Should we be concerned about the state of PC ports?

[Sol_NB]

It seems like more and more PC versions of games are having stuttering issues, shader compilation issues, and just general jank. Is this a cause for concern? I’ll be honest the more I see this the more I’m wondering if I should just game on my PS5. Because I feel like I’m going around this hamster wheel of wether my specs are good enough to overcome these issues or not. For context I’m running a RTX 3070 and i7-10700f 

[matt0725]

I havent played the last of us which is likely the current game on your mind when asking this, but i think generally games are just shit on release these days, port or not. I think games that have been ported seem to get worse press considering that, in comparison, if you load the game up today on console or today on PC, you get wildly different performance.

 

When a new game just sucks it gets bad press, but when its bad everywhere it doesnt seem to be as hated on IMO.

[Sol_NB]

Just now, matt0725 said:

I havent played the last of us which is likely the current game on your mind when asking this, but i think generally games are just shit on release these days, port or not. I think games that have been ported seem to get worse press considering that, in comparison, if you load the game up today on console or today on PC, you get wildly different performance.

 

When a new game just sucks it gets bad press, but when its bad everywhere it doesnt seem to be as hated on IMO.

Well my concern is if this is just going to be a constant issue if I want to game on PC. And it’s not just Last of Is. Almost every AAA game released lately has some kind of shader compilation stutter or something 

[Sol_NB]

I mean my cpu and gpu shouldn’t be an issue right? 

[matt0725]

4 minutes ago, Sol_NB said:

I mean my cpu and gpu shouldn’t be an issue right? 

it shouldn't, but buggy releases are buggy releases. I think most games get it together rather quickly. Hogwarts legacy at launch had some issues for me on a 9900k and a 2080 super, but it was updated and works fine for me now.

 

PC's blessing and its curse is varied hardware, can look way better, but devs cant make the game perfect until its been tested in the wild, compared to a console; weaker, but more consistent.

Edited April 6, 2023 by matt0725
i cant spell, type, or use grammar :(

[Poinkachu]

3 minutes ago, Sol_NB said:

I mean my cpu and gpu shouldn’t be an issue right? 

Kinda depends on what resolution & graphical settings you're playing at.

[Sol_NB]

5 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

Kinda depends on what resolution & graphical settings you're playing at.

I play at 1440p and normaly do high or max settings. But I think I’m gonna do jsut high from now in because it seems not worth it for max settings and j don’t normally do RT 

[Poinkachu]

2 minutes ago, Sol_NB said:

I play at 1440p and normaly do high or max settings. But I think I’m gonna do jsut high from now in because it seems not worth it for max settings and j don’t normally do RT 

Your system should still be fine for 1440p.

Yeah, max / ultra settings is pretty stupid, unless you are playing "Where's Waldo" with pixel.

 

As for the topic of this post :

If you cannot be patient then yeah play on console, PC ports usually riddled with shits on launch day, and will still be riddled with some shits for awhile after.

There is some titles that were good enough or atleast no concerning shits on launch day, but they're kinda rare.

 

The speed to fix the said shits depends on the dev themselves. Nier Automata port back then so shitty and took so long to fix that a fan ended up making a fix for it.

 

 

[Sol_NB]

16 minutes ago, matt0725 said:

it shouldn't, but buggy releases are buggy releases. I think most games get it together rather quickly. Hogwarts legacy at launch had some issues for me on a 9900k and a 2080 super, but it was updated and works fine for me now.

 

PC's blessing and its curse is varied hardware, can look way better, but devs cant make the game perfect until its been tested in the wild, compared to a console; weaker, but more consistent.

Yeah. I mean one of the things I like about PC gaming is legacy support (chances are I can play a game ok 10 years down the line.) and can get better parts later. But also maybe hardware choice like that is a double edged sword because I feel like I’m running this wheel of buying hardware to try and fix slowdown and stuff that if I just played in console wouldn’t need to worry about that 

[Sol_NB]

8 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

Your system should still be fine for 1440p.

Yeah, max / ultra settings is pretty stupid, unless you are playing "Where's Waldo" with pixel.

 

As for the topic of this post :

If you cannot be patient then yeah play on console, PC ports usually riddled with shits on launch day, and will still be riddled with some shits for awhile after.

There is some titles that were good enough or atleast no concerning shits on launch day, but they're kinda rare.

 

The speed to fix the said shits depends on the dev themselves. Nier Automata port back then so shitty and took so long to fix that a fan ended up making a fix for it.

 

 

What are the benefits then of gaming on PC if you have to always wait for games to improve and be stable? I don’t mean this as a troll comment I’m legit curious why you or other maybe still decide to play on PC? Is it legacy support? Hardware customization? 

[Poinkachu]

13 minutes ago, Sol_NB said:

What are the benefits then of gaming on PC if you have to always wait for games to improve and be stable? I don’t mean this as a troll comment I’m legit curious why you or other maybe still decide to play on PC? Is it legacy support? Hardware customization? 

Well, IMHO for just non esport kind of games and speaking solely about GAMING, there isn't really any.

 

For me the whole idea of using PC for gaming is the flexibility, as you said, legacy support, customization, peripherals macroing, and the ability to multitask, hardware longevity, etc.

I don't mind waiting until the bugs are pretty much ironed out.

And since my other system is a gaming laptop, meaning I can game when I'm not at my home without lugging around a console + monitor albeit with lesser graphic.

[SorryBella]

2 minutes ago, Sol_NB said:

What are the benefits then of gaming on PC

I mean i appreciate your cynicism but the fact to the matter is PC is a wide gaming market even with these shitty ports. Yes, theyre pushed off with emerging mobile market thanks to very heavy handed promotions of it by Tencent, but there are still many indie titles out there with no prospect of a console port due to how expensive it is to just get access to debugging.

 

But yeah for AAA? Console. Even the ardently PC microsoft knows it.

[Sol_NB]

1 minute ago, Poinkachu said:

Well, IMHO for just non esport kind of games and speaking solely about GAMING, there isn't really any.

 

For me the whole idea of using PC for gaming is the flexibility, as you said, legacy support, customization, peripherals macroing, and the ability to multitask, hardware longevity, etc.

I don't mind waiting until the bugs are pretty much ironed out.

Part of me wonders though if I personally really care about tweaking settings anymore. It seems like I’m worrying more about getting settings that make the game run well on what I have then actualy playing the game itself 

[Sol_NB]

1 minute ago, SorryClaire said:

I mean i appreciate your cynicism but the fact to the matter is PC is a wide gaming market even with these shitty ports. Yes, theyre pushed off with emerging mobile market thanks to very heavy handed promotions of it by Tencent, but there are still many indie titles out there with no prospect of a console port due to how expensive it is to just get access to debugging.

 

But yeah for AAA? Console. Even the ardently PC microsoft knows it.

That’s an interesting point. Because there are certainly PC only games and indie games only on PC and there are some games, like Diablo, that honestly I can’t see myself not using a mouse and keyboard for. So maybe for the other AAA games I can just play on console 

[Poinkachu]

12 minutes ago, Sol_NB said:

Part of me wonders though if I personally really care about tweaking settings anymore. It seems like I’m worrying more about getting settings that make the game run well on what I have then actualy playing the game itself 

I updated my previous post with some more info.

 

But yeah, I once been in that shoes (nitpicking to make the game run very smooth).

Also, the question is : does playing at console means no issue at all? Hogwarts Legacy at console is like... what ? 30fps or something ?
Me, idk, the last console I owned was Playstation 2.

 

@SorryClaire mentioned something good about indie devs with good game but didn't get a chance to enter console market.

I played quite a bunch of indie games, some are bad, but the good ones are good. So good that I am glad I found them and played them due to my declining faith on games in general. (Lately it's the usual : good graphic sucky gameplay , or Dark Soul -esque game with improperly balanced leap of difficulty between stages)

[Sol_NB]

I guess I can use the PC for the games that are PC only or play best on it (like Diablo that I brought up). Because there are a lot smaller (and even larger) PC only games 

[Poinkachu]

12 minutes ago, Sol_NB said:

I guess I can use the PC for the games that are PC only or play best on it (like Diablo that I brought up). Because there are a lot smaller (and even larger) PC only games 

Yep.

 

I do understand your frustation though.

 

Lately AAA games on PC feels like "rushed out" to me. Meaning they rushed so much to push the game out to meet launch day deadline eventhough most of the shits haven't been properly ironed out well.

TLoU sure feels that way to me, they're probably thinking to just use hotfixes and all to clean it but it backfired nicely on their face. I mean... this isn't their first rodeo, they had porting experience with Uncharted 4.

 

Or that they (game studio) somehow forgot most people doesn't have a 4090 + 13900K

I mean... they only need to look at Steam Hardware Survey

[Sol_NB]

So I guess my PC won’t go to waste even if I play most games on a console now. 

[Sol_NB]

I suppose another option is to just look at sites and see if a PC version is busted. And I guess even if later I want to play a game again on the PC after okaying on console chances are it’ll be heavily discounted 

[Mark Kaine]

On 4/6/2023 at 5:55 AM, Sol_NB said:

What are the benefits then of gaming on PC if you have to always wait for games to improve and be stable? I don’t mean this as a troll comment I’m legit curious why you or other maybe still decide to play on PC? Is it legacy support? Hardware customization? 

Counter question how does that affect the "benefits" of pc gaming,  you have to wait a bit for patches (implying you don't on consoles?) And who is forcing you to play "ports" anyway?  Its just another added "benefit" of pc gaming in my view (and the main advantage/benefit is not affected at all anyhow:  modding) 

[Sol_NB]

Lately I’ve been going back and forth if I should just play my multi platform games on my PS5 rather than in my PC. It just seems like the ports are getting worse. And consoles are just looking like way less of a headache. Because more or less I can expect then to run the game. Where as it seems like on PC they just don’t work half the time and it may take weeks for them to be in an acceptable state, if ever. 
 

There is a lot I like about PC gaming though. I do like that I can adjust settings. And I have this continuous box I can upgrade the parts. And chances are I can play a PC 10 or more years down the line assuming it dosent get delisted or the devs just break compatibility. 
 

But if the games just aren’t gonna work on PC maybe it’s not worth the hassle? 
 

I dunno, maybe I’m over blowing things. What are your guys thoughts? 

[emothxughts]

I'd say, there are way more PC games out there than the latest and highly unoptimized AAA games, you should look up older games that are way more fun and has way more reasonable specs requirements & performance. Off the top of my head I can recommends Borderlands 2 and 3, Nier Automata, Black Mesa, Saints Row 3 and 4 (but not the 2022 reboot), and last but not least Skyrim with lots of mods. In fact, the latest AAA game I bought was Elden Ring and the latest game I installed was the free-to-play gacha game Honkai Star Rail. Instead of bothering with the latest AAA games, you should try clearing your backlog of older PC games.

[RONOTHAN##]

23 minutes ago, Sol_NB said:

It just seems like the ports are getting worse.

They're about as bad as they always were, there's just been a couple high profile examples of them being bad. There's also some pretty recent examples of some very good ports, Spiderman Remastered for instance. Usually the ports get fixed eventually, sometimes it doesn't. Consoles usually just work, though even then there are some examples of the console port being terrible and never getting fixed (Cyberpunk, for instance). 

 

I'd say there really is no right answer to this, there are legitimate reasons to go for console gaming rather than PC gaming (cheaper up front, higher profile exclusives, "it just works," etc.) and there are legitimate reasons to stick with PC gaming (cheaper in the long run, more customizable, more games available, not that many broken PC ports, etc.). It really is just personal preference which you'll go with. Personally, I'm so heavily invested in the PC market that it doesn't make sense for me to jump ship, plus with most of the ports I want to play I wait until they're fixed before buying and playing. 

[Sol_NB]

4 minutes ago, emothxughts said:

I'd say, there are way more PC games out there than the latest and highly unoptimized AAA games, you should look up older games that are way more fun and has way more reasonable specs requirements & performance. Off the top of my head I can recommends Borderlands 2 and 3, Nier Automata, Black Mesa, Saints Row 3 and 4 (but not the 2022 reboot), and last but not least Skyrim with lots of mods. In fact, the latest AAA game I bought was Elden Ring and the latest game I installed was the free-to-play gacha game Honkai Star Rail. Instead of bothering with the latest AAA games, you should try clearing your backlog of older PC games.

True. But it is a bit disheartening if like, new games I may want to play are more than likely busted on PC. And just gotta hope patches fix them. And I have no clue why games are launching like this right now

[Sol_NB]

28 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

They're about as bad as they always were, there's just been a couple high profile examples of them being bad. There's also some pretty recent examples of some very good ports, Spiderman Remastered for instance. Usually the ports get fixed eventually, sometimes it doesn't. Consoles usually just work, though even then there are some examples of the console port being terrible and never getting fixed (Cyberpunk, for instance). 

 

I'd say there really is no right answer to this, there are legitimate reasons to go for console gaming rather than PC gaming (cheaper up front, higher profile exclusives, "it just works," etc.) and there are legitimate reasons to stick with PC gaming (cheaper in the long run, more customizable, more games available, not that many broken PC ports, etc.). It really is just personal preference which you'll go with. Personally, I'm so heavily invested in the PC market that it doesn't make sense for me to jump ship, plus with most of the ports I want to play I wait until they're fixed before buying and playing. 

I mean, I already got the PC (I know not best specs: i7-10700f with a 3070 and 16gb RAM) so the cheaper upfront dosent necessarily apply. 
 

have they really always been about this bad? Why does it seem like more are being way more negative lately about it? Also if they’re always this bad then why do people put up with it?