And it’s that time of the year. Before publishing our Top 10 Most Optimized PC Games of 2022 article, we’ve decided to share the worst ones. The following games really let us down (tech-wise), and we consider them to be the worst optimized games that came out on PC in 2022.
In our opinion, a game that is not optimized for the PC is one that cannot scale well on multiple CPU cores, that is plagued by ‘console-ish’ side effects (like really low FOV, controller-only on-screen indicators, awful K&M controls and mouse acceleration/smoothing issues). We also take into account the stuttering issues that affected a lot of PC games in 2022. Furthermore, a game that does not justify its GPU requirements is also a game that falls on this list.
Do also note that we judge the latest version of the games and not their launch version. And yes, we’ve reinstalled and replayed all of the following games. Lastly, this list is in random order. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at them.
The Witcher 3 Next-Gen
A lot of us have been looking forward to the Next-Gen version of The Witcher 3. However, and as we’ve already reported, TW3NG is currently in a really awful state. The game has major CPU optimization issues. Due to these issues, even high-end CPUs can drop below 60fps when enabling its Ray Tracing effects. And then we have the visual/graphical glitches that can occur with RT shadows/reflections. And, let’s be honest here. The only noteworthy thing here are these Ray Tracing effects. Otherwise, PC gamers can stick with the older version (which also runs significantly faster) and mod it in order to make it look even better than the DX11 version of The Witcher 3 Next-Gen. CDPR dropped the ball on this, and there is simply no excuse for this.
The Callisto Protocol Ray Tracing
The Callisto Protocol is another game that disappointed us. When it launched, the game had MAJOR optimization issues on PC. Thankfully, Striking Distance Studios was able to improve things and the game is enjoyable without its Ray Tracing effects. However, its Ray Tracing effects expose the optimization issues from which the game still suffers. Similarly to The Witcher 3 Next-Gen, The Callisto Protocol cannot take advantage of multiple CPU cores/threads. As such, the game frequently drops below 60fps, even on high-end CPUs/GPUs. The game also does not support DLSS 3, meaning that there is currently no PC system that can run it with constant 60fps with RT. And again, this is mainly due to low CPU utilization.
Gotham Knights
It’s laughable at this point, but here is another triple-A game that cannot take advantage of multiple CPU cores/threads. When it launched, Gotham Knights had major stuttering and CPU optimization issues. Warner Bros recently released a patch that minimized the game’s stutters, however, there are still framerate drops and frame pacing issues. Still, this latest version is at least better than the stutter-fest launch version. However, things go downhill once you enable its Ray Tracing effects. As with The Witcher 3 Next-Gen and The Callisto Protocol, these RT effects bring an additional CPU overhead and expose the game’s CPU optimization issues. And let me be clear here. We don’t mind when a game is CPU-heavy and can use all available CPU cores/threads at 80%. However, we do mind when a game uses only 3-4 CPU cores/threads on modern-day CPUs that are equipped with more than 12 CPU cores. It’s 2022 and developers should be offering proper multicore CPU support. We’ve criticized in the past Turn10 and Creative Assembly for this and to their credit, both of them released performance patches for Forza Horizon 3 and Halo Wars 2 that significantly improved CPU performance and scaling on multiple cores/threads. If those developers did it, then there is no excuse for CD Projekt RED, Striking Distance Studios and Warner Bros Montreal/QLOC.
DYNASTY WARRIORS 9 Empires
Well, we all saw this coming. After all, this is KOEI Tecmo we’re talking about. DYNASTY WARRIORS 9 Empires has awful mouse camera controls, and is unreasonably demanding at 1440p and 4K resolutions.
Syberia: The World Before
When Syberia: The World Before came out in March 2020, it had major performance issues on NVIDIA’s hardware. However, and after reinstalling the game, we experienced the exact same optimization issues. Below you can find a screenshot, showing the RTX4090 being pushed to the limits at 1440p/Max Settings. Take a really close look at the GPU utilization and the framerate. This game runs and looks worse than other open-world games that use Ray Tracing. The fact that both NVIDIA and Microids left the game in this state speaks volumes about its awful post-launch support.
Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin
Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin still suffers from major performance and optimization issues on PC. The game has major framerate drops during combat, especially when using the finishing moves. There are also numerous frame pacing issues. Yes, Team Ninja has added support for DLSS 2, however, it did not address any of the aforementioned issues.
Saints Row
Saints Row is in an average state right now. The game suffers from some unoptimized scenes and the mouse controls feel really weird. And while the game does not require a high-end CPU, its visuals do not justify its high GPU requirements. There are also major shadow pop-in issues (that Volition has not addressed yet).
Steelrising
Steelrising has major optimization issues. Although the game does not require a high-end CPU, it certainly requires a powerful GPU, even for gaming at 1080p. Not only that, but it requires more than 13GB of VRAM for Ultra Textures at 1080p. And, to be honest, these Ultra Textures look similar to what we’ve seen in other games that use way less VRAM, even at 4K. Not only that, but there is nothing on screen to justify its high GPU requirements. Yes, Spiders is a small team so we can’t expect miracles from it. However, the team should simply ditch the Silk Engine if it’s unable to properly optimize it.
ELEX II
Although ELEX II does not require a high-end CPU, it certainly does not justify its huge GPU requirements. And, contrary to other games, ELEX II does not even support DLSS 2 in order to at least somehow improve its overall performance.
Destroy All Humans! 2 – Reprobed
Destroy All Humans! 2 – Reprobed uses Unreal Engine 4 and has major stuttering issues. Not only that, but the game is unable to take full advantage of multiple CPU cores/threads. Yeap, this is Gotham Knights and The Callisto Protocol all over again. To its credit, Black Forest Games added support for DLSS 3 which significantly improves CPU performance on the RTX40 series GPUs. However, developers should not rely on NVIDIA’s DLSS 3 tech and call it a day. Instead, they should be optimizing their games for everyone, plain and simple.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
I really enjoyed both Elex 2 and Steel Rising. I may actually play
Witcher 3 as it looks a lot better. All 3 titles are very playable at
1440p with a 3080 10GB max settings, obviously without the texture pack
for Steel Rising.
elex are fine games.
If physical releases were a thing still today, the Saint Rows blu rays should give company to the ET cartridges buried in the middle of the desert.
What a piece of sh*t.
I enjoyed the thorough take down of these games , nice list John. Shame after all these years devs are still releasing stuff like this.
Too many apologists for games that release broken, unfinished, and with poor performance. The publishers probably feel that no matter what state a game releases in, as long as it’s AAA its still going to sell and they’ll still make their mega millions.
But If it’s for woke, definitely break it.
And add $ay tracing.
I totally agree, GPU’s sky-rocketed to a all time high because of RT
Not vert bright are you? Physics are now intrinsic to how games work. The cost was because the tech was new.
Take a few minutes and look up how PhysX actually fundamentally changed and improved games across every genre and platform. My god how fkn stupid are you? I see now how John attracts moronic mouth-breathers to his site.
Name a single game that uses Physx in a fundamental way.
Just like that, Raytracing is not fundamental, GPU sellers and developers know that not everybody can play with those features (the people buying the greatest and latest are always a minority) so they make them optional, because they want to sell their games to most possible costumers.
Everything that uses Unity, UE4/5, all Ubisoft games, CDPR games
I’m talking about the Nvidia solution, not the generic term a5swise.
The only recent game that comes to mind that makes the use of physics a gameplay element is Teardown.
“Physx fundamentally changed” bla bla.
There are like 10 games total with hardware accelerated Physx.
“Physx fundamentally changed” bla bla.
There are like 10 games total with hardware accelerated Physx.
Actually there are hundreds if not thousands of games with hardware accelerated PhysX it’s just the hardware involved changed from the GPU to the CPU. The only reason it was only used on Nvidia GPUs years ago is because everything was dual core and not very powerful compared to the CPUs in the last 8-10 years
Specifically, hardware Physx, not general GPU particles in modern engines.
Physx games are 10-ish.
Lol, “thousands”
I see the White Supremacists have arrived …..
Did you ever notice that most White Supremacists look like they are a couple of chromosomes short of a full DNA string?
I have ……..
Twitter is over there, fag3t
EXACTLY …. Pretty much all the major game engines have licensed it, the difference is it now runs mainly on the CPU because CPUs now have enough power and threads to make it work unlike 15 years ago when everything was still dual core. All of Ubisoft’s game engines use it as well as UE4/5, Unity, and CDPR’s Red Engine. You just don’t need a Nvidia GPU to make it work well anymore and since 2018 it’s been Open Source so everyone can just use it license free. The reason you don’t see PhysX listed on games anymore is because it was rolled into the Gameworks suite and a LOT of games use Gameworks
You have no idea what hardware accelerated Physx is my dude, lol.
You are the one that has no clue. Just because it isn’t listed doesn’t mean it isn’t being used. Originally if you used it the licensing said you had to say so but the licensing changed almost a decade ago so it no longer was a requirement to list it separately. All of Ubisoft’s game engines use it as well as UE4/5, Unity, and CDPR’s Red Engine just to name a few. It’s baked right into the core game engine code just like HBAO+ was. HBAO+ was also a Nvidia exclusive at one time but was also opened up and the licensing changed so you could use it credit free and it will run on other manufacturer’s GPUs. Now both are freely available
https://github.com/NVIDIAGameWorks
Look at clueless boy over here still trying to win an argument with facts that don’t exist, lmao.
We’re talking about 2005-2006 here.
Physx was fine on Nvidia GPUs and eventually ran fine even just CPU accelerated.
And then it randomly died. Hopefully it makes a comeback with Physx 5.0 finally releasing.
It didn’t randomly died and it’s not making a comeback. Because it’s always a thing to justify price hikes and other BS. But it’s hard for people to see the scam because we are “getting new stuff”.
People can’t see the RT hustle. All they see is, “Gaming is progressing and we are getting in the way for calling out RT. Nvidia could come out with Skin works, “more love like skin” and people would buy into because they said do. I just don’t understand how these people are programmed.
What does woke mean?
I wouldn’t expect anyone here to actually know what it really means or that the term “stay woke” has been around for almost 100 years now and was originally made popular in the early 1930’s in a song about the Scottsboro Boys and used almost exclusively amongst African Americans but didn’t hit the greater society until 1962 and kind of just faded out of useage in the 70’s and wasn’t used much until around 2009 yet didn’t really gain steam until around 2017
Stay Woke (original meaning) – Being aware of the systemic injustices and prejudices against African Americans and is a warning to always watch your back
Woke (modern meaning) – having or marked by an active awareness of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those involving the treatment of ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities
However Right Wing Propagandists have twisted the meaning into something else and use the term mainly as a racial dog whistle to elicit an emotional response.
Thank you.
That’s just stupid …. CDPR doesn’t make a dime off of GPU sales
You really have no idea how the biz works, do you?
I’m surprised even gungrave surpassed these in terms of optimization. For real?!
The only major issue of Gungrave is the shader compilation stutters. Apart from that, and the fact that it looks old-gen-ish, it at least runs well at 1080p and 1440p on numerous PC configurations (the only resolution in which it underperforms is 4K). Truth be told, our expectations were also really low for Gungrave (and I also completely forgot about it).
Glad that its not in the list at least. Victory for them. I’m happy.
I have mixed feelings about the update. The ray tracing features really do add a lot to the visuals IMO, the inclusion of FSR2 and DLSS are welcome additions, along with reflex for those with nvidia GPUs, and even the new temporal anti-aliasing is a huge improvement over the original post-process AA, which is thankfully included in the DX11 version as well. The new quest and additional items/costumes are also nice.
It’s too bad that they completely broke the game’s performance due to piss-poor implementation of DX12. And the removal of HBAO+ is also a big let-down as that would’ve really helped those who play the DX11 version. I’d say this is also a lesson for other developers to not half-ass something just because they’re giving it away for free.
And shame on the CDPR simps who hand-wave away the glaring issues by saying “It’S a FrEe UpDaTe!” Fangoys are another big reason why people who care even a little bit about quality control can’t have nice things anymore. They just ruin things for the rest of us.
And none of these games are remotely fun except witcher 3 (I wouldn’t say it’s fun as my rose tinted glasses are gone now ) !
you think destroy all humans isnt fun?
Its an old game which I have already played and the remake had so many crashes in my PC , so yeah not much fun to had there (with respect to remake )
you can buy another pair from every woke
Arkham Knight and Gotham Knights. It seems if you have a Batman game with any version of the word “knight” in it, the pc version is going to have problems. I guess we will see how The Suicide Squad vs The Justice League game turns out.
Dude! your pfp. lmao, I fall off my chair. Now help me breathe.
Never noticed that was Biden. It’s hilarious.
Glad I could bring some laughter to your day.
if the game works fine the devs will stand their ground and make a ” knight edition” of the game
Stranger of Paradise and ELEX 2 are unplayable here, for some reason that games have moments of literally 1 fps; No idea why.
Japan’s sh*t devs and eurojank
US Americans can’t and don’t know how to developp GAMES, leave it to Eastern European countries ( ukrain, Poland… etc ) or Western european countries ( France UK , Germany … etc ) or even Canada (Montreal) ……..
Elex 2 is Swedish, Steelrising is French, as is Syberia: The World Before, WItcher 3 is Polish. None of these are put together particularly well and most games on this list are not good games, with Syberia being okay and Witcher 3 being good. The US made games have the exact same issues, it is not country dependent.
But All those Games published by US Editors = EA; Microsoft , Bethesda , 2K …….etc ( although i respect Rockstar Games & ID software !)
Literally none of the games I mentioned are published by the publishers you listed and your original comment was about devs, not publishers.
Steelrising – Nacon, Bigben Interactive
The Witcher 3 – CD Projekt RED (self published)
Elex 2 – Koch Media, THQ Nordic
Syberia The World Before – Koch media, Microids, Anuman Interactive
Lets be real. Ray Tracing is still years away from being used as well as looking the way it should about 5+ years out still. That’s why DLSS / FSR and intels upscaling tech were all made.
CPU’s / GPU’s just can’t keep up with none hybrid ray tracing. Imagine if a game used Ray tracing all in real time in a game… BTW Ray tracing has been a thing since it was first conceptualized in 1969
Good. Nvidia pushed ray tracing tech and this is where we are at. In 10-20 years time we will be laughing at we are struggling to run the level of ray tracing we had in games today.
very well said
very well said
Only a true r3tard would think that this list is legit, and only the most moronic of them all would make it. Raytracing/Pathtracing are cripplingly taxing technologies to use. These games are not poorly optimised you moronic smacktard! They are using tech that very few people have the hardware to use, and the card manufacturers have been extremely dishonest about how viable RT is.
You NEED a 3080 minimum for 1440p RT and that’s with DLSS and some settings turned down.
You NEED a 4090 for 4K RT, and DLSS and again not maxed.
That is reality. It’s not an optimisation issue you gormless spastic. It’s a technology and expectation issue.
We know you’re a brainless d1psh1t John, you don’t need to keep proving every single day.
Look at the rasterised performance of those titles. They’re fine. That is the ONLY benchmark you should be using for optimisation at this stage. RT is an optional extra where you actively sacrifice performance for visuals. But, I guess you and the incel morons you foster here can’t understand this basic concept.
Go back to Polygone
I’m trying to change. So I’ll just say, have a nice day.
Man that was rough read bro. I was too close to the bait my friend.
Calm down dude, damn.
Simple: there are other games with RT that run much better than these.
Glad there weren’t “social media” or ability for not so smart folks to spread their silliness back in the early days of gaming where the game could literally not run at all due to the tech some of the game devs were pushing. I still remember DX9 in the game Angel of Darkness that made the metal surfaces in the game look incredibly good but obliterated the frame rate. So glad we didn’t have pychos going after the game devs back then. Nowadays: Omg 59fps?! What a POS game!!
Glad there weren’t “social media” or ability for not so smart folks to spread their silliness back in the early days of gaming where the game could literally not run at all due to the tech some of the game devs were pushing. I still remember DX9 in the game Angel of Darkness that made the metal surfaces in the game look incredibly good but obliterated the frame rate. So glad we didn’t have pychos going after the game devs back then. Nowadays: Omg 59fps?! What a POS game!!
We may not agree with much on here at times, this though I’m certain is one thing we can all agree on without exception. Diabolically bad.
I like it
damn didnt know destroy all humans 2 had so many optimization issues. might wait awhile to play that one.
Pfff. Those are rookie optimization problems.
Diablo 2: Resurrected sees all these games and laughs in their face.
Because it takes a special level of incompetency to make a 20 year old game force modern PCs to stutter and lag beyond any playability.
While true, nobody remembers that abomination.
Should’ve saved yourself the time and write: “All of them”.
Reading gotham knights as one of the most unoptimized games of 2022 brings back PTSD from the horrible port of batman arkham knight for PC. Top 3 worst ports of ALL time.
And now it’s a great port, so that’s nice.
The witcher 3 next gen patch really broke my heart. I’d been expecting it for a year and a half to make my third playthrough. It was literally my most anticipated game of the year. Imagine my surprise when I eagerly downloaded the steam update jumped into the game and saw my fps in the 20s with DLSS on. I thought it had to be some bug, it sure was not
The CDPR we once knew and praised is gone.
Nothing a 4090 can’t handle. Just get a 40-series GPU and it’ll brute force to acceptable performance. There’s a reason game devs don’t optimize and that’s so that future hardware can push it for them.
Agreed.
Agreed.
And Alienware Aurora R12 is great PC
Regarding Saints Row, at least they finally added FSR 2.1, when they launch without it originally despite promising it.
Elden Ring should be also on this list.
Almost a year after release and nothing has been fixed, still runs like sh*t.
it won GOTY award recently. Makes no sense.
The core problem with most of these games is trying to make a DX11 Game Engine work with DX12. In DX11 the CPU core/thread usage was left up to the drivers but it can only use 4 cores/threads efficiently because when it was developed in 2008/2009 most CPUs were dual cores with a handful of 4 core and no Hyperthreading/SMT. However with DX12 CPU core/thread usage is left up to the programmers of the Game Engine itself and it seems most don’t understand how it works and try to shoehorn in support for DX12 into a Game Engine written for DX11 without changing how the threading works. RDR2 had problems, HZD PC had problems, Assassins Creed Valhalla and Watch Dog Legions all had problems making DX12 work on their older game engines that were written for DX11 and/or last gen consoles. The problem becomes even worse when you try to throw Ray Tracing into the mix because it’s also more CPU demanding.
At least we now know why CDPR is going over to UE5 for Witcher 4 and all their other games going forward, it’s because the Red Engine just doesn’t work for DX12
Red Engine works fine with DX12, CP2077 is the perfect proof.
True is TW3 is on older version of Red Engine, that’s why they have problems now.
Yet when development of CP 2077 is over the Red Engine reaches EOL and the next Cyberpunk game will also be on the UE5 game engine. It took CDPR almost 2 years after release to make the Red Engine work correctly in DX12 (And there are still many flaws such as not being able to handle police response AI without breaking the rest of the game) and they were forced to sink thousands of extra work hours into it that would have been better used actually developing a game. They are switching to UE5 so they can spend more time in actual game development rather than game engine management and development. Developing a game and developing a game engine are two entirely different skill sets. It’s also why Sony has invested so much into UE5 and most of their in-house games will be using it in the near future so their studios can concentrate on game development and not game engine development
in 2021, John recommended Metro Exodus EE as the most optimized game on PC. Bought it months ago and I cant even launch the friggin game. I have a high end rig and I can’t even start playing it. I hope John doesn’t bait me again this year.
Why is Persona 5 Royal and Uncharted duology not on the list?
Why is Persona 5 Royal and Uncharted duology not on the list?