solution is to restart the game when stutter appears....and miles morales when swinging through 10-11th floor level....there will massive fps drops (average fps is unchanged in fps counter, these fps drops are frametime issues and can be only felt although turning on monitor display refresh rate counter we can see) even if the gpu and cpu is largely free...even at locked fps target.....
@@wasimahmed2099 I also had the same issue. And restarting my Pc every 30 mins made the drops disappear. I think switching from exclusive full screen to borderless full screen made the game run better for me during the second playthrough.
@@dr.sivavignesh664 even days gone has the same issue, it stutters even with good fps in full screen but running it in Borderless windowed mode solves the issue. Almost all games i have tested which use dx12, borderless gives much more smoother & responsive experience in Dx 12 games
@@wasimahmed2099 The games have good settings menus at least, even if the technical performance is dodgy.
PRO TIP: The PC community should post this video on the social platforms of their favorite game in development to bring these to their attention.
Awesome idea
Which will change absolutely nothing because people will continue to pirate X game. Devs don't give a flying fuck because the game will be cracked in the same day, so why bother?
Digital foundry, thank you for this! I really hope the game devs see this, because all of this is important for a good PC port.
What a great video Alex! Thank you for your contribution in the PC world!
Another one is adding resolution sliders with high scaling. Like a 5%-400%+ scale.
It will give games a CG look and added sharpness when you might want to replay these games 10-20 years from now.
Like GTA V
Neat to have, but then again there's DSR/VSR via the driver, as long as the game reads the resolutions available from Windows. Dunno what the state on Linux is though.
14. Give access to the full menu options before launching any part of the campaign
15. Make all post-processing effects optional and singled out (not Post-Processing Low, Mid, High)
16. Scale Ultra-Wide content horizontally without black bars
Nerd territory, not mainstream:
17. Retain the developer console
18. Include Insane settings aimed at future PC generations
14 - yes. It is simply obnoxious when a game launches, for the first time, straight into some protracted set-piece that the user is forced to endure at some predetermined graphical setting (usually resulting in terrible performance). Developers - stop doing this. Have at least the patience (and good manners) to offer the user access to the full menu options before they start playing your game for the first time.
19: let us turn off TAA
19. Allow full remapping all the controls to any key or mouse button. Typical errors include hardcoding mouse buttons, or some special action or quicktime event to a specific key, making it really hard to customise the layout, especially if you use a weird setup for ergonomics or disabilities.
He says 15, 16, and 18 in the video
people would just cry unoptimized game when devs do 18. (example , RDR2)
Informative, Alex. Hope 2023 gets better
Thank you so much. These are all specific points that I have been silently lamenting/applauding with you over the years, and I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who is this flabbergasted by the collective inability to make these sensible decisions.
Excellent list. I would like to have seen full key re-binding mentioned here as well. Having certain functions locked to specific keys on PC is unforgivable in the modern age. We have a keyboard full of keys, we all play in our own way, so let us customize controls based on our own preferences, rather than having things arbitrarily locked to fixed key binds.
Would be great to see the criteria you've listed featured as a checklist in reviews, kind of like the checklist used in the Hardware Unboxed/Monitors Unboxed monitor reviews.
I am all for that
Agreed!
Absolutely, have a slide at the end\start of the video with yes
o next to these criteria with timestamps for detailed analysis
Thank you for the video! it's good that you pay attention to this so that companies and developers see this, playing on a pc does not bring proper pleasure when it experiences stuttering and other problems. I really hope that on the PC games will be well optimized
I appreciate this type of insight Alex. much love & continued support.
Alex this is honestly a brilliant video, you covered the most annoying issues with PC ports in a honest, fair and balanced manner without picking on any specific developer. I just hope the people who need to see this video most get to see it and are empowered to act upon it.
hey i just wanna say hi, they pick your questions so often now that you are officially famous, congrats ;)
@@jinx20001 ha thank you, hi back at ya.
So you think the devs of these badly optimized games never played a perfectly optimized pc game and or bad one? You think it's a decision to make the pc version bad? Or let me guess you hope they look at this video because if not for Alex and his brilliant wisdom that those dev's who dedicated their lives to their craft just don't have a clue....the steam reviews for poor performance and reddit posts mean nothing they would never read it ...but Alex's video is a god send if they watch it.
@@seizonsha steam reviews are 10 word answers and reddit?
@@seizonsha the issue is a lot of feedback isn't constructive or well formed so it is hard for developers to act upon. People writing barely comprehensible rage rants doesn't really help make things better; this video says the things that need to be done better with well formed arguments and examples.
This is great list, but honestly it’s shocking that 90% aren’t already dealt with in PC ports as a matter of course. Hopefully this gains a bit of traction and makes a difference!
Yeah, I think it's not about not knowing how to do these right, most of these are outright obvious for any gamer or developer. Most of the time it's just about spending the least amount of money (so, less time and less effort), which means giving it to barely experienced staff who either do not care or are not allowed to care. No amounts of "education" will fix such management issues.
This video, thank you alex, spoke to my soul frustrations with PC ports in the last 4 years, and with special attention to 2022 end year games.
Wonder ports like God Of War, Spiderman, and Days Gone, deserved the major talking points for how well they expanded on PC options.
I really hope publishers watch your vid, and take this to heart. I imagine all developers would love to do this, if said project management and publisher provided the funds and time... heres to hoping
Great stuff DF! Thank you very much :)
Yes please. The PC port manifest... I mean... Best practices.
I wish I could upvote this video twice! I hope devs are listening.
incredible prelection about pc ports, finally someone try to standarize pc options menu, geat work! Alex GO! GO! GO! :)
THANK YOU ALEX! This this....a thousand times this!
This video should be included in all training sessions for new game developers.
Even Indie and console.
This is brilliant Alex, i honestly hope developers would view this, great work as usual.
Probably the most important video you guys have uploaded in a while!
Cannot wait for part two of this series next month!
Excellent video, Alex! I hope developers see this and learn how to fix this in the future.
This video should be shown in every studio and on the first day of each project with a PC port.
And it would be ignored. Alex isn't big enough to enforce something like this.
I disagree. This is a mindset for pre-production of any game. PC port cost money in big part because they are viewed as PC port. Design your production as multiplatform from the get-go, and the vast majority of it will be painless, and cost less budget overall.
Plus the mentality of "console first, PC port later" is very wrong. PC is the biggest and most profitable market after mobile, significantly above any console. Sure all consoles in aggregate sell more than PC, but each console has its own very costly platform certification, so that's a moot point.
The music is incredible during the shader compilation stutter moment lmao Bravo Alex
Great vid! You said you were cooking something up and you did not disappoint.
This is such a wonderful video. I truly hope a lot of devs with upcoming PC ports take notes of the great examples here.
This is SO good that I wish it wasn't patreon exclusive! We need as many eyes on this as possible!
And my wish came true ❤️
So Digital Foundry hides certain videos from regular youtubers?
@@djprior82 A lot of channels do things like this, making exclusive videos for patrons or channel members.
@@djprior82 They are bonus videos for people willing to pay to support them.
@@djprior82 They give early access to some videos and have a small number of exclusive videos which are really just supplementary info, and are not of high production quality. Things like extra benchmarks or something. I don't usually watch them. I support them just because I consume a lot of their content and would like them to keep doing what they do, not because of the extras.
As a pc gamer since 1988 why all of these things are not the norm in 2023 is just staggering. It's been a long and rocky road, and there is still a ways to go.
The video we all know we needed, but didn't know was coming! YES!!!
Great video Alex! I also hope devs start supporting HDR properly on PC when they add it. There have been plenty of times HDR does not work right on my rig when it looks great on console.
Thanks, Alex! I agree with everything, especially the 1/2 V-Sync. I have an old NVIDIA GTX 970 and this feature is VERY useful. 😅
Fantastic idea for a video and good job reining it in to the key points to hopefully improve adoption (despite, I'm sure, wanting to list a myriad of other things).
Great video! I hope the powers-that-be at ALL of the major publishers and developers are able to see this and internalize these points.
Fantastic video, Alex. I look forward to an eventual Part 2!
The Last of Stutter: Part 2
Being able to see what changes and how it affects performance when you switch graphical settings is such a blessing. I would really love to see this in more games. That's maybe the most needed settings window feature for those people who interact with that window the most.
Alex you are a treasure and this message could not have been better timed with the looming influx of console ports on the horizon.
I hope all game developers make a todo list with the points made in this video. I rolled my eyes at the beginning of this video like "not another listicle" but this list was tight with nothing padded. Hats off Alex.
I hope this video make it’s rounds, and then some! Great stuff Alex!
Gesundes Neues, Alex!
I love this list, especially #7! I have an ultrawide monitor and it genuinely enhances the experience for me. having to use a third party software for some games like elden ring is an extra step that shouldn't be in the way anymore
Great list, I would also add “Fix Asset Streaming/Traversal Stutter” to the list.
A lot of UE games for example do not only exhibit shader stutter, they also have genuine repeatable asset streaming stutter. Jedi Fallen Order for example, but a lot of games struggle with this as a problem these days.
To me not having shader stutter or streaming hitches are basically priority number one for any good PC game.
word
@@xxxmrhankixxx yep, that is the biggest problem. i can kinda deal with other half-baked features, but stutters.. plz no.
Completely agree, but holy shit is fixing streaming related stutter hard. Like stupid hard. I'm honestly surprised the problem isn't more pervasive given how complex a lot of what's streamed into games these days is doing. Getting something from CPU onto the GPU without stalling either is a multi layered problem.
Spider-Man stutters and freezes like crazy for me if I swing too fast. A few times I got stuck in buildings that hadn't loaded yet. It relies too much on CPU.
@@LordShrub Same experience here and I have a 5800X + 3070 + 3600 MHz DDR4 + NVMe + G-Sync.
I enjoy Digital Foundry’s work but I find it very strange that they seem to consistently leave out or underplay when a game has traversal/streaming stutter in their technical reviews (in fairness, perhaps thats too harsh - I do recall a few times they have mentioned it though in my opinion it deserves as much focus as shader stutter and any game that has it should be dinged harshly in terms of technical review).
For example, this list/the video we’re commenting on absolutely should’ve had “fixing traversal/streaming stutter” on it yet it just doesn’t for some inexplicable reason. Or Spider-Man as you mention - that game’s PC version was broadly praised as a terrific porting effort and, yes it does do a lot right such as shader compilation and modern features like image reconstruction/RT, but it also has very noticeable traversal/streaming stutter in my experience when you’re flying through the city at speed and dive towards the ground for example.
Compare this with games like Red Dead 2 or post patch Cyberpunk which are extremely high detail yet do not exhibit traversal/streaming stutter in my tests. I just think DF has laser focused on shader stutter while under focusing on other kinds of common stutter like we’re taking about here. Asset streaming stutter sucks and I hate it.
Maybe it’s because DF does their testing with extremely fast memory and a 12900K so perhaps these hitches are reduced in their severity. Or perhaps they notice the streaming stutter but think it’s a shader being compiled, etc.
This was such an excellent watch. I hope every game dev, big and small sees this and does their part. I would also like to see a follow up in a year or so, identifying who has done a good job since this video came out, either by updating their games, or by releasing new games that wow us with their polish.
Yeah, because DF knows better how to develop games, then devs themselves. They have such long list of completed developed games :)
@@sneikiusas It's nice to know your customers desires in a product before creating and/or releasing it: Steam Achievements, Shader comp, steam trading cards, customizable video settings for different hardware, etc. etc. A wise person will take these videos as a lesson opportunity, rather than role their eyes at it.
@@jercodesthings because somehow developera dont know customers dont want shader stutters or bad performance? :D really?
@@sneikiusas
Clearly some publishers have difficulty making these obvious connections.
@@sneikiusas This video goes deeper than just shader stutter and bad performance. There are new developers out there, (some are new and solo... such as myself) that take value in learning these things. Obviously I want to make the best game I can make and want others to be happy with it too. I'm still learning how. This helps some.
Great points put out in a constructive manner, great work Alex! 💯
I also LOVE the depth of 'difficulty' options available on the PC Spiderman Remaster! I'm now an old 44 year old 'gamer', and am mostly just interested in getting through the story and enjoying the pretty graphics. I could care less about 'points', and no longer have the time/patience to retry a mission dozens of times until I figure out how to beat it. So I LOVED the options to make specific tasks like 'chases' easier, or turn off the repetitive 'mini-games' of 'complete the circuit.
Like, I might have given up on Spiderman at the FIRST 'Shocker' chase mission without the option to make the enemy easier to catch!
I do think that not having any hardcoded controls/keys is essential too but other than that thank you so much for this list. Itd be very nice if every port followed this.
Fantastic video! Totally agree on point 11. Some HDR enabled games don't detect a HDR capable monitor unless it's enabled in Windows, which feels sloppy. I'd also add that the game's entire UI should be able to be controlled with the mouse. I've lost count of how many games allow certain areas to be clicked, but not others. There's no excuse for it these days.
spideman
This right here! So much this! It's why I love Digital Foundry so much.
Fantastic work , Alex. Here's hoping developers take this advice to heart.
You guys should do a bad PC ports awards, put them on blast!!
That's not really what DF does? There are plenty of negative nancies on the Internet if you need catharsis.
@@romxxii toxic positivity is one major reason why games launch in the state they do.
everyone being against stringent criticism of bad practices enables bad game releases.
@@romxxii or just shout out innovaters and exemplars
personally tho, why not both
@@EggBastion Which is what Alex did: he called out really good examples, like the ones in Spider-Man and Days Gone. And he didn't completely ignore the bad, as he also cited some clear examples of bad implementations. He just didn't wallow in it nor hyper-focus on the drama.
Let me say before starting this video shader compilation stutter will be #1
They should make you do your settings and run a demo for like 5 minutes to make all those shaders before you really play the game.
Went with that creepy outro and then you saved it at the last second I'm so so happy to see that thank you for not creeping me out the last second I appreciate it
Great video! Absolutely necessary information for all PC devs to take advantage of.
14.
Include AMD image sharpening in the game menu. This implementation is free and extremely easy.
15.
No mouse smoothing
16.
PS and Xbox controller support
17. Do not force TAA and other post-processing.
@@Scorpwind Or at least give other options. TAA is great if the devs know what they are doing. If they don't it can be the worst part of the game.
Looking at you Elden Ring and Cyberpunk
That's funny I commented on here that I wish every game had a mouse smoothing option. Not on by default just the option to turn it on if I want to
@@devonmarr9872 I'd be looking at far more games than just Cyberpunk and Elden Ring. Like, almost all of them.
Thank you so much for this very important and complete compilation, Alex!
Addition to HDR:
it needs to be ported correctly with no raised blacks and it should be independent of the Windows HDR toggle, so that the HDR option in the menu is also available if you don‘t turn on the Windows HDR toggle beforehand because Windows itself in HDR makes no sense and SDR content should also stay in the SDR mode of displays.
Windows in HDR doesn’t affect how it looks because it’s just still SDR represented in HDR unless you have HDR content running, which gets fucked if windows isn’t in HDR as swapping the dynamic range does the black screen thingy. Games overriding the setting fucks shit up, like RDR2 for example.
@@NameName-ll2yx
That is not correct. HDR forces 2.2 gamma while the calibration reference in SDR is 2.4 gamma and many displays (especially OLED) also react very differently to brightness in HDR. My OLED has around 140 nits fullscreen white in HDR but 200 nits in SDR, so I don‘t want to nerf my display by limiting SDR content to my TV‘s HDR fullscreen capabilities -> keeping HDR toggle on all the time is no valid option.
@Name Name Windows hdr does affect it, especially if you use any sdr to hdr setting above 0 in the slider.
@@ledooni:D me having oled and HDR on always because it looks just fine and immensely helps with HDR issues. Haven’t noticed difference between using it in SDR vs HDR after got the settings set right.
@@NameName-ll2yx
It‘s only off if you compare it to 2.4 gamma for SDR (which I greatly prefer especially in a dark room) or when you turn up the SDR brightness to a level where fullscreen whites exceed the HDR capabilities. It can work, but for the reasons described a clear separation between SDR and HDR still has its benefits depending on the use case.
Best vid for over 2 years here on DF! So good!
Very, very good video Alex! Thanks!
the most annoying part of owning an ultrawide monitor is having to go to PCGW to get an ultrawide fix for 90% of games
these days pc gaming wiki is my first stop before i even launch a game just to check if i need to get fov fixes, fps uncap fixes, etc.
@@dan_loeb I do the same thing but regarding forced TAA and post-process effects.
They have some of the most talented developers in the industry it makes sense.
And then you have games like Elden Ring where the community can give you better options like ultrawide support within like 24 hours of launch, but then you're locked out of core features because of anticheat.
I love playing games in ultrawide but some developers make it way more painful than it has to be.
(Also a big shout-out to random patches breaking your ultrawide fix so you have to hope community patches keep coming. Fun.)
@@dan_loeb 100%
Nice shirt, brings back memories.
Bless you for making this video. So many games I wanted to play on PC last year but the stutter and other features just made it too much of a sacrifice. Hoping this year is better...
Excellent video Alex, thank you!
Also allow TAA & all post-processing effects to be disabled! Don't force them on and at most only give us quality options for it
Seems you forgot to mention multi-threaded CPU optimisation, which is a huge thing still.
I'd also add mouse smoothing/acceleration, as well as a monitor selection menu.
Are there any advantages to using acceleration/smoothing over raw input?
@@superwhizz114 some pro FPS players actually play with accel. It's more user preference than absolute superiority.
@@superwhizz114 None that I can think of in a gaming sense.
Would multi-threaded CPU optimization speed up shader comp in Vulkan and DX12?
@@superwhizz114 Yes. Very much in fact. It smooth's out the camera movements. It gaves you better more fluid movements and precision when you rotate or aim.
FoV sliders for EVERY game, ultrawide support too. Options to change camera position for third person and racing games helps a lot as well.
Wiedermal ein super Video Alex!!! Für mich ist Punkt 1 der wichtigste aber auch bei allen Anderen muss ich dir zustimmen!
Great list. Stuttering is a deal breaker for me and completely unacceptable for games to release with shadder stutter. There have also been a number of recent releases with terrible CPU utilisation, which have either been poorly optimised or single threaded, resulting in stuttering or noticeable frame drops.
UE4 games are unplayable for me. Just tried playing Borderlands 3, and uninstalled it because of the shader comp stutter.
Very important: Automatic key remapping based on keyboard layout. Not everyone uses qwerty. In about half the games I play I have to remap half of the keyboard before I can play. Also the option to reduce screen shake and a color blindness mode are critical to my enjoyment of a game.
Amazing video, this should be sent to every PC developer by default.
I haven't resonated with a video in a long long time. I hope devs take this to heart and use this list as a QC list or adapt it to their own QC lists.
Speak the truth brother! So glad to hear this and I really hope this helps. For far too long have PC users had to deal with such sub par PC ports while paying the same price as console owners for most games.
This is pretty funny showing up in my recommended after the sheer disaster that was PC ports this year.
Great list, Alex. I remember TotalBiscuit banging the table about FOV sliders years ago, so it always boggles me when I load up a PC port of a game and there's no FOV change options, or the FOV is so limited that it's still worse than the console experience. Sea of Thieves is a primary example of that, it's entirely unplayable for me on PC because the FOV is locked to match what the X-Box version is for "competitive balance", but is unacceptably shallow for the PC experience. I don't get nauseous or motion sick typically from playing games, but Sea of Thieves makes me dizzy and nauseous every time I boot it up, even if all I'm doing is running around on the islands and never set foot on a ship.
No fov options in a fps game???? Some people just don't deserve to make games.
@@whodatninja439 Thing is, there WAS one when the game launched, and Rare patched it out. Then people modded it back in, and they patched out the exploit that allowed the mod to work. All in the name of "competitive balance" with the console version.
great ideas Alex, hope the developers will take it into account, especially from such a renowned experts and content creators
Great video, we needed it.
Great video, thank you! I had a further question: could you please make a list of the current games satisfying the mentioned requirements, if possible? It would be very kind and helpful.
Yes please. If not a video just a document online we can look at to see if a game got updated and earned an approval from DF. Or even giving games a rating like bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. It'd make it easier on us to decide on buying a game without the need to do a whole video for each new update.