Batman: Arkham Knight (performance issues)

gizmo

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

Do we know for sure that it was Warner Brothers that outsourced the PC port to Iron Galaxy Studios or was it Rocksteady that contracted IGS to port the game.

That'd be a publisher call one way or the other.

Squaredude

I've played 15 or so hours of it and it is a great game. Not had any issues performance wise. Only noticed that some of the textures are awful after it was pointed out to me.

TheDoc

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

Do we know for sure that it was Warner Brothers that outsourced the PC port to Iron Galaxy Studios or was it Rocksteady that contracted IGS to port the game.
In a statement from Rocksteady they stated

I'd imagine a decision like that is taken by the publisher. I wouldn't be surprised if Rocksteady wanted to do it, and WB pushed for a third party to do it, so Rocksteady could focus on both the console versions and content developement

Skerries

Venom

TheDoc wrote: »

I'd imagine a decision like that is taken by the publisher. I wouldn't be surprised if Rocksteady wanted to do it, and WB pushed for a third party to do it, so Rocksteady could focus on both the console versions and content developement

I reckon it was a case of major cost cutting. The limited Edition Batmobile edition was pulled due to the Batmobile itself being rubbish so the powers that be, cut corners there as well.

levitronix

I ll be letting the game sit in the library to and just wait for the updates, wonder will it be a re download should i uninstall it ? from the pc

Squaredude

levitronix wrote: »

I ll be letting the game sit in the library to and just wait for the updates, wonder will it be a re download should i uninstall it ? from the pc

Better not be a re download, took me long enough to download first time round.

Sonics2k

TheDoc wrote: »

I feel back for Rocksteady, and hope they don't get too badly burnt from WB decision to outsource the PC platform. Worth remembering Rocksteady made all the content, not the optimisation.

Got to have a go on a PS4 and the game from what I played was incredible. Those further through it are saying all round it's a fantastic game that is a fitting close to the franchise. Obviously the PC issues taking all the spotlight, but what is being lost is there is also a fantastic game here.

I havn't even contemplated a refund. I'll let it sit in the library until it gets fixed, and provides me time to play other games, focus on the new wow tier etc.

Definitely a pity though, hopefully when the game is sorted people who bailed come back and it gets the recognition it looks like it deserves in terms of a game.

I don't feel any pity for them at all.
Even if they out sourced it, then it's still on Rocksteady to ensure their partner is doing a good job of porting the game to PC.

I mean, you wouldn't mind but the damn thing is made on a PC in the first place and it only comes down to genuine laziness that guys working on port managed to absolutely balls this launch up so much, exactly the same as with happened with Unity.

gizmo

Sonics2k wrote: »

I don't feel any pity for them at all.
Even if they out sourced it, then it's still on Rocksteady to ensure their partner is doing a good job of porting the game to PC.

That's not how it works though. Rocksteady would have been leading the development of the core game while insuring it was working on consoles. From all the reviews I've read, they've done a fantastic job on it on both platforms. Iron Galaxy, on the other hand, would just have been taking builds of the game, probably from the XBox One branch, at various stages and working on porting the game and any new features which were added along the way. It would be Warner Bros responsibility, notably the Producers on the project, to ensure that this process was going smoothly. When it was clear the game wasn't going to be ready, it should have been delayed.

How anyone couldn't feel sorry for the people who have been working their asses off on the end of their trilogy for over three and a half years only to have its release completely overshadowed by the quality of a port they have no control over, hamstrung by technology they had hand in adding and pushed out the door, unfinished, by a publisher they have no sway over, is beyond me.

Sonics2k wrote: »

I mean, you wouldn't mind but the damn thing is made on a PC in the first place and it only comes down to genuine laziness that guys working on port managed to absolutely balls this launch up so much, exactly the same as with happened with Unity.

It being made on the PC makes absolutely no difference to how the game will actually run on a PC. Whatever about not knowing the ins and outs of the development process, it's utterly daft to then accuse them of laziness without knowing anything about the time they had to port it over or resources at their disposal while doing so.

FAILSAFE 00

gizmo wrote: »

That's not how it works though. Rocksteady would have been leading the development of the core game while insuring it was working on consoles. From all the reviews I've read, they've done a fantastic job on it on both platforms. Iron Galaxy, on the other hand, would just have been taking builds of the game, probably from the XBox One branch, at various stages and working on porting the game and any new features which were added along the way. It would be Warner Bros responsibility, notably the Producers on the project, to ensure that this process was going smoothly. When it was clear the game wasn't going to be ready, it should have been delayed.

How anyone couldn't feel sorry for the people who have been working their asses off on the end of their trilogy for over three and a half years only to have its release completely overshadowed by the quality of a port they have no control over, hamstrung by technology they had hand in adding and pushed out the door, unfinished, by a publisher they have no sway over, is beyond me.


It being made on the PC makes absolutely no difference to how the game will actually run on a PC. Whatever about not knowing the ins and outs of the development process, it's utterly daft to then accuse them of laziness without knowing anything about the time they had to port it over or resources at their disposal while doing so.

Rocksteady, Warner Brothers and Iron Galaxy were all happy to release the game in the state it was in. Their all on my **** list.

gizmo

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

Rocksteady, Warner Brothers and Iron Galaxy were all happy to release the game in the state it was in. Their all on my **** list.

Why on earth would you think either developer would be happy to release the game in the state it was in?

Rocksteady have been working on the Arkham Trilogy for six years and the job they did on Asylum would have been what got them acquired in the first place, nevermind the acclaim that followed. There's no way they'd want to see their series tarnished to the extent it has been. As for Iron Galaxy, they're an independent developer who have worked on a number of ports for a wide variety of publishers. Having projects like this pushed out the door will directly affect their reputation and make it harder to secure more contract work in the future.

Don't get me wrong, there's a hell of a lot of blame to be thrown around for this but at the same time it should be correctly apportioned or, at the very least, directed in such a manner that makes actual sense.

Dair76

Anyway, it's going to be interesting watching the fallout from this debacle. Some are heralding Steam refunds as the reason WB took such drastic action. Maybe it was, but what about future releases? Will this new found consumer power make publishers more wary of releasing multiformat games on PC in the first place? Or will we see an increase in staggered releases, where XBox and PS take priority, and it's only when these are complete that work on the PC port can start?

I certainly don't share the optimism that a lot of observers have in the wake of this. It could well be a Pyrrhic victory for PC gaming.

EoinHef

Dair76 wrote: »

Anyway, it's going to be interesting watching the fallout from this debacle. Some are heralding Steam refunds as the reason WB took such drastic action. Maybe it was, but what about future releases? Will this new found consumer power make publishers more wary of releasing multiformat games on PC in the first place? Or will we see an increase in staggered releases, where XBox and PS take priority, and it's only when these are complete that work on the PC port can start?

I certainly don't share the optimism that a lot of observers have in the wake of this. It could well be a Pyrrhic victory for PC gaming.

I totally see your point,but would a delay be the worst thing if the game was ready when it finally released?
GTA V has already proved that a game can be delayed on PC and still be a success.

If devs/publishers went the route of just not bothering with PC that would leave money on the table. Why not spend a bit of extra time for a PC version and get the most money out of the content you have made.

Robert ninja

The problem is they design games for consoles and then try port upwardly to PC. Doesn't it make more sense to design primarily for PC? Then port down to consoles via systematic downgrading, as well as adapting optimisations from the PC version (that has to consider many hardware configurations) to set ones, then just lock all the settings to whatever the devs/publishers feel is what they want in terms of graphics/performance balance (although I often disagree with what they think is a good balance, hence why I game primarily on PC).

Dair76

EoinHef wrote: »

I totally see your point,but would a delay be the worst thing if the game was ready when it finally released?
GTA V has already proved that a game can be delayed on PC and still be a success.

If devs/publishers went the route of just not bothering with PC that would leave money on the table. Why not spend a bit of extra time for a PC version and get the most money out of the content you have made.

Fair points, but given that PC versions of some titles already feel like an afterthought, I can see some developers/publishers thinking it not worth the effort, be it extra time, manpower, money etc. Of course, that'd depend entirely on the resources already available to them.

whiteramekin

if huge chunks of the pc gaming market didn't wait to purchase games until they were a minimum of 50% off, or rush to 'dodgy' keyseller sites instead of paying anything near RRP the resources put into pc ports would most likely increase

Maximus Alexander

whiteramekin wrote: »

if huge chunks of the pc gaming market didn't wait to purchase games until they were a minimum of 50% off, or rush to 'dodgy' keyseller sites instead of paying anything near RRP the resources put into pc ports would most likely increase

If PC ports were generally in a worthy state at launch, more people would probably buy them immediately instead of waiting until they are 50% off.

whiteramekin

that really isn't even remotely close to true and you know it

Maximus Alexander

whiteramekin wrote: »

that really isn't even remotely close to true and you know it

It's utter nonsense to say that spending more money on substandard products encourages companies to make better products.

whiteramekin

so in your opinion demonstrating through action that a lucrative market exists is counter productive?

if i was making a game you can be damn sure i'd put the PC low on the priority list, you'd be crazy not to. even if you ignore the much smaller market the culture around waiting for steam sales and buying bulk bought indian cdkeys is obviously going to impact your takings. why would anybody put more effort than they had to into that sort of community


obviously arkham knight is a hilarious **** up on top of this issue but pc gamers aren't innocent victims in this.

Maximus Alexander

whiteramekin wrote: »

so in your opinion demonstrating through action that a lucrative market exists is counter productive?

If you pay launch prices for crap ports, you're demonstrating that there's a market for crap ports, so companies will make more crap ports.

Azza

whiteramekin wrote: »

so in your opinion demonstrating through action that a lucrative market exists is counter productive?

if i was making a game you can be damn sure i'd put the PC low on the priority list, you'd be crazy not to. even if you ignore the much smaller market the culture around waiting for steam sales and buying bulk bought indian cdkeys is obviously going to impact your takings. why would anybody put more effort than they had to into that sort of community


obviously arkham knight is a hilarious **** up on top of this issue but pc gamers aren't innocent victims in this.

You be crazy to put as little effort into the PC port as what appears to have gone into Batman Arkham Knight. Even though the PC playerbase is a relatively small percentage of the total player base the reputational damage been done is much more significant.

Outside of gaming, people wait for sales on all sorts of items and products, why should PC gamers be expected to be an exception to this. As a consumer I have the right to shop where and when I want too as well as decide on what price points offer value to me. I often use key sites, nothing illegal about this, but I do stay clear of any games that require playing with a VPN to bypass regional restrictions.

If a game is for sale, it should be in playable condition. PC gamers in this case are totally innocent.

whiteramekin

yeah whatever, no one's making a stalker 2 and the dark souls series gets reasonably decent pc ports that sell well. I've **** all interest in most modern games so this really doesn't affect me. I'm fairly content to let pc gamers shoot themselves in the foot and blame the industry for the limp so work away

whiteramekin

Azza wrote: »

You be crazy to put as little effort into the PC port as what appears to have gone into Batman Arkham Knight. Even the PC playerbase is a relatively small percentage of the total player base the reputational damage been done is much more significant.

Outside of gaming, people wait for sales on all sorts of items and products, why should PC gamers be expected to be an exception to this. As a consumer I have the right to shop where and when I want too as well as decide on what price points offer value to me. I often use Key sites, nothing illegal about this, but I do stay clear of any games that require playing with a VPN to bypass regional restrictions.

If a game is for sale, it should be in playable condition. PC gamers in this case are totally innocent.

i tried to seperate arkham knight from my general point, obviously I didn't do a great job. arkham knight is a whole separate **** up. it's part of the wider lack of attention paid to pc ports sure but it's just criminally incompetent on top of that. the 'guilt' of the pc gamer here is in the general context of constantly undervaluing content .

im not saying people dont have the right to take advantage of steam sales or key seller sites, i'm just saying you can't do this **** and then expect anybody to treat you as a properly lucrative market. By all means wait for 50-75% off and shop around for cdkeys the publishers have priced to sell in improvished markets but don't fool yourselves into thinking you're doing anything other than reinforcing the notion of pc gaming as an afterthought to the big boys.

If everyone's comfortable with that then awesome but we all know they're not. pc gamers demand more options, more work, better quality.. and then refuse to pay more for it.


anyway, complete side issue and I've never met a pc gamer who has been even remotely swayed by my arguments so absolutely pointless one as well.


*shrug* I'm gona play some more stalker

EoinHef

Nobody put a gun to Warner Brothers or Rocksteadys heads,they could have easily made the game a console exclusive and not made a PC version.

But they didnt,they marketed it the same as the console versions then released a broken product.

Thats whats happened here,PC gamers cannot be blamed for criticising a broken game or the "state" of the industry.

As i said nobody forced anybody to release the game on PC,but if your going to do it at least do it right.

Digital Solitude

whiteramekin wrote: »

yeah whatever, no one's making a stalker 2 and the dark souls series gets reasonably decent pc ports that sell well. I've **** all interest in most modern games so this really doesn't affect me. I'm fairly content to let pc gamers shoot themselves in the foot and blame the industry for the limp so work away

Dark Souls at least ran at launch on PC, by a team who had never coded for PC before. Plug a controller in and Dark Souls was fine, DSFix brings fixes, but none are essential.


How are PC gamers shooting themselves in the foot?

TerrorFirmer

even if you ignore the much smaller market the culture around waiting for steam sales and buying bulk bought indian cdkeys is obviously going to impact your takings.

33% of the Witcher 3's sales were on PC. GTA V has sold over 2 million copies on PC. That's not a 'much smaller market' for major AAA releases, a category Arkham Knight belongs in. There's no excuse, which is why WB took the unprecedented move of removing the game from sale.

Some games will naturally have a much lower uptake on PC than consoles, but we're still talking large and financially viable numbers. If 2 million people buy a game on consoles and say, 500,000 purchase on PC, that's still a very large number and an important stream of revenue.

What you're doing in the instance of Arkham Knight is not only loosing significant more revenue based on the shoddy quality of the port than you saved by doing it on the cheap, but also loosing significant future revenue due to the reputation you've created as a result. We are talking millions here. Not just a few pennies from PC Gamers.

Also, this whole 'PC Gamers wait for everything to be on sale' is just ridiculous. PC Gamers are no different console gamers - there are day one purchases and purchases you're not in a hurry to make so you wait until a price drop in some form entices you.

The idea of waiting for a game to be on sale is hardly unique to any one platform - or did I miss the announcement where PS4 and XB1 games are to remain at 69.99 forever?

BenHK

whiteramekin wrote: »

yeah whatever, no one's making a stalker 2 and the dark souls series gets reasonably decent pc ports that sell well. I've **** all interest in most modern games so this really doesn't affect me. I'm fairly content to let pc gamers shoot themselves in the foot and blame the industry for the limp so work away

whiteramekin wrote: »

i tried to seperate arkham knight from my general point, obviously I didn't do a great job. arkham knight is a whole separate **** up. it's part of the wider lack of attention paid to pc ports sure but it's just criminally incompetent on top of that. the 'guilt' of the pc gamer here is in the general context of constantly undervaluing content .

im not saying people dont have the right to take advantage of steam sales or key seller sites, i'm just saying you can't do this **** and then expect anybody to treat you as a properly lucrative market. By all means wait for 50-75% off and shop around for cdkeys the publishers have priced to sell in improvished markets but don't fool yourselves into thinking you're doing anything other than reinforcing the notion of pc gaming as an afterthought to the big boys.

If everyone's comfortable with that then awesome but we all know they're not. pc gamers demand more options, more work, better quality.. and then refuse to pay more for it.


anyway, complete side issue and I've never met a pc gamer who has been even remotely swayed by my arguments so absolutely pointless one as well.


*shrug* I'm gona play some more stalker

So essentially you want PC users to drink the console Kool-Aide? Pre-order a year in advance at rip-off merchants Gamestop, buy all DLC via the Super Duper Season Pass with exclusivity out the wazzoo? **** that. PC users are, for the most part, smart about this industry and very honest. If a piece of **** product is obviously an after-thought then why should we reward those peddling the crap? Arkham Knight will most likely end up being one of the most torrented games of the year and Warner Bros has nobody to blame but themselves.

If a game is good, the producers of said product are rewarded. If not, they're not. Simple as that.

abbir

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

The idea of waiting for a game to be on sale is hardly unique to any one platform - or did I miss the announcement where PS4 and XB1 games are to remain at 69.99 forever?

Don't forget, Used Sales on consoles. Saving €5 on a copy so that the publisher/developer gets no money from that sale. You don't have that on PC.

Dair76

abbir wrote: »

Don't forget, Used Sales on consoles. Saving €5 on a copy so that the publisher/developer gets no money from that sale. You don't have that on PC.

Exactly, this accounts for far greater lost revenue to the publisher than discounted sales on the minority platform.

death1234567

Robert ninja wrote: »

The problem is they design games for consoles and then try port upwardly to PC. Doesn't it make more sense to design primarily for PC? Then port down to consoles via systematic downgrading

Game companies don't like to have a superior version of the game on PC as they make more money from consoles and don't want the console owners to feel like they are not getting the best. Also when there are superior versions on PC it makes the consoles look out of date and in need of an upgrade which makes MS and Sony sad pandas.

gizmo

EoinHef wrote: »

I totally see your point,but would a delay be the worst thing if the game was ready when it finally released?
GTA V has already proved that a game can be delayed on PC and still be a success.

The problem is more with a delay after your release date is set in stone. At that point, agreements will be set in place for manufacturing, distribution and retail space so money would be lost if things were pushed back from their initially agreed upon dates. Different publishers will have different agreements I'm sure and quite often the scale of the project (and problems within) will determine whether it's worth the change.

As an aside, it's generally best not to use GTA V as a comparison in topics like this. It's a complete anomaly in the industry, much like Minecraft, Angry Birds etc... and usually isn't a reasonable indicator for how most projects pan out.

EoinHef wrote: »

If devs/publishers went the route of just not bothering with PC that would leave money on the table. Why not spend a bit of extra time for a PC version and get the most money out of the content you have made.

Evidently they, whether at a publishing level or marketing one, believe that the money required for high port isn't worth it compared to sales. People can beat their chest all they want about the numbers on PC but when you have people like Marcin Iwinski of CD Projek coming out and saying that titles like The Witcher 3 wouldn't exist without consoles, one assumes there's certainly some truth to the numbers.

To be fair though, it can be quite frustrating seeing people getting new AAA games for a fraction of their retail cost at launch using whatever grey market key site is popular and then complaining that the PC doesn't get as much love as the consoles. Obviously Arkham Knight simply isn't worth any kind of purchase right now but this is a consistent trend at this stage and, ultimately, we're only making things worse.

Robert ninja wrote: »

The problem is they design games for consoles and then try port upwardly to PC. Doesn't it make more sense to design primarily for PC? Then port down to consoles via systematic downgrading, as well as adapting optimisations from the PC version (that has to consider many hardware configurations) to set ones, then just lock all the settings to whatever the devs/publishers feel is what they want in terms of graphics/performance balance (although I often disagree with what they think is a good balance, hence why I game primarily on PC).

No, because the technical limitations on the consoles are considerably stricter than the PC and optimisation work can only get you so far when your game simply cannot run at 720@30 (or whatever) on consoles. It's the reason why, from time to time, you see studios make large design changes earlier in the project so as to allow for this.

TheDoc

death1234567 wrote: »

Game companies don't like to have a superior version of the game on PC as they make more money from consoles and don't want the console owners to feel like they are not getting the best. Also when there are superior versions on PC it makes the consoles look out of date and in need of an upgrade which makes MS and Sony sad pandas.

That is a bit of a myth imo.

Console gamers should know, as it's unavoidable, that PC's can provide a stronger and better performance/visual related title over a console. They have more power, better specs, all that stuff that we don't need to go into.

It's in a developers interest to ensure they are actually providing PC versions operating at the maximum, as it can result in duplicate buys from consumers. Its a clever model by Rockstar that people still question "ermagad why does it take a year for the PC version to come out".

Because Rockstar know, that while most console gamers just have a console, most PC gamers, have consoles also.

I bought GTA 5 on release for PS3, and nearly bought it on PS4, but am holding off and will buy for PC. That is buying the same game, twice. But for the better optimisation, improve graphics and new features on PC, I'll be happy, while Rockstar get two instances of sales revenue from me.

I have owned Arkham Asylum for Xbox 360, PS3 (still have that copy) and PC. I actually have two copies for PC.

I bought Arkham City for Xbox 360, then I bought it for Ps3, then I bought it for PC.

I bought Arkham Origins on release (actually still in rapping) for PS3, and then bought it few weeks ago for PC.

Arkham Knight, I bought for PC.

Granted I sold my Xbox 360 ( sold two different ones twice) I still like having a console so rebought a few games.

It is in the interest of developers to ensure they are maximising the platform they are releasing for, as gamers have no issues with buying the same game more then once, to have better experiences.

Sonics2k

gizmo wrote: »

That's not how it works though. Rocksteady would have been leading the development of the core game while insuring it was working on consoles. From all the reviews I've read, they've done a fantastic job on it on both platforms. Iron Galaxy, on the other hand, would just have been taking builds of the game, probably from the XBox One branch, at various stages and working on porting the game and any new features which were added along the way. It would be Warner Bros responsibility, notably the Producers on the project, to ensure that this process was going smoothly. When it was clear the game wasn't going to be ready, it should have been delayed.

How anyone couldn't feel sorry for the people who have been working their asses off on the end of their trilogy for over three and a half years only to have its release completely overshadowed by the quality of a port they have no control over, hamstrung by technology they had hand in adding and pushed out the door, unfinished, by a publisher they have no sway over, is beyond me.

I'll underline this bit, as it's the most important.

You're right, Rocksteady were leading the development and passing on the code to Iron Galaxy to port. The issue here is that it's disgustingly clear they did not check on the quality of Iron Galaxy's work at all. If they had, they would have noticed the god awful performance of this game.
It's clear from the first 10 minutes of Arkham Knight that the port was not done properly or professionally. You can quite literally start up the game and find the performance issues, no matter the build you're playing on. I myself have a pretty decent build with a GTX 970 and found frequent stutters.

I absolutely love the Batman series, I have played through each game and gotten over the silly and annoying bugs that happened, from the gimpy combat mechanics to the Save/Delete bug that plagued Origins on launch. This is the same studio that made so many errors on the PC Port of Arkham Origins and took months to get it properly working, and it still isn't fully sorted as they were more focused on DLCs than fixing the game.

Rocksteady went back to Iron Galaxy to get them to do it again and so so clearly did not do any real QC on this port.

I frankly don't care that the PS4 and X-Box One ports are going great, I pretty much expect a game that costs the better part of €100 to work properly when it comes out, to at least be able to run in a decent and playable manner.

CD Projekt Red, with their absolutely tiny studio has demolished Rocksteady, Ubisoft and EA (as well as others) by showing how great a game can be when actual talented people with a genuine care for the product by releasing a game with considerably better performance for all devices and have worked to fix the bugs. Yes, there are bugs in the Witcher 3, but at least we can all play it.

The people at Iron Galaxy have clearly not worked their asses off for 3 years, and the QC guys at Rocksteady have obviously been scratching their collective buttocks while having a pint, and now the actual programmers from Rocksteady have to fix Iron Galaxy's absolute cock up.

Quick edit:
I will give absolute credit to Rocksteady and WB for standing up and admitting to the terrible launch, and especially to them for encouraging people to use the refund service on Steam too. That takes some real balls.

Venom

Sonics2k wrote: »

Quick edit:
I will give absolute credit to Rocksteady and WB for standing up and admitting to the terrible launch, and especially to them for encouraging people to use the refund service on Steam too. That takes some real balls.

Them telling people to look for a refund is nothing more than a PR move at this stage. There is no way Rocksteady or WB didn't know how bad the PC port was and not only let it be released instead of holding it back, but they held back review copies of the PC version and tried the usual PR BS with there "turn everything down to low and run it at 720p" comments.

Another WB title, Mortal kombat X, was also a terrible PC port that required multiple 30GB+ patches to fix and even deleted players save game info but no "ask for a refund" was issued over that. The difference now is a 3rd party (Steam) has given customers a way to get their money back that the publishers have zero control over.

moc moc a moc

whiteramekin wrote: »

if huge chunks of the pc gaming market didn't wait to purchase games until they were a minimum of 50% off, or rush to 'dodgy' keyseller sites instead of paying anything near RRP the resources put into pc ports would most likely increase

Ya, there's no way console gamers would do the same thing if they had the choice available to them... right?

gizmo

Again, there's a misunderstanding of how this works, Sonics2k. I'll pick out those parts and comment but as I've said above, I have no issue with the stripes being torn out of the game for the state it has launched in.

Sonics2k wrote: »

You're right, Rocksteady were leading the development and passing on the code to Iron Galaxy to port. The issue here is that it's disgustingly clear they did not check on the quality of Iron Galaxy's work at all. If they had, they would have noticed the god awful performance of this game.

Generally speaking, the only time Rocksteady would have had the opportunity to really see Iron Galaxy's work was when the latter company delivered a build of the PC version, probably at monthly milestone intervals. More than likely, those builds would have been delivered to WB themselves in order to secure payment for the work they've been doing. At this point, I imagine some of the higher ups in Rocksteady would have been able to view IGs work as it progressed. The problem is, you're assuming no issues were raised about the horrific performance of the game when in actual fact, I'd strongly wager they were. The reality of the situation, however, is that Rockstready would have been able to do absolutely nothing about it. They could scream blue murder to WB but at the end of the day, IG had been contracted to do the port so it was there responsibility to fix it. Rocksteady couldn't just turn around and start working on it themselves without approval of WB and it's blindingly clear by the decision taken to push the PC port out in the state it was in, that WB just didn't care enough.

Sonics2k wrote: »

Rocksteady went back to Iron Galaxy to get them to do it again and so so clearly did not do any real QC on this port.

No, WB went back to IG. They're the publisher, the licence holder, the ones with the money and ultimately, the ones in charge.

Sonics2k wrote: »

CD Projekt Red, with their absolutely tiny studio has demolished Rocksteady, Ubisoft and EA (as well as others) by showing how great a game can be when actual talented people with a genuine care for the product by releasing a game with considerably better performance for all devices and have worked to fix the bugs. Yes, there are bugs in the Witcher 3, but at least we can all play it.

There are around 100 people working on The Witcher 3, they are far from a tiny studio. Again though, you're completely mixing up the roles of publisher and developer. I have no doubt there are talented people working at Iron Galaxy, what I do doubt is that they were given either the time or resources to adequately handle the port. Look at their previous work for other projects, have you heard or seen anything even remotely as bad as what's happened with Arkham Knight?

Sonics2k wrote: »

The people at Iron Galaxy have clearly not worked their asses off for 3 years, and the QC guys at Rocksteady have obviously been scratching their collective buttocks while having a pint, and now the actual programmers from Rocksteady have to fix Iron Galaxy's absolute cock up.

Iron Galaxy wouldn't have been on the project for three years and QA at Rocksteady wouldn't have been dealing with the PC port nor would the number of issues they highlight have any correlation with the number of issues that would be fixed.

Kirby

gizmo wrote: »

Look at their previous work for other projects, have you heard or seen anything even remotely as bad as what's happened with Arkham Knight?.

Origins was a complete mess on PC for several months after launch. A large chunk of players couldnt progress past a point in the game and it was never patched. I'm not talking 0.5 % here. It was a good amount of people. Luckily, I wasnt one of them.

Performance wise, it wasnt great either. There are parts of the game that dip into single figures fps for seemingly no reason. For example in the deathstroke fight, there is a small part of the arena where this happens...for.....reasons.

There were a lot of bugs. People falling through the world etc. It wasnt as bad as this mess, but it was no success either.

Sonics2k

gizmo wrote: »

Again, there's a misunderstanding of how this works, Sonics2k. I'll pick out those parts and comment but as I've said above, I have no issue with the stripes being torn out of the game for the state it has launched in.


Generally speaking, the only time Rocksteady would have had the opportunity to really see Iron Galaxy's work was when the latter company delivered a build of the PC version, probably at monthly milestone intervals. More than likely, those builds would have been delivered to WB themselves in order to secure payment for the work they've been doing. At this point, I imagine some of the higher ups in Rocksteady would have been able to view IGs work as it progressed. The problem is, you're assuming no issues were raised about the horrific performance of the game when in actual fact, I'd strongly wager they were. The reality of the situation, however, is that Rockstready would have been able to do absolutely nothing about it. They could scream blue murder to WB but at the end of the day, IG had been contracted to do the port so it was there responsibility to fix it. Rocksteady couldn't just turn around and start working on it themselves without approval of WB and it's blindingly clear by the decision taken to push the PC port out in the state it was in, that WB just didn't care enough.



No, WB went back to IG. They're the publisher, the licence holder, the ones with the money and ultimately, the ones in charge.



There are around 100 people working on The Witcher 3, they are far from a tiny studio. Again though, you're completely mixing up the roles of publisher and developer. I have no doubt there are talented people working at Iron Galaxy, what I do doubt is that they were given either the time or resources to adequately handle the port. Look at their previous work for other projects, have you heard or seen anything even remotely as bad as what's happened with Arkham Knight?



Iron Galaxy wouldn't have been on the project for three years and QA at Rocksteady wouldn't have been dealing with the PC port nor would the number of issues they highlight have any correlation with the number of issues that would be fixed.

I'll stand up and admit that you're mostly right, except for the portion of Rocksteady having some day in the decision, because of course they did.

Iron Galaxy made a huge mess up of Origins on its release, and I was one of people hit hard by that. They aren't a good studio, and they should not have been given this job.

By tiny studio in regards to CD Projekt Red I meant in terms of the giant corporations or the massive studios out there. My meaning was more that a relatively unknown studio did a better job of a release than a much larger studio with considerably better funding.

All in all. Iron Galaxy messed up the PC port massively, on what is essentially a very good Batman game I'm looking forward to playing when it is playable. Rocksteady share some of the blame and WB are hopefully going to give Iron Galaxy a good smacking and fire some QC guys.

TetraxShard

Patch notes!

Rocksteady is leading our team of developers and partners as we work on the PC performance issues that players have been encountering. The work is significant and while we are making good progress on improving performance, it will take some time to ensure that we get the right fixes in place.

Below is the list of the key areas where we are dedicating our resources to improve the experience for our loyal fans:

- Support for frame rates above 30FPS in the graphics settings menu
- Fix for low resolution texture bug
- Improve overall performance and framerate hitches
- Add more options to the graphics settings menu
- Improvements to hard drive streaming and hitches
- Address full screen rendering bug on gaming laptop
- Improvements to system memory and VRAM usage
- NVIDIA SLI bug fixes
- Enabling AMD Crossfire
- NVIDIA and AMD updated drivers

While we work on improving performance, we will also continue to make interim patches available to address issues for those still playing the game on PC. The first patch is being released now and the updates include:

- Fixed a crash that was happening for some users when exiting the game
- Fixed a bug which disabled rain effects and ambient occlusion. We are actively looking into fixing other bugs to improve this further
- Corrected an issue that was causing Steam to re-download the game when verifying the integrity of the game cache through the Steam client
- Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash when turning off Motion Blur in BmSystemSettings.ini. A future patch will enable this in the graphics settings menu

We would like to thank our fans for their patience and invaluable feedback. We will continue to monitor and listen for any additional issues.

The top is what's planned, the bottom is what's actually fixed.

Also, rumours going around that retailers in the US were told to trash the discs. Sounds like the whole thing is going to be overhauled. This could take awhile.

Kirby

TetraxShard wrote: »

- Fixed a crash that was happening for some users when exiting the game
- Fixed a bug which disabled rain effects and ambient occlusion. We are actively looking into fixing other bugs to improve this further
- Corrected an issue that was causing Steam to re-download the game when verifying the integrity of the game cache through the Steam client
- Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash when turning off Motion Blur in BmSystemSettings.ini. A future patch will enable this in the graphics settings menu

4 days and thats all they've done?!? I know this is a mammoth task and will take some time but there are no improvements in there. F*cking hell.

gizmo

Kirby wrote: »

Origins was a complete mess on PC for several months after launch. A large chunk of players couldnt progress past a point in the game and it was never patched. I'm not talking 0.5 % here. It was a good amount of people. Luckily, I wasnt one of them.

Performance wise, it wasnt great either. There are parts of the game that dip into single figures fps for seemingly no reason. For example in the deathstroke fight, there is a small part of the arena where this happens...for.....reasons.

There were a lot of bugs. People falling through the world etc. It wasnt as bad as this mess, but it was no success either.

Quite right. And what do the two projects have in common? Same series and the same publisher. Like I said, the most reasonable explanation is that the deal IG and WB signed for the ports did not leave enough time or allow for enough resources to be devoted to it. The blame here then lies with either (or both) WB and IG management. That being said, if IG were indeed as lazy and incompetent as people are claiming, there'd be a long line of catastrophes in their history, it wouldn't be two incidents.

Sonics2k wrote: »

I'll stand up and admit that you're mostly right, except for the portion of Rocksteady having some day in the decision, because of course they did.

Some say in which decision? The one to release the game when they did? If so, there's not a chance in utter hell Rocksteady would be able to stand up to their publisher, their owner and tell them they're not allowed to release it. it simply wasn't their decision to make.

Sonics2k wrote: »

Iron Galaxy made a huge mess up of Origins on its release, and I was one of people hit hard by that. They aren't a good studio, and they should not have been given this job.

You have no idea what kind of studio they're like though. As I said to Kirby above, they've worked on twenty five titles in a development capacity and the only two that have run into serious problems are the Arkham games. That's more indicative of a problem with their relationship with WB than their quality as a studio.

Sonics2k wrote: »

By tiny studio in regards to CD Projekt Red I meant in terms of the giant corporations or the massive studios out there. My meaning was more that a relatively unknown studio did a better job of a release than a much larger studio with considerably better funding.

Which is indeed correct but what I was trying to get across is that you're mixing and matching developers and publishers without any consideration given to the fact that they have very different responsibilities. You can be the most talented team in the entire industry who care deeply for the project you're working on but if your publisher doesn't allow you enough time to work on a project and wants it out the door there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Milestones have to be hit or else heads roll, that's just how it works.

Sonics2k wrote: »

All in all. Iron Galaxy messed up the PC port massively, on what is essentially a very good Batman game I'm looking forward to playing when it is playable. Rocksteady share some of the blame and WB are hopefully going to give Iron Galaxy a good smacking and fire some QC guys.

I'll say this one more time. QA would have known about all of the problems people are experiencing. Those problems would have been logged and discussed with the publisher before release. WB, knowing all of this, still pushed it out.

Kirby wrote: »

4 days and thats all they've done?!? I know this is a mammoth task and will take some time but there are no improvements in there. F*cking hell.

Low hanging fruit that doesn't have any knock on effects on other platforms or game systems. Not really surprising in the time given, it's essentially a hotfix and pushed out to show they're working on it.

FAILSAFE 00

So, great news we have an update on the situation and a game update.

community site update

Community Admin
Jun 27

Rocksteady is leading our team of developers and partners as we work on the PC performance issues that players have been encountering. The work is significant and while we are making good progress on improving performance, it will take some time to ensure that we get the right fixes in place.

Below is the list of the key areas where we are dedicating our resources to improve the experience for our loyal fans:

Support for frame rates above 30FPS in the graphics settings menu.

Fix for low resolution texture bug.

Improve overall performance and framerate hitches.

Add more options to the graphics settings menu.

Improvements to hard drive streaming and hitches.

Address full screen rendering bug on gaming laptop.

Improvements to system memory and VRAM usage.

NVIDIA SLI bug fixes.
Enabling AMD Crossfire.
NVIDIA and AMD updated drivers.

While we work on improving performance, we will also continue to make interim patches available to address issues for those still playing the game on PC. The first patch is being released now and the updates include:

Fixed a crash that was happening for some users when exiting the game.

Fixed a bug which disabled rain effects and ambient occlusion. We are actively looking into fixing other bugs to improve this further.

Corrected an issue that was causing Steam to re-download the game when verifying the integrity of the game cache through the Steam client.

Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash when turning off Motion Blur in BmSystemSettings.ini. A future patch will enable this in the graphics settings menu.

We would like to thank our fans for their patience and invaluable feedback. We will continue to monitor and listen for any additional issues.

Kirby

Read the thread failsafe. That was posted just above you. :P

Kiith

The patch gave me a bit of a performance increase, but turning off motion blur in the settings is what properly got the game running well for me. Playing it at max settings at 2560x1440 now without any issues.

Game is actually very good. Shame so much of the focus was on the horrible pc optimisation. It's deserved, but still.

The_Valeyard

Kiith wrote: »

The patch gave me a bit of a performance increase, but turning off motion blur in the settings is what properly got the game running well for me. Playing it at max settings at 2560x1440 now without any issues.

Game is actually very good. Shame so much of the focus was on the horrible pc optimisation. It's deserved, but still.

The story is brilliant, love the plot twists and couple of 'jump' moments.

TheDoc

Kiith wrote: »

The patch gave me a bit of a performance increase, but turning off motion blur in the settings is what properly got the game running well for me. Playing it at max settings at 2560x1440 now without any issues.

Game is actually very good. Shame so much of the focus was on the horrible pc optimisation. It's deserved, but still.

This is why I've been championing the "breathe" mentality. It's evident from the PC gamers who had no issues, and the console bunch, that this is a quality game, and while the launch was obviously terrible, bit of patience.

I'm 3/4 through Arkham Asylum, actually further then I got originally. What a cracking game, has me properly hyped to get through the rest and hopefully have Knight in a perfect working order.

Also as you say, reports abound that the latest round of patches has people running the game on max with no issues, still some things to iron out

TheDoc

TetraxShard wrote: »

Also, rumours going around that retailers in the US were told to trash the discs. Sounds like the whole thing is going to be overhauled. This could take awhile.

Rumour is rumour.

Even for a massive recall, they still need to be send back through the supply chain, to ensure proper credit is restored to retailers. Retailers go through wholesalers, who go through distributors, before you get near Warner Brothers.

Amazing what stuff can gather pace on the internet

TheDoc

TheDoc wrote: »

This is why I've been championing the "breathe" mentality.

If everyone had that mentality then there would have been no refund option and no panic to patch.

People paid a lot of money for a broken product, in a sales model which has been heading to a disaster such as this for a while.
Sale to customers has been treated as an advanced Beta for too long now

TheDoc

Deleted User wrote: »

If everyone had that mentality then there would have been no refund option and no panic to patch.

People paid a lot of money for a broken product, in a sales model which has been heading to a disaster such as this for a while.
Sale to customers has been treated as an advanced Beta for too long now

I know I was in the minority, but clearly I've been through enough launch day issues to not lose my **** when a game isn't working on release (as much as it obviously annoys me) But the refund model was in place before the game launched, so there would have been no issues there.