'Batman: Arkham Knight' PC Players Slam Rocksteady Studios' Free Game Compensation Gift [Update 14]

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

[Derangel]

Posted this on [H]ardForum originally but I'll share my experiences with the relaunched version here:

 

 

So, decided to try again and see if I could make the game playable. The answer is hell no. Played again with everything maxed out just to make sure there wasn't some fluke that would go away after the computer had been turned off over night. Gliding around as Batman was still fine but as soon as I got in the Batmobile is was unplayable. Afterburner's OSD wouldn't work in the game with it maxed out so no idea about frame rate. So I thought, maybe it's the settings. I decided to just go the easy route and see what GeForce Experience thought optimal performance should be for my system. GFE said I should run the game with everything maxed except all the Nvidia effects turned off and Trilinear filtering. That seemed weird because on the same system with a 290X I was able to run it maxed out with the two possible Gameworks effects turned on. Still, whatever, I decided to give it a try anyway.

 

 

With the Gameworks effects off Afterburner was able to monitor the game so I was able to get numbers. I did some gliding around with Bats for a couple minutes and the frame rate was very very random. It would jump from 59 all the way up to 90fps. It was very distracting. Capping the FPS to 60 would probably solve that annoyance. After having some fun watching the purple numbers I decided to call the Batmobile. All of a sudden it felt like I was back at max settings. When I got into the Batmobile my FPS dropped to around 65-68fps and then jumped up to 75fps....For about three seconds. Then the game froze for a couple seconds and the FPS counter said it was running at 28fps. Then it jumped back up to 75, before the game froze again for a couple seconds and the counter reported 55fps. When I was able to move more than three feet without the gaming hitching up the FPS counter was claiming the game was running in the 70s but it didn't feel like it. The game was stuttering madly. At no point during the two-three minutes I spent in the Batmobile did it feel like the game was smooth or stable. Despite what the counter was saying it felt like the game was randomly losing and regaining 15-20fps at all points. Then it would just freeze for a couple moments, drop to under half of the previous FPS, then shoot back up and continue it's stuttering antics. After a couple minutes of that I just gave up.

 

 

 

On the CPU and RAM usage front things were interesting. CPU wise it looked fine. I don't remember the exact percentage reported but nothing crazy went on with it. RAM was different. Sitting "idle" right now I'm using 5.3GBs or 33% of my RAM. While gliding over the city the usage jumped to around 58-60% or so. When getting into the Batmobile it spiked up to 78% and stayed there.

 

 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Update 12 - Batman: Arkham Knight back on Steam, WB giving away free Arkham games
 

The Windows PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight, as promised, is back on Steam. To commemorate the game's relaunch, publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment is giving away a bunch of Batman games and other freebies to anyone who already purchased the game or purchases it by mid-November.

 

Warner Bros. will give away free digital copies of Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City, Batman: Arkham Origins and Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate to Steam users who bought the PC version of Arkham Knight before 11:59 p.m. PT on Nov. 16, 2015. The games will be added to Steam users' libraries sometime in December, WBIE said in a post on Steam.

 

Developer Rocksteady is also working on a Community Challenge Pack that will be given free to owners of Batman: Arkham Knight in January 2016. Players who own the PC version of Arkham Knight will get that add-on pack earlier than console owners will

http://steamcommunity.com/games/208650/announcements/detail/128710596369779495

 

We are very sorry that many our customers continue to be unhappy with the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight. We worked hard to get the game to live up to the standard you deserve but understand that many of you are still experiencing issues. 

 

Until the end of 2015, we will be offering a full refund on Batman: Arkham Knight PC, regardless of how long you have played the product. You can also return the Season Pass along with the main game (but not separately). For those of you that hold onto the game, we are going to continue to address the issues that we can fix and talk to you about the issues that we cannot fix. 

 

 

Thank you, 

 

Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment 

 

 

EDIT BY VALVE: For users still running into playtime based refund rejections, we are looking into what is causing those. Please wait to re-submit your refund until we have this resolved. Thank you.

 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

...... goddammit 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Update 13 - 

 

It looks like the Arkham Knight PC saga is finally over, though it looks like the game was too broken to get all of the features it promised working properly. While Arkham Knight has been available to buy on Steam once again for a few weeks now, we were still expecting one last patch for multi-GPU support, unfortunately, it looks like it won’t ever be coming.

 

The game runs okay at this point on single cards but Warner has also been promising an SLI/CrossFire fix since it began outlining its patches over the summer. However, according to one of the developers over at WB, the team just didn’t want to risk it anymore.

 

Answering a question on the Steam Forum, a WB developer account said: “We’ve been working with our development and graphics driver partners over the last few months to investigate utilizing multi-GPU support within Batman: Arkham Knight. The result was that even the best case estimates for performance improvements turned out to be relatively small given the high risk of creating new issues for all players.”

 

Since the gains were minimal, likely due to deeper issues with the game and the way it was created from the beginning, the team stopped pursuing multi-GPU support in-case it caused any more issues, just after finally getting the game working to an acceptable standard.

 

 

[euniqe]

Good. Maybe now in a decade someone else can revamp Batman and give him the PC games he has always deserved, not this crap.

[dalekphalm]

Update 13 - 

 

It looks like the Arkham Knight PC saga is finally over, though it looks like the game was too broken to get all of the features it promised working properly. While Arkham Knight has been available to buy on Steam once again for a few weeks now, we were still expecting one last patch for multi-GPU support, unfortunately, it looks like it won’t ever be coming.

 

The game runs okay at this point on single cards but Warner has also been promising an SLI/CrossFire fix since it began outlining its patches over the summer. However, according to one of the developers over at WB, the team just didn’t want to risk it anymore.

 

Answering a question on the Steam Forum, a WB developer account said: “We’ve been working with our development and graphics driver partners over the last few months to investigate utilizing multi-GPU support within Batman: Arkham Knight. The result was that even the best case estimates for performance improvements turned out to be relatively small given the high risk of creating new issues for all players.”

 

Since the gains were minimal, likely due to deeper issues with the game and the way it was created from the beginning, the team stopped pursuing multi-GPU support in-case it caused any more issues, just after finally getting the game working to an acceptable standard.

 

-image snip-

And yet, people will (and have) likely still go out and buy it in spades.

 

I'm proud of the backlash PC gamers have given Rocksteady and WB for AK, but I still see all too many people give it a pass.

[Guest]

Lets be frank. WB are the problem here, they dont want to put in the money to fix the game, "not practical" means "we have your money, why should we continue fixing the product"? This is worse than anything EA has ever done, atleast EA know that burning bridges with your customers will hurt them in the long run. WB just flatout shown us that they have little respect when it comes to publishing compitent games... Especially consdiering that Asylum the only non WB game and it ran fine.

[Lethal Seraph]

It's a damn shame for a big company such as WB to simply cut off a series. Thank God for steam refunds.

[Swndlr]

So pathetic

[Guest Kloaked]

If Warner Brothers has any logical thinkers in the suit department, they'd sever all ties with that studio after this.

[ivan134]

If Warner Brothers has any logical thinkers in the suit department, they'd sever all ties with that studio after this.

I don't think WB is innocent in this since they also oversaw broken Mortal Kombat X and the DLC abomination that was Evolve. That's way too many coincidences.

[ivan134]

If Warner Brothers has any logical thinkers in the suit department, they'd sever all ties with that studio after this.

Or maybe I should give them some slack since they got Mad Max right.

[Notional]

I know GameWorks is messed up, but it literally breaks this game? And NVidia sponsored this?

 

Sure, this game is fubar on PC, but still. GPU vendor specific graphics effects should really be dismissed by everyone. This is yet another GameWorks game in a long row, that runs like crap, and completely tanks performance.

 

Just stop it already NVidia. You're like Charlie Sheen in a brothel; no one wants to touch you.

[AlwaysFSX]

I know GameWorks is messed up, but it literally breaks this game? And NVidia sponsored this?

 

Sure, this game is fubar on PC, but still. GPU vendor specific graphics effects should really be dismissed by everyone. This is yet another GameWorks game in a long row, that runs like crap, and completely tanks performance.

 

Just stop it already NVidia. You're like Charlie Sheen in a brothel; no one wants to touch you.

Nobody said GameWorks is at fault for this game being horrendously broken. As much as you've got the stick and ignorance for this, every single other GameWorks title out there isn't broken like this is. Just because you want it to be your scapegoat doesn't mean it is. This is the fault or Warner Bros for not taking the time to do anything properly.

[Dabombinable]

Nobody said GameWorks is at fault for this game being horrendously broken. As much as you've got the stick and ignorance for this, every single other GameWorks title out there isn't broken like this is. Just because you want it to be your scapegoat doesn't mean it is. This is the fault or Warner Bros for not taking the time to do anything properly.

And having a studio with no experience with PC games doing the port to PC.

[Notional]

Nobody said GameWorks is at fault for this game being horrendously broken. As much as you've got the stick and ignorance for this, every single other GameWorks title out there isn't broken like this is. Just because you want it to be your scapegoat doesn't mean it is. This is the fault or Warner Bros for not taking the time to do anything properly.

 

​http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/392368-batman-warner-bros-has-given-up-on-multi-gpu-support-for-arkham-knight-update-13/page-4#entry6377237

 

Not only does GFE say not to run GameWorks on his 980, but it also prevents afterburner from working. I have never heard of a graphical effect, crashing or hindering any other programs from running.

 

Like I said, the game is fubar in general. GameWorks just makes everything worse.

 

ADDENDUM: So this game is the only GameWorks game with issues? How about AC Unity? Watch Dogs? Fallout 4? Listen GameWorks generally won't make a game more unstable per se, but it will always tank performance, compared to similar technologies. It's poorly optimized by design, and no one seems to care, that they lose 100-200$ worth of GPU performance for no reason on high end cards.

[Dabombinable]

​http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/392368-batman-warner-bros-has-given-up-on-multi-gpu-support-for-arkham-knight-update-13/page-4#entry6377237

 

Not only does GFE say not to run GameWorks on his 980, but it also prevents afterburner from working. I have never heard of a graphical effect, crashing or hindering any other programs from running.

 

Like I said, the game is fubar in general. GameWorks just makes everything worse.

*A set of graphical effects used by a studio that doesn't know how to properly use them. He was talking about gameworks in Arkham Knight-you know, the game that's still a buggy mess.

[Notional]

*A set of graphical effects used by a studio that doesn't know how to properly use them. He was talking about gameworks in Arkham Knight-you know, the game that's still a buggy mess.

 

How can a graphical effect outright prevent third party software from running? I've never heard about that before. I've heard about graphics API's doing it like OpenGL and Mantle, but never an in game effect. NVidia outright implemented their own software developers into the team, and it still doesn't work?

[AlwaysFSX]

And having a studio with no experience with PC games doing the port to PC.

Which seems to be the primary issue.

 

​http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/392368-batman-warner-bros-has-given-up-on-multi-gpu-support-for-arkham-knight-update-13/page-4#entry6377237

 

Not only does GFE say not to run GameWorks on his 980, but it also prevents afterburner from working. I have never heard of a graphical effect, crashing or hindering any other programs from running.

 

Like I said, the game is fubar in general. GameWorks just makes everything worse.

 

ADDENDUM: So this game is the only GameWorks game with issues? How about AC Unity? Watch Dogs? Fallout 4? Listen GameWorks generally won't make a game more unstable per se, but it will always tank performance, compared to similar technologies. It's poorly optimized by design, and no one seems to care, that they lose 100-200$ worth of GPU performance for no reason on high end cards.

God help you. Did I say Arkham Knight was the only GameWorks game with problems? No I fucking didn't. Is GameWorks the cause of Afterburner not working for that guy? No it is not. The two are non-relate-able in any way, shape, or form. A code library does not effect how and API works with hooking modules.

 

*A set of graphical effects used by a studio that doesn't know how to properly use them. He was talking about gameworks in Arkham Knight-you know, the game that's still a buggy mess.

At least you understand.

 

How can a graphical effect outright prevent third party software from running? I've never heard about that before. I've heard about graphics API's doing it like OpenGL and Mantle, but never an in game effect. NVidia outright implemented their own software developers into the team, and it still doesn't work?

Only you're saying it's GameWorks causing it, yet have no evidence of that. How about you take a game with absolutely no time and port it to PC instead of bitching about it? GameWorks works outside of games as shown by countless demos done. Sure that's never a perfect example of a game but it works. The problem is idiotic developers that take shortcuts, half-assed implementations, and laziness to do something right which breaks shit. You take most games under the sun and there's problems with them. The problem isn't GameWorks, it's developers.

[Notional]

Which seems to be the primary issue.

 

God help you. Did I say Arkham Knight was the only GameWorks game with problems? No I fucking didn't. Is GameWorks the cause of Afterburner not working for that guy? No it is not. The two are non-relate-able in any way, shape, or form. A code library does not effect how and API works with hooking modules.

 

At least you understand.

 

Only you're saying it's GameWorks causing it, yet have no evidence of that. How about you take a game with absolutely no time and port it to PC instead of bitching about it? GameWorks works outside of games as shown by countless demos done. Sure that's never a perfect example of a game but it works. The problem is idiotic developers that take shortcuts, half-assed implementations, and laziness to do something right which breaks shit. You take most games under the sun and there's problems with them. The problem isn't GameWorks, it's developers.

 

Here's what you said:

 

(..) every single other GameWorks title out there isn't broken like this is.

 

And I gave examples of other games, which also had a lot of problems. Broken to the same extent? That is subjective though. Fallout 4 seems to be close.

 

The guy said Afterburner did not work with GameWorks effects on, but worked with them off. What is there to discuss? Maybe @Derangel would like to elaborate on the matter?

 

Actually it's not me saying it, it's Derangel. Why would I even try to make a PC port in two months? It's unprofessional and incompetent. Especially given the fact that NVidia implemented their own software developers into the team and sponsored it with GameWorks. I'm still not saying the main problem is GameWorks, it isn't, but that does not mean GW is not a problem. It tanks the performance even more on an already horribly optimized game.

[AlwaysFSX]

Here's what you said:

 

 

And I gave examples of other games, which also had a lot of problems. Broken to the same extent? That is subjective though. Fallout 4 seems to be close.

 

The guy said Afterburner did not work with GameWorks effects on, but worked with them off. What is there to discuss? Maybe @Derangel would like to elaborate on the matter?

 

Actually it's not me saying it, it's Derangel. Why would I even try to make a PC port in two months? It's unprofessional and incompetent. Especially given the fact that NVidia implemented their own software developers into the team and sponsored it with GameWorks. I'm still not saying the main problem is GameWorks, it isn't, but that does not mean GW is not a problem. It tanks the performance even more on an already horribly optimized game.

Fallout 4 does not stutter and kill your frame rate like AK does. Most of the problems with FO4 are typical of Bethesda games: corrupting saves, engine tying physics to frame rate, unsupported resolutions, etc. It's widely accepted that AK is broken unlike any other game released so far, so much so that it had to be removed from market. Even Unity did not have as many problems. Your feelings about GameWorks still does not justify what GameWorks does or does not do in a game. As I said, a code library does not screw with the API itself. There's something that the studio(s) did when implementing GameWorks that could have gone wrong. So by that, yes GameWorks would cause something to not work but it is not a cause of GameWorks itself but the implementation that went wrong. Every problem with a game comes down to how a developer implements a feature. Hardware is more than fast enough at this time to run these effects with a small performance impact. NOTE that I do not say no performance impact. You are running models, effects, processing, etc. which requires more power to draw. Obviously your frame rate will go down.

 

We can have effects like what's shown below without straining a graphics card very hard. It works in tech demos, why does it not work in games just as well? The middle-man that put it there: developers.

 

If you give me a Lego Technic set and instructions and I fuck it up that's not fault of the set but my own fault for building it wrong.

[Notional]

Fallout 4 does not stutter and kill your frame rate like AK does. Most of the problems with FO4 are typical of Bethesda games: corrupting saves, engine tying physics to frame rate, unsupported resolutions, etc. It's widely accepted that AK is broken unlike any other game released so far, so much so that it had to be removed from market. Even Unity did not have as many problems. Your feelings about GameWorks still does not justify what GameWorks does or does not do in a game. As I said, a code library does not screw with the API itself. There's something that the studio(s) did when implementing GameWorks that could have gone wrong. So by that, yes GameWorks would cause something to not work but it is not a cause of GameWorks itself but the implementation that went wrong. Every problem with a game comes down to how a developer implements a feature. Hardware is more than fast enough at this time to run these effects with a small performance impact. NOTE that I do not say no performance impact. You are running models, effects, processing, etc. which requires more power to draw. Obviously your frame rate will go down.

 

We can have effects like what's shown below without straining a graphics card very hard. It works in tech demos, why does it not work in games just as well? The middle-man that put it there: developers.

 

 

If you give me a Lego Technic set and instructions and I fuck it up that's not fault of the set but my own fault for building it wrong.

 

Are you kidding me? Google Fallout 4 frame drop, and you will get a lot of hits. FO4 has a lot of performance issues and is very broken indeed. I agree that Arkham Knight is a cluster frack in its own division, but if you look at pretty much all AAA games with huge performance issues in the last 2 years, most of them have been GameWorks games.

 

As for GW on AK; NVidia inserted their own in house programmers to help with this game, after it released and proved to be a useless mess. If NVidia's own programmers cannot make GW work, then who can? Surely GW must be a mandatory priority for the NVidia programmers?

 

Now I KNOW you are trolling: GameWorks gives a SMALL performance impact? Really? Ok, lets see:

 

Fallout 4. NVidia pulled their own optimization guide, but not the images, so direct source:

 

Watch Dogs

 

 

Witcher 3

 

The bear in mind, that these are the official NVidia benches on NVidia cards. Factor in an additional performance penalty on all things AMD.

 

Now when you start to add more than 1 GameWorks effect, the penalties add up to quite a bit. Think HBAO+, WaveWorks, Softshadows, and HairWorks.

Like I said, being as unoptimized as they are, you are losing similar to 1-200$ worth of performance in a 980ti.

 

If any game dev did such poorly optimized work, they would get blasted to hell. Just look at Ubisoft and Watch Dogs (ironically a GameWorks title, which runs acceptable without any GW effects activated).

 

As for your last post. When HairWorks was shown with a wolf in Witcher 3, it took a Titan Black to render that wolf at 1080p with NOTHING else rendered. When they put in a second wolf, the framerate halved from 60 to 30 or so. You cannot blame developers for not properly implementing a third party effect, that is only shown on super high end PC's with nothing else rendered, or computed (like AI, physics, etc). Also how can you blame the developers, when GameWorks is black boxed? They literally only get DLL's where they call functions. They don't know how the tech works per se, and cannot see how the code runs, and they definitely cannot optimize the code, unless they buy full access. Afaik no dev has done so, as the entire point of GameWorks falls to the floor (cheap or outright sponsored effects).

 

If the Mindstorm software crashes, or slows your computer to a halt, then no it's probably not your fault.

[grahn]

I am shocked at the lack of SLI support.  SHOCKED!  PC development was going so well too...

 

:blink:

[Guest Kloaked]

I don't think WB is innocent in this since they also oversaw broken Mortal Kombat X and the DLC abomination that was Evolve. That's way too many coincidences.

 

 

Or maybe I should give them some slack since they got Mad Max right.

 

2K was responsible for Evolve.

 

But I'm just saying. Obviously the studio doesn't know what they're doing. Ubisoft might give them work.