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Comment by archagon | Hacker News Reader

With my low-end computer (previously mid-range), I've found that even with driver updates and patches, launch performance in games never improves by more than a few FPS. Now, to my knowledge, the problem with Knight is that it runs poorly and is capped to 30. If the pattern continues and Rocksteady can't reliably get it up to 60 (a 2x gain!!), then what happens? The game remains suspended forever?

(In other news, I was really hoping to maybe eke by playing Knight at low/30fps on my Macbook w/discrete Nvidia graphics, but I guess that's not going to happen.)

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Here's the thing: you're not the person who's raging out over this. Yes, you're part of the demographic who might be upset, but it's people like me, who have stuff like 2x(or more) 980/295x (or better), 3000+MHz DDR4, x99 Processors/Motherboards, all overclocked, with custom cooling solutions and hooked up to G-Sync/FreeSync displays, that are upset. While graphics are not everything, and I play plenty of non-AAA games, a good chunk of the rationale behind even buying AAA games is beautiful graphics and high framerates. With the shit drivers from NVidia, and the absolute tripe so many studios are pumping out these days, I'm questioning the ongoing viability of high-level desktop gaming solutions.

Then, to have the absolute audacity to call a game AAA when it's hard capped at 30fps on PC is just an absolute act of spitting in our faces.

Yeah, it sucks. Unfortunately, it's been sucking for mid-range gamers for a lot longer than that! The idea that a gaming PC can last you for an entire console cycle is a dirty, dirty lie. I guess the bloat is finally seeping up to the high-end.

A decent PC lasted a long time during the previous console generation but with this new generation and its unified 8 GB of memory the VRAM requirements on PC have gone up a lot. WB claims a minimum of 3 GB for AMD users to play Arkham Knight. A new graphics card with > 6 GB of VRAM will probably last quite a few years from now.

> A new graphics card with > 6 GB of VRAM will probably last quite a few years from now.

Isn't the Titan the only card with more than 6gb ram? You'd hope this would last a few years!

Nvidia's 980ti and AMD's R9 390 and 390X (and some 290X) have 6 or 8 GB.

On the plus side, at least with that hardware you can probably run the game at a playable framerate. Of course, "playable" isn't really acceptable on hardware like that, but it sounds like at the moment, anything less than dual high end graphics cards gives unplayable performance

I'm a gamer too, and the trend of craptastic console ports is troubling. There are exceptions. GTAV is awesome even on ageing hardware. I have a 660ti and a phenom II, and the game runs wonderfully.

I'm hopeful that the coming VR PC exclusives will lift the quality of PC gaming.

GTA 5 is the standard to which all console ports should be held. It's almost flawless. Not only a great game, but impressive from a technical standpoint.

Except for Rockstar Social Club...

GTA5 took a long time to come to PC.

I can see how that would bother impatient kids.

Interesting that you're spending orders of magnitude more on the hardware than on the games.

I actually do make full use of the hardware decently often for data crunching/analysis, and I've messed w/ CUDA a bit before as well. Ultimately, my steam account has probably had more money spent on it than this box...but not by much. ;)

Why is that interesting?

Because the effect achieved is a function of game+hardware. For a total budget of X dollars to achieve the best possible result, the hardware is a much larger component of the budget. Would people spending thousands on hardware also be willing to spend more and wait longer in order to get higher-quality video in games? Is that what the PC version is "supposed" to be about, compared to the standardised console product?

Audio climbed this curve and has topped out. Video games haven't really explored it.

(evidently it's uninteresting enough that someone's downvoted it ..)

I didn't downvote, but the whole point of the PC as a game platform is to get the best possible experience. That usually comes with a higher price tag that many are willing to pay.

Very high-end systems are more niche obviously and the price onvolved their shouldn't be indicative of anything other than enthusiasm by hobbysists. Enthusiasts in any field or hobby are usually willing to spend lots of money to get a 'superior' experience.

As for waiting for higher quality I think yes, many would be willing to wait. GTA V came out nearly two years after the console releases and I was one of those who waited for it.

It's not like I was aching with anticipation for it, I had more than enough games in my backlog to play and when it did eventually release it was much better than the console versions.

It's not like GTA V is indicative of multiplatform releases though. Most will release on PC at the exact same time and not suffer the kind of issues we have seen with Arkham Knight.

Arkham Knight's absymal PC release was due only to a shitty port by a small third party studio that was obviously incapable or unequipped to handle it. I don't think I'd even really blame Iron Galaxy for this either, I blame Warner Bros and possibly even Rocksteady for thinking outsourcing the port was a good idea.

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