God of War Ragnarök PC - DF Tech Review - PC vs PS5 - Optimised Settings

[@Shantara11]

I wish DF would cover Steam Deck performance in their reviews. “This game runs smoothly on my 4090” is not very informative for the majority of users

[@MrHorst38]

Yeah many youtubers do that and I hate it. Alex used to have this Ryzen 3600 Geforce 2070 system for tests, what happened to that? Edit: to be fair, he shows how the game performs on a Ryzen 3600 Geforce 4070 system in the performance cliffs section, starting at 08:50.

[@goldensperm7182]

Also the switch version. I've been waiting for a review on switch so I can see if I want to buy it for that platform.

[@EarthIsFlat456]

It still provides useful information. A well-optimized game will run with fewer FPS on weaker hardware, but there will still be minimal stuttering/frame skipping, so you'll still have a good enough experience if you tweak the settings to suit your hardware's capability.

[@tleite]

please DF!

[@ococoseco]

He dedicated an entire section of the video to RTX 4060, and showed the performance of the R5 3600 multiple times… As he does in every video

[@bliglum]

The lack of visual upgrades is no problem. The visual downgrades, missing effects, etc. Unacceptable. Needs to be patched..

[@silverwerewolf975]

The most important is the poor performance on rdna2 gpus...

[@tapsofosiris3110]

It's poor on rtx2000 I think you might just need to upgrade my dude. It's time.

[@silverwerewolf975]

@@tapsofosiris3110 if he has a 2070S and above... Nop no need

[@tapsofosiris3110]

@@silverwerewolf975 Ah yes the RTX 2070 Super, the magical AMD RDNA2 gpu. It runs God of War Ragnarok so well because it has a whole 2 RDNAs instead of just the 1 that the AMD GTX 1070ti had. I wonder how many RDNAs AMD is going to cram into the RTX 4070ti Super Duper. It's gotta be at least 4 or 5. Can you imagine the frames, it's gonna get like at least 69-420 fps in Fortnite at 16k resolution. I can't wait to pre-order my scalper edition AMD 4070ti Super Duper. Cheers.

[@Renne308]

@@tapsofosiris3110what are you on about

[@DanielHebell]

Tip for those who also feel like the game is too claustrophobic at 16:9 The "Camera Tweaks"-mod from "huutaiii" works like a charm. It zooms in during cut-scenes and zooms out again whenever you are in control. The only 'downside' is that this mod causes the main character to not show in the main menu (where Kratos sits on a rock) - which is a nonissue. I got it from Nexus Mods.

[@RickyB686]

THANK YOU for bringing up the dialogue audio - it's so frustrating.

[@bigbattle1]

I think Patch 3 solved it. Haven't tried it myself though.

[@AceStrife]

Wonder if the game will have major sound problems on X-Fi cards...

[@JohnJohn-pm9wq]

Oh man, I thought the dialogue audio problem was just me psychologically thinking it’s not right lol

[@phrozac]

Patch 3 fixed it

[@HellRaiZOR13]

I think after the patch the dialogue audio is still not loud enough. At least for me

[@MINUANOGAMING]

It's unintentionally hilarious how you started the video by saying it's a great port and then spent the next 20 minutes showing everything that's broken with it lmao

[@HybOj]

well its a great port, with best fsr 3.1 implementation ever etc, it just need few touches to become 100% polished and those few touches needed are explained in the video :)

[@HybOj]

but I agree more work is needed :) Still, compared to the state of releases nowadays, this is really good one

[@colinmx.]

Heehee

[@shap7296]

@@HybOjthe fact that there’s no visual upgrades means it’s a terrible port

[@MINUANOGAMING]

​@HybOj I don't think games should be released with major issues like this zen 2 underutilization & broken tessellation like this one, but I do understand that compared to most new releases (looking at ff16 and metaphor) this is not as bad. Still can't help but think it's less of this port being good and more that optimization & polish in the games industry is in such a dire state that we're taking anything we can get. 😅

[@aaroncoleman3277]

HDR needs to be turned on everytime you start the game in the menu. Its annoying.

[@danquaza9275]

Is that a bug on pc too?? I was wondering if that was a Steam Deck exclusive issue or if that was happening for everyone… because it’s super frustrating haha

[@bloohook]

The new patch that just dropped today fixes that

[@joseijosei]

Try using RTX HDR. It's better anyways.

[@joseijosei]

Sorry, it took me 5 seconds to realise my last comment was stupid. Not everyone has an RTX GPU, duh! Again, I'm sorrym

[@Zemla]

@@joseijoseino way its better 😂

[@nik12937]

The odd performance disparity on the Ryzen 3600 vs later generation chips could be a threading issue. The 3000 series has seperate L3 cache per CCX (not CCD), so the 3600 has 16MB of L3 cache for each 3-core CCX. The later generations (5000 series and up) group the cores into 6 core CCX's (the CCX and CCD are basically one and the same), so there's 32MB of L3 cache shared across all 6 cores. It's possible the wrong cores are being assigned tasks, causing cross-CCX data transfer which incurs a latency penalty.

[@concinnus]

FWIW, the PS5 CPU is also Zen 2 and seems to have split L3...but Sony's SDK is probably better at thread scheduling (or allows explicit control) than the notoriously bad Windows thread scheduler.

[@Praxss]

Well that’s not fixable then

[@helloguy8934]

​@@PraxssAre you sure? It's the same situation on the ps5

[@theluanvuong5886]

Bro, this game is unplayable on my 3600 and 5700xt rig. If i'm lucky i might get to play 45 minutes before a black screen crash happen.....

[@helloguy8934]

@@theluanvuong5886 rip amd

[@ScyrousFX]

0:29 Alex, I've been commenting this for months, but you're still using the wrong timer here. You're trying to display the time in minutes/seconds and centiseconds for some reason, rather than milliseconds. While I'd argue milliseconds is a better choice, your centiseconds also cap out at 60 rather than 100. Whether you prefer centiseconds or milliseconds is one thing, but there's (respectively) 100 and 1000 of those in one second. Not 60.

[@be0wulfmarshallz]

Keep bringing it up. I'd like to know why they time it this way. I mean we don't even need to see anything smaller than a second here realistically.

[@Your_Paramour]

@@be0wulfmarshallz If he is editing in Davinci Resolve, the default timecode counter counts in mm:ss:frame_number , where frame number counts up to fps of the timeline, resetting each second. For a 60 fps video like this, that would explain why the "centiseconds" caps at 60. It's easy to overlook because you wouldn't naively expect a timecode to function this way. It's an easy fix and below I'll post my code on the off chance my theory is correct. Put it in the title expression in Resolve. :fps=comp:GetPrefs("Comp.FrameFormat.Rate"); current_time = time / fps; function getDisplayTimeComponents(time_in_seconds) ms = 1000 * (time_in_seconds % 1); seconds = floor(time_in_seconds % 60); minutes = floor(time_in_seconds / 60); return ms, seconds, minutes end display_ms, display_seconds, display_minutes = getDisplayTimeComponents(display_time); return string.format("%01d:%02d.%03.0f", display_minutes, display_seconds, display_ms)

[@Stijak85]

If it is sixty, than those are frames (in 60fps). But yes, I agree that is confusing for measuring things like pre compilation or game start - when he showed timer, I thought that pre compilation took hours instead od minutes.

[@Alex_Hoss]

Alex's Recommended Optimised Settings 21:00

[@EpicPianoArrangements]

17:34 Is there a reason why your FPS gets higher as you increase the volumetric fog, or did someone accidentally label the panels in reverse?

[@ThaJuiceLord]

There is an issue with this port causing gradual framerate loss likely due to VRAM leakage. Start the game with 130-140 frames consistent and about 10-15 minutes later im getting drops below 60 with massive stutters. Just a heads up.

[@rankcolour8780]

Are you by any chance running the game at higher settings than the equative amount of VRAM you need to throw at it? Around 50% of the people I've seen report this are running at settings that require 16GB VRAM or more.

[@Alexpierce999]

I confirm. I have the same issue and i'm waiting for a patch. Start flawlessly then stutters really bad after 20/30 minutes to me. Hopefully the patch will fix it.

[@rahulpandey9472]

Same was the case with ratchet and clank and it got fixed after many patches.

[@Centrioless]

It seems like every game that utilize direct storage has similar problem. FF16 also suffer from the same problem

[@ThaJuiceLord]

@@rankcolour8780 I have 16gb of vram. I am running 1440p ultra dlaa. My vram usage starts at 70 and goes above 100 over time. Definitely a leak.

[@aizazhaider5]

21:00 optimized settings.

[@Alovon]

Yeah, this port probably could've just had some more time in the oven despite how it runs well. The lack of the CubemapRT effects is already a notable concession regarding feature parity, but missing weather/fog effects and outright broken visuals and audio elsewhere? It's kind of a shame there.

[@Ayoul]

It's baffling. These ports don't really have any real deadlines. The whole point of doing them years after the fact is so they can be done right, but at this point they're worse than games that release day and date on console and PC.

[@balaam_7087]

@7:15 Bro that’s just the power of the geriatric mechanical hard drive on PS4 Pro.

[@christopherbohling5719]

This actually seems like a really bad port in terms of GPU performance when you consider that the 4060 (which usually matches PS5) is forced to run at 960p internal res and still doesn't lock at 60 when the PS5 version can do 1440p/60 solid in performance mode.

[@doomslayer8985]

Cause the PC port is bad and bruteforcing ps5 code is too taxing

[@krystiankowarek6679]

Ps5 720p upscaling 4k xd. Rtx 2070super .

[@captainthunderbolt7541]

For a "good port" this looks to have an awful lot of problems.

[@alien_824]

I guess that, when there are ports like The Last of Us part 1, ports like this look like a win.

[@xtr.7662]

The gaming performance is great thats what matters

[@hanannyg]

Any game release has a lot of problems and bugs, every single one... otherwise it would never have patches

[@tengkurazin3289]

they're just being nice to playstation while also highlighting the issue. Its better than just condemning and trashing them

[@captainthunderbolt7541]

@@xtr.7662 Yah, until your vram fills up from the memory leak and your frames tank!

[@D-D--]

The gpu performance overall in this game is actually pretty poor. To match the ps5, you need rtx 3080/4070/6800 xt level hardware. I wonder why alex didn't mention that.

[@xtr.7662]

You cant even match the ps5 resolution on pc because it uses dynamic res a 3070 should match it

[@eclisis5080]

The 30 series came out in 2020 lmao, it's about to be 2025, the 50 series is right around the corner, the 40 series blows the PS5 PRO so imagine how the 50 series cards will perform lmao

[@silverwerewolf975]

Its a lot worst on rdna2 gpus...

[@mefirstplease3676]

@@eclisis5080what does the PS5 pro have to do with anything bro stated in his comment?

[@eclisis5080]

@@mefirstplease3676 He said to match the ps5 you need a 3070 or 4070, which is not true, ps5 is medium settings, those cards out perform even the ps5 pro let alone the ps5

[@deathdoor]

Not only this port of a Playstation "Exclusive" performs bad on Radeon GPUs, it also performs specially bad on Zen 2 CPUs?! That's crazy!

[@danielmihaylov5525]

Well the game on my PC in 2K (RX 7800 XT) is better then 4K on PS5 (monitors are one to another), both on 4k, PC wins by a mile. "performs bad on Radeon GPUs" I don't have that observation.

[@DarkChazz]

Mouse support is also broken. There is massive camera hitching/stuttering when panning with the mouse, while switching to a controller makes it buttery smooth. Surprised to see Alex not mentioning this. Seems he only tested with a controller. EDIT: this is fixed in Patch 3 released just now.

[@Lizbeth_Moon]

0 problems playing with KBM , +/- 15h

[@Cheatman5]

Dude thank you, I had to scroll too far to see this comment. To me it’s the biggest issue right now. I use m/k and the panning stutter is so annoying. Needs to be fixed

[@Danusko]

I was hoping he mentioned it as well, it's the main issue keeping me from playing it.

[@stealthhunter6998]

Oh is that what it is? I was dumb confused with my frametime graph being so smooth but turning looked so microstutters.

[@DarkChazz]

@@Cheatman5 Patch 3 just released, fixes this issue, finally.

[@sean8102]

I always worry a bit when a PS port is being done by someone other than Nixxes. And generally don't when they are the ones doing it. This one (and GoW) was jetpack interactive. I had no idea about missing effects (avoided all media knowing it was coming to PC). Played about 2 hours so far and love it. Playing maxed out at DLSS quality. Performance has been great. Hope they restore the missing effects (seems like weird oversight).

[@baldaiacharles]

There is no option to indicate if you are using a Hard Drive or SSD on this port, as there is on Horizon Forbidden West. This might contribute to the unsmooth portal transitions and late LOD popping, which are smoother on PS5 and even PS4 despite hardware differences. Including an option to specify storage type could potentially improve loading times and transitions. Despite this, the game generally runs well on PC and has many positive aspects.

[@KBABZ]

Question: why was screen shake not disabled for the gameplay footage, particularly for the zoom-in shots? I think it makes it needlessly difficult to try and compare the various differences between shots and versions.

[@isarafan]

The missing effects, portal transition pop in and audio issues are criminal

[@concinnus]

If those are criminal, Jedi Survivor must qualify as genocide.

[@isarafan]

I ended up playing it on the PS5, but the image quality and low frame rate was horrible even there.

[@ynops4152]

will not buy because of this

[@gets0410]

I tried playing it on my 8-year-old PC. FSR 3 frame generation works VERY WELL... probably the first game I played with FrameGen with unnoticeable input delay.

[@juannito6318]

What specs you got?

[@gets0410]

@@juannito6318 my 8-yr-old PC has an RX 470. And GOW Ragnarok runs better than GOW. Also the first game, in general, that did FSR 3 frame gen very well.

[@juannito6318]

@@gets0410 nice i got a rx 570 and im pretty sure the first game doesn't have frame gen just ragnarok

[@dolan_plz]

This game would benefit so much from something like a nice RTGI, RT shadows or RTAO. The materials, art direction, rasterized tech is on very high level, but it has objectively speaking a less advanced lighting model (light bleed, floating, improper shading, etc), especially if you know how it should look from other games with more advanced lighting. It's great to know that some RT effects are in the pipeline, though!

[@TECHNOARMOUR]

yeah my thoughts exatcly its just the lighting feels so dated n washed up

[@gamernation1400]

It would have been better if it targeted ps5 only

[@theanimerapper6351]

@@Radek494 has nothing to do with the post 😂

[@mohamad-abdo]

No it doesn't, stop pushing this rt nonsense that adds too little at an insane cost of performance. It's the trend that ruined modern games' performance and led to the crisis of insanely heavy and unoptimized games.

[@dr.sivavignesh664]

@@TECHNOARMOUR this is probably because of the cross gen effect. Current gen gow would have looked something like wukong or better since it would have been in house first party engine.

[@ctrlectrld]

7:44 It's caused by wrong values in downmixing from multichannel to stereo, it happens in movies as well. Btw, in case you encounter performance issues, like the ones you got in ultra wide, I think it's not that wise basing the whole analysis and its definitive verdict on just one GPU of one specific brand of hardware (Nvidia). Many times drivers cause issues in games, what if those spikes don't happen on AMD GPUs/drivers?

[@HybOj]

who knows, they ignore AMD for a "reasons"

[@SpudCommando]

@@HybOj they are paid sponsors of nvidia.

[@Demmortal]

@@SpudCommando 80% + using nvidia cards why they should bother wasting time with amd cards when its not even the point of the video?

[@HashCollision]

@@Demmortal Because, if a PC game is struggling to run on AMD cards (which happens very often) that is very important to mention in a review.

[@RemixerUltimate]

The fact that it happens very often seems to be an issue with the AMD gpus and not the games, don’t you think?

[@neocaron87]

I also noticed the mist issue you're referring to on my 4090. It's present in the intro sequence on the luge as well, so I looked it up, and it doesn't seems to be an issue on AMD GPUs, there are comparison outhere. Clearly, it's a bug.

[@alyessamaddox7022]

Now the question, is it a game issue, or a driver issue

[@urazoktay7940]

Amazing video. I thoroughly enjoyed it, thank you Digital Foundry. Digital Foundry is my go to game tech analysis youtube channel.

[@CaribbeanAzure1]

Dude fuck this, it pisses me off how PC users are treated like complete shit, they're really gonna make me switch to a console and avoid all of this, this is unacceptable.

[@maxsettings2906]

This is there plan .

[@TheSynapstique]

I don't know if devs saw this but when you read all the patch notes until this day, all the things that Alex raise are mentioned 😂

[@dragothica4925]

I'm sorry but how is GoW:R "one of the smoothest PC ports ever" if it has major stuttering issues past the few first areas of the game? Possibly tested on a too high-end PC or not tested the stuttering areas?

[@captainthunderbolt7541]

imho DF should redo this video, because it makes them look like they have barely played the game.

[@DarkWarlock6838]

@@captainthunderbolt7541 Idk why theyre praising the port at the start of the vid then non-stop ranting about how lackluster the pc port is vs PS5 quality mode, the whole video is confusing af

[@Demmortal]

Major stuttering issues? Did u watch the video? Thats only ultra wide problem and looks more like a bug then optimization issue.

[@joseijosei]

Stuttering issues? I didn't notice them. How big are they? Maybe I just didn't pay attention.

[@hanannyg]

People watching the video with their brains turned off....

[@Darkhunter987]

Gutes Video wie immer ;) und auf wiedersehen :D

[@DavidAlfredoGuisado]

I guess the missing gfx effects on PC is just an oversight or they simply ran out of time. They'll be adding those sooner than later.

[@SmolderingFire]

gfx effects it's NV and DLSS problems

[@AnimeUniverseDE]

The first game already had missing effects so this is par for the course for Sony PC releases

[@gavinbarrett3444]

I love this style of video for optimized PC settings ❤

[@EpiCz_Izzy]

100% this game on PS5. Happy to see it on PC for new users to experience it for the first time.

[@redhunter1535]

You're crying in a corner you're fooling no one

[@MiyazakisPVPexperience]

Least unhinged PC player

[@caiomarastoni1031]

@@redhunter1535 crying in a corner over a game that has almost no improvments on pc? Ok 😂

[@SSID94]

its a garbage game anyway

[@cpt.tombstone]

FoV can be adjusted by modifying the game's memory at runtime via Cheat Engine. Works pretty well, even in cutscenes, although pushed too high, it can show things in cutscenes that we were not meant to see.

[@ramiking745]

Really wish you fellas would test these ports with more common setups before of saying “It’s a great port because it runs well with my $1500+ 4090 card ”. Tests with the 20 or 30 series RTX cards and/or with some AMD cards would have been more preferable in combination with the tests with the 4060 and 90.

[@PepGuard-tp4ny]

But I thought all PC gamers had the best components. 😂😂

[@ktrotter11]

20/30 cards can't beat PS5 so no point in showing you lol. except maybe 3080+. But without frame gen its still going to be too close for comfort.

[@legendknight2037]

@@ktrotter11 PS5 is not that hard to beat, something like 3070 or 2080 super will be more than enough.

[@Ligytdr]

@@PepGuard-tp4ny well, you clearly thought wrong

[@silverwerewolf975]

The most important is the poor performance on rdna2 gpus...

[@ScootaGray]

7:59 it sounds as if the audio is overly compressed.

[@ShwetanshuTiwariST]

Many players (including me) are having issue with the Mouse Camera Look, the game isn't registering mouse, while left and right clicks work the camera is stuck :( Edit: Patch 3 fixed this issue 😀

[@disrupt94]

Try tabbing in and out and pausing the game, usually solves it for me

[@mohammadjavadshabani6256]

Simply alt ta out of the game and in the game again. Easiest fix.

[@ShwetanshuTiwariST]

I have tried all the Game Input Service fixes, all the Alt Tab fixes, I have tried everything. It just doesn’t work. I am trying this since launch day. I think Jet Pack devs did not consider laptop players :(

[@HashCollision]

A patch just released this afternoon that fixed the issue. If you don't want to/haven't updated yet, just install the Microsoft GameInput package.

[@ShwetanshuTiwariST]

@@HashCollision thank you so much man!!! I just noticed the patch 🫂

[@xyoxus]

Talking about audio. It feels like you have some bigger volume changes in your audio recording, felt especially noticable in the scene change from 13:09 to the boat scene.

[@princepeachfuzz]

15:31 but um Alex, technically the FOV hasn't been increased as much as the game treating ultrawide like a continuation of 16:9 horizontally, so an increase in FOV will have to show more things vertically and that might show things that the developers don't want to be seen, just my two cents, maybe there's culling or pop-in happening at the top & bottom.

[@carbonsx3]

Agreed, you can see there is already more popping in on the ultrawide capture he showed in the video, it's also probably the issue causing the frame time issues discussed with UW aspect ratios... A full FoV slider option would probably be far worse, fixable probably, but definitely more work required.

[@ScyrousFX]

@@princepeachfuzz Yep, Alex is dead wrong here. An FOV slider would require the devs to - yet again - redesign every cinematic to fix those new camera issues. Not going to happen.

[@prodigyd9]

I’m using a modded fov slider and there is absolutely no problem with cutscenes, lighting or anything really.

[@jorge69696]

Fov can increase horizontally, vertically, or both. In this case it's HOR+ only.

[@princepeachfuzz]

@@jorge69696 I'm not saying it's impossible, maybe it wasn't QA tested, maybe it's a directorial decision, maybe they don't want to make it look more like the old GOW games and then make people who played it on PS feel left out, i know how FOVs work bro

[@spladam3845]

Very thorough Alex, this is an impressive analysis.

[@ReelFiends]

Man, this game runs beautifully on my rig. I ran into the same problem that I did with GoT though in that the PS overlay caused a bit of stuttering. I thought it might've been fixed since Ghost, but once I signed out GoWR ran much better.

[@gAndres44]

32:9 display support, LOVE IT!!! That actually makes me want to buy it at full price now. I’m happy to see this become a more common feature. Thank you Sony!!

[@wanshurst2416]

isn't the 7800x3d a little bit over twice as powerful as a 3600 in general?

[@nikhilchouhan1802]

I would assume they were comparing at higher graphics settings since the gpu is the bottleneck. It doesn't explain how can one get 300 fps then xd. Yours is a good point if thats not the case

[@meurer13daniel]

10:14 not in this case

[@albert2006xp]

It's not 3.5 times though.

[@joystickblaze]

DF, good job as always and thanks for the optimized configuration table. My only criticism here is that the team should also include tests for the Intel CPU as there are often differences in some games favoring these processors. Great job anyway!

[@muritech]

sounds like a remaster is on the way

[@leonro]

Right? The game is already so old, I'll wait for the $10 remaster upgrade that Sony should already be cooking by now.

[@kosmosyche]

About damn time. Looks like it was made for Atari 2600. I thought he was playing Pacman at first.

[@brandon_nope]

for real though this game could at least use RT reflections

[@carlharrison3637]

To be fair - that ultra wide mode looks bloomin' stunning.

[@pbzwriter]

I have a 4070 Super with a 7800x3d. This game has serious VRAM issues, I want to play at a consistent 120fps, I can’t even do that with Frame Gen on. The more I play the more the game tanks. Everyone was saying this port was phenomenal but as of right now I’m struggling with these issues.

[@HybOj]

have u tried textures and shadows on High? As Ultra is just same looking stuff with more VRAM buffers

[@matthyder5131]

I have those 2 components and this problem, thankyou for letting me know I aint that mad lol.

[@GameTechLead]

It's running fine on my RX 7800. So you're just above the capacity of your GPU VRAM. You need to adjust settings. Nothing wrong with that.

[@WinterSnowism]

new patch just released to fix vram issues

[@BenyaminLorit]

It definitely has it on my end too. Not as worse as my experience on Forbidden West but it is present especially when hopping from one huge story section or realm to another. I have to restart the game every couple hours or something just get performance back on track. Thankfully, booting the game is pretty fast but it's still just a bit annoying that I have to do it. Oh, and it also happens when you keep changing settings so even if the game doesn't tell you it needs to restart, you definitely have to.

[@TheErazar]

Love that you are using 4060 at 1440p at DLSS Quality. Keep it up!

[@raresmacovei8382]

No AMD GPU performance testing, at all. Again. But THREE different Nvidia GPUs tested. smh DF.

[@richshrimp7680]

Not that hard to find an amd equivalent for a game with no RT

[@ume-f5j]

Considering NVIDIA GPU's outnumber AMD 5 to 1, it's not too surprising.

[@trevorbeyer9720]

amd should make some gpu's worth testing

[@toasterdogg]

Why would there be AMD GPU testing?

[@AbuMO72MED]

GPU market share Nvidia 90% AMD less than 10% I have noticed this as well but as much as i do not like Nvidia if you are Digital foundry what do you choose to show for your viewers? I wish AMD step up their game because nvidia is slapping us with these Prices.

[@petedechop]

Thanks! Great work as always

[@Antares-dw9iv]

I am honestly not sure if I would call this an accomplished port. SSR being completely broken with upscalers is a pretty big deal, FSR frame gen is buggy at best, not only no visual upgrades but actually missing effects, apparent issues with zen 2 and Ultra Wide performance, apparently wide spread memory leak issues(no statistics but it seems to be a very common complaint), lacking basic settings like disabling the horrendous vignette or FOV settings are all signs of a poor port to me. It's not the worst but I also wouldn't call it a good port by any stretch. I think the generally good performance is more down to the game's visuals being fairly unambitious, and once you leave midgard I wouldn't say it's particularly good for what you're getting. Even the PS5's performance mode both runs great and looks fairly decent on a 4k display I can't think of many AAA games where that's the case, the last gen versions also hold up much better than in most games released after 2020, of course it's gonna run well on PC and I think we're really not at the point anymore where keeping traversal and shader comp stutters to a minimum is anything to write home about.

[@KungThulhu]

FSR framegen in this game is by far the best implementation of the technology. Zen 2 is below requirements listed in steam. FOV and vignette off aren't present in PS5 therefore not an issue with the port.

[@chacharealsmooth941]

There are no issues with framegen in discussions I browse. Maybe this about vram.

[@Antares-dw9iv]

@@chacharealsmooth941 I dunno between me and my friends we tested the game on 5 systems and only got FSR-FG to work properly on one. On all others it does not increase FPS but instead causes constant frametime issues. The only system it worked on was on a RTX 4080 system, while it didn't work on a Steam Deck, 6950 XT, RTX 4060 and RTX 2070 Super. Sure that's not a representative sample size, but I have never seen such issues in any other game and I have seen a few people complain about similar issues on reddit.

[@Antares-dw9iv]

@@KungThulhu The problem is that zen 2 performs disproportionately bad. The game seems to have very low CPU requirements in general, Zen 2 shouldn't have any issues, not to mention that it runs on the jaguar CPUs on the last gen consoles. And yes adding an FOV slider to the PC version is a basic quality of life feature that should be present in any decent PC port, there is really no excuse not to include it.

[@HashCollision]

@@Antares-dw9iv You have to be pretty methodical with using frame generation. AMD themselves acknowledges this on their documentation, and recommends you run the game at at least a consistent 60fps. You can't just slap it on and expect it to sort everything out. I initially turned on FG and ran into the frametime issues you mentioned, I then capped my fps to 60 using the in-game limiter, and viola, 100% completely smooth. Expect when my raw framerate dropped below 60fps due to my poor graphics card, which, even then I did not experience any of this "bugginess" you mentioned in your main comment.

[@Corxso]

Thanks for testing this! I found a lot of the same issues (especially audio being annoying!) but overall a good port.

[@dlbutters7164]

Why test it on a GPU that probably less than 1% of PC gamers have?

[@sean8102]

Edit: NM didn't notice this had a optimized settings part at 17:03 . I've had no problem just playing maxed out at 1440p, DLSS quality on my 3080/7800X3D. I think the point is to see if optimization is really a problem. Needless to say that this game should run smooth as silk on a 4090. If it was having performance issues on such a GPU it would reveal that the port has serious issues. I get what you mean though. I guess they only show how it runs on more GPU's when they do an "optimized settings" video? But yeah according to the latest steam hardware survey 0.96% of users have a 4090. RTX 3060 is the most popular at 5.36%. I'm running a 3080 (10GB) which has 1.93%. I tend to upgrade my GPU every two or three generations, and CPU even longer (just upgraded from an 8700K to a 7800X3D at Christmas last year).

[@UberOcelot]

Is the "portal pop-in" due to the PC platform not having unified memory, and instead relying on loading all the way out to VRAM?

[@monkfishy6348]

Tired of having to wait months after release for PC games to be fixed. Thanks for your in-depth analysis as usual, resigning me to waiting for patches. Again.

[@shamba4406]

@GamingNinja-n6v still better than 720p at 30 fps lmfao

[@TheGameGuruTv]

@GamingNinja-n6v there are aso many games out there, no hurry to buy on release :)

[@ColdFear6666]

​@GamingNinja-n6vPC MasterWait 😂 They wait years for games, than wait more for patches.

[@lalalabababa]

@GamingNinja-n6v yes, because even broken they're still 100 times better than console

[@thedude8128]

​@@ColdFear6666 tbf its like 1 or maybe 2 games a year worth waiting. This year the backlogs of games we waited released a long side everythung else that console got. I also paid $48 for sh2 this week. How much did you pay? Hows it feel paying twice for internet usage?

[@MrRainyCity]

Alex comes through again with a very detailed analysis that will hopefully become a blueprint for upcoming patches. Great review!

[@OOOcannal]

Playing all maxed on ultra preset at 1440p with FSR Quality + FRAME GEN ON locked at 120frames constantly on a RX 6750XT, without even update the graphics card driver, but its all good.

[@pegcity4eva]

Ditto on my RX6800. I'm using the newest beta drivers though with frame gen 2 off for the game.

[@the_kovic]

I wish you would also benchmark some mid-tier GPUs, like the RTX 4060, or at least RTX 4070.

[@alumlovescake]

The optimised settings are designed about a 4060 17:00

[@RudeGerbil]

Being a patient gamer didn’t pay off… maybe I should’ve just played it on PS5 from the get-go!

[@be0wulfmarshallz]

And not have your 4090 that can run 100s of other games that consoles don't have? Nah!

[@CaribbeanAzure1]

@@be0wulfmarshallz How many of those "100s" of other games are worth playing, and will give you a comparable experience to GoW Ragnarok? Shitty Satisfactory and Core Keeper? I dont think so.

[@SSID94]

@@be0wulfmarshallz tbh the games you cant run on PC are better than the ones you cant run on PS5. Coming from someone who owns both

[@hastesoldat]

That's not beingpatient. A patient gamer waits a lot longer: until the game is fully patched and heavily discounted.

[@craigsampson3386]

Just buy a PS5 Pro to run the game even better and not have any headaches like on PC? Cheaper too 🤷

[@ArchLordXarnor]

Was waiting for this!

[@geoffdb8118]

First realm you travel to is absolutely tanking my system (3600/GTX1660). Midgard ran just as well as GOW2018. Audio Quality is also wayyyy worse than GOW2018, which shook my skull with the heaviness and crunchiness

[@dmannion81]

Thank God the 1.3 patch fixed the annoying mouse stutter. Before I had to cap at 60 and use Lossless Scaling's frame generation to get 120 fps and it be about 98% smooth and now I just use unlocked frames and getting over 200 FPS and its super smooth now with mouse movement.

[@omarcomming722]

Yeah no, visual downgrades from the console version are completely unacceptable. I was impressed by the initial performance in midgard but that that falls apart in Svartflheim

[@FrothyMeanV2]

I had a few audio issues where dialogue would be delayed and then characters would speak over each other. For instance Atreus would ask Mimir a question and he would respond to the question as Atreus would be asking it.

[@toastken7492]

it compiles shaders every single time I open the game, shader compilation should be a one time thing also my gpu usage drops in certain areas which tanks my fps and it's not a vram issue because I've got 8gig vram and the vram usage stays around 6gigs Edit: I have a ryzen 3600 and alex mentioned in the video that he experienced the same thing with his 3600 where performance is below 60fps

[@zedsdeadbaby]

That shouldn't be happening, perhaps the folder where the compiled shaders would go is inadvertently set to read-only or something. it's always the little things like that

[@beegyoshi6525]

Does it take very long every time? If not, then its just checking the shaders,no need to wait

[@TechnoFreak-IN]

repair game files or reinstall the game!

[@KungThulhu]

It seems to compile them partially instead of loading them all at once like in the video.

[@krazykoolz88]

hey df good job pointing out the missing effects, the dev really needs to fix that!!1 thx.

[@Blaze-2457]

do you know if it was fixed in the latest patch?

[@DrLilo]

See the minor issues highlighted here are why even though I have a good gaming PC and PS5 games get PC ports now, I'm honestly still interested in the PS5 Pro. Because in the real world it's still often gonna be the best way to play these first party titles.

[@chacharealsmooth941]

Even in this non-ideal form, this is the superior way to play this game without a doubt. That's no need to buy another platform to get less.

[@DrLilo]

@@chacharealsmooth941 I already have a PS5 as well to be clear, I'm just considering upgrading it

[@WhoWatchesVideos]

Could the portal transition pop-in be an artifact of an engine designed for unified memory not being adequately retooled for dedicated video memory?

[@RonnieBanerjee007]

The audio bugs are terrible!

[@selohcin]

It's just louder on PS5. Turn it up on PC and it should be fine.

[@miliyn17]

@@selohcin It's not all the audio that is too quiet on PC. It's just dialog and only in cinematics. It's completely broken. adjusting the volume for cutscenes would lead to you blowing your ears out as soon as it goes back to gameplay.

[@beefrogers9230]

I played it with out of the box settings @1440p without overlay and without even checking the graphics menu once. And i really enjoyed it.

[@blackcaesar8387]

Call me a conspiracy nut...but I will not be surprised if Sony is intentionally trying to make PC ports not be an improvement over the PlayStation port. If a 4090 cannot do 4k 60 fps at the same settings that ps5 does 4k 30fps, then there is something seriously wrong. I think Alex is being too kind. They want our (pc gamers) money, but don't their whiny fan boys feeling inferior.

[@sven957]

For sure. Their early pc ports usually included additional features like ray tracing for PC but they completley stopped doing that. They dont want the game to look better on PC

[@omarcomming722]

I've been thinking this for a long time, nearly all of their ports look identical at max settings to PS5

[@ferynho1089]

@@sven957 they only had Ray tracing for games that had it on PS5 aswell, like Ratchet and Clank, the 2 Spiderman games,Returnal. neither HFW or Ghost of Tsushima or God of War 2018 and Ragnarok don't have ray tracing on PS, neither they have on PC cause the devs of the game didn't include it when they made the games for PS...

[@kronikhaze8674]

​​@@ferynho1089,true, and we will hopefully be seeing way more titles utilizing ray tracing with the PS5 Pro launching November.

[@AnEyeRacky]

​@@sven957 there is no ray tracing on the PC port of god of war... The only ones that had RTX support on PC had RTX support on console as well I believe

[@FSAPOJake]

These videos are a godsend, not only for being interesting, but also because Nixxes tends to watch them and fix most if not all the issues in future patches.

[@Blackson187]

Weird calling this a great port when it's worse than the PS5 version.

[@SpudCommando]

straight up nvidia driver graphical issues, weird audio, and framegen ghosting. the audacity they call this a "great port" lmao.

[@Chibicat2024]

They tend to fanboy about specific games. Remember that they called Allan Wake 2 a fantastic game, and it failed hard on sales.

[@hanannyg]

Comments like this really makes me believe people are just dumb.... Are you a sony fanboy !?!!?!???

[@runningkago4793]

@@Chibicat2024So how well a game sells determines how good it is? By this logic Call of Duty and every sports game are masterpieces because they sell extremely well year after year.

[@memoryboy]

in their defense they're all fixable issues, nothing at the core of having a good experience, I'm saying this as someone who noticed nearly all the issues mentioned. Ideally a patch or two should fix all this.

[@nuruddinpeters9491]

Great review. Aww, no mention of the Mouse-panning stutter/judder which isn't present in GodOfWar 2018 PC - My hard stop was can't play with Mouse and Keyboard until camera panning is resolved. Sucks. EDIT: Patch 3, 9/27, fixed the Mouse Stutter/Judder issue while panning. (Patch Notes: mouse GameInput changed to Mouse RawInput.) I guess Alex knew about this fix before hand, before uploading their video today.

[@zedrake]

I appreciate its a long game but I don't quite understand how what was played was plagued with problems to the point where 20 mins of the video is LOOK AT ALL OF THE PROBLEMS and the opening few minutes are dedicated to saying its a good port when those 20 minutes were problems found on a high end machine. Is this just a bias creeping in because of the recent PS5 Pro / PC debate popping up.

[@Xetrill]

Small error the frame time comparison sequence (15:20) is flipped.

[@RelyksJ]

No?

[@glown2533]

This mean it's time to ditch my 3900xt zen2+? Still gives great performance in the games I play but alot of the games I play are very well optimized for high tread count and even a game like star citizen decent but is this seems like a sign it's getting old this the only game that'd be heavy on it rn that I'll be playing

[@talald342]

Alex in another great review. It’s like they watched his previous reviews, focused on making sure there’s no stuttering and frame time issues, but forgot about matching or even enhancing it pass the PS5 version with the examples of LOD pop ins and others. I liked it on the PS5, got it on PC and returned it as it just doesn’t feel as good

[@XWXS2]

I say it always Those differences are so small with ps 5 games and sony lets ps 5 always look better on og Hardware that's on purpose they dont want that pc will look better pc will have more frames sure but I play those games as intended on og hardware i came to the conclusion they do that with all exclusives that are on pc

[@dialmightyspartangod6717]

Lol or their games are optimized for their primary platform and PC has thousands of different builds. Their system is very good that should tell you what you need to know. But wait it’s gonna get worse with the Pro

[@maxsettings2906]

I agree it seems only nvidia sponsored games look leagues better on pc. They definitely gimp pc ports on purpose

[@zachgrim7416]

This port’s amazing…… for about 15 minutes……. then I get hit with a memory leak so hard I lose about 50 frames. Great port.

[@WindowsPlaysFPS]

You guys normally hit it out of the park with the reviews but this particular review makes no sense. You start praising this games port like its the new coming of Jesus, then go into a 20 minute rant about some big issues...

[@eclisis5080]

Nothing is perfect you can talk about flaws in everything, especially console games lmao

[@tengkurazin3289]

they're being diplomatic. why can't people understand this

[@Ligytdr]

@@WindowsPlaysFPS Since the port has no new technical additions, what else would they cover aside the issues? We've seen the game already, there's no point describing how it looks And Alex was very consistent with how he didn't think most issues are that big, anyway I didn't particularly like this review was, either, but these comments are so weird to me. Like, of course the video about a port is going to cover mostly its issues...

[@MamoMark]

You are being really hyperbolic. He was "praising this games port like its the new coming of Jesus"? I have no idea how you gathered that from the initial 3 mins. He said a couple of things that make it a great port and moved onto the things that it can improve.

[@1meen1]

Think about the games they've been technically reviewing lately, now imagine finally coming across a game that actually has a solid fps and little to no stutter. Which was why he emphasized that it's playable. The main issues he have with the game is that the options that differ from console settings are the things that have issues; so if you just wanted to play the game you're fine, it you want an excuse to justify your PC setup then you'll find the same nitpicks.

[@TheGrimMumble]

17:33 are the fps numbers in the wrong order? otherwise ultra seems like a no brainer, more fps and better quality, seems there is a free lunch after all

[@HardwareAccent]

PS5 CPU may look similar to a Ryzen 3600 or 3700x but it doesn't use a standard DDR4 3600MT/s CL16 at about 28.8 GB/s bandwith. It uses GDDR6 for CPU with 448 GB/s bandwith. Over 15x faster. That is if people don't forget to activate XMP/DOCP. You also have Kraken hardware decompression so less work for CPU in PS5.

[@kylelochner5686]

you can't say the memory is over 15x faster, the latency is rediculously high. The reason why the say it's equivalent to the ryzen 5 3600 is because the 4700s was an identical cpu to the ps5 and performance a little slower than the ryzen 5 3600 in benchmarks

[@tvcultural68]

🤦‍♂️

[@HardwareAccent]

@@kylelochner5686lots of the GDDR6 latency is mitigated by soldering the memory directly to the motherboard (or GPU’s pcb). If I’m not mistaken the standard latency of DDR4 is about 14-19 nanoseconds when that value for gddr6 is 10-15ns so is actually lower. The problem with GDDR6 is the cost and a need for active cooling. If DDR4 would be better then Sony would probably used few times less expensive option.

[@venzoah]

⁠@@HardwareAccentWhat you are saying is misleading because GDDR has an aggressive load-latency curve compared to DDR. Also GDDR6 latency is 150-200ns. You’re way off.

[@archivey-h8e]

high latency ram isn't good for the CPU. kraken does help but since this is a PS4 title it shouldn't matter.

[@vividhdpcgclips]

I didn't experience any of the texture pop in shown here. So it might be hardware or driver specific.

[@TartarSauceIsNotDead]

You know the irony is they won't fix all of the bugs to give you a more comparable experience to console. In addition with the ridiculous PSN account it almost puts piracy into. prospective now doesn't it.

[@Neonmirrorblack]

The portals were always loading screens, so I'm not sure why anyone would think the HD had anything to do with how things actually looked after you exited them. There's a reason the portals take so long to load sometimes. They aren't the end of some mandatory "walking and talking" section, because you can just stand in one spot until they appear.

[@adamprestidge4775]

Like all PC games......wait 6 months for it to be polished.

[@fabolousjada5070]

It’s been 3 years 😂 and it’s not a pc game is a Sony game ported that’s why it’s trash even on a 4090

[@LexiFPS]

@@fabolousjada5070 I ran this game on Ultra Settings with DLSS Quality on my 3080 and got 70-80 FPS constantly pretty much every area of the game

[@mrc2176]

@@LexiFPS What cpu are you using? I have a 3080 10gb and a 7800x3d and am getting around 130-140 fps with ultra settings and dlss quality. Though I am only up to the part when you just beat thor, but 70-80 is a lot lower than that

[@Neb_Raska]

It's usually a year now

[@joseijosei]

6 months? Bro, do you think this is Batman: Arkham Knight or something? These issues aren't even worth waiting a day, and they're probably going to be fixed in the next two weeks.

[@jshico3417]

the one thing i found unacceptable is getting 60 fps on a 7800xt at 1440p high at the world tree (7800x3d, 32 gb ram, pcie 4.0 7000Mbps SSD) on a positive note, i appreciate the frame generation implementation, it's flawless

[@platinum2905]

Why are you so inclined to "reiterate" as you put it, again and again that this is an excelent port, when you yourself pointed out issues that happen on pc and are absent on ps5, and not only that, there are virtually no improvements in graphics on PC compared to PS5? Also, for regular people out there who do not play the game on a high end GPU, expect the framerate to tank dramatically in some later maps. It's just not normal to play a game on a map and it runs perfectly well indeed but then again after 2 hours to be forced to change settings because now my framerate dropped down more than 20-30 fps. This should be pointed out. It seems this obsession with "frametime spikes" on a graph is all that matter to DF nowdays. If you want to tech review a game, do it right, at least play the whole game first, not just the oppening sequences. Evaluating a game is way more than playing a level and looking at a frame graph on a high end GPU. I know i will receive hate for this rant comment but someone had to say it. I like the game, but the port itself is really nothing special.

[@captainthunderbolt7541]

It doesn't sound like a good port to me. Tessellation is bugged, Ryzen 3000 CPUs are bugged, sound is muffled, it's missing visual effects... How is that a good port? I sometimes think these guys are so hyper-focused on shader stutter that they lose sight of everything else.

[@Lord.alucarD]

But the game is fps graphics so it must be a good port 😢 also its playable on a 4090

[@miikatenkula6356]

To me, this is a really bad port but its just hiding in plain sight. They just play 1 hour, where the performance is almost great in Midgard and the first dream sequence. Then you go to Sindri's house and Svartalfheim, that's where reality slaps you right in the face. This is probably one of the worst DF Tech Reviews I've seen so far.

[@captainthunderbolt7541]

@@miikatenkula6356 The funny thing is that they barely played the game, but still came away with a huge list of things that need fixing! If they had given the game a proper playthough, how much more might they have found? There are probably plenty more bugs waiting to be encountered!

[@fabolousjada5070]

Get a ps5 drop the ego and pride

[@LingLing-ou6nt]

Every game needs to be optimized like this. Can believe im running this game on my Ally at 80-100fps

[@jovanniorcullo1686]

Is Sindri mopping the water or is the mop glitching through the water at 0:52 ???

[@Cheatman5]

Alex!! How did you not mention the camera micro stutter when using a mouse?! I’m running around 160 FPS ultra, but the mouse movement stutters and is jittery so it makes it feel like 60 FPS. It’s not smooth at all

[@3lanksp_ce]

I wonder if the way they created that tree asset caused it to have an insane number of little microfaces or something. Where there is some sort of super dense small details that causes the amount of tessellation needed to absolutely skyrocket.

[@morgothbauglirmelkar]

Alex is the man, he is so thorough. Love it.

[@luism8130]

I love being a 7800X3D owner.. It is the only weapon we have against poor optimization. That difference was staggering...

[@destebangm11216]

Pretty disappointing to see this PC version to go behind the PS5 version and its predecessor in terms of visual quality :/

[@guillermopaolini9895]

X2

[@SHADOW543121]

God its already been over 2 years since this game came out? I remember being super excited along with my nephew to play this day 1

[@rawr40k]

LOL star wars outlaws never got that optimized setttings video. Like none of the settings would've helped with performance.