Sackboy: A Big Adventure PC - The
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- Опубліковано 1 лис 2022
- Sackboy: A Big Adventure is the latest in Sony's PlayStation ports for PC - and it's another in a long line of PC ports blighted by stuttering issues that make a mockery of the power of your PC. And that's a shame because beyond that, Unreal Engine 4's RT features are deployed nicely, there's DLSS support and more. Alex has the full story.
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Alex is doing a public service with these videos addressing stutter.
PC gaming has almost invariably been like this, since I can remember, way back from the DOS era.
@@luisjalabert8366 Well then you're memory is faulty because this wasn't an issue in the DOS era
Its a shame, i thought my gpu wasnt powerful enough to run it.
Just checked the game out. Googled "Sackboy stutter fix".. Found a recommendation to disable ray tracing in game. Then force -DX11 in launch options, and avoid using a Dual Sense controller, for some reason. (Was using an Xbox controller anyways, so don't know about that one)..
Tried it out.. And it really has seemed to have fixed the stutter issue completely! I'm running a basically locked 120fps on a 3080ti, 5800X system on my OLED. With those settings, the stutters went from atrocious, to imperceptible.. So it seems like it may be more of an impromptu ray tracing problem, than a shader comp issue. Maybe a patch or two will resolve it.
@@bliglum The shader complication stutter is affecting DX12 in Unreal Engine 4 games and when you force DX11 in most cases it will no longer be a problem. The developers are not including pre shader complication in the game menu which would resolve the issue, you shouldn't have to do any workaround to have a smooth gameplay without any stutters, especially when you have to disable features like ray tracing.
Devs: Look how fast our game loads. You can go from the main menu into gameplay in less than 10 seconds. That's revolutionary.
Also devs: We want you to play as soon as possible so we decided not to allow you to pre cache your shaders. The human eye can't see past 7 stutters per frame anyway.
The most stupid change in gaming ever. Add back loading screens. Or atleast pre render the shaders.
They precalculate shaders for consoles but not for pc. Why would they bother for pc anyway right...
You cant precalculate shaders without knowing everything about the hardware. Its possible on consoles since they are standardized. They should have precompilation on startup
The irony that one of the first DX10 games to ever come out could load from launch to gameplay in under 10 seconds. And it was a good game, and looked great, and still holds up well today. And no stuttering or shader cache BS.
That game was *Lost Planet.* On the same (but older) engine Monster Hunter World runs on, which was an abysmal port with its own stuttering too (but that was due to Denuvo).
@ The shaders come pre-compiled on Console because their hardware and drivers don't change. Unlike PC, where every GPU and every driver change would require pre-compiling new shaders. They should still offer the option though.
I feel that the solution, although inelegant, is what Uncharted Legacy of Thieves does: compile shaders on first startup. Sure, it was kind of laughable to have a 125gb game that took hours to download spend 15 minutes extra to compile a further 10gb of data, but the result is a smooth experience.
I vastly prefer that to stuttering
-Alex
Yeah, Forza Horizon 5 and MHR-PC do it too and they are incredibly smooth to play on PC, and in MHR's case, you only need to do it once when playing on new hardware/on first boot, then you're fine.
Could a game be designed in such a way that it performs shader compilation while it downloads assets?
@@DolceArdore if you mean as in can it complile shaders when you download the game? Then no
@@theanimerapper6351 Why not?
It’s crazy this isn’t talked about more in other reviews outside DF. Insane.
Exposes how many shills are in the review industry
@@theanimerapper6351 More like how many reviewers literally can't tell, same with consumers or they just don't care or don't pay enough attention or probably all of it combined.
OhNoItsAlexx is really the only other PC game reviewer I can think of that covers that.
@@theanimerapper6351 Stop with this shill shit.
@@theanimerapper6351 its not shills just take a glance at the comments, half the people dont even recognize the stutters on their own PCs
Alex sounds so defeated lol, I dont blame him. Thanks for your efforts in bringing awareness to this, we appreciate it and hopefully this will balloon and get solved eventually over the next few years
Of course he does. He spends most of his time saying how superior PC is, yet somehow manages to spend more time lamenting how bad most of these ports are.
He's emotionally damaged by Sackboy
I think Alex was sick when he recorded this, which unintentionally makes him sounded more sad talking about stutter.
@@IsaacSperrow definitely sick... of games running like ass on a $4k gaming pc
It's because he realised pc gaming is pointless
Will the stutterfests on PC ever stop? This is ridiculous and most reviews don’t mention it
It's the biggest problem with PC gaming these days. And sometimes it's not even the fault of the developers. The PC hardware infrastructure is just that prone to performance fluctuations.
@@sonicadv27 It's the biggest problem with the UE4.
Exactly. Somehow performance and monetization are always ignored in reviews when they absolutely affect the overall value of the product. :/
Use an AMD gpu on Linux with the opensource drivers. The shader compiler is much faster than both the amd proprietary and nvidia drivers on both Windows and Linux.
@@sonicadv27 then don't release broken products on PC. Not the devs fault ofc. It's the execs/shareholders rushing cash grabs. Customers pay for a result, not effort, excuses or promises. These aren't small garage operations but corporations. They want 100% of our money but get frustrated when we require them reciprocating that value in quality? Shareholders/execs know full well what they're doing when they release these low investment, shotty ports.
Thanks for your work as always Alex! Perhaps you guys should make a video on what Shader Comp Stutter even is, where it started happening, why it happens, vulkan vs dx12 stutter, and steps devs need to start taking early on in game dev do to fix it.
+1
+3
I'd love to know more about this too. Like why someone can't just make a 3rd party tool to unpack and compile the shaders to fix these games. I'm sure that, as it's not been done already, only the devs could create this, but no idea why...
This in part is because the shader take time to compile and depending on your setup, it can vary in speed, so instead of doing these upfront, it now is done via runtime to save time for users. I don't think it is a worthwhile tradeoff but reasons it is more prominent now than before is because shader usage these days are used for a lot of things.
We have had them for so long but the amount of shader in a game now can be GBs of data now and not MBs. Just about every effect, shadow, tesselation, and other feature is built through shader because putting the work in the GPU is preferred.
I really wish I could compile one and be done with a one time setup than have to deal with runtime compilation.
@@jamesrolton it's extra weird cause if you play on Steam Deck it always compiles the shaders before you can even play the game - just not on Windows. It's actually making me really consider installing SteamOS on my PC
Shader compilation at the start of the game need to be available on every game out ...
For people who don't care about ray tracing, you can set the game to run in Directx11 mode by adding -dx11 as a launch argument. That will get rid of shader compilation stutters. Another way to do it is by using DXVK Async, but then you won't have DLSS.
Does DX11 solve stutters for all games that let you add that command line?
@@teddyholiday8038 I don't know about all games but the same trick also works with FF7R at least
What's the technical explanation of why this works?
DXVK async only works with DirectX 9 to 11, so it won't help here.
@@teddyholiday8038 All Unreal 4 games with DX11 can be run with DX12 (since Unreal 4.8-4.11, if you count "stable DX12") and a lot of DX12 UE4 games can be run with DX11 via the commandline
Stutters stutters more stutters and more performance issues that’s the only thing I see with every new release
Unreal Engine 4 in a nutshell
@@ImJustThatGamer22 on pc .)
@@gabriellakotainegabor1902 Yes
@@gabriellakotainegabor1902 Really cause last I checked Gotham Knights run like ass on consoles.
@@pcgameboy8407 the fps is dropping but it hasnt got stuttering like pc version so its still more pleasant to play
The dumbest thing about stutter on PC is that some PC gamers are in denial of it. Like you can literally show them proof of it happening on various hardware setups whether low end, mid range, and high end, AMD or Intel CPU, AMD or Nvidia Graphics Card, and they still will blame it on the individual for why they, and many other people are having stuttering issues. Survivors Bias reigns supreme.
Yup, for some reason PC gamers gaslight each other in the worst possible ways about their rig being "fine" and the ones who have proven issues with badly optimized games have a bad setup, it's a mixture of keeping the contrary for the sake of it and just being an absolute pos to make others feel bad, some literally don't notice it, but even if after presenting proof they act this irrational, you know there is something else.
Complicating it further is that shader compilation stutters go away when you play a level a second time. So when somebody goes back to "test", they won't see any stutter. So then they tell their friends they never had stutter. When in reality they just didn't care/notice in their first playthrough.
Yep happens on every platform. "runs flawless for me!" They'll say.
Pc gamers are often really dumb gamers who think they are superior. They’re not.
So true
Thank you Alex for calling attention to this issue - stuttering is the bane of my existence as a PC gamer and I have dedicated far too much of my life already to finding fixes and workarounds for the various types of issue that crop up. In Sackboy's case (and a lot of other UE4 titles), playing in DX11 helps a lot with the shader compilation stuttering (at the expense of Ray Tracing effects and DX12 performance improvements). I truly hope with the additional publicity around this Developers will start paying attention and implement real solutions.
So many games are stuttery for me. AC Odyssey, Halo Infinite, Jedi Fallen Order, Dishonored 2. All these games I get high (120+ FPS), but they are super stuttery all the time. Not on console, though. I wish someone would solve this problem.
We are one in the same brother. Truly.
I cannot even fathom the amount of time I've wasted trying to obtain a playable experience from broken games.
Ugh.
I am so glad this issue is finally being brought to light. It's actually ruining PC gaming for me.
thats exactly how i feel, i have a rtx 3080 and ryzen 5 5600, willing to buy the 5800x3d but i doubt it will give me stutter free gameplay in the games that i have such issue. Its like half the games i play will stutter in some instances and im kinda sensitive to those unfortenately, i dont remember getting such bad stuttering on consoles, they all look so smooth even at 30fps. Consistency is the key, even if rivatuner shows me a straight perfect line, some games still feel stutter no matter how low i limit my fps. Turns out i spend most of the time tweaking my games, looking for settings or external configurations to blame.
This is why I gave up PC gaming.
@@igorrafael7429 exactly. I went to Series X and actually blown away by many games how fluid they are at 4K while having a silent console. And while costing 4x less than my last PC build. I try to convince myself otherwise since I love PC but it's just not even funny anymore. I got myself an M1 Air for the "other stuff" and a Series X so I'm served. Microsoft has often got same deals as Steam, if you don't want Gamepass for some reason.
The only way to fix the Shader Compilation Stutter is to have the game pre-compile them on startup, with them needing to be recompiled if something happens to invalidate the Shaders, like a change in display driver version or a game patch that messes with the Shaders.
Shader compilation can be rather time consuming, especially on computers with weak CPU's, it's also especially frustrating if the compilation process is buggy and prone to crashing like it was when Horizon: Zero Dawn first released (by the time they fixed this they decided to change the game to no longer Pre-Compile the shaders with no option to Pre-Compile them if you so desired it/wanted a stutter free playthrough on PC).
Now you might be wondering how the console releases of these stuttery games run so smoothly... this is because the consoles are comprised of a very limited variety of hardware configurations, so they can feasibly produce & package pre-compiled shaders with the game.
On PC the hardware (and driver) configurations vary a lot so they can't really bundle pre-compiled packages of Shaders as they'd need to generate them for every configuration and that's just not feasible... so they have a choice of having the game compile the Shaders for you before the gameplay begins (pre-compilation done by your own PC & then stored in to a cache) or have the Shaders compile on-demand which incurs a stutter every time one needs to be compiled and then the compiled Shader can be stored in a cache for re-use without re-incurring stutter when the Shader is needed again.
They could make this a setting you can toggle in the game (on-demand/pre-compile), but so far it seems game devs want to only offer one method for some god forsaken reason and god help you if they go with the on-demand approach.
assyncronous shader compilation works really well many of the times
It removes the ultra long startup loading times, and removes the stutters aswell
Note that PS5 version doesn't set your house on fire
A quick summary as to why this is happening more and more is due to a change in DX12 compared to DX11.
What most don’t know is that you’re actually compiling shaders each and every-time you play a game, but what you only have to compile once is the PSO’s, these are what gives your gpu the information to build the shaders when run. DX11 used to preform most of these operations when the game was compiled, but this was insanely slow as it drastically increased compile time, with DX12, the vast majority of PSO optimizations are performed on the users system, this increases the speed devs can compile their games, at the cost of the stutter.
Unreal 4 also happens to implement its own similar system to this, regardless of if you’re using DX11/12, and this is why you can still experience that trademark stutter in DX11 mode.
As for how Unreals interacts with DX12’s cache, I’m unsure, hopefully someone can shed some light on it. I’m guessing not very well considering how much DX12 mode increases stutter significantly more in Unreal 4.
Careful shedding light on things, you might induce another shader compile.
😂😂😂😂 boy no!
its sad that even with a big platform like digital foundry calling foul on shader compilation stutter most devs are not bothering addressing it
Why would they? What reason do they have, when enough people rush to throw top dollar no matter _what_ they excrete?
They should just use a different engine
Absolutely love this game on PS5. A real gem!
Gamers: “PlayStation games are coming to PC!?”
PlayStation: “Did I stutter?”
Alex: “Yes, actually.”
LOLOLOLOL 🤣🤣🤣
instant deal breaker for me, if a game doesn't run well i won't play it. id take a consistent 30fps over a stuttering 60, although on pc 60fps really is the minimum i find acceptable
Tim Sweeney just wants to inflict pain on Alex. 😢
I love that Alex being sick while doing this makes it sounded like the issues bother him even more. It sounded like he was angry screaming before recording this and now he is just sad about stutter.
I am so sick of stutter.
It's made me just want to sell my PC as I can't enjoy games on it 80% of the time.
The industry as a whole needs to address this. It never used to be a problem.
More shaders in general in games now more than ever so it’s definitely more prevalent now.
UE 5.1 has automatic PSO gathering. Future games should perform much better. Funny enough, on Vulkan this problem has been solved very recently through VK_EXT_graphics_pipeline_library. It has the ability to compile shaders much earlier than at full pipeline creation time. Has helped a lot in DX to VK translation on Linux.
dxvk-async can also be used in Windows as a mod to change DX11 or 12 to Vulkan, helps UE4 games a lot with stuttering issues.
@@snchez2106 dxvk doesn't work with dx12
DXVK is so good I use it in some games in windows! Particularly older DX9 titles, it's such a godsend for that. Fallout New Vegas is like a new game using it.
@@redsky5440 It does, but it's another dxvk version and I don't think it has async either, I am not sure.
Yeah, I really don't know why you would want to game on PC these days with the GPU costs and the stutter issues
I used to think shader cache stutter was only in emulators such as Dolphin and Cemu. It's baffling to see it now in legit PC games. You guys should definitely do a video on when and why it started happening.
it's cause games now have tons more shaders that are also longer and more complex. general purpose engines like unreal engine with visual shader editors for artists especially, facilitate this.
The switch to DX12, DX12 gives devs more access and control over whats happening on your hardware, which when done well improves performance
However giving more control means more things to worry about, shader compilation is one of those things they need to worry about.
and the worse part is that testing the game would compile the shaders and then the next round of testing. Those shaders are already compiled so the stutter issue goes away
*"You guys should definitely do a video on when and why it started happening."*
Why it started happening??? It happens because too many people rush to throw top dollar no matter _what_ a company excretes. It is _literally_ that simple.
If most --- it doesn't even take everyone --- if _most_ people simply refused to give a dime to a company until a product worked properly, the product would magically be fixed and fully tested in record time.
@@bricaaron3978 he meant the technical reason lol. interview some devs maybe. unreal and unity are known for generating tons of shaders and people would probably be interested in why and if there are strategies to help the problem.
Yes, I prefer DF stick to the technical side of things :) still, I remember console emulators had to pre-cache or compile on the fly with open GL and Vulkan, so I doubt this stutter business will be exclusive to DX
People still don’t want to acknowledge the stutter on Elden Ring hahaha
I really enjoyed this game on the Ps5. John kinda of sold it to me on his review back on the original release date.
Yeah it's genuine fun, and the kids still absolutely love it.
Good. These issue needs to be constantly brought to light until the devs do something about it. Still can't believe Epic basically did nothing to fix this.
Epic? This is a PlayStation title developed by Sumo Digital. Epic has no responsibility whatsoever to fix this. Why do you think they do? The use of Unreal Engine doesn't make Epic responsible for the developer and publisher not screwing up. And being on the Epic Games Store doesn't make them responsible either. You going to complain that Valve also didn't fix it for Steam?
@@mjc0961 It is an issue native to Unreal Engine though. Unreal has even admitted it's an engine related issue that they have yet to fix. Other engines have already fixed this by allowing shaders to be cached asynchronously.
@@mjc0961 Valve kind of try to fix it, on steamdeck at least
“A 2 year old 550 year old console.”
Forever embedded in YT.
Kind of a funny line.
EUR
Star Ocean 6 has a similar issue
This is why I partially went back to console, my first impression would keep being ruined on pc due to my setup.
This game is awesome in many ways. It sucks that it stutters on PC. Hopefully they fix it.
They won't, it almost never gets fixed and the games stay ruined forever.
@@omarcomming722 Yeah, the stuttering still happens for Elden Ring months later no matter what pc you play on
@@PurpleSB Elden Ring is not a good example. FromSoftware never fixed anything. They are just bad at it. Sony Studios on the other hand are usually pretty good at it.
@@DavideDavini It's gonna win game of the year and fromsoft will still not fix it.
What a fking joke of a company.
@@DavideDavini And for most other titles too recently, DS3 got many more bug fixes and changes throughout it’s life. All of these devs have been doing this since 2018, they’ll make a game sell a season pass, then make one dlc, hardly update it (unless it has micro-transactions) and then start selling the sequel.
What about an option to compile shaders before starting the game?, Just a yes or no box. Is it really that difficult?
Definitely not. Plenty of games do it.
There are games that do that. Uncharted PC version most notably. But it needs to be in mind at the start of the PC porting process
I think Alex is going to explode if we see another pc title with massive stutter issues
So he's going to explode in a few days? Sad
Thank you for highlighting this. It sucks how this usually goes ignored when for so many of us it stands out like a sore thumb and puts such a damper on the fun and the entire rest of the game.
I find the camera updating issue even worse than the shader compilation stutter. And that kind of issue is actually pretty common too. Many developers don't even notice it somehow. I saw it especially in unity engine games (maybe some default setting/behavior of that engine lead developers to make that mistake)
one issue with unity is that physics defaults to updating at 50hz. interpolation also defaults to off per object.
so if you attach the camera to a rigidbody, by default it will stutter when running at 60fps
@@lardshank Thanks for the info! To think that if interpolation defaulted to ON instead, a bunch of cool games would have been smooth. ;_;
@@bungleleaders6823 defaulting interpolation to on would be problematic as well. The only objects you want to have interpolation on is for the player and objects followed by the camera. Having it on for every object would have a heavy performance cost, possibly making stutter worse due to low framerate.
yes, exhibit 1, plague tale requiem, I was constantly looking at the frametime graph to try to see if there was some stuttering, no there wasnt, it was just the messed up camera
it is in yakuza like a dragon also . u need to set fps limit to refresh rate or it looks like 30 fps at 90+ fps
All games should offer a shader pre compilation step/menu that you can opt in before launching the game
So glad I went back to consoles, I’ve being loving this game on PS5. It plays like a dream! Not a stutter in sight
😅👍
I am starting to hate fixed platforms and their control over games. Sony is getting increasingly worse. That's why I am going with PC and Steamdeck this gen
@@Pyovali
What? Consoles have never been so close to PC’s In performance that they are in this Gen! But if you want to go and spend thousands and thousands on a rig that play games with some more frames and a couple extra settings set to ultra but ultimately perform worse than the console versions because of weird issues like stutter then be my guest!!
@@zeemonkeyman1 I am not talking about performance, I am talking about how Sony controls their games thru censorship and othet means. And it's only getting worse. It's the most censored platform there is, even Nintendo censors less and people used to call it the children's console. Oh, how the tables have turned
@@Pyovali no game is designed for the pc. Every game is console focused and the pc port is second. Deal with it.
Thanks for continuing to raise awareness to this issue.
Used to be that Shader Compilation Stutter was just an emulator thing. Now full PC released don't even bother being a good experience.
There's always these "I don't get these on *my* PC" comments when it comes to these videos that point out shader stuttering where pre-compiling isn't an option. Yes, yes you absolutely do. The only way to avoid these is to either play the game through Proton on Linux where your Vulkan shaders will be pre-compiled before you play, or just play through the same scenes if you're on Windows and get them cached.
When you first play this game and experience these new scenes, you do get them, full stop. Great for you if you don't notice half-second pauses I guess, but it's nonsense to say your system somehow has a CPU from 20 years in the future that is fast enough to compile these shaders on the fly and not affect your framerate.
Came here to say the same thing.
I see no stutters, on any of my games. I have videos if you want to see. The issue might be people not updating there pc’s at all. I update and maintain everything, from bios to drivers, and my pc just runs smooth. In maybe 200+ games I own, maybe less than 1% stutter.
@@firstclaims30 definitely don’t believe you
Thanks for highlight this issue alex. It's sad this is the state of almost every unreal engine 4 game on pc. I've tried using dxvk async to mitigate the issue for now, looking forward to see if ue5.1 finally addresses this issue because it's been years.
They have confirmed about six months ago that they are working on setting up an automated process to help resolve the issue, however a manual process has been around forever that many devs simply ignore or are unaware of. This fix is PSO caching, and currently it requires the devs to manually collect data at runtime from a packaged build and prepare a cache of GPU states to be distributed to, and ultimately loaded and compiled by the end user (such as upon first launch).
How can you set up dxvk to be async on windows?
I was very excited to try out my new pc with a 3070 and a 12th gen i5, just to find out that most games have shader compilation stutters, refresh rate micro-stuttering, or drm performance issues. PC gaming is a mess right now with a lot of games, I just ended up buying a PS5 to play most games without having to make a technical analysis on how to run the god damn game well enough.
Exactly!
This entire generation of PC gaming has been crippled. Never thought I’d see the day where consoles offered superior visuals again, but… here we are…
Consoles never offered superior visuals Wtf 😂
@@firstclaims30 Incorrect.
The first GPU maker that has hardware shader compiling that can compile complex shaders in under 1ms is going to absolutely dominate the PC market.
😂😂😂
His showcase of these issues on PC games is a huge reason why it's just best practice to WAIT to buy new release games on PC. In 6 months this will likely be patched out, the game will have downloadable content, and you can purchase it for half price. It's not wise to buy any video games on day 1 anymore
Haha! I saw the title from the corner of my eye, misread it as "strugglesnuggle," and became worried that your account was hacked. Gadzooks! 😀
You got me. Starting off November with a bang. Thanks for the video. Gee whiz, haha. I've been on the internet too long.
Shader compilation stutter is really a sad issue, It was something I first noticed a lot, moving to Linux, but has since been fixed with shader caching in most games.
I think most people would be perfectly fine with the game taking longer on first boot to create a shader cache and fix the issue.
Hello Alex,
I wanted to mention that at 9:51, this game has actually the same issue than Kena: Bridge of Spirits - You also have to set the framerate limiter to 60 FPS with Vsync on at 60 Hz to get perfect frame pacing. 😉
Or use a manual cap beneath the monitor's refresh rate using driver / Riva Tunner to avoid Judder. Capping to 60 fps isn't really the fix.
Using 119 fps cap on a 120 monitor does the same trick for example.
At least on Kena, using external framerate limiter doesn't seem to resolve the issue : there's still frame pacing issue even with G-sync
@@jonathanbekri3717 Forcing NVIDIA Reflex with SpecialK fixed the framepacing for me, stupid for it to be necessary though.
@@jonathanbekri3717 Yeah, this is more accurate.
I capped Kena's frame rate with Special K, and it helped. But it didn't completely cure random stuttering.
Reminded me of a similiar situation I had to do for The Ascent (R5 3600 + 3070). Once I did this, it went away and FPS was smooth
Ironically, the shader compilation issue for Windows games can be resolved by running them on Linux via proton or the steam deck
I think steam deck just provides precomputed shaders, since it's a known hardware, right?
It's not hard to precompute shaders, but there is so much hardware variance in the PC world you'd need 1000s of different versions
@@ericl6460 that's why you need a shader compilation in the menu. Some games are doing this, it's the best solution.
@@ericl6460 1000 different set of shaders is still nothing for these large companies to have them stored in the cloud and ready to be downloaded at install time.
@@jesusmgw It's not that simply, we're not just talking different hardware sets, we're talking different driver sets, each PC is different and just updating your gpu drivers usually means having to do the shaders again.
I think the best solution is to do it from the title screen and as you play but do it in a way that's compiling the shaders ahead of time and not at the moment it's needed, if it was ahead of time, it shouldn't stutter and if it's only doing the areas you're in and doing it ahead of time, it should do that really fast and use very little resource.
@@meurer13daniel yeah, I think the horizon port did something like that?
Finally someone pointed out this huge problem! Thank you! Thank you so much!
I came to PC after 30 years of console gaming, and for years I didn't know what was causing these stutters! I've built a much more powerful machine than the ps5 over the years, but almost all games today suffer from shader compilation stuttering! This is simply unacceptable! It is very rare that only a few games have the option of translating shaders (Horizon, Uncharted) and they work perfectly on PC!
Don't understand why the option isn't built into all games? Or does it happen in the Geforce/Radeon driver?
I think any PC gamer would like to wait until the machine compiles the shaders.
I'm so tired of PC gaming...
And even waiting to compile shaders every time you start a new game on PC isn’t ideal by a long shot. PC gaming is by its nature, a mess.
@@jose131991 Pc gaming is a mess, its true. But i never want to play at 30 fps and 1080p/1440p ever again. It's almost 2023! 1800p/60+fps, and high preset is the minimum for me
@@gaspargeri81 yes 30fps is annoying but thankfully most games at least have a 1080p 60fps option this gen save for a few. Curious what the rumored pro versions of PS5 and XSX will be.
So basically, Unreal engine 4 and its stutter issues strike again - but, they fixed it, as it now plays fine even on my gaming laptop with 13980HX and 4090M at 4K/DLSS Quality/RT max. So that PROVES that even Unreal Engine games CAN be fixed.. Things like Gungrave GORE on PC did not need to be left in the stuttery state of mess they were for example.
And here I am on a computer with onboard graphics. Of course I can't help but wonder, why do they not just precompile all the shaders when you first start the game. I'd gladly take a longer startup time for *every* game to avoid stutter while playing. Granted I only play games which are so old they don't suffer from this problem. Make of that what you will.
Some games do. But that requires that (a) game studios give a shit, and (b) game distributors allow developers the quality time for such needed optimization. I blame Unreal Engine 4, as the crux of the issue. UE3 games don't have this problem, and the jury is out so far on UE5. New rule: Don't make games compile anything on the fly.
@@joesterling4299 but what unreal engine 4 has to do with it if u care to elobrate ?..
@@joesterling4299 It's hard the fault of Unreal Engine 4 that game developers aren't including the option for the player to pre-compile this stuff.
@@joesterling4299 Given the vast array of different graphics cards, the only way to not require compiling shaders around you using the game would be to have the installer do it. But I would still consider that on the fly because it has to be done on your computer and realistically it can't be done any sooner.
Why most of native PC games don't need to compile shaders or do it in the background without noticing it? Or why is this a new phenomenon since the new generations of consoles arrived? Could you make a explainer video what shader compilation does and why some games don't seem to have such problems!!? Keep up the great work, by the way.
Some games compile the shaders in the loading screen, ports as these compile on the fly, as they need to be in view to be compiled, I dont know some games do this, but there is also async shader compilation, that means that shaders get compiled on the fly but without stopping the game, so effects and objects just pop in when the compilation is done, this still hurts your FPS but it doesnt stutter.
This is an issue with DirectX 12 games specifically; it's a closer-to the metal API that allows developers to squeeze more power out of the hardware, at the cost of increased development complexity. DirectX 11 did more to handle shaders automatically, iiuc. This is why we're only seeing it on newer games.
Consoles have the shaders already compiled because the hardware doesn't change.
All the ports from the PS5 are designed with the fast SSD in mind so a "simple" port to pc will ignore the fact that PCs need to compile the shaders at runtime.
You could get away with it when you let the game compile all the shaders at first start like what Forza Horizon does or Uncharted this could take quite a long time depending on the hardware and game size.
@@AngryApple SSD has nothing to do with shader compilation. Like you said at the start, the difference is consoles have shaders pre-compiled because there aren't many configurations to worry about.
It's because of dx12 which reduces driver overhead and puts more responsibility on the devs to not code their games like an ape slamming it's head on the keyboard. Clearly it asks too much of them.
Thanks for highlighting this in such a manner. I really love playing games on my high-end PC compared to PS4 Pro or One X before, but shader compilation stutters ruin quite a number of games entirely, so that I have to think twice if I even wanna play them on PC at all. That really can't be too hard to fix and it needs to be critisized just like in this video!
As of yesterday patch, the game is now much smoother and the stutter is almost gone
Alex can barely contain his rage lol.
At this point I think even Alex’s dreams are made of prolonged stutter sequences from every game he ever played 😂
Tysm man pls don’t stop this kind of content
Apparently PC ports are now like playing on an in development console emulator. Oh wait, even those have the ability to download a shader compilation file, and avoid hitching on a first playthrough.
FYI the patches have fixed this, no stuttering now
Omg there's more than one kind of stutter dear God it's spreading 😱
Same issue I’m having with Battlefield 1 and 5 with DX12. As you play it compiles shaders and is stuttering like hell, you have to play a single map a full match or two for the stutters to mostly go away for one map. In Modern Warfare all shaders are compiled before you start playing and it is the smoothest game I have on PC.
They should just have an option in the menu for you to pre-compile the shaders if you want to.
Pre loading shader cache is the way to go!
Not sure about Async Compilation like Cemu Emulator would be a solution, but nevertheless, stuttering is a last resort only kinda deal.
Why is this becoming so common. Do they not do any QA beforehand with varying hardware or do they just not care 😑
Does Dx12 and ue4 have a part to do with these recent games all having stuttering issues? It seems like once developers starting using dx12 and ue4 we started getting all these stuttering games.
DX12 makes it slightly worse but no, It's just that graphics have become to complex with one object being able to have multiple permutations and shaders which leads to more shaders needing to be compiled. in DX12 it's worse because it's no longer being managed by the driver like DX11.
nah im pretty sure even ue3 games like mass effect, mirrors edge etc still had these issues
@@MarioTainaka if Epic Games provided proper tools and proper programing onto their engine, the story would be different.
Tell me a non UE game that stutters in this way on PC.
Even RDR2, one of the biggest open world games available on PC don't have this issue whatsoever.
@@ThunderingRoar Never had these issues in mass effect 2 or 3 or mirror's edge or catalyst and yeah I bought them on release day, can't say about 1 though I never played it when it was released.
@@ThunderingRoar Mirrors Edge and other UE 3 games at the time had streaming stutter on PC. Shader stutter was almost eliminated because they had all compiled shaders in a large file
Nvidia and AMD should do something to solve this terrible issue affecting PC gaming as of lately.
They can't do anything, because it doesn't have anything to do with them. It's a well documented issue with some engines and developers not making the game compile all the shaders before starting the game for the first time.
They can optimize the shader compiler which is why I have zero issues when I just play games on Linux with an AMD gpu with the RADV driver and ACO compiler.
This is Epic Games' problem, so many games on unreal engine 4 have been released in such a state, and they're still unaware of this? I refuse to believe that, they should have known, and they should provide solution.
Thanks for bringing awareness on this matter!
Devs not allowing pre-cache shaders over some more seconds saving in load time is the most stupid thing I've seen. This is overall a bad port. Sony shouldn't aprove these states as ready for release.
I just prefer to wait 10, 20 or even 30min (or however long it takes) in the main menu while all the shaders are recompiled in order to have a 99% stutter-free experience.
I don't, bring me back to the DX11 days.
Thank you for reporting on this! I hope the devs can find some kind of fix like they did with Horizon.
Have you been able to try it on Steam Deck yet btw? Ive seen videos of it running ok but I wouldn't know if they where playing those levels for the first time.
I think it's about time I picked up a PS5 copy! Really sucks to see so many PC releases cursed with stuttering... 😞
I don't understand what the fear of precompiling shaders is. People are going to return the game in the 5-15 minutes or so it takes? Just put a notice that this only happens on the first startup or after hardware/firmware changes, I'm pretty sure PC gamers will understand.
Or just put a button the main menu that says "Compile Shaders" and let the player decide. I know there's work involved, but if it results in a positive player experience?
Compiling shaders on the fly for any game with significant processing overhead has basically proven to be a fools errand at this point.
Frame rate issue sounds similar to halo reach and the double stutter at higher than 60 fps.
Halo Reach is for kids
Has anyone played it recently? Does PC version still have stuttering?
Aside from the major, multi second, pauses my eyes are so used to seeing lower framerates growing up that most of the video looks fine. :)
I recall when I first made my pc in 2017, a i5 7600k with a gtx 1060 everything worked flawlessly, almost no stutter in any game, but a few years of of updates and a upgrade to a gtx 1080 and 3700x and games just don’t feel the same. There’s always some flaw that I notice.
I had this issue with stuttering but it seems like it was a problem with Fullscreen. When you change it to window Fullscreen ,it was smooth and fine.
Because shaders stutter happen only once, they stay dormant until a new driver update.
You need to specify which stuttering your're talking about though. The variable frame rate stutter issue, maybe this could affect it. The shader compilation stutter, no - no system can avoid these, it's only after you play through the area and they're cached will they no longer be a problem.
@@massivechonk920 how did old games do it then? never had shader compilation stutters on pre 2015 games even on a fairly modest pc. Maybe back then PC Games compiled the shaders during loading... i also remember CoD BO1 having a shader warming option though the game never stuttered for me with it off
It didn't fix your stuttering. You just played through the level a second time and the shaders were cached from the first time you played
@@SirinGaming games have more and larger shaders this gen that’s why. Takes alot longer to compile the KB shaders of last gen games.
This kind of stuff is why I've gravitated from PC to console the past couple years; the simplicity of jumping into a game without worrying about odd performance or graphical issues due to the added complexity of PC hardware and software configurations that can be the point of countless issues.
I say that as someone who has built several PCs and usually am up to the task of troubleshooting and resolving things fairly quickly. So it's not a matter of ability, just less patience and time to deal with these things as I used to have.
yeah fuck it i had enough not ever gonna touch pc gaming again swapping to ps5 in the future
I switched to the PS5 last spring after encountering weird little issues like this in basically every recent PC game I wanted to play. It’s incredible how much more consistent and reliable it feels overall compared to PC right now
@@zbigniewsmyk Go ahead. Won't miss you. Having a blast over here on my PC with uncapped resolution and framerates
I used to love consoles because they weren't basically a PC-in-a-box like we have now. Before the XB360 and PS3, games worked at release without the reliance on an internet connection to fix broken games at release. Now, everything requires patches, downloads, monthly subscriptions, and so on right at release. I got sick of consoles basically being buggy, which became the antithesis of the "plug and play" nature of what consoles were better at compared to PCs.
These days, it's about juggling what annoys you less from one vs. the other. But that then also leads to arguing over specific game titles.
So in this case, yes, the stutter is awful for PCs, but there are many more titles that are outstanding ports to PC that push the video quality to lengths leaps and bounds above any consoles' capability, and so... a few console wins here, a number of PC wins there... future patches improving the PC side of things, and.... it comes down to, for me "If you have the money for a mid-range PC, go for it. If you want the most simplistic gaming system with the least amount of quirks and issues on initial release, for a lower price, go console". But a console is a low-rent PC now. It will still have bugs and patch requirements that weren't so prominent "in the old days" of console gaming.
@@nou4605 These kinds of posts are always made by console fanboys masquerading as PC users. 99% of the time. You can download community fixes for all these games through various sites that take one minute to install. That's why it's so cringe he acts like hes an 'experienced troubleshooter'. Consoles cannot fix games like that and just have to take it how it is.
They fixed the shader compilation stutter, I don't experience it anymore
Thanks for an honest review! Years from now I would not be surprised if all pc games are rated on The Alex Scale.
Was the "Optimization for windowed games" enabled in Windows 11 for the VRR issue? It entirely fixed Ori and the Blind Forest in VRR that even G-Sync For windowed mode couldn't do
Why do I feel like "shader compilation stutter" has surfaced only recently? The first time I really heard about it was with Elden Ring. And the first time I was made aware of "shader cache updates" was when I got the Steam Deck. *_PLEASE, make a general video about the issue explaning why it has become a problem recently!_*
I feel like it hasn't been an issue in the past, but it could explain why some times a game doesn't perform like I'd expect it to on my PC.
It became a commom issue right now because of DX12 becoming more commom.
Dude it because these DF dudes,tend to alway make up new technology buzzwords, daily,I bet it a new words tomorrow.
It has in late Gen games, Fallen Order is one that comes to mind. It probably has something to do on the complexity of shaders used or amount of shaders increasingly or something like that. So what would be fast to compile in real time is not anymore.
@@typethings4624 No, this one is unfortunately very real. The biggest change from DX11 to 12 was that DX12 preforms significantly less optimizations to the PSO objects when the game compiles, this drastically speeds up the time it takes for the game to build, but in turn requires the user to compile more.
It has to do with the fact that older games used DX11, which took care of a lot of shader compilation automatically. With DX12, which is more recent, developers have had to do it more manually. I believe Sony and Microsoft enforce that it needs to be pre-compiled when downloading the game. Steam(or any PC platforms) do not have such enforcements.
Also, issues with the fact that compiling shaders changes based on the vendor GPU for PC, while consoles all use the same hardware. Either way, pre-compiling shaders is the solution to these stutter problems, but it seems game devs think this is "acceptable"
Asset Streaming, shader compilation, and camera animation stutter are just ridiculously common at this point. Something has to be done, it’s gotten to the point of absurdity that issues this prominent are just treated by devs and publishers like they’re acceptable when they absolutely are not. Ruins the whole game completely.
What’s crazy is I’ve experienced NONE of these issues on my 500 dollar PS5. Just nuts! If consoles could lock 60fps in any game out and coming out then they would be the smoothest place to play all new games as regular frame drops are the only negative thing with them and many games already lock 120fps on PS5.
Dolphin Emu developers figured out asynchronous shader compilation years ago. Horizon Zero Dawn does shader compilation in the main menu while the player tweaks the options. Not as good as asynchronous shader compilation but still.
Game was enjoyable, hope there's a sequel
Once again DF shows it is a serious gamer publication by editing this video to the only acceptable duration.
Well done. Very well done, indeed.
As many have said already, thank you Alex for continuing to emphasize this issue. If it is something that developers can reduce/eliminate by allowing for shader compilation prior to getting into the game then that approach should be the standard. That or make playing in DX11 mode a simple toggle. These situations prevent PC hardware from shining the way it should and its a shame
Awesome video Alex! I wonder why this has become an issue the last couple of years? Go back maybe 5 years, I can't recall games having this problem on PC regularly?
More shaders in games nowadays
Df being harsh on a Sony PC port! I thought I would never see the day!
Fanboys are the worst. DF are not one of y'all
@@MrInuhanyou123 it's not about fanboyism. This is PC gaming there is no room for console wars. They have to tell it like it is. Other than days gone Sonys PC ports have been trash.
Sry to hear Alex you had a bad experience. My experience has been buttery smooth. Running on a AMD 5600x and GTX 1060 6gb with "-dx11" launch option in Steam. Of coarse no ray tracing or dlss but the game looks and runs good. Didn't need to add FSR yet, but I m playing at 1080p. *edit side note using a 42 inch 4k TV at 1080p resolution as my PC desk monitor with (no freesync/gsync) @ 60fps with v-sync enabled*
Right click game in Steam>properties>general tab>launch options> add "-dx11"
Master race indeed. Hope this issue gets better soon. SORT IT OUT DEVS !!!
This probably wont be the last of us seeing shader compilation stutter.
This is why I stopped being a PC gamer long ago, too many issues like this. Sure you have the potential to have better visuals and performance if you have a high end GPU but you're also paying double or even triple for your gaming rig. Granted I am in the process of building myself a PC which will probably include an Intel 13700k, a 16GB Arc A770 and 64 GB of DDR5 ram, but it's mostly for photo/video editing and 3D modeling/rendering. Gaming would be a distant second on it.
Then you are a moron. I game on PC and I've had a far superior experience than console where games are decided to be arbitrarily locked at 30 fps by stupid developers. Literally every game I've played recently either didn't need to compile shaders or did it while loading.
@@nou4605 You're a triggered troll for starting off with an insult 🤣 Thank you for exposing your own insecurities with having to zealously defend your gaming platform of choice to a complete stranger. GTFO 👋
@@03chrisv No U is pure cringe, ignore him. Probably has nothing better to do living in his mom's basement.
Yeah, with the Arc A770 gaming shouldn't be on the list of priorities.
@@kcmsterpce But with its 16GB of ram and AV1 encoding performance that is faster than a 3090 its a great card for production based jobs on a budget. Though I do believe after the drivers mature a bit in 6 months it'll be a competent gaming card. You can tell based off the hardware specs of the A770 that Intel was targeting the 3070 to 3080 range of performance, just the drivers are holding it back, though interestingly enough the A770 beats the 3070 in the 3D Mark Timespy benchmark so the performance is there waiting to be unlocked. Whether Intel can do it or not is another matter. At any rate gaming performance of the card doesn't matter to me too much, I have a PS5 and Series X for that.
Just buy a console , PS5 and XSX are better investments than those thousands dollars PC , save money for your children.
The humor is not lost on us lol, alot of us likely don't have children. I chose late in life to pass on children. I feel I missed my window by 10 yrs so now it's all about me and my toys 🤣
I was really wondering how they could have such a widely different experience than I have playing the game on PC. Then I realized they still haven't figured out how to run games properly on PC.
1) Install the latest game-ready drivers so these unoptimizations don't occur
2) Getting no stutter means using gsync properly, which means
a) Disable vsync
b) Place a frame limiter to your monitors max refresh rate - 3.
It's clear they aren't doing these things based on their statements in this video. So the real takeaway is that PC gaming still requires a certain amount of technical knowledge. Making those things easier is most likely the better solution. For instance, turning these settings on the wrong options should be placed behind a confirmation dialogue that explains to users they probably don't know what they're doing - and hide the options in an 'advanced' menu most people don't see.
Well said. I also don’t run into any of these issues. All my games run super smooth and look amazing. But somehow DF keeps running into these issues Wtf
Unreal now :D
Today's update seems to have fixed the shader stuttering. Camera stuttering is still there but your work-around is still working too.
I'm not getting that stutter on PC. The introduction had some stuttering, then Nvidia came out with a driver and I haven't dealt with stuttering since. And that includes playing local co-op with my children.
Another win for Playstation LOL
Yeah, PS5 has no ray-tracing, is at a much lower res and a much lower frame rate... come on, play fair, there running completely differently from a rendering point of view... These unfair comparisons, that are obviously biased towards Sony... is becoming a regular DF tiresome trait when doing these "comparison" videos. Set the PC to the same, shortcomings that the PS5 renderer is stuck with, then we will see how badly the PC does from a performance point of view. Yes its fine to show the extra visual options available for the PC but please don't compare performance when all the settings are ramped up on one side of the video and the other has very basic settings by default.
Exactly. DF stay hating on PC. I’m done with these people
@@firstclaims30 Me too, unsubbed! Sick of biased "reviews", DF NEVER gives Sony/Nintendo a hard time, corporate shills...