Those buzzing with excitement to finally dive into Capcom's highly anticipated fantasy RPG sequel Dragon's Dogma 2 on March 12 may encounter some inconsistent frame rate performance issues on PC.
In response to an inquiry about frame rate issues from IGN, Capcom said in a statement that performance issues on PC may be related to the large amount of CPU required by the game's NPCs.
“In Dragon's Dogma 2, a significant amount of CPU usage is allocated to each character and the effect of their physical presence in different environments is calculated dynamically. In certain situations where several characters appear at once, CPU usage can be very high and may affect On “frame rate,” a Capcom representative told IGN. “We realize that in situations like this, settings that reduce GPU load may currently have limited impact; However, we are looking for ways to improve performance in the future.”
While games like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth give players the choice of a performance or graphics mode – prioritizing either a consistent frame rate or increased graphics thread count, as it were – Dragon's Dogma 2 only has one visual mode across all consoles. Talk to Game InformerDirector Hideaki Itsuno clarified his statement about the release of Dragon's Dogma 2 with Unlimited frame rate for all consoles“We're aiming for 30 frames per second or higher,” he says.
Although Capcom is specifically addressing the fix for frame rate issues on PC, some early builds here at IGN have been experiencing frame rate inconsistencies on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S as well. According to IGN performance reviewer Michael Thompson, Dragon's Dogma 2 across all formats can be affected by CPU and memory bandwidth requirements. This can affect mid-to-low-end consoles and PCs the most. Areas like Vernworth are very demanding, even on high-end hardware and, in particular, the CPU.
During his gameplay demo, Thompson noted that the Xbox Series S suffers the most from memory requirements as texture fails to load and becomes extremely low quality after about 10 minutes of open-world exploration. Additionally, Thompson lost saves multiple times to return to an earlier point in the title, and even caused the game to reset from the beginning.
Dragon's Dogma 2 currently has high hardware demands, with the Steam Deck struggling to run at playable rates, and even high-end RTX4090 hardware paired with an AMD 5800X3D CPU can drop into the 30s while in densely populated cities.
The frame rate issues in Dragon's Dogma 2 were so difficult for IGN's senior editorial producer Mark Medina that he switched from playing on PlayStation 5 to PC because he was suffering from motion sickness.
“It's one of those games where if you look up at the sky or down at the ground, the frame rate improves,” Medina said. “So, if you're looking at the top of a cliff fighting goblins, and you're averaging 40-50 frames per second, and then you lower the camera into the world and suddenly there's a rapid drop in frames, it's disorienting.”
Although Dragon's Dogma 2 may not run as well as it should on PS5, IGN editorial producer Mitchell Saltzman says performance issues have never been a deal-breaker for him.
“It's distracting at its best and annoying at its worst, and this game would undoubtedly improve if it did better, but it never robbed me of the exciting combat moments, nor did it take anything away from the exciting moments of exploration and discovery at the heart of the experience.”
Saltzman said.
Likewise, Ronnie Barrier, gameplay producer at IGN, said that although the frame rate in Dragon's Dogma 2 could be wildly inconsistent, “it never seemed strained” or hindered the amount of fun he found in the landscape adventure. Beautiful game.
“Sure, I would love it if it ran at 60 fps all the time, and I'm not here to make an excuse for that. Performance in an action game should be consistent, even if it has to be a constant 30 fps,” Barrier said. “But any issues “I'm having trouble with it in terms of performance. It didn't detract from the adventure for me.” “Fortunately, [Dragon’s Dogma 2 is] A little more methodical than most action games, with a few mechanics that require very strict timing, and I think that helped soften the blow as well.
Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.
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