Rise of The Tomb Raider PC Performance reviewed - Another Bad port?

[Prysin]

Woah. 3-4 driver updates ago? That's like.. The beginnings of AMD. That makes it OK.

 

I'm just saying don't make absurd claims like AMD takes longer because they make better drivers.

 

It's also absurd that you make one negative comment about one of the companies, and everyone assumes that you're a fanboy of the other and out to get that company. Am I not allowed to just be a neutral consumer that is concerned about QC at AMD because a few months ago they were melting GPUs with a "stable" driver release?

your issue is that you are basing your data off of PAST performance. Not current.

 

Since may 2015, AMD has been really good. Slow, but really good.

Back until October 2012, when i built my original dual Radeon HD 7950 gaming rig, ive had 5 big issues with AMD drivers. Not counting slow CF profile releases (one thing is if its broken. Slow releases is not broken. Its simply slow).

 

Funny thing is, i am not the only one. Sure others playing other games then me would have had more or less issues then me. On the flip side, my old HTPC sported Nvidia ION chip. Not a great GPU at all. Infact, completely terrible. But damn, i had plenty of "display driver" errors just trying to browse the web with Firefox, or use skype video calls. It got so bad that for 1.5 years i didnt bother to use my little HTPC at all. Because my main PC was faster, but also because i couldnt be arsed with display driver issues every time i tried to use a skype video call, or browse the web.

 

interestingly enough, Nvidia has had major issues with their drivers. Some of them for years.

One of these kills laptop displays (disables the scaler or something like that. causing the screen to shut off). This has been a known issue since 2013 or 2014. It has yet to be resolved.

Nvidia had 6 consequtive releases between May 2015 and September 2015 trying to fix the same bug. Every release made it worse or made no difference.

Nvidia has previously had bugs causing fans NOT to spin at all. This was during the Fermi era, i think it was. It was proven that this DID kill GPUs. In AMDs case only one or two confirmed cases. With a lot of people claiming theirs are dead, with no proof.

and the latest bug to get in line...

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/535959-newest-nvidia-driver-36175-introduces-eject-gpu-bug/

[carolkarine]

Soooo.... Hard to run now equals shit port? Holy fuck you guys are conceited. A shitty port is one with technical issues - memory leaks, graphical glitches, sub-par settings options, locked fov, limited resolution options, poor CPU optimization, etc. This game goes none of that. You people are expecting groundbreaking visuals for the same performance requirements of the past. We are solidly within the era of diminishing returns, so something punishing won't look as ahead-of-its time like these games used to be in the past.

This should also be taken as an excellent example of what proper low-level APIs can do, given how this runs on the Xbox.

[Hunched]

Yeah , believe how smart you are and everyone is retarded. Then bitch how game is shit port cause your almighty 970 won't max it.

I don't believe, I know I'm smarter than everyone who preorders.

You have to be pretty fuckin dumb to risk wasting money for literally no reason at all, they're not going to run out of infinite copies.

[xAcid9]

Numbers from Nvidia themself, Shadow quality really kill the performance for this game.

 

 

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-graphics-and-performance-guide

 

I noticed on the Overlockers.co.uk forums the AMD rep has disappeared as well, as more people are asking about the driver. It doesn't look good for a driver being out before or on launch time.

Probably got transfered to other department for their creative marketing/presence in social media/forums. /s

@Thracks

[Valentyn]

After having just played an hour with everything possible maxed bar FXAA instead of SSAA at 1440p. I can honestly say the game looks breath taking, and runs rather well. SLI scaling still needs work, and the lowest fps I've seen was 48 for a split second. The rest ranged from 76 average in the snow areas, to 90+ in the Temple ruins. Although there are some random drops to mid 60's at time for no apparent reason. I think that might be the SLI scaling bungling up.

The Hair effects, along with lighting and particle effects are simply beautiful!

 

 

Screenshots of game below

 

[-BirdiE-]

your issue is that you are basing your data off of PAST performance. Not current.

 

Since may 2015, AMD has been really good. Slow, but really good.

Back until October 2012, when i built my original dual Radeon HD 7950 gaming rig, ive had 5 big issues with AMD drivers. Not counting slow CF profile releases (one thing is if its broken. Slow releases is not broken. Its simply slow).

 

Funny thing is, i am not the only one. Sure others playing other games then me would have had more or less issues then me. On the flip side, my old HTPC sported Nvidia ION chip. Not a great GPU at all. Infact, completely terrible. But damn, i had plenty of "display driver" errors just trying to browse the web with Firefox, or use skype video calls. It got so bad that for 1.5 years i didnt bother to use my little HTPC at all. Because my main PC was faster, but also because i couldnt be arsed with display driver issues every time i tried to use a skype video call, or browse the web.

 

interestingly enough, Nvidia has had major issues with their drivers. Some of them for years.

One of these kills laptop displays (disables the scaler or something like that. causing the screen to shut off). This has been a known issue since 2013 or 2014. It has yet to be resolved.

Nvidia had 6 consequtive releases between May 2015 and September 2015 trying to fix the same bug. Every release made it worse or made no difference.

Nvidia has previously had bugs causing fans NOT to spin at all. This was during the Fermi era, i think it was. It was proven that this DID kill GPUs. In AMDs case only one or two confirmed cases. With a lot of people claiming theirs are dead, with no proof.

and the latest bug to get in line...

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/535959-newest-nvidia-driver-36175-introduces-eject-gpu-bug/

 

In September AMD drivers had an issue where resizing any window in Windows 10 would cause a memory leak.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/3mtc6v/warning_big_gpu_memory_leak_bug_in_159_beta_on/

 

It was also only at the end of November that the fan issue happened.

 

 

And yeah, those screen issues are why, for now, I don;t want a laptop with an Nvidia mobile GPU in it.

 

You're the one making the claims that the reason AMD takes so long is that their drivers are better, which does not appear to be the case.

[-BirdiE-]

The only thing I can say for sure is that the majority of AMD customers in general are quite happy with the driver situation and how things are going on the software front. This wasn't the case six years ago so that's an area they have done well.

 

With regard to Nvidia vs AMD people give different opinions on this based on their personal experience.

In my experience AMD has given me the best windows experience, and Nvidia has the best Linux experience. But i'm just one dude so that's not worth much.

You do get more people complaining online about Nvidia driver issues, but that's probably at least partly because there are more Nvidia users out there. This cannot be settled unless somebody does a scientific study with proper samples about customer satisfaction on driver quality. And even then the results will vary greatly from one release to release.

 

So I think it's kinda a meaningless never-ending vs debate. It seems like both companies piss off some of their customers while keeping the majority happy. i.e. neither of them are perfect but both seem pretty good

 

So do you agree with me that someone claiming that "AMD takes longer to come out with drivers because they have better drivers" is a pretty absurd claim?

[Prysin]

@Valentyn

games looks amazing indeed.

[xAcid9]

Screenshots of game below

Even the bad dude use shampoo this time?

Apparently PureHair is not TressFX according to Nvidia site, not sure if it a derivative of TressFX 3.0 or 100% inhouse.

PureHair is Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix's hair rendering technology, which like our own HairWorks technology adds tens of thousands of hair strands to a character model. These hairs act realistically, swaying and moving in concert with character movement, and can be affected by water, wind and snow, and are lit and shaded in real-time by the scene.

[Valentyn]

Even the bad dude use shampoo this time?

Apparently PureHair is not TressFX according to Nvidia site, not sure if it a derivative of TressFX 3.0 or 100% inhouse.

 

 

 

Well all I can say it, it looks amazing. Especially with flecks of snow and ice in it as well. The performance loss from having it On, or at Very High is negligible at best. I lost like 4FPS with it set to very high compared to off.

 

[Prysin]

Even the bad dude use shampoo this time?

Apparently PureHair is not TressFX according to Nvidia site, not sure if it a derivative of TressFX 3.0 or 100% inhouse.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TressFX

TressFX is simply an engine. It is not the full effect. It is the enabler of said effects.

[-BirdiE-]

Numbers from Nvidia themself, Shadow quality really kill the performance for this game.

 

 

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-graphics-and-performance-guide

 

Probably got transfered to other department for their creative marketing/presence in social media/forums. /s

@Thracks

 

Looks like I'm going to have to overclock the poop out of my 980 to get decent framrates at 1440p + the graphics in all their glory.

[Snadzies]

It is looking like the games is less of a bad port and more that people got use to games being made to run on the PS3 and Xbox360 being a cake walk to run on PC.

People have forgotten the days where even the latest and greatest hardware couldn't max out a game and you'd need a few more hardware iterations before you could do so.

 

Developers aren't crippled by having to make games for the PS3 and 360 and while the PS4 and Xbone are already showing their age, they are still a massive step up from the previous generation and it is going to take better hardware to "max" these games.

[carolkarine]

Even the bad dude use shampoo this time?

Apparently PureHair is not TressFX according to Nvidia site, not sure if it a derivative of TressFX 3.0 or 100% inhouse.

Squeenix talked about this, it's a derivative of tressfx 3.0 built by amd and crystal dynamics.

[generalgk]

Has there been issues with frame rate when using SMAA? I'm running a GTX 980 and the game runs at 60fps most of the time in SMAA, but I'll get severe drops randomly. Also during cutscenes it'll tank into single digits and sometimes crash. None of the other graphical settings effect this whatsoever. I've got the newest Nvidia driver as well. Is this a known issue or can my GPU just not handle the graphical awesomeness?

[-BirdiE-]

Has there been issues with frame rate when using SMAA? I'm running a GTX 980 and the game runs at 60fps most of the time in SMAA, but I'll get severe drops randomly. Also during cutscenes it'll tank into single digits and sometimes crash. None of the other graphical settings effect this whatsoever. I've got the newest Nvidia driver as well. Is this a known issue or can my GPU just not handle the graphical awesomeness?

 

How much RAM do you have in your computer? I had similar issues with Dying Light. It would be running great, and then it would randomly drop to 3fps for a sec, then resume playing normally. I solved it by upgrading from 8GB of RAM to 16GB.

 

I think the slowdowns were when the game had to go and load textures or something directly from my SSD, instead of off my RAM.

[generalgk]

How much RAM do you have in your computer? I had similar issues with Dying Light. It would be running great, and then it would randomly drop to 3fps for a sec, then resume playing normally. I solved it by upgrading from 8GB of RAM to 16GB.

 

I think the slowdowns were when the game had to go and load textures or something directly from my SSD, instead of off my RAM.

I have 8gb

[-BirdiE-]

I have 8gb

 

Are your symptoms the same as the ones I had?

[generalgk]

Are your symptoms the same as the ones I had?

 

Yeah very similar. It's mainly during cutscenes that everything goes to shit. Maybe it's time to finally get more RAM

[sof006]

Just been playing it, mine runs just fine except my only gripe is that it makes my GPU a bit toasty... even with vsync enabled. 

[grayperview]

After having just played an hour with everything possible maxed bar FXAA instead of SSAA at 1440p. I can honestly say the game looks breath taking, and runs rather well. SLI scaling still needs work, and the lowest fps I've seen was 48 for a split second. The rest ranged from 76 average in the snow areas, to 90+ in the Temple ruins. Although there are some random drops to mid 60's at time for no apparent reason. I think that might be the SLI scaling bungling up.

The Hair effects, along with lighting and particle effects are simply beautiful!

 

 

Screenshots of game below

 

Id imagine HBAO+ and soft shadows would be the biggest factor in frame rate drops...

[dragosudeki]

Squeenix talked about this, it's a derivative of tressfx 3.0 built by amd and crystal dynamics.

Perhaps, we are already seeing GPUOpen (to an extent) in action.

 

Game looks amazing from what I see. Unfortunately, I'm not really interested in the game itself.

[suicidalfranco]

obligatory pc/xbone comparaison:

http://www.technobuffalo.com/videos/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-pv-vs-xbox-one-graphics-comparison/

 

me: meh don't really care. Vid remembered me that it is a qte focused game, hate qte games (outside of gow)

[gurnben]

Runs well on my 2x 770s with the pre-setup Nvidia Geforce Experience settings and it looks nice!

[Godlygamer23]

I tried to explain this before. The early pre-order discount really had me skeptical.