Dragon's Dogma 2 is a Mess: GPU & CPU Benchmarks, Bottlenecks, & Crashes

[@GamersNexus]

DRM and DLC and Microtransactions make for the perfect ingredients! Can't wait to get more accounts temporarily banned if we ever benchmark this again! Learn about our bottleneck testing metrics like GPU Busy: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eZC1gGuYf9SjbtE Grab one of our 3D metal emblem pint glasses! store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-3d-emblem-glasses

[@tylersmash7134]

The mtx aren't new for Capcom, but I have to use GeForce Now to play it, honestly if I'd known PC performance was gonna be this bad I wouldn't have bought it

[@user-Aaron-]

​@@tylersmash7134Can't you return it?

[@TechGuyBeau]

I was going to buy this to test on my channel.... (pretty bad way to burn my cash i know). I feel like getting your account banned from this is actually a huge win... now you can ignore the POS

[@SeriusSim]

At this point it'd just make sense to use a pirated version, except those tend to run much better than legit versions thanks to the removal or DRMs 🤷‍♂️

[@tylersmash7134]

@@user-Aaron- I'm waiting for it to get better but I'm using GeForce Now to play it

[@Littahe]

"Huh, our game barely runs and its extremely cpu bound? We better add denuvo so the game decrypts through the cpu and and makes the bottleneck even worse."

[@meth3rlence]

What're you talking about? OBVIOUSLY Denuvo has no effect on performance as they've stated 1000 times (after every game that comes out with it has shit performance) -- Why would they possibly lie about that? ;)

[@Battleneter]

This is one of the best looking games of 2006

[@raykay47420]

@@BattleneterI think it's my favorite PS3 game of all time

[@primecelron6764]

⁠@@adamuser8246lmao are you an idiot why can’t both be true ? The game is poorly optimized and adding Denuvo makes it worse

[@interlace84]

@@adamuser8246 ps5's don't exactly carry 4090Ti's, 18-core cpu's or 32GB+ DDR5 etc.. 🙄 clearly all denuvo-infused game engines get crippled with micro-to-megastutters introduced all over the place. Nothing else ever ruined more UE4-based titles and beyond at release including AAA and AAAA ones, period.

[@keadinmode2070]

Like the late TotalBiscuit said, "buying games on launch gets you the worst experience at the highest price". Seems thats the norm for gaming these days.

[@paul1979uk2000]

Which is ironic because this is a very gaming thing, usually buying early or at a higher price point, gives you a premium product, but with gaming, it's the other way around that you get better by paying less, especially on the PC because not only is the game patched up after months or years, but the drivers will be in a better state to get more performance out of the game. It doesn't pay to buy games on release with how little respect publishers show games, wait a few months or a year and get the game much cheaper, patched up and drivers that are in a better state. On another note, I rarely play games on release any more, and because of that, I rarely have any issues with games, they just run and perform great, whiles paying less for them, a lot of gamers that have issues are the early adopters and they are paying a premium to be a beta tester. It's remarkable that gamers still put up with this on PC and console, and we know they do because game sales are still high on release, hence why publishers keep doing this, they'll only listen once sales really get hurt hard, until then, they don't care.

[@Insanemonk11]

for PC* It runs fine on my ps5, my roommates ps5, and several people I follow on twitter.

[@SkateClipsAndTips]

Last time I pre-ordered a game and played at launch was the og MW3 (2011). Now a days games are not worth buying at launch for full price. The last game I bought at full price was COD Cold War, then I gave up buying new games at full price

[@TheBubbeloo]

@@Insanemonk11 The performance isn't really amazing on PS5 either, it's just more stable in how badly it runs so it feels a lot less so.

[@Insanemonk11]

@@TheBubbeloo whatever PC people need to tell themselves, I don't judge

[@ChompDude]

Isn't it ironic that anti-piracy leads people to want to pirate more? The more and more I sit on this game waiting to see what develops with the patches the more I want to wait for a sale.

[@lowfade556]

so ur still buying.. what lol

[@boitaho]

@@lowfade556 Crapcom getting $70 from me now for an unoptimized greedfest game VS Crapcom getting $15-30 from me months/years down the line for a complete and patched to hell and back version of a game is still a difference.

[@pixelforg]

It's weird because why don't people just play other games that they can afford? There's so many types of games

[@imrgalaxy6684]

@@pixelforg They're not saying they can't afford, the anti-piracy makes the ones who pirate it instead of buying it have a better experience

[@pixelforg]

@@imrgalaxy6684 then why not buy the game and also pirate the game both? You get to support the devs while also getting a better experience. Tbf if I was in this scenario I'd simply play other games lol, there's soo many that I won't even be able to finish in my lifetime

[@TiagoToro]

I can't believe that the performance is so bad, and they put Denuvo on top of that, disgusting.

[@jrsomethingnumbers9704]

"Barnacles! What could be worse than one giant DRM?" "Oh I know." *Capcom's in house DRM* "Two giant DRMs!"

[@chaoswatcher2215]

and a ton of micro-transactions for a single player game. pathetic

[@fredt1983]

Did everyone (users and capcom) forget the Resident Evil Village/Monster Hunter fiascos? Why do they keep using that DRM that destroys performance on higher requirement games..

[@Somebody374-bv8cd]

@@fredt1983Pirates are the big boogeyman for big corporations that haunt them every second so all of them think DRM will save them a few pennies.

[@dingickso4098]

Denuvo is essentially an anti piracy and kernel level anti cheat. Which bloats the .exe and usually causes performance issues...almost always in fact.

[@yourmissingsock556boop3]

The people that defend Denuvo are going to blow a gasket.

[@GamersNexus]

Do those exist?!

[@nanoflower1]

@@GamersNexusSadly yes. There are people that have bought into Denuvo's argument that their DRM doesn't impact performance.

[@aquilliusranger2137]

@@GamersNexusWaaaaay too many people also defends Capcom’s unnecessary MTX as well.

[@Antares-dw9iv]

​@@nanoflower1 I dunno as much as I dislike Denuvo I do think the performance impact is vastly overstated in most cases, in this game the performance of comparable Zen 2 CPUs on PC seems to be in line with the consoles' chips.

[@BleedForTheWorld]

@@aquilliusranger2137 the mtx is unnecessary but also not needed since you can get all of those items and more by playing the game.

[@MemeticsX]

This kind of CPU wait / GPU wait analysis is EXACTLY what we've needed for... forever, honestly, to figure out why so many games have lag/stutter issues. Now if we can just get the game developers to use these analytic approaches to FIX THEIR CODE, we'll have more stable games and will all be a lot happier.

[@eldibs]

Adding Denuvo is a great way to punish the people who actually paid for your game to the point that people who pirate it have a better experience.

[@ArdentMoogle]

If only there were more people that could crack Denuvo. Sadly very few games with it actually get cracked, and whenever it happens most devs will remove Denuvo from the game and everyone gets a better experience.

[@Kilioh15]

Let's not pretend the performance issues are denuvo.

[@XrayTheMyth23]

@@Kilioh15Some definitely are, every denuvo game has this exact issue. Although I do think they are probably other fixes needed in this case as well.

[@oggilein1]

@Kilioh15 good thing we dont have to pretend then, lmao

[@Asterra2]

@@Kilioh15 When performance issues include CPU bottlenecking, Denuvo absolutely makes this worse. CPU utilization is one of the three things Denuvo impacts. That's why every other post here has "Denuvo" somewhere in it. Also take careful note of the thread about people defending Denuvo, and the incredulity over there being such people on Earth.

[@vivsavagex]

i honestly cant thank you guys enough for this video. i thought i was taking crazy pills. you guys aren't even a game reviewing channel yet you are the first people out of ALL the channels i follow to give any sort of due diligence to the performance of a frickin PC GAME! every single of the top reviewers literally just said something along the lines of a whispered aside like "performance wasn't great in cities but i am playing on a 4090 so your milage may vary"...and that was it! meanwhile, it is unplayable on a 3080 and i7 12700kf...what happened to the days where pc games were reviewed on a high end, mid and low end rig? according to steam hardware survey, only 4-6% of players have a better gpu-cpu than me. given these figures, who is this game for?! how can these reviewers be so negligent in their reviews of a pc game? the reviews of this game honestly have completely disheartened me on even paying attention to reviews. it seems that merely scrolling down on the steam review page could inform customers better on their purchase...again, thank you for always being a bastion of integrity in the PC community

[@GamersNexus]

Thanks for the kind words and for the tip! You're definitely not alone in performance. Looking through the user reviews, it seems like a ton of players are encountering game-breaking issues with either performance or crashes.

[@thelbtlover]

It's because these reviewers are rich and they have top end hardware, which is fine but if I was a reviewer I would have my personal rig which has all the top of the line hardware, and a couple normal rigs that would better represent what my viewers had. It's a no brainer. "Oh, it works great on my $5,000 rig!" Yeah, no sh*t. This is so out of touch it's like having a KZbin channel dedicated to reviewing airlines and then riding on your private jet and saying "the boarding times are non-existent!"

[@vivsavagex]

exactly. its just super lazy, negligent or shady. i made almost the same comparison in another comment its like reviewing an airline when you've only flown 1 time on first class.@@thelbtlover

[@BleedForTheWorld]

"Who is this game for?" PS5 owners. Even the Series X has image quality issues as reported by Digital Foundry. Seriously, you're in the minority of a minority of players with that kind of expensive gpu and you should be able to play this at 4K 60 but alas, times are getting real rough for the industry.

[@nothingisawesome]

@@thelbtloverthe game runs like shit on my top end build and mid range build so it should be obvious to everyone. On pc at least. Also skill up does what you said with two builds but looks like no review yet from him Btw the original poster should check out Digital Foundry

[@SirSomnolent]

This is going to be an awesome game to play on my ryzen 11950x3d in a few years

[@ASAFYY]

dont forget 7090ti.

[@sanji663]

@@ASAFYY 6090 super ti should be fine ;)

[@Force-Multiplier]

Whoever optimized DD2 at Capcom is obviously the boss' favorite nephew

[@ButtSolution]

It's obvious that they gave Itsuno pretty much unrestricted creative control over this project, and he went full 1999 George Lucas. There's absolutely no way Capcom themselves would have approved of there being no New Game option, or Dragonsplague (which can potentially kill every NPC in your game overnight in a game with ONE SAVE and no ability to start over), or UNSTABLE 30FPS ON CONSOLES because of overcomplicated spaghetti-coded AI routines for every single NPC. Itsuno's Vision (tm) was part of what made the original game exactly the right kind of weird, but he went so overboard in the sequel that he demanded things that no hardware on the market could even run.

[@Force-Multiplier]

@@ButtSolution idk if i can even blame it on Itsuno DMC5 came out so well optimized that i was joking about production level nephews but realistically it's so effed up that any number of reasons is possible the Itsuno team could be ass at working with the RE Engine (especially with open worlds) or it could be that they had issues and Capcom just didn't cared or you could be entirely right too in the end all i know is that they effed it up with one of my favorite IPs and it's sad but i won't helicopter parent it Capcom shouldn't have released DD2 in that state and now im concerned for Monster Hunter Wilds

[@UMADBRO64]

@@ButtSolutionGod could you scream any harder that you went into Dragon's Dogma demanding Elden Ring? You zoomers are worse than vegans.

[@Kale-Sims]

It's a modern day Problem. Why optimize when you can rely on dlss or fsr. Crapcom!

[@MLWJ1993]

The human eye can't perceive more than 24 stutters per second! 🫠

[@jugermaut]

I'm astonished looking at the steam's discussion page. So many people defending this game, claiming no problem with performance, no problem with the DRM or DLCs. Heck, somebody's asking about why the game performance sucks, and got blasted by people saying "it just launched!". Half baked games are really the norm now.

[@kanrakucheese]

If HBO was hiring shills to defend their output online and write fake reviews praising it (they've outright admitted to having done this), I have no doubt the entire industry is doing the same.

[@GalactoseGalaxy]

I have 40 hours+ in the game now, nearly max settings and using recording software. only really stutter in the city. I honestly think people just don't know how to set their graphics settings, or people expect to play an extremely beautiful game at entirely max settings and expect over 100fps. it's a very fun game with great story writing and combat, and it's probably the most beautiful game I've played. I dont see how it's getting shit on so much

[@kanrakucheese]

@@GalactoseGalaxy Denuvo or Capcom?

[@igeloi]

​@@GalactoseGalaxyIt's a great game, but it's clearly optimized terribly.

[@ShiroNoFune]

It's a good game, but the performance is just trash. The scummy tactics with the DLC and P2W are also obviously a thing to blame. If you ignore all of those, Dragon's Dogma 2 is a very good and fun game. Reminds me of Skyrim somewhat.

[@whlewis9164]

They knew about this, and don’t call me Shirley.

[@GamersNexus]

I was trying to work a Don't call me Shirley into that sentence but couldn't make it happen!

[@EpifanesEuergetes]

@@GamersNexusSurely there was a way?

[@ishJJx3]

Holy, this CPU Busy data is so valuable

[@konradsikorski1646]

cant find it on my installation tho. can only find GPU Busy. im not sure whether thats because i have a somewhat older system (that doesnt make this data available) or GN got some kind of alpha version of this app

[@jvsimic]

@@konradsikorski1646 Look at the most recent interview with the Intel guy, GN is running a closed beta version of Presentmon for now until Intel gets some feedback from them (news media) about it, will release openly then.

[@marcuszettergren8885]

@@konradsikorski1646 This actually piss me off a bit. They (and Intel) have talked about this feature for while, and presented it in a way like everyone should use it, which i can agree on, but it isn't available to other than the reviewers. This is off course to create a hype.

[@Houdini111]

@@konradsikorski1646 I also don't have CPU Busy. I have an R9 7900 and RTX 3080, so I highly doubt my hardware is too old for it. It just seems to be in a private beta or something.

[@eljoel89]

Was that griffin The Wicked Witch of the DRM? Is that why it melted when it touched water?

[@RandomGaming85]

Anyone else remember a time when shipping a game meant that it was fully functional?

[@arnovanwingerde8589]

Exactly: Pong never needed updates!

[@HighwayUK]

release was clearly pushed out 3 months early to hit the financial year end for shareholders.

[@kanrakucheese]

Extra 3 months wouldn't have helped. Capcom deliberately made the game worse for corporate DIE and *MODERN AUDIENCES* . The character creator has options from the first game implemented but deliberately locked off.

[@smellybearc7411]

This! Fiscal Year End

[@funkle2645]

@@kanrakucheeseSomething in the game being "woke" or not "woke" won't affect your fps lmao

[@kanrakucheese]

@@funkle2645 It 100% impacts development priorities.

[@kanrakucheese]

@@funkle2645 It 100% impacts development priorities.

[@Xhog0]

Things start making more sense as to why they released the game in this state when you realize that Japan's end of fiscal year is March 31st. This is not the first time they have released games in a less than stellar state to please shareholders and it certainly won't be the last. If the next Monster Hunter is going to have a simultaneous release on PC, expect this to happen again.

[@Mayhzon]

The game isn't even too bad. Ye the performance can be better, but people act like Capcom went to their house, shot their pet dog, clogged the toilet and then left the oven on after leaving. Extremely ridiculous.

[@NightKev]

@@Mayhzon The video very clearly shows that performance is absolutely terrible, with the numbers to back it up. Just because you don't care how badly a game performs doesn't mean others shouldn't either.

[@erykaldo2l270]

​@@Mayhzon Just because your standards are absolute dogshit, doesnt mean everyone else should accept shit capcom throws at them

[@alexgalays910]

@@NightKev Lol, this. Performances are bad is an objective statement that can be measured. "I personally don't mind insanely bad frame pacing" is just preference.

[@kurtcrean]

After setting it to high priority in task manager I'm running perfectly fine on a 7700K, the game itself is great. Just wish they'd remove Denuvo so it'd run better.

[@alanmoore78]

9:40 that's not a spike in frametime, that's a fence post in frametime. A telephone pole in frametime. A sewer pipe in frametime. A skyscraper in frametime.

[@Skradgee]

Imagine telling people you work at Gamers Nexus, and someone asks: “Wow! Do you get to play video games at work all day?” “Uhh, sometimes.”

[@GamersNexus]

hahaha. We were talking about this while working on this one

[@blaux]

The developer's release apology is basically just "We're sorry, our game isn't finished yet." Like.. damn.

[@Real_MisterSir]

also "please buy the DLC we made absolutely sure would be ready from day 1 even if the core game isn't"

[@electricindigoball1244]

That's most AAA game launches in recent years. Publishers want to release games before the end of a specific financial quarter/year so they can show profits to investors and since you can "just patch" the game after release they think they can afford to release games in an unfinished state.

[@BananaFlan-t2u]

Tbf, thats basically every game release now.

[@masteroak9724]

I heard that more like: "Our game is heavy because we did this thing with NPCs... it doesn't run well? Well, tough luck, one day there'll be good enough CPUs for this".

[@sophieedel6324]

It's Capcom, an arrogant and shady company that finally is getting called out on their practices. They have been doing this trick where they spring microtransactions on people after launch, for decades.

[@kenanarmyansyah9520]

I really, really, reaaallly like this kind of video - digital foundry game per game basis analysis style - from GN team! God I really wish GN have the bandwidth to bring back this kind of video from time to time and make it a series. Make the breakdown game analysis more detail, like adding input latency analysis, etc. The game choice could be a popular latest games, or even the niche one too, it doesn't matter. Good job on the video GN!!!

[@Rivershield]

I agree. Specially after the fiasco of thr DF staff being woke, I just can't watch that guy anymore.

[@aaronclay4665]

@@Rivershieldthey wer always bought and payed for..........linus is a joke too, this is the only channel (thats big) that you can trust.... but its only a matter of time till they sell out too.........i hope im wrong but it is what it is.

[@kankit230]

The DRM implementation is absolutely shit.

[@dingickso4098]

Yeah the main concern with these DRMs is performance issues. These checks can indeed have a huge impact on performance. It's quite simple to understand: if the checks are triggered every time the player does a basic action (like moving the character), it's going to spam requests all the time and it's going to be disastrous. On the other hand, if we don't do any checks at all, it will be very easy for hackers to crack the DRM and the whole process will be worthless. Of course, there is a balance to be struck here: more checks mean a safer game, but a greater impact on performance.

[@jc_dogen]

​@@dingickso4098if it was only being called once per player input then it wouldn't matter at all

[@mckinleyostvig7135]

*All DRM implementation.

[@simonb.8868]

@@dingickso4098we gonna need start thinking DRM is part of the game so we're gonna need 2 cores only for that LOL, it's not hard to understand. Whats the problem, you really think theyre gonna give games for free because you are handsome? The price is already very low since its stuck to 60 dollars since the 90s LOL

[@NoirMorter]

@@jc_dogenWhen the game is close to being bound to one of the processors then it can greatly effect performance. Such as the AI in the cities for this game it can dramatically effect it. Plus crackers (the hackers that steal stuff) tend to make tools that can get around stuff like DRM eventually.

[@hunn20004]

You're the most affected party, start a legal fund to sue them and plant a precedent that no, you can't have a DRM that blocks you from using your license. It'd be like if used cars stopped working when the 4th second hand owner sits into the car

[@shawnpitman876]

Don't give them ideas. They'd love to lock your car like that.

[@GamersNexus]

Car manufacturers: WRITE THAT DOWN!

[@MarmaladeMaki]

Not even a new owner. You repaired and replaced too much.

[@TheHighborn]

It's denuvo. Just wait for the Emperess crack.

[@hollowriller]

At the car workshop: "let's see what's been done this time, you've added washer fluid, changed oil, new window wipers and changed to winter tires... (Joinks keys) you've gone over the allowed limit and the car will be taken into custody, you may pay a fee to get it back else it will be sent to the scrapyard" "hands over fine, that'll be 1000$ and the winter tires was not up to standard so those need to be replaced" After paying fine "Did you just replace all 4 tires at the same time in a short timeframe? (Joinks key again), repeated transgressions are ruled as a severe break of the terms so the car will be permanently taken away" "Good bye, see you next time (hands over flyer of their "new" model at a inflated price compared to market)"

[@GreasyFox]

There should be an annual game award for the most unoptimized game. Cities Skylines 2 in 2023 and still it is, and now Dragon's Dogma 2.

[@commanderoof4578]

Cities skyline 2 isnt unoptimised tho... Its the player that is as fault for not actually going in and doing the settings themselves I dont think people realise just how many thousands of NPC, cars and other stuff is going on all at the same time Quite literally to the point where there is no other game in existence that would even launch much less run

[@megancao5988]

Don’t forget kerbal space program 2

[@wx2999]

It should be like the razzies. You can have different categories, worst optimization, worst game update, worst PR disaster, worst monetization, worst crunch, worst studio mismanagement.

[@SimonVaIe]

​@@commanderoof4578 cities skylines launched terribly. A lot of stuff basically had no lod, culling was an issue etc. That's unoptimized. Not a settings issue.

[@commanderoof4578]

@@SimonVaIe nope that was the review builds And even if that did actually happen to launch builds it would have been down to an idiot using the wrong build to upload or steam being steam and putting the wrong version as public And with dragons dogma 2 most of the issues are from lack of optimisation and the rest is DRM BS Better off buying the game and playing a pirated version where the DRM has been gouged out

[@budakhon]

Oh man I have been hoping/looking forward to you guys tackling this one!

[@deep.space.]

I’ll wait for a sale…it might even be done by then

[@Dr80SK]

like almost everything these few years lol and people are still buying AAA games on release or better... preorder that unfinished crap, sadly it will never change, too many people are supporting this. honor with exception ofc

[@NyangisKhan]

Yeah. Imagine being more CPU intensive than freaking totalwar or EU4 lol.

[@shawnpitman876]

"I'll wait for a sale" is still rewarding them for producing a broken game. We need to take a stand against devs who release games like this, or it'll just keep getting worse and worse. So put your foot down, say no I won't buy your game PERIOD if it launches and it's a steaming pile like this.

[@K31TH3R]

@@Dr80SK Horizon Forbidden West has been the only exception for me in a loooong time. The game both looks amazing and runs incredibly well, not a single stutter or even the slightest hitch, and it loads into the world in 8 seconds thanks to Direct Storage. It's so refreshing to finally play a modern game with beautiful visuals that doesn't have traversal or shader stutter. So there are still at least a few developers out there who actually care.

[@NyangisKhan]

@@shawnpitman876 Just had a friend from India complain about how this game literally costs 20% of his monthly salary and he'd literally starve if he buys this game while Baldur's Gate 3 costs almost half lol. EDIT: Basically the majority of humanity cannot even afford this game because it's from a greedy Japanese publisher that doesn't know why regional pricing exists lol.

[@yourikhan4425]

A user on the forum had perfomance issues. I suggested checking the connection. He disconnected his computer and it fixed the issue.

[@Aisaaax]

It seems like we have another case similar to "We can't increase your stash space because we have to load every player's stash at all times and that's too much overhead"

[@BananaFlan-t2u]

At least theres an actually good game behind these performance issues. Can't say as much for Diablo IV.

[@honeybadger6275]

@@BananaFlan-t2u i thought he was talking about fallout 76 lmao

[@77Friction]

@@BananaFlan-t2uDD2 is a good game.. its a shame that everyone is only focusing on subpar performance and a stupid executive corporation decision to add micro transactions. The developers worked hard on this game and it shows. The investors and CEO’s of the world are what ruin games nowadays.

[@kanrakucheese]

@@BananaFlan-t2u No, they deliberately made the character creator worse. Straight up has features fully implemented but cut off if you don't use a memory poke.

[@samhouston1288]

@@77Friction It's kind of hard to enjoy a good game when it runs like crap.

[@ll1l11ll]

That long pause at 9:30 - Even the NPC was like "Oh dear..."

[@daLiraX]

It would be extremely interesting to have a comparison between Denuvo and non Denuvo version, like with Hogwarts Legacy, which had 20% performance differences in CPU heavy areas.

[@loudmoon-rk3ct]

Holy shit, it was that high??

[@FaySmash]

DG2 also uses Enigma on top of that

[@ViktorVelkov]

Do you have any proof of those 20% performance impact for hogwarts legacy? Because when I tested it myself at the time in Hogsmeade (where I was CPU bound all the time even with a 13900k) I couldn't measure any difference. It performed exactly the same for me (pirated version vs. steam version). I honestly don't believe Denuvo is a big deal anymore, developers should just optimize their fucking games.

[@daLiraX]

@@ViktorVelkov sounds like you used day 1 crack vs patched steam version. Of course there have been optimasations, still, denuvo causes problems and people always end up excusing them... /watch?v=5y_bab5wtHY

[@ViktorVelkov]

@@daLiraX thanks that does look interesting. no actually I tested it in my first week before the first patches came out. but yea day 1 crack basically. And I will never excuse DRM protection because I absolutey think that piracy is a lack of service issue and punishing those who pay for the game is a bad solution. But I think developers should do a better job at optimization and that DRMs probably don't affect performance noticeably.

[@rafaelmarkos4489]

4:04 The pause before "launch" conveys a depth of pain and torment.

[@reverieanimates887]

Isn’t this the same engine they used for Resident Evil Remakes?

[@GamersNexus]

Our understanding is that it is, yes.

[@alxor]

Even same as Devil May Cry 5!

[@jensvev0]

RE Engine is good as we know from the RE games which run better than any other games. This game’s code though is terribly optimised, which is why the CPU is the bottlenecked.

[@damianabregba7476]

RE games are much more linear with not much agents running around. Looks like engine was not fully suited cpu wise

[@Juzimaster]

Monster Hunter: Rise also uses same engine.

[@Liquidsunn87]

Didn't think a game can run worst then the Jedi survivor port.

[@Whiteshade]

Try Wild Hearts on PC. Most unoptimized game I've ever played.

[@cin2110]

there are already like 3 games that runs worse than that lol

[@Mayhzon]

It's actually running pretty great for a modern release. Only issue is with cities because of NPC density.

[@Liquidsunn87]

@Whiteshade I forgot about that one, lol. EA walked away from that game so fast as well

[@Liquidsunn87]

@cin2110 just 3? I can name more than 3 in the past 4 years.

[@Novskyy621]

Never dodged a bullet more than with not preordering this mess

[@optimusghost]

I was about to preorder when I read the PCgamer article, Capcom shoot themselves in the foot with this Game.

[@kingplunger6033]

You shouldn't pre order in general. Costs nothing to wait until you how it is day one

[@rundown132]

After D4, I'm skeptical of everything

[@lilithstenhouse267]

Why would you ever preorder? Preordering tells companies they can ship whatever unoptimised garbage they want because they've already got your money.

[@blizyon30fps86]

@@kingplunger6033pre order benefits are usually enticing but they’re lack luster for this game I almost pre ordered then pulled the trigger on hell divers

[@anothercritic]

Respect for going through this hell, it is a graphically interesting game so it surely was worth it Did you force resizable bar in NV profile inspector?

[@waifuhunter9709]

Thank you denuvo. Back to you denuvo

[@Ender240sxS13]

Something potentially worth investigating is performance on older CPUs. I'm running an i7 8700k @4.7GHz, a GTX 1080, and the game is installed on a fairly high end M.2 SSD. At 1080p I get 50-60 fps outside and 30-40 fps in the city. However I don't get any of the serious micro stuttering you describe, not once has it hitched like you showed in the video.

[@csollermoller]

Although I dont know your settings, your gpu is very likely slow enough to give some headroom to the cpu, so your cpu isnt having such a bad time like in this review. Just my 2c...

[@beautifulhorsepictures]

i knew something wasnt right. i was watching a streamer with a 4090 struggle to stream it at a consistent 60fps, always dropping to 30. we're entering an era where AAA devs seem to not care about games being playable on PCs

[@CKarasu13]

The GPU is irrelevant here. It's the CPU that matters most.

[@JFrenchman]

​@@CKarasu13 that's how he knew something was wrong, if a professional streamer with a modern beast of a PC can't stream this well then theres something up.

[@CKarasu13]

@@JFrenchman We don't even know if something's up, or that the decision to track all the NPCs the way they do is fundamentally a bad idea with current CPU architecture. Could be anywhere between those two points. Would love to see a professional look at the tracking an AI and break it down, if possible.

[@EvilTim1911]

That "era" has been going for a long while now. I remember when the original Watch Dogs was coming out someone found a comment in the code that Ubisoft accidentally left - "this is a PC only setting, who cares?". Ubisoft, Rockstar, Fromsoft are just a few of the AAA studios that don't care about PC

[@reappermen]

To be fair in this case, the game apparently also runs bad on consoles. Seems to have far less crashes, but still plenty of stuttering and fps often below 20! This one isn't a bad port, it's a bad game.

[@FNLNFNLN]

TL;DR, wait for the pirated version before playing.

[@shadesn]

Why is nobody testing shadow quality to max + rt? That brings about moments where the game dips to 20ish fps in the wilderness, standing still, that go straight to 60 as the time of day changes. What is wrong with that?

[@dingickso4098]

It has Trashuvo. Once again, customers suffer while pirates do their duty as usual.

[@Magariz1283]

The fact that people are still defending this game is just insane

[@Realblack_m0nster]

The performance sucks but im loving my adventure

[@Magariz1283]

@@Realblack_m0nster you can, i wont give them any money. stupid microtransactions, shitty drm, and abysmal performance = hard pass

[@pijinio]

Your stutter adventure @@Realblack_m0nster

[@chrisseger2346]

​@@Magariz1283Cool story bro.

[@kazzxtrismus]

looks like a 10yr old game

[@Martin-xx4ip]

Excellent review but I enjoy that the catman character is just named "no".

[@necrotic256]

Dragma Nuts

[@stepbruv8780]

*dogma shit

[@SmokeWiseGanja]

Dogma balls

[@theoryismypraxis3538]

This game should've been named "Dragon's Sugma 2" given the amount of lackluster plot twists, unpolished gameplay mechanics, and less than admirable graphics and animations.

[@watercannonscollaboration2281]

Damn I didn’t know this game was that big enough to justify a GN video (not even the “AAAA” Skull and Bones), although makes sense considering not the game, but the size of the dumpster fire

[@GamersNexus]

We just aren't equipped to test a quadruple A game!

[@bigdaddynero]

It had 220 k on Steam, the other day. It's Capcom's biggest single player release.

[@AintPopular]

@@GamersNexus Lmao

[@ilgiallo0]

Tbh the little bin you all guys are torching for the fps/microtransaction is overshadow by all the people playing, looks to me like the harry potter lgbt boycot to me . I'm sorry for console players but the era of consoles is dead and is not CAPCOM fault. The ps5 born already old , that's why the "esclusive" are dying .

[@sjneow]

well GN is more of a hardware channel, they are more concerned of games that pushes the hardware rather than a game that is fun. Maybe this will be the Crysis of the new era

[@daviddavies3637]

Thanks for the explainer on the CPU load figure. Always wondered why it rarely showed my CPU doing the kind of work I was expecting it to do.

[@robingrieves]

Yeah CPU load is a really hard one to measure. Your core can be 100% ulitized doing just one instruction set, utilizing only a tiny part of the whole core. Because of this it might only show 10-30% utilization in measuring software. So yeah, ignore that. GPU/CPU busy tells the right story.

[@Kalyptic]

9:52 Steve the 5600x is not newer that the 12100f 😅

[@macking104]

At 10:20pm PST Sunday 24 March Network function Some services are experiencing problems

[@GamersNexus]

Is it not letting you play this single player game because of a server outage?

[@barenyeager3936]

​@@GamersNexus without servers you cant get the pawns of others and they cant get yours, so you are stuck to playing with Capcoms REALLY bad pawns for your group

[@rarerappy3561]

​@GamersNexus no, that's not how it works. You just can't use the online features. And the offline provided pawns are not going to be worse than the majority of user pawns that are ungeared.

[@barenyeager3936]

@@rarerappy3561 just look for good online pawns lol

[@pneumonoultramicroscopicsi4065]

I applaud them for making npcs more of a focus of the game, it's not a typical approach in games

[@ListogreOfficial]

Baldurs Gate 3 is not an exception. Act 3 is still completely unoptimized.

[@rarerappy3561]

Insane that BG3 was brought up as an exception. First major patch was 1000+ bug fixes. Great game but bringing it up is just get kudos from "gamers".

[@ANDELE3025]

Maybe a bit, but seeing as a 10 year old rig except for soon 6 year old CPU runs BG3 on highest settings except for shadows on low and fog at mid at 99+ fps consistently without stutters ran it from day 1 once pre-rendered frames are locked to 1 and after patches is always sitting at screen cap of 144... compared to DragDog2s 50s on average with regular dips below 30 on modern good enough/at and above recommended spec rigs, it very much does make BG3 look extremely optimized. Even if the release version was less stable crash wise than the early access and has 2 years worth of cut content from last second rewrites obviously glaring at you if you look/know what was supposed to be there.

[@mikeclarke3990]

Sick of BG3 praise it's needed how many patches? Yet still GOTY.

[@icestardragonhc]

Even at BG3s launch Act 3 ran better than the entirity of DD2. Bg3 ran on my 5 year old setup in 2k in 50-60fps. No crashes. DD2 barely runs on newest hardware and crashes constantly and lets you buy ingame currency and a character editor. BG3 was an exceptionally well optimized games compared to its peers

[@Bourikii2992]

"Barely runs on latest hardware" Ah yes 60fps average in cities and 150 in wilderness barely runs lmao.

[@caniwasteallyourtimeherein9728]

As someone who changes proton version often Denuvo has fucked me up by limiting the hardware activation.

[@fudgin7778]

Welcome to the Proton vs Denuvo experience. I dream of a world where Valve would make a stand and banish any pos software that comes between Steam users and the games sold on that very platform (that includes third party launchers, Denuvo, EAC and whatnot).

[@05Matz]

​@@fudgin7778Hear Hear. I've been getting more extreme on this over the years -- I don't even trust Valve any more, and only spend money on software that is completely DRM-free (GOG, sometimes direct purchase and download through a developer's website or Itch if they make enough promises and seem trustworthy... sadly that's about it since I can't find any other DRM-free storefronts), but as a Linux gamer I'm very particular in my burning hatred of DRM and companies that use it; and I wished Valve as the 'least evil' mainstream storefront (and only one with any focus on Linux) would take a stand here. At least GOG continues to do good work, but they have more focus on Windows users. If software is to run on my machine, it will run at my discretion and will not have the capability to decide to stab me in the back, thank you very much. I will NOT pay for software that contains the capability to turn on me (including Steam stuff, these days. I'll just go without rather than purchase through a mandatory 'launcher'. My family were early adopters of RealArcade, so I know that anything not DRM-free and backed up in your own backups is a rental at best.)

[@caniwasteallyourtimeherein9728]

@@fudgin7778 amen to that

[@cerevor]

One of the most interesting things for me here is to see a benchmark of the 7800x3D vs 7700X, where the frames are actually well below 100. This may give a more realistic "future proofing" comparison between the two than all these 100 - 1100 fps scenarios. And in other cases, like Starfield, where frames are below 100, there is pracitcally zero difference between many CPUs. So one needs more spread between different cases.

[@Thailerr]

Thanks again for your unbiased and straight forward reviews. No one is willing to call out this bs like you guys. You would've thought that a heap of reviewers would have mentioned it... hmm. Almost like they're scared of review codes being denied for honest reviews? So frustrating.

[@cerulis1]

Earlier today I was talking how these new tools were cool but wouldn't really affect GN much aside from data validation, was sure it was more of a Digital Foundry thing. And here I am gladly eating my words.

[@sebastian1581]

do you guys ever get contacted to provide consulting to developers prior to a release? it seems like there’s a ton of valuable information they could go off of from all your testing

[@oryxified1430]

Don't worry, they'll pull a Sega and bundle the performance fix patch with their 10 dollar DLC expansion: Dragon's Catma

[@obligatorysignin]

Capcom's Drachma?

[@TheWretchedEgg12]

Dragos Ligma

[@GG-ou7it]

DRAGMA BALLS HAHAHAHA

[@vinh1360]

@@TheWretchedEgg12dragos ligma nuts 3

[@MazeFrame]

Waiting for the "Sugma" DLC

[@blackbirdpctech]

Damn, you guys are good … such a great overview and analysis … thank you for continuing to deliver robust assessments.

[@shawnpitman876]

Games in the last 2 years have gotten so bad at launching with terrible optimization that I've decided on a new rule: Whatever state your game LAUNCHES in, is the state I will treat it as being in for the rest of my life. Meaning if you game LAUNCHES and it's got terrible performance, I will treat it like that FOREVER and not buy your steaming pile. Hopefully people start following suit and punishing devs for this, so that we can return to sanity and being able to play games WHEN THEY LAUNCH.

[@dingickso4098]

Its not the devs. Its the greedy suit guys. Suits are ruin it for everyone. Like suits always do.

[@Chinothebad]

@@dingickso4098 I wouldn't be surprised at the suits being the ones to come up with the microtransactions for the game.

[@fairyboy444]

yea, i mostly subscribe to this ideology. there are small exceptions like cyberpunk, but that may really be the only one, given the objective huge overhaul it had. but regardless, i agree. that’s why i bought Rise of The Ronin instead anndddddd am loving it!😮‍💨🤺

[@ArdentMoogle]

​@@dingickso4098Correct, almost always the investors / publishers that are the cause of this. However I think gamers as a whole do need to stand on a united front and stop buying games when they do this shit, otherwise it will keep happening.

[@wereoctopus]

If I followed your rule, I would never have played KOTOR 2.

[@chadwolf3840]

What i’ve also noticed with this game is that the longer I actually spend in the city the more the frame rate tends to go down. When I first get to the cities, I get like 60 to 70 fps, after like 10 minutes of wandering, same area i’ll be at 40fps.

[@kanrakucheese]

Demo was confirmed to have massive memory leaks, so I don't doubt there's some elsewhere.

[@nsacc5600]

Capcom managed to make latency of single player game acting like multiplayer one connected to the other side of the world. Impressive

[@grxy5924]

Great video man! One of the few channels here on youtube i actually trust with information like this. Has been for a few years now. Cheers! 👍

[@buddybleeyes]

Thanks for running all these tests Steve 👌 its at the point now, if a game launches with these issues- I'm waiting for a fix and a heavy discounted sale. If a game is actually good and doesn't launch with these issues, I'm more likely to pick up at launch to reward the devs and publishers that have done well releasing a good game. Vote with your wallet. Honestly cant wait to see how much denuvo cripples performance when this is eventually cracked. Would be interesting to see how much is denuvo and how much is the mess of coding

[@honeybadger6275]

im pretty sure its mostly a coding/engine issue, capcom wanted to save a buck and not pay royalties on an engine like ue5 which would have been more suited for this kind of game

[@buddybleeyes]

@@honeybadger6275 you could be right there, I'm not sure if the RE engine has any other open world games like DD2. It just seems like they sent it out the door because of preorder sales instead of delaying and getting it right

[@amilyester]

Capcom and Sega are on my perma shitlist for Denuvo. Capcom eventually removes it, but Sega hardly does.

[@unrealeck]

As usual outstanding video. Really in depth tests and properly investigates bottlenecks and issues with the game.

[@dirkjewitt5037]

I was hoping that Steve would wear plate armor. Disappointed!!!

[@FilthEffect]

Plate armour wears Steve

[@Run-Riot]

They might've been able to afford it if they didn't have to buy so many copies to test it because of that god forsaken DRM, lol

[@lasvista2tech]

But how sophisticated are the npcs in the cities? what do they actually do and interact to need this much processing ?

[@maniacal1870]

The level of excitement I felt when it was announced is only rivaled by my level of disappointment now that it's ultimately here. Capcom is a company that ACTUALLY hates success.

[@maharaja101]

Capcom is just being faithful to the 20 fps experience of the original PS360 game.

[@Y0G0FU]

Looking at capcom over the last years they surely dont hate success :P

[@Methos_101]

It's more like, "software" bound than anything else.

[@Krisztian5HUN]

its game engine limited

[@Xzavn]

You mentioned wanting to talk about Simulation Time error somewhere earlier in the video, but you never got around to doing it. Was there anything worthwhile to mention with frames being out of sync?

[@Akveet]

The game looks like it was made for PS3. How did they managed to make it so demanding?

[@kanrakucheese]

They prioritized DIE like "body type" over actually making the game.

[@BadgersEscape]

When you said you assigned names to each sample, my insane brain imagined giving a name to each frame and was immediately disappointed. Me sad, but I don't regret being insane.

[@Livekernalevent]

I just love it when people say that their potato pc can run this game flawlessly. Even Capcom accepts that the game is not working properly.

[@carbodude5414]

Just when I thought they did right with past RE Engine game launches, they screwed the pooch here and for a game that costs an extra 10 dollars than the usual price no less

[@erevinwinter]

The saddest part is DD2 being one of the few interesting releases of the year.

[@user-Cata7sti7ma7]

simply wait for debuging patch. if you have anything higher that a 12600/7600x and 4070/7700xt is totaly playable at 1080-1440p, you wont stay hours in the capital city anyway. In the wild the game run great with 75-100 fps. Starfield was in a way worst state at his release in my experience. with under 40 fps nearly everywhere.

[@ayoo_wassup]

​@user-Cata7sti7ma7 I have a 5600x and 3060 12g and I get 40 fps during combat at 4k with dlls on balanced. 1080 is a really flat 60. But the game DOES look great in 4k. Thank God the combat feels good.

[@slyseal2091]

@@user-Cata7sti7ma7 Don't use Starfield as a point of reference. This is exactly what these publishers want, judging the quality of their releases by the worst offenders, rather than comparing it to the best.

[@user-Cata7sti7ma7]

@@slyseal2091the last goty ( BG3) did not run that much better in Act 3 lel.

[@fullmetalalkami6466]

With quality releases like Helldivers 2, Last Epoch, Horizon Forbidden West, Elden Ring DLC Forget DD2 and the buggy mess it is

[@rasky2684]

Im using a 3600 with a 7800xt and i also noticed it doesn't matter what graphics setting you use the fps dont really change. Between 30-90 fps for me depending in area

[@lankey6969]

Should have tested this on the most common cards. Majority of people don't have 4090s. I bet the pachinko machines run PERFECTLY though, RIGHT, CAPCOM?

[@donkeysunited]

They can't because of the device limit in the game. Using a 4090 allows them to compare CPUs. Perhaps a later test will use one max power CPU and lots of GPUs but that would require buying more copies of the game.

[@memitim171]

I get mostly 60fps with occasional dips into the high 50's, in town it can drop to 45ish, that's at 1080p, mid shadows, everything else max on a 1080Ti (No Rt obv as this card doesn't have it). I have a 7800X3D, the fastest CPU recorded here, so you know that's all on my GPU, so if you have a card at least as fast as that ie a 3060 or better, you should be good. You're going to need a good CPU though, the game lists a 10600K as the min, which is I believe the highest min CPU of any game to date...does it justify that? Not really, but if you want a decent experience that's what you're looking at.

[@Real_MisterSir]

Dragon's Dogma team: "We are deeply sorry for any inconvenience the unfinished state of our product you bought may cause you" Also that team: "Here is a list of paid DLC items we chose to focus on instead of actually fixing our game! Please buy!!"

[@jamois]

Seriously, somebody’s going to have a seizure from the insane background pop-in flicker on PS5. Several times I’ve had to put the camera directly overhead so I couldn’t see the background

[@danielalexander8402]

Less than a minute in and you have successfully convinced me to not only not buy this game but to steer even further away from Denuvo DRM bearing games.

[@ethancrosby2573]

There is NO WAY they are calling "New Game" a "feature" that they are "looking at adding". It's new game. Can't believe I was excited for this game 🤡

[@mrsparefox3704]

What is really funny is how Steam is deleting negative reviews in an attempt to increase the score from overwhelmingly negative to mixed.

[@Andreazor]

No its because of reviewbombing that steam removes reviews.

[@khululyp]

If the performance was up to snuff, this game would have been a hit.

[@LtCommanderTato]

@@Andreazor That is what a corpo shill would say.

[@IVIRnathanreilly]

​@@Andreazor"reviewbombing" is not a bad thing at all. It just means lots of reviews posted at once. It's in no way connected to a coordinated attack or coordinated support. Reviews tend to happen at the same time when a game/dlc/update releases and people are happy about it or pissed about it. The amount of coordination happening in 99% of games that are review bombed wouldn't account for 50% of bad reviews. But it often makes up 90%+ of good reviews.

[@forwardmoving8252]

​@Andreazor review bombing? Are you dense? You can't review the game on steam unless you own it on steam. Those are all actual users who dislike the game or at least are upset about its glaring issues.

[@JYoutubes10]

It's a bummer because I've still been playing Dragon's Dogma 2 and enjoying it a lot. I agree that the game should have released in a better state, but I also experienced a lot of these same issues when Elden Ring came out; I think people noticed those less because it was locked at 60fps though.

[@vathone5896]

This is probably my ignorance but I still don't understand how prior to 2019 you go into cities with NPCs mostly standing around and be largely GPU bound even with a lower-ish end CPUs now in 2024 you go into a city which again has NPCs mostly just standing around and with CPUs significantly more powerful and games are HEAVILY CPU bound. It just doesn't track... NPC movements seem a bit more advanced animation wise to back then yet the processing power is like 4x what games needed in 2019.

[@bloblurk208]

Imagine upgrading your GPU Because you thought you would need a better gpu. Then game comes out and you find out you actually needed a new freaking cpu

[@gamesection5242]

Basically a game to skip :) Thanks for the huge work.

[@haariger_wookie5646]

Capcom has shown everybody how to mess up a game launch that you could not possibly mess up…

[@eMKeaL]

How the hell it is possible for a few NPCs here and there, to put such a considerable strain on even high-end CPUs? This is mind boggling.

[@chrish22h93]

"passed the Ox cart" *looks for Aux cord to pass* Great job with the video! I've been enjoying the game overall. Hopefully they improve performance soon.

[@th3h0tpegla35]

The "best" part about the whole bs DRM is the fact that different versions of Proton are detected as different devices, even if the game is opened on the exact same hardware, in the same Steam session literal minutes apart. I legit locked myself out of RE4 and MH: World while trying out different versions of Proton. Might as well pirate them at that point.

[@Strykenine]

Dragma's Doggum is my favorite whisky.

[@vonblunder]

A game released in 2024 that doesn't let you remap the numpad keys... big middle finger to left handed players.

[@kanrakucheese]

Don't be so full of yourself: The "game" has plenty of big middle fingers to everyone! They fully implemented the most popular character creation options from DD1, then made it so you can't use them without memory pokes/slider mods.

@@kanrakucheese You should learn to read. vonblunder didn't say it was the only big middle finger in this game.

[@MarikoRawralton]

I heard a while back that this game was meant to launch a few years ago, but Capcom delayed its release because of concern over reception to Cyberpunk 2077. Which makes me wonder how bad that version was.

[@abstragento0087]

Thx for the effort to shine a light on this subject

[@maskedriderkenneth3320]

please make a review of hell divers 2 so we’ll know the best bang for buck parts to achieve maximum democracy

[@brokenlava518]

13:10 The brine claims a Griffin.

[@johnwalker3602]

Would love to see Last Epoch performance test. Many people with high end machines complain about low performance during high mob density situations even though they aren't seemingly CPU bound to my understanding ( neither of the cpu cores are maxed, more like chilling at 50 % tops, yet fps goes down to sub 60 from 100+ and gpu utilization is also going down).

[@robinstheles]

THANK YOU SO MUCH I was getting crazy reading posts on twitter like "the performance is alright youre all overexaggerating" and I am like "What if I do? But why does my performance suck so hard then?" This video showed me that we are in fact not "overexaggerating" and the game should not have been released in this state.

[@kanrakucheese]

Never forget how HBO admitted that it paid for fake reviews and comments defending them online. Unlike (for example) Disney, nobody suspected HBO was doing such a thing before that. If HBO was doing it, *everyone* in the entertainment industry is.

[@JamesWid]

Just got done playing for about 2 hours on a Ryzen 7600x and RX 6800 and I have gotten quite good performance even in the first main city. Not sure if a recent update changed things but the performance for me has been what i expected given my hardware

[@ionseven]

We are so starved for quality since broken releases and MTXs were accepted that we just lap up whatever they shove in our faces now and thank them for it.