After an extensive closed beta phase, M Bilal has released the first public version of his unofficial PC port of God of War: Ascension. This unofficial PC port will let all gamers enjoy this PS3-exclusive GoW game on their PCs. So, let’s take a closer look at it.
The first public version, Version 0.1.31, comes with better speed, fewer stutters, improved graphics, and more stable gameplay. The PC port now also has many useful options for controls, saves, and game files.
One of the biggest changes is the improved CPU usage. More of the game’s code now runs as native PC code. This helps the game run much faster on CPUs with four to eight cores. The port also uses occlusion culling. This means it skips objects that are hidden behind walls or other objects. As a result, the PC does not have to draw things that the player cannot see.
M Bilal has also optimized the graphics thread. These speed gains are now active for all players, even when the FPS counter is off. The port also has better CPU thread settings for some six-core and 16-core Ryzen X3D CPUs. It turns off these settings on CPUs where they can hurt speed, such as some eight-core and Intel CPUs with E-cores. The game also spends less time waiting for other tasks to finish. This helps it stay smooth when other apps are running in the background.
It’s also worth noting that, compared to the beta builds, this first public version has fewer stutters. The port now comes with 13,425 recorded shader pipelines. These shaders are built before you start playing. Other shaders can also be built in the background. This helps stop stutter at start-up, after loading screens, and when new textures appear.
NVIDIA users also have an extra option called Fewer Shader Stutters. It shows a stand-in shader while the real one is being built. This can help keep the game smooth, even right after a loading screen.
Version 0.1.31 fixes many crashes and freezes, too. These include cases where the picture froze, but the sound kept playing. It also fixes freezes that happened every few seconds on some eight-core CPUs. Other fixes cover start-up hangs, boot crashes, and windows that showed a Not Responding message. M Bilal has also fixed a bug that could make Kratos fall through the floor on slower PCs.
And that’s not all. M Bilal has fixed missing floors and objects, broken scenery, striped textures, and white patches on Kratos’s face at high resolutions. He has also fixed glowing blobs on NVIDIA GPUs, overly bright lighting on AMD GPUs, and shimmer on rooftops.
The port supports native 1080p, 1440p, 4K, and 5K rendering. It also offers SMAA, AMD FSR 3.1, sharpening, and anisotropic filtering. The glow effect has been improved as well. At 1440p and 4K, it now runs at full resolution. This makes the glow look smooth instead of dotted. Its brightness is also within 1% of the PS3 version.
There are many changes to controls and saves as well. Controller support now uses the full range of stick movement, even when moving diagonally. You can also dodge with the right stick. M Bilal has fixed issues that made controllers stop working after cutscenes or freeze during strong wireless vibration.
The save system is also much better. The port can back up saves while you play. You can also export and import them. A fix stops autosaves from going to the wrong folder. The launcher can also carry your saves over when you install a new version in a different folder.
The launcher has gained more useful options, too. It supports US disc copies and lets you select a game folder or an ISO file. You no longer need to decrypt the game with RPCS3 first. The launcher can also join split FAT32 files. It has simple checkboxes for cheats and patches. Other options include a Brazilian Portuguese translation mod, the 1.04 sound mix, and ways to skip the intro and story movies.
M Bilal has also shared some performance tests. On a PC with an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and an RTX 5080, the game can hold 59 to 60 FPS in its heaviest fight at 1440p with a 2x render scale and a 60 FPS cap. In a busy rooftop scene, it reached 106 FPS with the cap set to 240. When limited to six CPU cores, the same PC reached about 77 FPS in the heavy fight and 51 to 53 FPS on the rooftop.
These tests show that the game needs a strong CPU. In large fights, the PS3’s SPU tasks and the game’s main thread can limit performance more than the graphics card.
You can go ahead and download the PC port from this link. As always, it does not contain any game assets. To run it, you’ll have to supply your own legally dumped copy of the game. I’ve also included below a gameplay video from an older build (the public version runs better than it).
Have fun!
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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