Square Enix has just released Forspoken on PC and things are not looking particularly well. One of the biggest features of this title was its support for DirectStorage. And, after closer examination, it appears that DirectStorage support is available on both Windows 10 and Windows 11.
However, the game has major stutters and frame pacing issues. Below you can find some screenshots from its built-in benchmark tool. As you can see, the framegraph is all over the place. Not only that, but our CPU was downclocking due to these frame pacing issues.
Our PC test system was Intel i9 9900K with 16GB of DDR4 at 3800Mhz, NVIDIA’s RTX 4090, Windows 10 and the latest version of the GeForce drivers. We’ve also installed the game on a Samsung 970 Pro Plus SSD.
My guess is that the game constantly loads new assets and as a result of that, performance goes downhill. In theory, DirectStorage should have eliminated this issue. In our initial article, we said that DirectStorage was only available on Windows 11. It appears we were wrong though. The game loads in less than a second (when you press continue). This indicates that DirectStorage actually works.
Due to these frame pacing issues, we cannot share right now our initial PC performance impressions. At native 4K/Max Settings and with Ray Tracing, our NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 was dropping below 60fps. The game features Ray Tracing Shadows and Ambient Occlusion on PC. Moreover, it supports both AMD FSR 2.0 and NVIDIA DLSS 2.
For those wondering, at 4K the game can run perfectly fine with 16GB of RAM. During the benchmark sequence, our overall PC system RAM usage never went over 14GB. And yes, as the title suggests, the game does have shader compilation stutters.
Lastly, there are some awful audio issues with 5.1 audio devices. The audio is generally a mess, and you’ll have to force 2.1 via Windows in order to resolve this. I don’t know how on Earth Square Enix has messed up something like that, but here we are. Seriously, listen to this.
Stay tuned for our PC Performance Analysis!
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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I feel like these games shouldn’t be allowed to be sold on Steam if they run so poorly.
Btw, if you are in the UK or EU, you can get a refund after 14 days no matter how many hours you played the game. Steam hides this option and few know about it, it also more complex, but it is possible.
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/369C-3E9F-76FD-DEDA
Bahahahhaha ?????
Ouch. DS is supported on w10 wtf
They folded to pressure after people complained. AutoHDR is a Win 11 exclusive feature that they didn’t port back to Win 10.
That is true, and def something to look forward to for when i go to w11. From what ive seen the OS is still not in a good enough place for me to make the jump.
DirectStorage in this game doesn’t do anything.
It’s the pointless 1.0 version which lacks GPU decompression, so that it can actually work like what the consoles have.
They didn’t update it to 1.1 which finalized the SDK in November of last year
Their priority was saving the project and securing esg money with a black female lead.
I thought for sure this game would score nines and tens just because it had a black female as the main character. But since codes were not handed out, the media tore it to shreds. Just another example of how corrupt video games journalists are.
LOL, that’s precisely why Deathloop scored perfect 10s from the media. Normie gamers found it to be mediocre and were baffled by the high scores. Us in the know about the cultural war knew what was up though.
Because of money, people lie, cheat and steal. Sad world we’re living in. No integrity at all.
Goyslopen
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c2620da138a7d9bab7ac4a6023e3ca2fc2769bf5f70295b841288c5f92a4c854.jpg
Well…
Loading times are blazing fast, though…
Thanks for actually looking into this!
FWIW, I just tried the demo on Linux, and had almost instant loading times aswell, which either means that DirectStorage is working here, too, or that it really isn’t all that beneficial to begin with…
Please update your post, because Forspoken already does use DirectStorage version 1.1, as confirmed by another poster.
Which also confirms that it’s indeed totally useless, given the terrible performance of this garbage game…
Tried the PC Demo with my r7 5700x and RTX 3060ti and man this game is so poorly optimized its crazy to believe its the final product. So Cringy and worst optimized game of 2023. Graphics looks bad nothing like the trailers at all. Watch dogs 1 anyone?
I have the same CPU and GPU and my experience with the demo was similar. Had to lock it to 30fps at 1080p and DLSS set to quality to keep the fps steady, otherwise there are drops from 60 even with settings at low at 1080p (and it looks like a PS3 game at low). Nevermind the mediocre gameplay and the awful dialogue. This game is trash all around. All it has going for it are pretty particle effects that tank your frame rates.
I had everything turned up to high on 3700x + 2080ti and holding 60fps no problem in the demo. Both with FSR and DLSS. Maybe the game likes a lot of VRAM.
bad game and bad performance
I tried the demo as well. Ran without issue with max settings (i7 13700K, 4090 FE, Win11). Didn’t notice any stuttering or the audio issue. But as others have said the gameplay just isn’t particularly interesting
Demo has no stutter issues on my PC with a 12900kf and a RTX 3090 and DLSS set to Quality. And not sure it’s a small world either despite being a demo, because the size of the demo is 42GB, which means it probably has all the files but just limits you to the demo areas, so I’m not sure if having the full version makes a difference.
Tried the demo. There doesn’t seem to be shader compilation stutters, but there are frame pacing issues. Capping the framerate fixes this, as usual.
you buy this for 80 bucks and you get instantly nutered. I´m sick and tired of you people buying such sh*t with the excuse “iTs mY mOnY i cAn sPenD it On aLL garBaGE”
you´re garbage and you deserve less
Demo works decent for me… but holy moly its boring, uninspired, ubisoft style open world sandbox with nothing to do and huge empty boring map, full of cringe. Looks and feels like was done by one person.
You have to love how chests in the wilds are standing on some giant concrete foundations because why not or how chest just stand in the middle of bridge for no reason, completely out of place its clear it was co developed by western team, even Japanese devs infamous for stupid chest placement don’t make it so stupid and out of place.
As for writer of that garbage i hope he or she never gets job in gaming, its worse then tweeter fanfic.
Don’t worry, they’ll be sure to “fail upwards” because they have the “right politics”. Like how the writers for Batwoman are working the Gotham Knights series; or how the writer for Birds of Prey secured more work writing the (now cancelled) Latina race-swapped Batgirl film and The Flash (starring a violent groomer criminal, who pretends to be queer for the protective shield).
Tried the demo too and the graphics are the biggest disappointment for me. The teaser trailer was another bait and switch. Just looking at the crappy water shader effects and the tree models makes me want to vomit.
forspoken? buck broken 🙂
Forcrapen
I think the Japanese devs that were forced to work on this game are just trolling the west with the levels of sh*t that this game can reach.
they only developed the combat system I think. Westerners handle the writing because they wanna push their own narrative.
The quality of the audio matches the quality of the writing
I can confirm my ears have bled in both occasions.
Thank you for your sacrifice, I will never pirate this game even out of curiosity.
Worthabuy’s recent videos on this game are comedy gold!
Technical issues doesn’t matter, I’m happy that SQENX was brave enough to address the social inequality issue in Forspoken. The representation, equality and empowerment are what matters in games. Women from rural Africa, South America, Urban Middle-east and Afghanistan appreciates this brave effort. /s
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fa932b071ce139e702cbe904835025a51dd9bb773ae7e3359a05ee6a3e892723.jpg
I mean isnt that happening with nearly every game? Horizon was like that, the main reason i dont play modern games is how insufferably woke they are.
How come having focus on male protagonists and villains is sexist to women then?
YOU TELL EM QUEEN!!!
https://media0.giphy.com/media/I8nepxWwlEuqI/giphy.gif
I just saw a guy on YT streaming this, he was getting 14 gbs of vram usage and 18 gb of ram usage. BONKERS. And it looks like a*s.
Game: IF you installed game on HDD, you may notice some things missing
Reality: Game stutters constantly cos shader comilation while my HDD is not even 30 % used in process
HDDs are no longer capable of playing AAA games.
True. It takes 5GB/s state of art SSD to match gigantic 50MBs of how much is forspoken using….
I tried the demo.
The gameplay is just really boring. You’re spamming the attack button and just jumping and turning around like a clown. It’s mindless and not fun at all.
You can change atttack types but they’re all just spammy attacks. It all feels meaningless and repetitive.
The world itself is empty. Because you can travel so fast and jump far, everything is remote from each other. It’s exactly like Death Stranding and Sonic Frontiers in that sense, an empty meaningless world where you go from point A to B without caring about the forgettable areas you travel through. You feel no connection to the game at all.
I am increasingly starting to agree with Phil Fish his statement. “Japanese games just suck”.
These high budget Japanese games like Death’s Stranding, Sonic Frontiers, Forspoken, etc, they just blow. They’re awful games.
“The world itself is empty. Because you can travel so fast and jump far, everything is remote from each other. It’s exactly like Death Stranding and Sonic Frontiers in that sense, an empty meaningless world where you go from point A to B without caring about the forgettable areas you travel through. You feel no connection to the game at all.”
This is exactly what I thought about Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Traditional model Zeldas were MUCH better, IMO.
P.S. You actually bought a PS5? LMAO.
I tried to finish BOTW several times, never made it past first “boss” it was so incredibly boring and i generally do like open world games…
An empty open world with oddly overly difficult combat and very little idea where to go, when to go, what does what… Shame really. One of the very very few Loz games I didn’t like or finish
the demo is on steam now
I had tried a lot of bad games before BOTW was released and after playing all of those, BOTW was a fun experience. Maybe if I had not played those terrible games before, I might feel the same way you do.
starting reading…realizing its actually talking about the game instead of making jokes bashing it, stopped.
Yes this is what i care about, because this is what this game exist, to be laughed at and mocked and ridiculed.
Death Stranding and Forspoken are games made by Japanese developers but are made for Western audiences. I would not call them Japanese games. I have not watched Sonic Frontiers so I can not offer an opinion on that game.
However the demo is just that a demo…. The demo world was crafted for the demo.
Now that’s not saying the live game world is filled with stuff since it’s not. But can easily watch a twitch stream or YouTube to see what the live version looks like compared to the poorly crafted demo.
Forspoken should of released that early build demo long time ago so they could of gotten better feedback on what was needed because the live version is still missing stuff.
Also not sure how much Sony had involved themselves into the game development but it feels like Sony’s version of the game they want it and how Square enix does. Their games did not mix well at all
The demo is LITERALLY a chunk of gameworks that’s populated exactly like it is in the actual game.
You aren’t playing it right. There are hundreds of spells and combinations. If you’re spamming then it just means you’re crap at the game or couldn’t be bothered to put aside the sh*t story for a fun game from a pure gameplay perspective.
DE JA VU, IV BEEN IN THIS PLACE BEFORE….. woke game made by diversity hires with cringe netflix writing and denuvo ruining perfomance on top of bad porting.
DE JA VU!!!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a1b8ef140ac36a19fb1777b9ace46ed436cd2b9d003f655d418d9df33e31088a.png
Eidos Montreal got away from their bad influence of a friend Square Enix.
Surprise.
Well said!
Boycott this abomination of a game!
Based on what I tested so far, CPU is a major player on performance. From Intel part the game uses no E-core, so I’m interested to see how a Ryzen 7000 series performs.
Not just that, even the RTX 4090s are maxed out!
the Forbes review is plain brutal.
When a site doesn’t need to please game developers to get review copies, because gaming is not their focus, they actually tell the truth.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ad7d01bd16579035f097661afd2332f814b309a0041c8d6445d7fa3f4141eeb0.png
Reads like a review from the 90s.
Funny
Iv seen many say the live game is much better then the demo however it still has issues just not as bad as the demo issues were
And the rating is based on the live game and not demo since that was a really early build
Amazing how he hates only technical stuff and not the full power woke propaganda (promotion of feminism / DIEversity / Black delinquency “because poor”, and the total erasure of masculinity, Whites, and -true, ie Christian- morality).
But of course it’s Forbes, so the guy actually loves that propaganda, he’s just sad the turd is so obvious.
The main character in this game seems like she would have participated in the recent Atlanta Riots. She is adept with fire also.
Meh! And the game itself doesn’t appear to be any good either. Hard skip for me, even if they fix the issues and the game goes on sale at some point.
We already know this was going to be a dumpster fire. African female lead? check.
Seems the go w, go b will come true yet again when another so-called entertainment company will go belly up. Carter to 3-4% of the customer base and annoy the rest seems like a great recipe for commercial harakiri
Get woke, go broke!
I had a feeling this game was going to have issues, and I will say it again:
A BLT is probably better than playing this game.
As usual and to no one’s surprise.
This is not a game, it’s a piece of shltty political twitter interactive garbage. Almost puke within 5 min into the demo.
Guess I’ll format my system so no traces at all of this nibba shlt stays on my machine!
Just disgusting!
Forspoken a game for man-babies and and those on high levels of daily soy intake…
And when they players criticize the game, they call us racists! lmao. I think they purposely make us hate African female lead even more just to bait us into a racial war LMAO.
And when they players criticize the game, they call us racists! lmao. I think they purposely make us hate African female lead even more just to bait us into a racial war LMAO.
does anyone know what happened to Latex is better than Naked?
I downloaded the demo and all I can say the graphics are garbage! The lighting is subpar. The water shading effects are like 2002 quality. The texture work is last gen and some of the assets are way behind. Just look at the trees in the game. It’s like tree models made in the 2000s.
Forspoken need a NVME 4.0 , Windows 11/10 latest release for optimal operation of Direct Storage and 32gb of ram (game use about 12gb) https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1d8c15632484e81d9d298a60cdc7d59b69ac906b05e64dec148bc5f00823bdc9.jpg
Actually, it just needs to be ignored.
I hate woke but I bought this all the same because I thought the combat combined with traversal and especially after playing a couple of hours is just fun.
The only stuttering I saw was definitely asset streaming related but it didn’t happen to me very often but I delete my temp folder when installing a new and potentially intense game. Hopefully dice goes that way with it.
Well worth the the $44 preorder of deluxe edition. I’ve not paid much attention to story
The people defending this game are the ones who pre ordered it for 70 dollars and now they want to commit sudoku LMAO
*seppuku
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