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[Sethbacca]

I never understood why MS never made a Windows Lite OS specifically for gaming that would be devoid of all the extra productivity and networking baggage that isn't needed.

Literally all they need to do is rebrand it as an Xbox OS for gaming functions only. Yet another completely missed opportunity by MS leadership.

 

[Roxkis_ii]

That's such an ignorant take...

I agree.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Literally all they need to do is rebrand it as an Xbox OS for gaming functions only. Yet another completely missed opportunity by MS leadership.

Might as well do a gaming OS. I do all my productivity on non gaming pcs at work and Apple devices at home.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

is windows a gaming OS? is MS going to make a specific gaming OS when they can't even fix their PC Store?... ads are more important

 

[Laptop1991]

DX12 has never impressed me since it's pedal to the metal inception just under 10 years ago, i saw comparison videos a few years back with DX 11, same fps but more colourfull and more issues, i played Valhalla the 1st year on Win 10 with DX12 then afterwards on Win 7 with Vulkan using 2 files dropped in and after switching off Connect's overlay the Win 7 Vulkan experience was stutter free , smooth with no issues, better than DX12's

I still am not impressed with 12 and still don't trust Microsoft with PC gaming, but that goes back a long time anyway.

 

[proandrad]

Stuttering in pc games is getting worst every year. It doesn’t matter if you have a low end pc or the highest end pc, money can buy, you can’t out muscle stutters. It’s bullshit, as a pc gamer since before steam came out it’s really put me off from wanting to throw out money for another high end pc. This is what happens when a market becomes monopolized. Microsoft has absolutely no incentive on fixing issues on their end and neither does Epic.

 

[Tortahegeszto]

I mean duh!
We just witnessed the latest scheduler update bring a bigger performance uplift than a generational improvement (architecture + die shrink) of cpu hardware.

 

[nowhat]

We just witnessed the latest scheduler update bring a bigger performance uplift than a generational improvement (architecture + die shrink) of cpu hardware.

Tangentially related - does anyone know if SteamOS (or whatever you call the thing that runs on a Steam deck) uses the default Linux scheduler or something else? The default scheduler has certainly come a long way, with the emphasis being on the desktop for quite a while (Linus is quite adamant about this), but there are certainly alternatives out there for different workloads.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

There's already a system that handles all of this, Zathalus outlined it above.

You're making it sound like it's far more complicated than it actually is, why?

How is a system that automatically detects your hardware/drivers and downloads the appropriate pre-compiled shader cache in the background any worse than having to sit through shader compilation screens only to still end up with stutters?

Because it is more complicated as Zathalus mentioned which you actually quoted hilariously, it’s far from perfect. It’s not an automatic catch all that works automatically in all cases in current form. You describing it as something that it currently is not. It’s not automatic, there is set up invovled. Average steam users aren’t going to go into a repo to make builds etc. as it’s not plug and play. I mentioned the deck because it is curated to one specific hardware setup right now. That is why I mentioned it, it’s all done in the background in current form for the Deck.

“Fossilize works across a wide variety of hardware and software. It even works on Windows. It’s not as perfect as it is on Steam Deck (as you said, fixed hardware), but it definitely helps with Vulkan games”

 

[poppabk]

I never understood why MS never made a Windows Lite OS specifically for gaming that would be devoid of all the extra productivity and networking baggage that isn't needed.

If they don't Linux is going to step in and drink their milkshake. Installed Holoiso as dual boot on my gaming PC last night and it is 95% there already. With Valve working closely with Arch, I have to imagine they will have a general solution within a year or two at most.

 

[Fake]

Thats why is important to SteamOS to be good. Monopoly make Microsoft don't give a shit about their own operation system. Windows and DirectX feels like abandoned.

 

[Elog]

It worked for a decade+ because DX6 through 11 were high-level graphics APIs. These APIs abstract away many low-level details, including shader compilation and pipeline management. The graphics driver handled much of the heavy lifting, which meant no stutters but at the same time more API and driver overhead. DX12 and Vulkan are low-level graphics APIs. They give developers more control over the GPU, allowing for optimizations that can lead to better performance. However developers now need to handle tasks that were previously managed by the driver, including shader compilation and pipeline management.

There are several ways to address these shader compilation issues, have a step at the start of the game that pre calculates everything, some automated system in runtime (this is usually not that good), or distribute compiled shaders via something like Valve Fosslize.

Having the game in VRAM, or other things like data transfer and CPU overhead does nothing to solve this.

But are you not describing the recent front-end API development that is part of the response to the back-end problems/challenges/issues that I described?

Basically, with increased geometry complexity and texture quality the amount of files and data that is handled increases exponentially. This results in more traffic across the board which in turns requires micromanaging the flow (e.g., low level APIs)?

Then your take is that the micro stutters primarily are driven by poor coding utilising these lower level APIs and not the other factors. I am just saying that I believe that is only one piece of the puzzle (for the reasons stated).

 

[GHG]

Because it is more complicated as Zathalus mentioned which you actually quoted hilariously, it’s far from perfect. It’s not an automatic catch all that works automatically in all cases in current form. You describing it as something that it currently is not. It’s not automatic, there is set up invovled. Average steam users aren’t going to go into a repo to make builds etc. as it’s not plug and play. I mentioned the deck because it is curated to one specific hardware setup right now. That is why I mentioned it, it’s all done in the background in current form for the Deck.

“Fossilize works across a wide variety of hardware and software. It even works on Windows. It’s not as perfect as it is on Steam Deck (as you said, fixed hardware), but it definitely helps with Vulkan games”

Fundamentally, I don't think you understand what you're reading. You're talking about an edge case situation whereby somebody wants to manually integrate it in to an OS (Windows) or linux distro. That is the very nature of open source software, it can be utilised anywhere.

It's literally built in to gaming focused Linux distros (such as bazzite which is the example the premise of this thread is built around), so there is zero heavy lifting or configuration required by the end user, it works out of the box.

While there are some dropped frames running the game in Bazzite, the massive stutters are gone. Valve uses a program called Fossilize to capture and play back a render sequence on your machine when you first boot a game, to precompile the Vulkan shaders that the game uses. Critically, this doesn't require someone with your specific hardware configuration to have played the game before - it is hardware agnostic. That means no shader compilation stutter for the Ally-wielding end user. Even games infamous for shader compilation issues, like the Ghostrunner demo, are perfectly fine, despite running with awful lurches on Windows.

Bazzite delivers the SteamOS experience Windows handhelds need - and it's terrific

Windows 11 is the biggest problem for Windows-based PC handhelds. Enter Bazzite, a custom Linux OS based on Steam OS that can be transformative.

www.eurogamer.net

 

[poodaddy]

I never understood why MS never made a Windows Lite OS specifically for gaming that would be devoid of all the extra productivity and networking baggage that isn't needed.

Especially now with Xbox hardware failing, why not release a gaming focused OS and call it *gasp* ....Xbox? I don't know, seems too logical for Microsoft to comprehend.

 

[rodrigolfp]

I checked out BlOps6 on PC Gamepass this weekend and it was stuttering like crazy.

I am playing with zero stuttering. Was not really expecting that as some past CoDs have some stutters here and there. 5800x/3080 12GB, nvme 7400/7000 Gbps.

 

[HL3.exe]

DX12 has never impressed me since it's pedal to the metal inception just under 10 years ago, i saw comparison videos a few years back with DX 11, same fps but more colourfull and more issues, i played Valhalla the 1st year on Win 10 with DX12 then afterwards on Win 7 with Vulkan using 2 files dropped in and after switching off Connect's overlay the Win 7 Vulkan experience was stutter free , smooth with no issues, better than DX12's

I still am not impressed with 12 and still don't trust Microsoft with PC gaming, but that goes back a long time anyway.

It's a shame right. Low level coding should've leverage so much more than it turned out.

Same goes for me with Unreal 5. While the tools are great, in practice for the end user it seems to be a spruced up Unreal 4 with even more bloated unoptimized code.

 

[Laptop1991]

It's a shame right. Low level coding should've leverage so much more than it turned out.

Same goes for me with Unreal 5. While the tools are great, in practice for the end user it seems to be a spruced up Unreal 4 with even more bloated unoptimized code.

If i remember rightly, there wasn't even a demo to show how off how low level D12 was suppose to be, i wonder why lol, and i agree i wish there were more engines being made in house like they use to be in the past instead of UE5 being used mostly, really good engine in the past, but not really setting the world on fire now.

 

[rodrigolfp]

I never understood why MS never made a Windows Lite OS specifically for gaming that would be devoid of all the extra productivity and networking baggage that isn't needed.

Because would make no difference other than consuming less RAM.

 

[zeroluck]

I remember ignoramuses hyping dx12 because it is "low level".

 

[nowhat]

I remember ignoramuses hyping dx12 because it is "low level".

But they were right! As in, low quality.

 

[KuraiShidosha]

I knew Microsoft lost the plot when they began throwing the tried and true exclusive fullscreen mode under the bus in favor of a hacked borderless windowed mode. They do this pretending it's for the user's benefit, so they can alt tab faster, but if you aren't an ADHD riddled mess of zoomer brains and you play games to actually game and not alt tab every 5 seconds to browse the web, then this change is a downgrade for you plain and simple. They not only don't recommend exclusive fullscreen, they're actively destroying what remains of it, making it harder and harder to engage it with each update. DX12 itself doesn't even support it to begin with. Ironically, using VKD3D12 can take a DX12 game and allow it to present in legacy exclusive fullscreen mode deapite Microsoft's shenanigans, but there's overhead to it making it a slightly less than desirable trade. It's just a shame to see what's become of this legendary operating system and platform. Change is not always good.

 

[mitch1971]

Didn't John Carmack call directX out yeeeears ago, saying how shit it was?

 

[JohnnyFootball]

I knew Microsoft lost the plot when they began throwing the tried and true exclusive fullscreen mode under the bus in favor of a hacked borderless windowed mode. They do this pretending it's for the user's benefit, so they can alt tab faster, but if you aren't an ADHD riddled mess of zoomer brains and you play games to actually game and not alt tab every 5 seconds to browse the web, then this change is a downgrade for you plain and simple. They not only don't recommend exclusive fullscreen, they're actively destroying what remains of it, making it harder and harder to engage it with each update. DX12 itself doesn't even support it to begin with. Ironically, using VKD3D12 can take a DX12 game and allow it to present in legacy exclusive fullscreen mode deapite Microsoft's shenanigans, but there's overhead to it making it a slightly less than desirable trade. It's just a shame to see what's become of this legendary operating system and platform. Change is not always good.

Well it’s working cuz I now prefer borderless windowed over exclusive fullscreen. I wouldn’t object going back to exclusive if it didn’t cause issues with my 4090.

 

[onQ123]

I remember when DirectX 12 was going to make Xbox One out perform PS4

 

[winjer]

Didn't John Carmack call directX out yeeeears ago, saying how shit it was?

I think so.
That is why id always used OpenGL and Vulkan.
And that is probably why id games run very well.

 

[Zathalus]

Because it is more complicated as Zathalus mentioned which you actually quoted hilariously, it’s far from perfect. It’s not an automatic catch all that works automatically in all cases in current form. You describing it as something that it currently is not. It’s not automatic, there is set up invovled. Average steam users aren’t going to go into a repo to make builds etc. as it’s not plug and play. I mentioned the deck because it is curated to one specific hardware setup right now. That is why I mentioned it, it’s all done in the background in current form for the Deck.

“Fossilize works across a wide variety of hardware and software. It even works on Windows. It’s not as perfect as it is on Steam Deck (as you said, fixed hardware), but it definitely helps with Vulkan games”

Well for PCs it runs in the background as well, specifically integrated into Steam. One game I know of it works well with is PoE on Windows. End user doesn’t really have to do anything.

This is not really a Linux vs Windows thing. It’s a Vulkan vs DX12 one. Nothing is preventing Microsoft from integrating a system like this into Windows for DX12 and it will be fundamentally invisible to the end user. Its not perfect, if you’re the first one with a specific driver and hardware config that runs game X then Fossilize cannot help you, so developers should still have a compilation step involved in the process. But the user after you on the same GPU and driver can get that pipeline and shader from what was uploaded when your PC ran it and use it. This applies to games that don’t have a compilation step as well, you’ll get shader stutter if you’re the first one again but the next user won’t, as your computer already did the work. With tens of millions of users doing this via Fossilize the odds of it working perfectly are very high. Basically almost 100% with a fixed platform like the Steam Deck. If Windows had it built in, then all games on all storefronts will benefit.

So either Microsoft gets something done, or developers need to Switch over to Vulkan entirely. The former is a toss up and the later probably won’t happen any time soon.

But are you not describing the recent front-end API development that is part of the response to the back-end problems/challenges/issues that I described?

Basically, with increased geometry complexity and texture quality the amount of files and data that is handled increases exponentially. This results in more traffic across the board which in turns requires micromanaging the flow (e.g., low level APIs)?

Then your take is that the micro stutters primarily are driven by poor coding utilising these lower level APIs and not the other factors. I am just saying that I believe that is only one piece of the puzzle (for the reasons stated).

Sort of. DX12 is meant to bring more performance with perfect developers, but most games would still run fine with DX11.

But shader stutter is certainly linked to the developers not having some sort of process in place to catch them, not any hardware limitation. You can ship the most demanding game using UE5 and it will stutter like mad on the most demanding hardware, but if you include a compilation step that catches all shader permutations you would suddenly be stutter free.

This only applies to shader stutter of course, traversal and other forms are a whole other matter. PS5 I/O certainly helps with this and it requires specific engine and software optimisation to get the most out of PC, but UE5 is terrible at this, even on console.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

I think so.
That is why id always used OpenGL and Vulkan.
And that is probably why id games run very well.

Is Direct3D still used? I remember the days of Glide, Direct3D and OpenGL? Idtech being the biggest proponent of OpenGL.

Original unreal could run on any render. At the time I had 3DFx cards and using Glide made sense. The GeForce 256 was when I moved to nvidia with a few ATi GPUs

 

[winjer]

Is Direct3D still used? I remember the days of Glide, Direct3D and OpenGL? Idtech being the biggest proponent of OpenGL.

Original unreal could run on any render. At the time I had 3DFx cards and using Glide made sense. The GeForce 256 was when I moved to nvidia with a few ATi GPUs

Id is now using Vulkan.
I don't think they ever used D3D.

 

[StueyDuck]

Alex complaining about PC performance issues. News at 11.

PC gaming is in a poor state when it comes to blockbuster AAA games.

I can't think of many games if any that have launched in a stable optimized state for PC in recent years.

You shouldnt need to brute force a game with the most ludicruously expensive hardware on the market just to get a somewhat stable experience.

If anything let's be thankful there is a voice calling it out.

 

[64bitmodels]

I feel it's kinda weird to blame this on DX12 when it's developers that are the ones not using DX12 correctly.

there are plenty of games that are DX12 and use all the bells and whistles of it, that somehow have zero stutter. funnily, what many of them have in common is an in-house engine.
and what many stuttery games have in common is Unreal Engine 5.

It seems to me that people are looking in the wrong direction here. as the overwhelming issue here is
A: developers not adding proper precompiling
and B: developers relying on UE5 to do their job for them.

Silent Hill 2 is a great example of a developer using UE5 as a crutch without proper optimisation. an absolute shit show on a technical level.
meanwhile, Alan Wake 2 exists... which is very comparable and, what a surprise, uses an in-house engine.

can anyone here think of a UE5 game that doesn't stutter? I can think of many non-UE5 games that don't, that's for sure.
UE5 is to AAA devs what Unity was for Indy devs in the past. an engine that lays bare the incompetence of those who use it.

and there's evidence for that. Fortnite, epic games' number 1 tech demo for unreal engine 5, has shader compilation stutters WHEN USING DIRECT X 11...
makes you think doesn't it?

When the vast majority of games are going to be running UE5 forward for better or worse, at some point you have to ditch tools that aren't best suited for the engine. Switching to an API that supports better shader compilation processes (or convincing MS to improve theirs which they likely won't) will help the situation for UE5.

But yeah, this is also partially Epic's problem. It's always the UE5 games and as the dev with the most marketshare in AAA they should have long since addressed this

 

[64bitmodels]

then this change is a downgrade for you plain and simple.

What's the issue with it?

 

[Codeblew]

I mean duh!
We just witnessed the latest scheduler update bring a bigger performance uplift than a generational improvement (architecture + die shrink) of cpu hardware.

I game mostly on Ubuntu/Steam/Proton so I didn't notice any improvement because I was never held back my Microsofts terrible OS.

 

[kensama]

This is a driver issue that Nvidia are aware of and are working on.

So hopefully it's now just a matter of time.

But overall I mentioned before that things alike traversal stutters etc are far less noticible and frequent on the Steam Deck than they are on any of my Windows PC's but the windows stans had a tantrum. Glad to see more people are waking up to this, either Microsoft need to fix this or more and more gamers will gradually transition over to Linux as time goes by.

What's even more crazy to me is the fact that the deck OLED handles HDR far better (and more seemlessly) than windows does. Why the Xbox and windows teams are so distant from one another I will never know. They should have the gaming side of things on the OS fully sorted out by now, but instead it gets worse over time.

Driver 560 are already in use actually with cuda 12.6.
I'm on Kubuntu and this is the result of my nvidia-smi command:

 

[64bitmodels]

But overall I mentioned before that things alike traversal stutters etc are far less noticible and frequent on the Steam Deck

I don't think using the Steam deck as a point of comparison is a good idea considering that the types of games with stuttering problems on windows are the types of games with super low framerate on deck. The performance sucks either way

 

[GHG]

I don't think using the Steam deck as a point of comparison is a good idea considering that the types of games with stuttering problems on windows are the types of games with super low framerate on deck

At max settings yes, but these issues still exist at low settings even on modest hardware on windows, whereas the only thing you're fighting on the deck is the performance envelope.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

I hear the Linux experience with Nvidia is not that good either (no DLSS or RT in most games). As much as windows sucks, it's still the better experience probably.

ProtonDB is full of Nvidia users. Their drivers have had their share of issues in the past, but it is slowly getting better. They even seem to be working on an open source variant, probably fueled by the whole AI craze that heavily leans into Linux for various applications.

 

[Self_Destructive]

Deck has precompiled shaders that can be downloaded since the hardware is the same. What am I missing?

Yes deck can download precompiled shaders because it's a fixed platform.. but Fossilize captures/creates GPU agnostic PSO blobs which are then downloaded to a user's PC and then compiled by the driver for the specific GPU. The same thing happens for the deck, but Valve can compile the PSOs for it on their end before sending them out.

 

[HogIsland]

ProtonDB is full of Nvidia users. Their drivers have had their share of issues in the past, but it is slowly getting better. They even seem to be working on an open source variant, probably fueled by the whole AI craze that heavily leans into Linux for various applications.

I game regularly on a laptop running Fedora 40 with a 3060 inside. Proton works fine with Nvidia, but other aspects of the SteamOS experience lag behind. Valve's Gamescope compositor (basically the OS layer that draws to the screen) which provides for HDR and smooths out all kinds of scaling and framepacing issues doesn't support Nvidia's proprietary driver yet. So while you can game very well on desktop linux with Nvidia right now, you won't have a good time trying to get the Bazzite/Steam Deck experience with an Nvidia card.

On the other hand, Valve is supporting the experimental open source Nvidia driver ("NVK") with Gamescope. It almost seems like Valve wants NVK to be ready for actual gaming before they roll out SteamOS for general PCs:

Valve graphics dev gets Gamescope working on NVK with Explicit Sync

Valve developers have done a lot of work over the years to improve AMD GPUs on Linux, and continue to do so with the Steam Deck using AMD and it seems like they're now getting stuck into NVIDIA too.

www.gamingonlinux.com

A recent update on NVK running real games:

Nouveau With NVK Vulkan Driver Running More Games, Increasing Feature Set - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

 

[mayham2199]

If they don't Linux is going to step in and drink their milkshake. Installed Holoiso as dual boot on my gaming PC last night and it is 95% there already. With Valve working closely with Arch, I have to imagine they will have a general solution within a year or two at most.

Linux users have been saying this for over 20 years now. Amazing that there still people talking about Linux taking over. I hope it happens but I gave up on that so long ago.

 

[GudOlRub]

It's a shame right. Low level coding should've leverage so much more than it turned out.

Same goes for me with Unreal 5. While the tools are great, in practice for the end user it seems to be a spruced up Unreal 4 with even more bloated unoptimized code.

Granularity isn't inherently bad, but Microsoft gave developers too much credit, thinking they all would have the chops to mess around with all the nooks and crannies of the APIs, when in reality the software industry is riddled with dumbfucks who can barely write a for loop, so in that sense Microsoft failed because they don't provide tools for developers who don't know any better and in turn we end-users end up with this mess.

Inb4 people start saying the fix for this should be dev teams hiring better developers.
Sure, but when you consider some of these games nowadays have literally hundreds of developers working for them the situation becomes more complicated. Even more so when you also consider that the game dev industry is now infamous for abusing its workers' passion, so many of the actually great software developers simply bail out and go to work in some other type of software development sector that actually pays better and offers better conditions overall.

And now, to try to be more positive about game developers instead of just shitting on them, I'll also mention what Alex said on his tweets about games needing "hefty work" to run well on DX12, many of these game devs might actually be capable of optimizing well but if they're not given the time to do it, they'll just cut corners and do the bare minimum to make sure the game simply runs okay instead of running well which is also probably the case for many of these modern games, just look at Ubisoft and their recent troubles due to "customers expecting a higher level of polish than before".

Between bug fixing, optimization and developing new features... that's a lot of work and very little time most likely...

 

[kevboard]

When the vast majority of games are going to be running UE5 forward for better or worse, at some point you have to ditch tools that aren't best suited for the engine. Switching to an API that supports better shader compilation processes (or convincing MS to improve theirs which they likely won't) will help the situation for UE5.

But yeah, this is also partially Epic's problem. It's always the UE5 games and as the dev with the most marketshare in AAA they should have long since addressed this

I fear API improvements will not fix UE5 games however.
Silent Hill 2 for example doesn't really have a shader stutter issue, yet it constantly stutters and has awful performance compared to the graphical quality on display.

UE5 is a crutch that these developers use to fast track development by avoiding proper optimisation. Nanite, Lumen, TSR... crutches. one worse than the next.

In Silent Hill 2, disabling Nanite in the engine settings improves your framerate instantly without a single visual difference to the game. but Nanite is forced on by the devs because they couldn't be arsed to make optimised LODs. so they just slapped Nanite into the game as a crutch so that they don't have to think about LODs and polygon budgets.

bake your completely static lighting? nah! just slap Lumen on it!
make good looking and well performing LODs? NAH! just slap Nanite on it!
optimise for good image quality on console? NAAAAAHHH! just slap TSR on it!

that is the Unreal Engine future right there.
DX12 is the least of the issues here I feel. and honestly, shader comp stutters aren't even the worst issue anymore here either. I can't even turn around in SH2 without the game stuttering and the animations hitching. neither is a DX12 issue.

 

[nkarafo]

The funny thing, is that using things like DXVK can improve performance and reduce stutters in a lot of games.
This is just an emulation layer that converts calls from DirectX to Vulkan. So there is an overhead, but it can be faster than DX12.

True. I'm using it with a few older games and it reduces/removes stutters of any form. Cache stutters, microstutters, traversal stutters, etc.

 

[cormack12]

 

[Det]

Alex complaining about PC performance issues. News at 11.

I don't see any problem, he's right.

The problem is when he talks nonsense about the PS5, a platform he says “he doesn’t care about”. And he's usually wrong when he talks about the "shit" of the PS5.

If PC and Xbox “fans” criticized the problems of their platforms instead of looking for and inventing defects in the PS5, it would be better for everyone

 

[Det]

Literally all they need to do is rebrand it as an Xbox OS for gaming functions only. Yet another completely missed opportunity by MS leadership.

It's probably an architectural problem, unlike Linux, Windows shouldn't be modular.

Anyway, I believe it's because Windows is really poorly made.

They put someone in a suit to say what Windows should be or not be based on cost and billing spreadsheets for the system and not a software engineer who has a vision for the operating system, which would be, I don't know, "make it safer , efficient and robust operating system in the world"

It's not very difficult to imagine who "runs Windows". He's a clown like Phill Spencer, but he prefers not to make a circus on the internet to attract attention and feed a cult of personality.

 

[SlimySnake]

I play a lot of games on PC and I completely agree that DirectX 12 and Unreal Engine 4/5 are a bit of a mess of PC and have become the bane of PC gaming in recent years.

Take, for example, the recent Epic Mickey Rebrushed, which is an otherwise superb graphical update of the Wii classic running on Unreal Engine 4. On PS5, this game runs and plays like a dream with no issues at all. On PC, the game is a stuttery mess as the developers enabled DirectX 12 by default with no pre-shader compilation step. With that game you can force DirectX 11, which fixes 99.5% of the stuttering and that is exactly what I have had to do.

Even games like Dead Space Remake (which uses Frostbite) and Silent Hill 2 (which uses Unreal Engine 5) have stuttering on PC. The former is still unfixed on PC (despite the fact that the developers had third-party assistance to update the engine to support data streaming!) so the game has constant frametime spikes and massive stutters as you explore the games environments, that ruin any sense of immersion. The latter has now been patched to address the worse of its stuttering issues but on my PC the game still suffers from some traversal stutters, which are actually worse than the launch build as they can cause the game to stall for up to 15 seconds on my machine making it looks as if the game has crashed (my PC specs are i5-13600KF, 32 GB, RTX 4080 FE, Windows 11 Pro 24H2 with the game installed to my fastest Samsung 980 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD).

The games that run best on PC are usually those that do not use Frostbite or Unreal Engine but custom built engines. Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 are two great examples of PC games with cutting edge visuals that run well on my PC with everything maxed out and no stuttering. Horizon: Forbidden West and God of War: Ragnarok are two other games that run great on DX12 but neither of those use Unreal Engine.

I guess the issue is more Unreal Engine + DX12 then but it saddens me that Epic are not more proactive in supporting developers with the stuttering issues on PC in their engine. You would think they would be concerned that the engine is getting a lot of bad rep on PC. It is almost a meme at this point.

Yeah, this is on Epic and Game developers. SH2 ran like shit until they fixed it. Now the issue is mostly with traversal stutters. So i guess the blame now shifts to Epic since traversal stutters are present on consoles too.

DX12 has been around for almost a decade now. no game should come without a shader pre-compilation step. This is on the developers. Not on microsoft.

Also, shader precompilation should be done on patch installs. There is no fucking reason for me to boot up the game then wait 30 fucking minutes on the title screen as it installs shaders. Do that when im downloading and installing the game in the background.

What tech reviews like DF have to do is straight up contact Epic and ask for comment. Every fucking time you see a UE5 game suffer from the same issues, pick up the phone and call epic. if they dont reply, simply mention that in your review for posterity. Keep doing that and epic will get the hint.

you are right, there is no traversal stutter on many other engines. Capcom's RE Engine, Massive; snowdrop engine, Anvil Engine for AC games, none of the PS first party engines. Its a UE thing thats been present since UE3. KZ2 had the same traversal stutter that they fixed by KZ3. This is on Epic.

 

[nkarafo]

Compilation is going to be an issue as long as there is not standardized hardware i.e. Steam OS isn’t going to be the answer for that, as it works for the Deck since it’s one set of hardware.

Not all games suffer from shader compilation issues. Mostly Unreal Engine games do. And mostly from later generations (UE4 +5, UE3 didn't have this issue).

Also, PC had "non standardized hardware" since forever, yet this shader compilation issue got worse pretty recently.

So no, this is a developer incompetence issue. There are plenty of games that run smoothly on PC.

 

[Fafalada]

That isn't necessarily because those engines have more of a problem but that the devs relying on pre-made engines might be less equipped to handle the dev work needed to eliminate stutter.

Its both though.
Traversal stutter has been a persistent issue for UE for over 20 years, and no ue game that has a degree of roaming is truly free of it.
Shader compilation stuff is just its own nightmare. Dx9 was better at hiding it( not eliminate though) but the crux of the problem is games shipping with unbounded number of possible shader permutations, which has no real solution other than brute force (let qa play the game until they collect 'all' the shaders, which is absolutely horrid for live service games).
Epic does carry a lot of the blame for this one though since it was UE3 that introduced unlimited permutations to the mainstream...
Valve and ID used to be much more... constrained at the same point in time.

 

[64bitmodels]

At max settings yes, but these issues still exist at low settings even on modest hardware on windows, whereas the only thing you're fighting on the deck is the performance envelope.

I know I'm just saying a linux os on a similar specced pc is a far better comparison and would illustrate this point much better.

 

[mckmas8808]

I have given Alex a lot of shit in this forum, but this time he is absolute right.
Microsoft is probably the biggest problem in PC gaming.
Between Windows and DirectX, it's a complete shitshow.

How a $3 TRILLION company can't get this right is beyond me! Like WTH?!