Iron Galaxy Studios was the team that ported Batman: Arkham Knight on the PC; a port that was criticized by a lot and forced Rocksteady – post-launch – to work on it in order to offer a better version to PC gamers. Therefore, we were really curious about Killer Instinct PC. Would this fighting game meet the fate of Batman: Arkham Knight or not? Well, time to find out.
For this Performance Analysis, we used an Intel i7 4930K (turbo boosted at 4.0Ghz) with 8GB RAM, NVIDIA’s GTX980Ti and GTX690 GPUs, Windows 10 64-bit and the latest WHQL version of the GeForce drivers. NVIDIA has not included any SLI profile for this title as of yet, however most PC gamers won’t have any trouble to enjoy this title. Contrary to other fighting games, Killer Instinct does not require a high-end GPU to shine.
Our GTX690 was able to run the game with constant 60fps at 1080p and with max settings. Do note that due to the lack of an SLI profile, our GPU behaved similarly to an NVIDIA GTX680. On the other hand, our GTX980Ti was able to run Killer Instinct with constant 60fps at 4K (and with max settings).
What’s also great about Killer Instinct PC is that it runs extremely well even on modern-day dual-core CPUs. In order to find out whether a dual-core CPU was able to run the game, we simulated one. And to our big surprise, our simulated dual-core system was able to run the game with constant 60fps.
This basically means that Killer Instinct runs well even on dated PC systems, something that really impressed us. Killer Instinct runs amazingly well on the PC and most PC gamers won’t encounter any performance issues with this new fighting game. As we’ve already note, the game’s framerate is tied to the refresh rate, therefore you’ll have to limit your monitor’s refresh rate to 60hz in order to play it. Iron Galaxy is aware of this issue and is working on a fix.
Killer Instinct is a free-to-play game, meaning that you’ll get one free character and you’ll have to purchase all other characters (or purchase bundles). This will obviously discourage a lot of gamers, however this is the model that was used from the beginning. Not only that, but despite its really low PC requirements, it is available only on Windows 10. Given the fact that it does not use DX12, it’s not really hard guessing the reason why the game has been locked to Microsoft’s latest operating system.
And that’s a real shame because Killer Instinct is a really polished product. PC gamers can use gamepads or keyboards, they can remap every button, the netcode is amazing, and cross-platform support works like a charm. Apart from that “amatuerish” issue with the refresh rate, and some really minimal graphics options to tweak, Killer Instinct performs superbly on the PC.
Graphics wise, Killer Instinct is not as good looking as Street Fighter V or Mortal Kombat X. Killer Instinct packs an old-gen lighting system, and some stages look really average at best. There are some stages that look great, but the environmental detail is inconsistent to say the least. Characters look great, there are some nice particle effects to make the fights more flashy, and both the overall animations and “move transitions” are smooth. Still, and while Killer Instinct is pleasing to the eye, it will not make your jaw drop to the floor.
In conclusion, we were pleasantly surprised by Killer Instinct. Iron Galaxy Studios has done an amazing job, and this port runs extremely well even on dated PC systems. The netcode works great and we did not experience any major latency issues. The only downside here is that the game is available exclusively to Windows 10; something that will undoubtedly disappoint a number of PC gamers. Apart from that – and the refresh rate issue – this is a fighting game that performs stunningly on the PC platform, and for that we have to congratulate Iron Galaxy Studios!
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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still can’t play online
Check combo breaker dot com you can find lot of help on that forum
Yeah even without SLI support I got no trouble running this game on a single GTX 680.
Easy to port two rotting corpse to pc. Nothing happening at all on screen (yet mk fked it up). Anyways. Hope i’ll enjoy it when i’ll get Win10. Now that they add overlays/ini tweaks/gsync, nothing holding back really. Just waiting the update.
Neat, too bad I’ll never be able to play it because I don’t ever plan on using 10 or the MS store.
Why? Windows 10 is most popular system on Steam. Best system for games
1. Windows 10 (64 bit) – 38.63% (+3.06)
2. Windows 7 (64 bit) – 34.47% (-1.31)
3. Windows 8.1 (64 bit) – 13.51% (-0.34%)
4. …
Best for you, not for me personally.
Not everyone on this planet loves MS or all 7 billion would all be sporting only Windows 10, it’s a good thing we all have options and different OS’s.
“Windows 10 is most popular system on Steam”
every 5minutes in every article. shut up microsoft.
Well let’s hope quantum break runs great as this game on the pc
Sometimes the game crashes to deskop dueing searching for oppenent. anyone else having this issue?
Yep. Im having lot of ctd. Damn annoying
1 word.
Netcode netcode netcode netcode netcode netcode netcode netcode
Its amazing. Nenenenetcode breaker
So this pretty much confirms that Rocksteady is to blame for Batman Arkham Knight right?
I mean, Iron galaxy did this great port while other WB games were really good like shadow of mordor and mad max. The only piece left in this puzzle is Rocksteady, and their batman games were always bad on pc, the thing is that we used to bruteforce the ps 360 games so the issues weren’t as apparent then.
interesting insight. I’ve always thought it was releated to them customizing thier streaming engine to cater to current gen consoles and thier memory structures
You can’t compare a port like this to batman. There’s basically nothing happening on screen in KI compared to any Batman game.
For comparison MKX had terrible performance on pc at launch, using 100% of CPU in the character selection screen, frequent slowdowns, stuttering in ending cinematics…
SFV also has terrible framedrops in the cinematics within the survival mode. Backgrounds locked at 30 FPS with early ps3 era textures
MKX looks way better than either KI or SFV though. That being said, it’s still horribly optimized.
TBH I’m thinking the blame lies with WB themselves, not Iron Galaxy (who have otherwise proven themselves quite competent). WB gave a small studio a short window to get the port done. Wouldn’t surprise me if the port release schedule was moved up suddenly by WB, leaving the developer struggling to pull everything together.
They had what 2 guys work on the Batman port and only one was full time. With the time restraints and budget given I am amazed the game boots.
I think the backgrounds in Killer Instinct are way better then in Street Fighter 5
those backgrounds do look rather awesome, where as the SFV backgrounds are meh at best. I really wish SFV could have updated stages from SF3.
Yeah even at 1440p 1 980 will maintain 144fps kind of hilarious, but seriously though have decided to put it down till they fix thier refresh issues. Depending on thier sdk and engine I could probably add a 60fps cap
Iron Galaxy Studios is aware of the issue with high refresh rate monitors and a fix is coming, But for now I just used the third solution that DSOG posted 3 days ago.
Use NVIDIA Inspector > choose Killer Instinct profile > set Frame Rate Limiter to 60 > click Apply changes. The game runs at a perfect speed now.
More games with DX12 = less system fragmentation. In last month we have Hitman, Tomb Raider with DX12 and now W10 is most popular system on Steam Survey (march 2016, option ‘only Windows’)
1. Windows 10 (64 bit) – 38.63% (+3.06)
2. Windows 7 (64 bit) – 34.47% (-1.31)
3. Windows 8.1 (64 bit) – 13.51% (-0.34%)
Now we waiting for next wave of DX12 games:
– Quantum Break,
– Forza Motorsport 6 Apex
– Total War WARHAMMER
– Deus Ex Mankind Divided
– Watch Dogs 2
Each new DX12 game = less system fragmentation. Good for PC gamers
Yes it is! but the road is still long and narrow ahead :S
I hope that some day fragmentation will disappear.
Games designed to “only DX12” = better optimization of PC ports.
The thing is, while DX12 sounds nice and all, it’s going to be harder to actually get the most benefits out of the api. This is because DX12, being more low level, in fact requires more work from devs to truly optimize. Yes they can squeeze out more performance but what’s the point if the they are already lazy devs in general? The more low level you go into the code, the more you need to write, in other words, the more work you have to put in.
“DX12, being more low level, in fact requires more work from devs”
Its true but most of them already use popular engines like UE4, CryEngine, Unity, Frostbite etc. which already support DX12. They don’t need spend extra time to create DX12 version. If they remove DX11 and focus only on DX12 then they can create more complex geometry in games (more ‘draw calls’ per frame)
my gt730 is killing me I can only play this thing at 60fps when I set the res at 640×480
sucks to be poor
GT 730 is not meant to be a gaming card.
yeah that’s why I said I was poor