As we’ve already said, 2014 was a pretty interesting year. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare focused on current-gen platforms, Metal Gear Solid finally came to the PC, new titles supporting AMD’s Mantle API emerged (Sniper Elite 3, Civilization: Beyond Earth and THIEF), Ryse: Son of Rome hit the PC, and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter wow’ed everyone with its high-resolution textures that did not require more than 1.5GB of VRAM.
This year, we decided to break down our special article in order to cover both the most disappointing PC titles of 2014, as well as the most optimized PC games. You can find our article about the worst optimized games of 2014 here. So, time now to see what were the games that impressed us the most in 2014.
But what do we consider great examples of optimized PC games? Let’s clarify on this. In our opinion, a game optimized for the PC is one that can scale on lots of multi-core CPUs and multi GPUs, that is not plagued by ‘console-ish’ side effects (like really low FOV, controller only on-screen indicators and mouse acceleration/smoothing issues), that packs lots of graphics options to adjust, and that also looks and runs great.
In short, we’re examining a game’s technical aspect, meaning that not only must the engine scale well on modern-day hardware, but also the developer must ensure that things like PC specific graphical features, PC technologies (like SLI and Crossfire) and PC controls are properly implemented.
With this out of our way, let’s take a look at the most optimized PC games of 2014.
Codemasters’ racing game is in the tenth place, surpassing at the very last moment Nixxes’ THIEF. THIEF is still plagued with some stuttering issues, which is why it has not made it to our Top10. On the other hand, Codemasters’ racing game looks great and performs incredible well. The Codies have enhanced their EGO engine that scales now well on multiple CPU cores and multiple GPUs. Not only that, but the game runs smoothly even on dated systems (while at the same time looking really good).
“All in all, GRID: Autosport performs amazingly well on the PC. Codemasters’ claims of offering a great PC version are not exagerrated (provided you keep in mind that this is a game that always targetted old-gen systems). Oh, and despite the fact that our Logitech MOMO Racing wheel worked fine with this latest racing title, Codemasters has included keyboard on-screen indicators for all those wishing to play with a keyboard. It’s absurd to play a racing game – at least these days – with a keyboard, so kudos to Codies for offering such a thing.”
9.) Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth
Blasphemy, how can a strategy game surpass other titles? Well, to Civ: Beyond Earth’s credit, Firaxis did an incredible work. The game’s engine scales even on six CPU cores, and for the first time we witnessed a noticeable performance difference between quad-cores and hexa-cores. Not only that, but the game comes with amazing SLI/Crossfire support, as well as Mantle support. While it may not pack spectacular visuals, Civilization: Beyond Earth is a game properly optimized for the PC.
“All in all, Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth performs incredibly well on the PC platform, despite the fact that it will not dazzle you with its visuals. The game scales on multiple CPU cores and perhaps for the first time, we see a noticeable difference between a hexacore and a quadcore system. Not only that, but the game is fully enjoyable even on dual-core systems. And even though a GTX680 is unable to run the benchmark tool with constant 60fps, Civilization: Beyond Earth comes with various graphical options for those with weaker GPUs to tweak.”
Rebellion impressed everyone with the latest part in the Sniper Elite series. Sniper Elite 3 packed great visuals, featured lots of graphics options to tweak, offered and option to disable mouse smoothing side effects, had impressive tessellation effects, and sported an amazing dynamic lighting system. While there were some really awful pop-in issues, Sniper Elite 3 looked great and did not need a really high-end PC (unless of course you want to enable Supersampling).
“All in all, Sniper Elite 3 performs amazingly well on the PC. Rebellion did an excellent work and Nvidia has not dropped the SLI ball on this one. While the game does require a high-end GPU to shine, it comes with a fully dynamic lighting system that will be appreciated by all those who got bored with all the pre-baked shadows that have plagued most triple-A games lately. Not only that, but the game’s CPU requirements are as low as they can get, meaning that a lot of gamers will be able to enjoy this latest Sniper Elite title.”
7.) Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Monolith’s open world game based on LOTR was – overall – great. While we expected better CPU scaling (given the fact that we’re talking about an open world title), the game was able to perform incredibly even on dual-core CPUs. Contrary to its CPU requirements, Shadow of Mordor required a high-end GPU to shine but Monolith included a wide range of graphics options to tweak. Unfortunately, however, the game felt like an enhanced old-gen title despite its high GPU requirements. Which basically explains why it’s not higher on our list.
“All in all, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor performs great on the PC. The game scales well on multiple CPUs, and despite Monolith’s claims, it is perfectly playable on dual-core CPUs that support Hyper Threading. We also did not notice any mouse acceleration side-effects, so that’s another point for Monolith. And while Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor requires a high-end GPU to shine, Monolith has added a lot of graphics options to tweak in order to achieve playable framerates.”
6.) Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
We were pleasantly surprised by Advanced Warfare. After all, COD: Ghosts was one of the worst optimized PC games of 2013. Sledgehammer Games was able to turn the tide, and create a great COD game that performed incredibly well on the PC. It had a number of shortcomings, but overall the game was way beyond what we’d hoped for. Not only that, but its E3 mission was not downgraded at all, proving that Sledgehammer did not pull a Ubisoft or a Naughty Dog stand on this one.
“All in all, we were pleasantly surprised by Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. The game performs incredibly well on the PC, does not require a top of the line CPU, will push a single GTX680 to its limits, and at times it does look like a next-gen game. Still, there are some shortcomings and there are times when everything simply falls apart (and that awful LOD is really one of them). There is no denying that it looks great, however it’s not a Crysis 3 killer.”
5.) The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter amazed us with its visuals and its low VRAM requirements. Astronauts did an incredible work. Astronauts used a new technique called Photogrammetry, via which it was able to include really high-resolution textures to its title. And this technique really paid off. The game looks and runs great on a wide variety of PC systems, proving that great looking games are possible with relatively – at least by today’s standards – engines like Unreal Engine 3.
“All in all, The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter is a pleasant surprise. While it has its issues, it does sport amazing visuals and -eventually – manages to immerse you into its world. The game comes with a respectable number of graphics settings, does not require a top of the line CPU, and basically needs a mid-tier GPU for max details at 1080p (provided you don’t go crazy with its AA options). What will also surprise you is the fact that Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 is powering this game, thus proving that this engine can be still put to good use.”
The Creative Assembly impressed everyone with its Alien game. Alien: Isolation looked awesome, and performed well on a variety of PC systems. Moreover, the PC version looked and ran better than its console cousins that had various performance issues. The Creative Assembly also offered a wide range of graphics options to tweak, a FOV slider, the ability to disable Chromatic Aberration, and there were no mouse acceleration issues. To put it simply; it was a rock solid PC version of a current-gen title.
“All in all, Alien: Isolation performs amazingly well on the PC platform. This game is easy on its CPU and GPU requirements, meaning that it can be maxed out by a wide range of PC configurations. Alien: Isolation looks great, though we have to say that we were a little let down by the lack of fully dynamic shadows. Still, the game’s visuals come really close to the scenes found in the first Alien movie, so kudos to The Creative Assembly’s artists for staying so close to the original source material.”
![RYSE: Son of Rome - PC Trailer Vengeance [4K HD] TRUE-HD QUALITY](https://www.dsogaming.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-youtube-lyte/lyteCache.php?origThumbUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FkA8WGXcPtE4%2F0.jpg)
Ryse: Son of Rome is one of the most beautiful games of 2014. Powered by Crytek’s engine, this new third person action game showed the gap between Xbox One and current high-end PC systems. Now while CRYENGINE scales on more than four CPU cores, Ryse: Son of Rome did not put into good use all of our six CPU cores. Moreover, environments were more confined than those found in Crysis 3, and environmental interaction was also limited. While Ryse: Son of Rome looked gorgeous, it did not push the envelope as Crysis 3 did.
“All in all, Ryse: Son of Rome performs great on the PC platform, though we’d expect more graphical options from Crytek (AA options are quite limited if you compare them to those of Crysis 3 for example). While the game does not require a high-end CPU for a 60fps experience, it does certainly require a high-end GPU for that. And while its GPU requirements are really high (in fact they are pretty close to those of Crysis 3), it does sport some of the best visuals we’ve seen to date.”
Dragon Age: Inquisition is powered by DICE’s Frostbite 3 engine; an engine that performs amazingly well on the PC. As a result of that, it was almost given that it would be in the higher places of our Top 10. While Bioware has not addressed yet the game’s tactical view, it did release a number of patches that fixed some of the issues we had. In its current state, the game does not crash at all (even after playing for six-seven hours), there are proper water effects and water ripples, and the annoying silver hair bug has been resolved. Bioware did an incredible work and Dragon Age: Inquisition looks incredible, especially if you take account its “open world” nature.
“All in all, Dragon Age: Inquisition has its issues on the PC but for the most part, it performs great. Thanks to the Frostbite 3 engine, the game scales incredibly well on both multicore CPUs and multi GPUs. Bioware has provided a wide range of options to adjust, and the game looks great even on High settings. There are no mouse acceleration side-effects, the default control scheme is not as bad as it’s been rumored, and the game does look lovely for most of the time. “
1.) Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes
Our most optimized game for 2014 is no other than Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes. While Ground Zeroes does not look as sexy as Ryse or Assassin’s Creed: Unity, it sports the perfect visuals/performance ratio. Powered by the FOX Engine, Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes scales incredibly well even on six CPU cores. Moreover, and while the game does not stress the GPU as much as you’d expect, Ground Zeroes looks lovely. What also surprised us was the fact that this is the first PC game from Kojima Productions. Contrary to Dark Souls, Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes features a lot of graphics options to tweak, it’s not bugged by mouse acceleration issues, has a number of graphical effects added to the PC, and has proper on-screen keyboard+mouse indicators. Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes feels like a PC game, and that says a lot for a game that was originally released on consoles.
“All in all, Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes is one of the most optimized games of 2014. Kojima Productions’ first PC game is phenomenal as it looks and performs exceptionally well. Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes scales incredibly well on multi-core CPUs and multiple GPUs, and proves that a well polished game can be impressive visually without pushing every damn high-end GPU to its limits.”
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 hope that kojima is making tones of money with MGSV
I fear the day Kojima leaves the industry. It saddens me that he is getting up there in years, cause he is one of the most interesting, most talented developers out there. I can’t imagine what Konami is gonna do to Metal Gear after he is no longer leading it…
To look back at his actions the past few years alone, he released a trailer called “The Phantom Pain” not linking it to either him, his company, his new engine, or even the mega popular franchise it was secretly a part of. All that Moby Dick developers stuff, and what not. Then, he did a similar thing with PT earlier this year at E3, showing off a teaser that hid a trailer for a big named game.
His brand of crazy is what this industry needs, and he helms one of the best series of all time.
I hope he brings all his games to PC from here on out, including the Silent Hills game that him and Del Toro are working on.
i really hope pc shows some support. would you imagine mgs 4 and peace walker on pc =3 ?
Since the PS3 is at the end of its life cycle, i hope he does indeed port MGS4 to a newer platform, like the infinite platform of the PC. It is a great title (even though die hards and try hards of the MGS series seem to hate it) and i would hate to see it fall into obscurity because it only exists on an old outdated platform.
It running at 60FPS would be f’ing incredible too, only ever saw it at 30FPS.
Peace Walker however, it can only look so good, as it is a port of a PSP game. Still possibly the best MGS game, but graphics wise, it has its limitations. So glad MGSV is pretty much Peace Walker 2 with console level graphics (not handheld graphics).
i want 3 it has the best gameplay, you can do anything similar to dishonored.
he made a 3 hour video of opening presents only to show off a chicken head mask for metal gear.
He is a master troll.
that day is here bruh kojima got fired
lol, and immediately started his own game production company, with his first title already funded thanks to Sony. I mean’t leave the INDUSTRY, not leave Konami lol. F*ck Konami.
i hope Sillent hills is on pc.
fingers crossed !
i hope so because he over spent on the budget
Just a coincidence isn’t it that Alien Isolation, Dragon Age:Inquisition, Beyond Earth and Sniper Elite 3 are all AMD evolved titles. 🙂
Merry Christmas!
Their really not though, amd just paid them to put their logo on it.
GE logo basically means that game is using Radeon SDK (which is for free for any developer they just have to put logo in exchange for that)
And guess what you don’t see any Radeon SDK games on this list… No lingon battlemage tressFX optimization on this list..
AMD Evolved titles have great frame-rate latency times ,they’re nice and quite flat on AMD cards which shows it’s optimised nicely.
Also interesting that between all those AMD titles is no game using GameWorks.
The AMD shill types again… only Ubisoft messes up gameworks.. and they been messing up before gameworks even started… Get over it lol
btw Shadow or mordor and Dragon age inq both use HBAO+/Full which is part of Gameworks 🙂
Not sure why you think that, the games you said only use one feature of Gameworks, which runs well anyway. HBAO is nothing new, BF3/4 both use it, FC3 looks awful using it though HBAO+ is better.
Hmm, don’t know. Alien and Inquisition run beautifully on my GTX 670.
That’s how it supposed to work, AMD Evolved titles run well on any GPUs and from what I’ve seen, the frame-times are smooth on AMD GPUs even though NVIDIA GPUs do beat AMD GPUs in such games.
nVIDIA .dlls features to make their gameworks exclusive thats why its buggy.
well those games dont run bad on nvidia, infact they are optimized… so if anything you can say amd plays it safe and nvidia w**res nvidia features on ever game for the sake of putting their name on it.
Good list and i fully agree.
I agree with you but the visual are not that great……
Not great but more than OK.
Inquisition number 2 for PC optimization? really? … there’s STILL a huge thread on the official forums of Dragon Age about the game not being poorly optimized for the PC, and the devs of the game agreed with it… and you give it number 2? … nice
Have you even played it?
There are only two things wrong with it: the Tactical View and the fact that you need to hold down the right mouse button to point the camera (and select objects).
Other than that the game runs and looks phenomenal. I almost can’t believe it runs as good as it does considering I was playing Final Fantasy 13-2 and it looks worse and runs poorly, even when upscaling the resolution to 2k. I have a 6 year-old quad core and Inqusition runs at nearly 60fps when in the wild (and like 25fps in dense cities – here is where my CPU struggles).
I hate that holding the right mouse button crap, kills the game for me sorta
Yeah I know what you mean. It’s taking them forever to fix it, too 🙁
Also, the menu system is horrible. It’s so difficult to compare and craft armor and weapons, but a horrible UI is one of the traditions at Bioware, apparently.
Have I played it? I have 180 hours played on single player, one playthrough, 48 out of 50 achievements, played it on hard with friendly fire on at all times.
How baddly is it optimized? I’m not talking about fps or graphics, my gtx 770 OC with 4GIGs played it pretty much topped out and very well. However, optimized for the PC should never only be about the graphics. I’ll not talking about the crappy AI of your companions or the max 8 slot spells, those are indeed mostly due to console influence, but aren’t specific to the PC.
However this game STILL has crappy tac cam, no point and click move, crappy UI fully focused for gamepads/consoles, no walking capability for mouse and keyboard, while it does have it for gamepads.
There’s no point even trying to say it’s optimized for the PC, when the developers themselves said that the previous complaints about the PC version are valid, and they discuss it on their official forums on one of the biggest threads there. One of the devs answered me and his repply is shown on those forums, that they didn’t even have a PC only Q&A TEAM, and that since their Q&A team already had to test the game on 4 other platforms with only a gamepad/controller, they may have been biased and mostly only tested the PC version with a gamepad themselves…
I love Inquisition, but top most optmized PC game of the year? not by a long shot!
Yeah, all those are great points, and I have some deep concerns with the controls and UI, but it’s like this: If the game flawlessly then all the problems with the UI and AI become minimal and just turn into quirks that take getting used to, but if the game runs poorly then the best UI and AI in the world will not make the game enjoyable.
I didn’t say the game was bad did I? In fact I did say I loved the game, yet one of its biggest problems is its optimisation for the PC, it’s really really bad, not in terms of technical and raw performance, but in controls(mouse keyboard) and UI.
The fact that Inquisition is optimised for console and to be used with gamepads, does not diminish the fact that the keyboard/mouse(by far the most used controls in PCs), the UI for the PC, the AI and the tac cam are badly implemented and poorly optimised for the PC. I even agreed that Inquisition was a fair winner of the best game of the year, but it is STILL a poor console port due to all those issues, but it doesn’t make it a bad game(for me).
However it DOES make it a bad game for all those people who returned it because they were lied to by Bioware about it having an actual pc control scheme, or by those who missed their return window, but still refuse to play it for the same reasons. Their opinions are just as valid as people who did enjoy it (with controllers).
Many disabled or veterans who enjoyed the previous 2 in the series because it allowed mouse navigation and simple mapping to mouse buttons(!) are **** out of luck as well. Simply because Bioware couldn’t be bother to make a pc game… for pc.
It’s flat out disrespect to not tell your customers you fired all your pc programmers and got cheap console designers to try and make a pc control scheme for a triple A title with a huge budget.
I agree with you on that, and that is why I hammered the official forums as much as I did. Bioware did flat out lie, they even made a promo video about it lieing saying how much the game was optimised for the PC. They disrespected the PC gamers indeed and their old school fans who made the company have the success it did in its early stages.
Like I said, for me Inquisition was still a very good game, these problems weren’t entirely game breaking (again for me), but it did make my enjoyment of the game a lot lower than it could have been, if they had maintained the gameplay, control scheme and ui of Dragon Age Origins (which for me still rates above Inquisition, for these and several other reasons).
I didn’t say you said that. Let’s be clear here: there’s a difference between poor game mechanics and PC optimization. Poor controls, a stupid UI, and even stupider artificial intelligence has almost nothing to do with platform-specific optimization.
If something doesn’t work right you need to ask yourself two things: is it because it was *designed* this way, or is it because of the platform I’m on specifically?
Optimizing the game for a gamepad does not mean it wasn’t optimized for PC – it was simply *designed* to work with a gamepad on a PC. See the difference?
With UI and AI – placing the game on a PC does not magically make these things more intuitive or smarter. If the UI and AI were designed to function (poorly) then that is a failure of design, not of the platform.
Both the UI and the Controls were indeed designed for console. Then when you “port” it to the PC, you should always changed the UI and controls accordingly for a higher res and closer to the image experience aswell as making the controls good for mouse and keyboard. None of those were optimised accordingly.
Designing a game such as this for PC with mainly/only the gamepad in mind, would be the same mistake as making a Street Fighter designed for mouse and keyboard, and even in that case it would work better.
Dragon Age series was never developed focused on controlers/gamepads, this one is in fact the first where it is rather noticeable that gamepad was all they focused on, and the developers already admited to that. When optimizing for the PC they should always take into account the most commonly used control scheme in that platform which is BY FAR the mouse and keyboard, and you can never separate this when talking about optimization, and I pointed that out in this particular review/article, cause the author himself said that when he picked these games as the best optimised for the PC he also took into account the controls.
If they would have done it the other way around the game wouldn’t even be playable, if they made it for PC and for keyboard and mouse in the first place, and then ported it to console and gamepad, without optimizing for those, you can imagine playing in the living room with a gamepad, a game with a very tiny UI, tons of keybinds needed that no gamepad could ever deal with, and needing the precision of a mouse to aim. The game wouldn’t even be playable.
I still feel like you’re still not understanding this. The mouse and keyboard WORK. Just because it doesn’t work as you’d expect it to does not mean it’s not optimized. Same with the AI.
The UI is a bit different, as you know, because the graphic design must be at least legible and navigable. But, once again it WORKS, just not as well as I would like it to. That is what is called a design compromise – they chose to design the game for console-like controls. It’s a conscious decision on their part. The whole game is quite simplified this way – it’s just not designed for typical PC gamers and doesn’t have the same fine level of detail we’ve come to expect. If you’ve ever played Drakensang that’s exactly the way I WISH this game played, but these are very different types of games that happen to be in the fantasy RTS genre.
Optimised still means fine tuned, not that it works. It works for mouse and keyboard, they chose not to optimize it, same for the UI.
Optimise definition: make optimal; get the most out of; use best.
Skyrim had a UI on the PC too, but it wasn’t optimized either, it worked but it was bad for a PC game, It’s not a question of preference.
This game has tons of stuff missing that are mainstream on keyboard and mouse RPGs, stuff like mouse over tool tips, point and click movement etc.
Even more noticeable to this optimization issue, the keyboard and mouse are STILL missing something that the gamepad can do in this game, it’s called walking, and you can’t do it with a keyboard and mouse while being able to do it with a gamepad.
Again everything is working as intended in the game, or as per design choice, yet it still doesn’t mean it’s optimised for the PC, far from it.
The game and controls are not the issue here and people do use joypads on PC, my goodness even Crysis 1 supported joypads.
Have I played it? I have 180 hours played on single player, one playthrough, 48 out of 50 achievements, played it on hard with friendly fire on at all times.
How baddly is it optimized? I’m not talking about fps or graphics, my gtx 770 OC with 4GIGs played it pretty much topped out and very well. However, optimized for the PC should never only be about the graphics. I’ll not talk about the crappy AI of your companions or the max 8 slot spells, those are indeed mostly due to console influence, but aren’t specific to the PC.
However this game STILL has crappy tac cam, no point and click move, crappy UI fully focused for gamepads, no walking capability for mouse and keyboard, while it does have it for gamepads.
There’s no point even trying to say it’s optimized for the PC, when the developers themselves said that the previous complaints about the PC version are valid, and they discuss it on their official forums on one of the biggest threads there. One of the devs answered me and his repply is shown on those forums, that they didn’t even have a PC only Q&A TEAM, and that since their Q&A team already had to test the game on 4 other platforms with only a gamepad/controller, they may have been biased and mostly only tested the PC version with a gamepad themselves…
I love Inquisition, but top most optmized PC game of the year? not by a long shot!
Looks pehnomenal? really? yes the grass looks good but come one character models and indoor enviroments look ancient.
AMD Gaming Evolved should win this category.
Agreed.
I am happy that Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes was optimized well but considering the size of the game(just 2hours) comparing to others like Shadow of Mordor I feel it doesnt deserve top spot. What do you think guys?
2 hours for the main campaign, there is tons of bonus content. It is also reassuring of what Metal Gear Solid 5 can be. Plus the game is only $20, not including the day one sale. The game has a lot more depth than other games, and actually has replay value, unlike most games today. Plus my friend said the game ran better than Shadow of Morodor, at least on his computer.
Have you played peacewalker? If he put all that in a psps game imagine how big mgs v will be.
20 dollars for a map. All bonus content it’s actually different missions on the same map. I liked it but i would not have paid for it.
In my humble opinion, you forgot about one game that “performs spectacularly amazing on the PC”.
Absolutely!!!!
It was a close fight between this, THIEF and GRID: Autosport for the tenth place. GRID: Autosport triumphed both of them in terms of performance/visuals ratio (also for better scaling on multiple CPU cores, wider graphics options to tweak, etc.)
I fully agree. Grid series runs so smooth in most of medium hardwares. Thief same thing 🙂
I would say your list is a huge BS ,you placed MGSV on top place but you forgot that this game does not like AMD and has no crossfire profile.
Thief deserved a mention basicly becaue everyone has forgoten about it and the pc port by nixxes runs better than the console versions developed by eidos.
its weird how the port runs better than the actual lead versions.
Thief seemed to have used baked Ambient Occlusion. I am surprised other games don’t use that method. But, Thief’s maps were very small due to the aging Unreal Engine 3.
this game can run HIGH setting in my overclocked Intel HD Haswell.
Agreed.
Inquisition makes the list, but Castlevania doesn’t? Lol…..
I don’t usually disagree with the Editors, but in this case, the bloke below is right, we should be taking into account more than just “Oh look, it scales up to [X] Cores.”
From the “Worst of 2014” Article:
“Dark Souls 2 may be a great game – and thanks to the additional raw power of the PC the game does run better than its console cousins – but the port itself was awful.”
Switch out “Dark Souls 2” for Dragon Age: Inquisition & it fits perfectly.
“Furthermore, the game’s lighting system has been severely downgraded.”
Because the Texture work on DA:I is right up there in the same caliber with BF4? DA:I might look nice, but in the vein of FB3 Games, it is hands down the worst-looking one yet.
come on, the game looks ancient.
Plays well on my laptop.
A game that runs on all setting at High-Max on a $550 laptop, and looks spectacular… This game deserves special award from Game journalists and websites. BTW, my laptop is 2013’s HP G6 2005 ax (A8 CPU with HD 7670G 1GB DDR3)
inquisition works perfect for me on ultra at 1080p constant 60fps and looks amazing, it has really really good looking levels. Inquisition and COD i think are the best this year.
Advance warfare? The campaign and the Multilayer both lagged and the audio in the cinematic was way out of sync.
agreed. while i personally dont own it, i played at my boyfriends and it was terrible on his beast of a machine. patch eventually fixed it but it should run much better on his rig as everything else he plays is buttery smooth.
”Boyfriend” ?
lol
Maybe hes gay, who knows and who cares?
Yeah? And what? Im a 35 year old black gay. Deal with it. Reported for discrimination.
In fact i just wanted to make sure that you’re gay, nothing wrong about it.
Nothing wrong with gay guys and lesbian girls. Obviously Dracula wanted to know whether a girl was using that account or not. Also, comments that are not appropriate will be deleted.
No one here cares what you do with your s*x life, we play games.
Must be nice having a boyfriend that is into the same gaming hobby you are, you can share games.
My favorite part is how if he had said “girlfriend” the next 50 comments would have been “stop lying/yeah right/blowup doll/etc” the internet never ceases to amaze me.
I just don’t understand why ppl on the internet feel the need to express that they have a girlfriend or boyfriend
@Guest677 odd name and more odd you deleted your comment.
I for one see no problem when someone mentions their significant other. Especially if it pertains to the subject at discussion. But just dropping a “I have a significant other” for no reason, is strange. In this case, it wasn’t.
so after the patch he doesnt get any frame drops?
it still runs like crap on my machine
2500k@ 4ghz, 7950 @ 1100/1500
really upsetting since its the first game in awhile i paid $59.99 for
and also bought it on account of hearing from many it was a great port, not so much on my rig it seems
Didn’t lag for me. Audio out of sync doesn’t mean it isn’t optimized
yup, mp lagged less
Advanced Warfare runs like a*s, i get dips to 40fps on multi on cranked DOWN settings
2500k @ 4ghz
7950 @ 1100/1500
1. Runs fine and SLI scaling works great (still not happy about 60fps cap)
2. Never played
3. Never played
4. Runs great and SLI scaling works great.
5. Unreal Engine 3 runs great as always, Amazing SLI & Amazing High frame rate support.
6. Singleplayer runs good and SLI scaling works great. (not happy about multiplayer 90fps cap)
7. Never played
8. Never played
9. Never played
10. Never played
Nice to see Advanced Warfare on this list. Regardless of what the ‘haters’ say, it was a solid fun game.
Yes AW shocked me. I was truly impressed with all the graphics options as well. They even explained what they did. Shocker!
agreed.i really enjoyed it much more than previous versions.
It was a solid and fun game…. for two weeks.
yeah its good but i thought blops 2 was better, its sad when cod innovates more than the rest of the industry, it gets you thinking.
MGS: GZ just looks average, that´s why it runs well on most PCs. I played it at 4k and I was not amazed, at all: http://www.pcmrace.com/2014/12/18/epic-shots-metal-gear-solid-v-ground-zeroes/
valkiriya chronicles was nice
its Japanese game, Western hate japan no matter what
Was this stupidity or sarcasm? You realize the #1 game on this list is a Japanese game right?
sad
Ryse ran like complete garbage for me even on the lowest settings.
What kind of CPU do you have? CryEngine is super CPU-reliant. Overclocking your CPU 25% will boost your game’s framerate by 25%. It’s weird.
Merry Christmas all 🙂
About the list, id also put Thief on it somehow, cuz that game ran so smooth on all my computers. Rest seems to be in order. 🙂
thank you john, nice articles.
“Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare”
better than ghost but it was and is a pure stutter fest on many systems and they never fixed it, hell they not even mentioned it.
Amir on my RIG was exelent Play >100fps overall in 1920:1440 85Hz Ultra
Phenom x6 3.9Ghz on Sabertooth 990FX, XFX DD 7970Ghz ED, 8GB 1866 CL9, SB-Z
Also Phenom has SOLID HEXA Cores, really dont have to OC to 4.2GHz or more 😉
And i can 😉 WC Nepton 280L 😀
Here the Photo -> tinypic.com/usermedia.php?uo=nvlS1L5AwLP20MbXVgHnQIh4l5k2TGxc#.VJuprf_AM
it stutters harder than anything for me , any idea why it happens?
i don’t know, i don’t have the game but it happens for many of people
Hmm Mostly the AMD Game Evolved 😀
So AMD is the Overall winner
Waiting for my R390X 20nm GPU 😀
Frostbite 3 and Dunia Engine 2 seem to favour AMD’s Graphics Core Next architecture.
What a load of s**t. Inquisition is a straight up port with the 14 standard controller functions they originally programmed lazily plugged into a random keyboard layout, no mouse button mapping, and menus that are designed for controller Input only.
Optimized? They did the PC controls over a weekend with no techs in the office. Please!
I don’t think any company tests mouse and keyboard controls nowadays. Well, they test it enough to make sure it functions, but clearly no one plays through these games on m&k, otherwise they would know how annoying it is to hold down the right mouse button constantly over an 80 hour game.
exactly. Which alone should be enough not to warrant 10th place, let alone 2nd. But now after the draw distance issues and misallocation issues, it’s not even close to being “optimized”. Look at this:
http://answers.ea.com/t5/Dragon-Age-Inquisition/PC-Ongoing-investigation-poor-performance-crashes-resource/td-p/4126271
Merry Christmas john
im 99% with you but ryse should be at number 5 cause crysis 3 run better and it look better and it doesnt stutter on my pc 🙂
—————-and honored motion lichdom battlemage——————-
I read an article where Crytek was literally laughing at how unoptimized they made the game for PC – on purpose. It was a sad, sad day for me after reading that 🙁
Oh my, do you have a link to the article?
link
Merry Christmas DSOGaming!
MGS V: The Phantom Pain is going to be glorious. Hopefully it’ll launch simultaneously on all platforms, PC included.
Have I played Dragon Age Inquisition? I have 180 hours played on single player, one playthrough, 48 out of 50 achievements, played it on hard with friendly fire on at all times.
How baddly is it optimized? I’m not talking about fps or graphics, my gtx 770 OC with 4GIGs played it pretty much topped out and very well. However, optimized for the PC should never only be about the graphics. I’ll not talk about the crappy AI of your companions or the max 8 slot spells, those are indeed mostly due to console influence, but aren’t specific to the PC.
However this game STILL has crappy tac cam, no point and click move, crappy UI fully focused for gamepads, no walking capability for mouse and keyboard, while it does have it for gamepads.
There’s no point even trying to say it’s optimized for the PC, when the developers themselves said that the previous complaints about the PC version are valid, and they discuss it on their official forums on one of the biggest threads there. One of the devs answered me and his repply is shown on those forums, that they didn’t even have a PC only Q&A TEAM, and that since their Q&A team already had to test the game on 4 other platforms with only a gamepad/controller, they may have been biased and mostly only tested the PC version with a gamepad themselves…
I love Inquisition, but top most optmized PC game of the year? not by a long shot!
I scales beautifully on the CPU side and you can’t say it’s not optimised based on someone’s PC config that don’t run well for some reason. In the end it’s based on John’s setup, if you want a more in-depth review or analysis, go look on a hardware site with different hardware.
You clearly misinterpreted what I said, saying a game is optimized in terms of CPU, or memory or GPU, or even performance like frames per second is all fine and well, but they did say on the article “things like PC specific graphical features, PC technologies (like SLI and Crossfire) and PC controls are properly implemented.”
Controls are far from properly implemented, and the developers of the game it self agreed that the game isn’t optimized as it should be for the PC.
I also said it runs great on my PC, yet it’s still a crap console port when you talk about PC controls, UI and even gameplay.
You may not agree, the guy from this article may not agree, but like I said, the developers of the game itself agree that all those PC problems persist.
Controls and UI have got nothing to do with “optimization “
I’m guessing that again you’re talking without reading … AGAIN. The writer of this article said it himself that what he is looking in to when doing this article are “things like PC specific graphical features, PC technologies (like SLI and Crossfire) and PC controls are properly implemented.”
It was the author himself who said it, but again you don’t agree with something you haven’t even properly read it seems.
Well, to me that doesn’t come under “optimisation” so maybe it’s a language barrier. MSG has control bugs too, I’m amazed it got released like that. As for performance, MGS doesn’t run that good on AMD setups so I disagree again.
Could not agree more with Metal Gear Solid GZ. I was blown away by the performance on my mid-range machine! Over the last few months, I was getting used to playing games @30fps (so I can push graphics to max settings), so seeing MGS:GZ running @60 and looking as great as does was breathtaking.
Well xbone runs it at 60 fps soooo yeah.
yeah digital foundry tested it with a 750ti and it was over 60fps almost all the time but for many people including one of my friends it’s a stutter fest on some missions. however i didn’t test it myself but he has really similar hardware as me
yes on SOME missions thats the thing, what is up with those missions what causes the stuttering?
i don’t know but in some places on the maps including multiplayer maps. there is a video on insidegaming channel that they are playing the game, it stutters like hell for them too. they had gtx 770
you think this is related to mimap like fc4?
i don’t think so, game runs perfect on some weaker machines but have some trouble with some configs
As much as I love the MGS series (played it on the Playstation and onwards) Ground Zereos (I’m playing it on PC on max settins in 1080p) doesn’t do anything groundbreaking as far as visuals go, in fact its visuals are avarage at best, so its performance/visual ratio seems alright, but I guess we have been fed some awful ports lately (courtesy of Ubishaft) so in that sense our expecations have been reduced ever since.
I agree!
I am playing it maxed out too with other custom Nvidia control panel setting and it is not special in any shape or form when it comes to visuals. The environment is very simplistic and sparsely populated with objects.
i am calling it now gta v will show high requirment sand everyone will be like “Well those are not high” becasue we are used to high requirements due to bad ports.
haha..call of the duty is the best…
with a 7950 what you expect to get?
you mention that its optimized really even on the menu screens it has cpu maxed out 100% (denuvo maybe)? for some apperant reason I had to disable the stupid origin in game even to play it without freezing, and it runs like dudu. only graphics impressive in this game is the water, skyhold looks straight out of a ps2 game (texture wise )on ultra and the spell effects are ps2 level as well, and the moronic ai that realizes I put a trap on the ground yet they run into it anyhow (NES era,) this game really is a joke, Id like to see some games built of the unreal 4 engine though, its optimized and looks like something straight out of 2020 based off the tech demo (effects cave) , I was playing splinter cell blacklist I think it was .. now that game has some good realistic ai,. , and even the bf4 sp campaign wasn’t this f’ked up and found it to be a good game (, I cant even play this game it’s a mess that defies logic (playing on hard) I beat dao on hard it was a much better experience the combat everything ,and this is a damn award winner.
You should have included some honorable mentions, or even boost the list to 15 or 20.
I like Grid Autosport, but the fact that it has no native options for border-less window mode, and resets the saved graphic options and opens up in a 600×400 window instead of 1920×1080 every time I restart the game doesn’t say optimized for PC to me.
WTF, How can you put one of the worst PC optimised games of 2014- DRAGON AGE INQUISITION on the list? Cmon even the devs agreed to the bad optimisation.
When there is a game that doesnt run on DUAL CORE CPUs and you need a 1 MB 3rd party hack (Injector v3.3)to make it run on Dual Core CPUs, its a sure sign as to how badly the game is optimised.
And lots not forget the god awfull “console” controls. The continuous HOLD RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON system.. ughhhh!!! just plain horrible.
Currently playing on a Intel G3230 Dual core on R7 250 and XboX controller using Injector 3.3 hack
DragonAge:Inq is the worst PC port of all time. Because its not even a port so no excuses for being still unplayably bad in 2016. No optiimization. Few to no options. 1000s of google hits for issues with frame rate, stutter, rubberbanding even IN SP!!, and more.
Great job throwing out your favorite games or the games the guys that paid you asked you to mention.
Nice bs list.