In the last few weeks, I’ve been replaying the Batman: Arkham games on my PC. And, to my surprise, Batman: Arkham Knight runs smoother than Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City. Yes, you read that right. Right now, Arkham Knight has fewer problems and runs better on PC than Arkham City.
As always, I’ve used our main PC system to replay the Batman Arkham games. So basically, I used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB of DDR5 at 6000Mhz, and NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4090. I also used Windows 10 64-bit, and the GeForce 546.29 driver. Moreover, I’ve disabled the second CCD on our 7950X3D (and SMT) as the game does not take advantage of more than 3-4 CPU cores/threads.
Now as you’ll see in the following video, the NVIDIA RTX4090 was barely used at Native 4K/Max Settings. During my playthrough, the RTX4090 was being used at around 30-50%. And yes, that’s with the game’s hardware-based PhysX effects. So, in theory, an RTX3080 should also be able to run it at 4K with over 60fps.
The reason I’m saying that Arkham Knight runs better than Arkham City and Arkham Asylum is due to the fewer stutters. Since I’ve played all of them, I can say that Arkham City and Arkham Asylum have more intrusive traversal stutters. On the other hand, Arkham Knight feels smoother, even when causing havoc and chaos in the streets.
There are still some very minor stutters that can be noticed by staring at the frametime graph. I’m certain that most of you won’t be able to notice them during your playthrough. Oh, and these stutters are nowhere close to what we’ve seen in other modern releases. I mean, take a look at the video. I can guarantee you that most of you won’t be able to notice the stutters (unless you constantly look at the frametime graph).
Batman: Arkham Knight came out in 2015 and after almost a decade, it still looks great. Yes, there are some low-res textures here and there but most of the characters are highly detailed. There are also some truly incredible weather and particle effects. The city is also full of objects and enemies. Not only that but the PhysX effects are glorious. The game’s world feels alive. You can break a lot of objects, and the game’s smoke effects look stunning. And don’t get me started about the destruction you can cause while driving. It’s really shocking when you return to it. You’d think that modern-day games would be miles beyond what Arkham Knight achieved. But no, in terms of physics and destruction, Arkham Knight feels like a next-gen game.
In February, Warner Bros will release Rocksteady’s latest title, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. And I’ll be honest here. I don’t expect Suicide Squad to come close to Arkham Knight’s level of detail. At least in terms of physics and destruction. I really don’t know why developers have stopped pushing destructible environments. All we get these days are better-looking worlds that feel lifeless. Thankfully, Alan Wake 2 and Avatar offer some amazing physics effects. So, all hope is not lost. Not yet!
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.”
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