Debunking the Last of Us Part I performance complaints
Debunking the Last of Us Part I performance complaints
I just started playing The Last of Us Part I a few days ago. Now before anyone assumes I'm an idiot for buying it so early with all the talk of horrible performance, read further. I've done about a playthrough and a half, am playing on an 8700K, GTX 1080, and 16GB RAM, with stock clocks, at 1080p on ALL High settings, including all Textures, with AF bumped up to 16x, and FSR 2 on Quality mode. I'm talking about gameplay experiences with update 1.0.6.0 btw, as I've not had a chance yet to play with the latest 1.0.7.0 patch.
The Graphics menu auto set me to 4x AF, Default Scaling, most everything at High, with all Textures on Med. It also had Motion Blur and Depth of Field On, both of which I turned Off. I also play with in game Vsync and Frame Limiter disabled, using NCP to set Vsync to On, with a 60 FPS frame rate limiter. This is because if I use the in game VS/FL settings, I get a bit of screen tear. Through most of the game I am now getting at or near 60 FPS. I've had only TWO instances so far where my FPS dropped to 38 for a second, which caused a very slight hitch.
Neither of those very slight hitches affected gameplay at all, as it runs quite well when engaged with enemies. They both occurred during casual exploration, one at the dam when walking near the turbine they'd just turned on, the other at the university when seeing the monkeys outdoors for the first time. Some claim dense forest scenes can have quite an impact, but while in them I stayed at pretty much 60 FPS mostly, whether on foot or horseback, regardless of speed.
I am currently uploading a 28 min video to verify this, and word is, Valve have given an unlimited refund time on this game, due to all the complaints, which I feel is an unnecessary freebie. You MUST however let shaders compile completely in the main menu before playing, or you WILL get stutters in game. On update 1.0.6.0, the shaders compiled in roughly 15 min or so on my CPU. The shaders need be compiled just once, though updating your GPU driver will require it be done again. Game updates however do not affect compile status.
As soon as I can I will post the aforementioned gameplay video that shows onscreen FPS, Frame Time, RAM/VRAM usage, and CPU and GPU usage and temps. It's got a little over an hour to finish uploading according to YT, but processing to 1440p could take a fair bit of time. Hopefully I can get it posted by today sometime.
[EDITED]
And here's that video I was referring to. I should first say this game uses a lot of RAM and CPU. I've always used a tool to disable all telemetry in W10, which frees up at least 1GB RAM, and I highly recommend that for this game. I use O&O ShutUp10, and it can be done with one click. If you prefer to have some apps accessible vs all of them off, it's just as easily reversed as well. I'm sure the same can be done in W11 if you happen to be using it instead.
The frame drop I referred to happens at 8:33. There is also a hitch at 14:13, but that one is a ShadowPlay capture glitch, it didn't occur in game. You can either choose to believe me or not on that one, but you can clearly see the FPS does not drop.
Yeah. That's true ! As a matter of fact if we SKIP the shader compilation process, then the game also eats up a lot of system RAM as well. Some systems don't exhibit this behavior though.
There have been several reports claiming that this game requires a LOT of system RAM/memory. Some users have reported 15GB+ RAM usage while running this game. Even 24GB memory usage if you SKIP the shader compilation process, and launch the game without completing the shader compilation procedure.
You are lucky if the shader compilation only took 15 minutes, because the most weird part regarding the "Shader Compilation" process is that it can even take almost an hour, 1 hour minimum, to complete on some PCs with lower hardware.
I guess the game is badly optimized, but there
was
surely a memory leak somewhere, because the devs have already patched the game recently. But again, some systems never had this kind of behavior to begin with.
As you might be aware, the new latest patch/hotfix decreased the
PSO cache size
to reduce memory requirements and minimize Out of Memory crashes. These Out of Memory crashes were related to the RAM and not VRAM.
Also, since the game has already been cracked, coders/hackers were already aware of the culprit file, which turns out to be
oo2core_9_win64.dll
,
which was the said reason for the memory leak in the first place.
And turns out the new update indeed has made some changes to the above DLL file. The file size has also decreased as well. I'm now trying to verify whether this game file is indeed the culprit or not. Have the game on STEAM though.
Well, the usual terms people use don’t quite fit, but I replayed the game on patch 1.0.1.0 too. Even though it was slowing down more often than now in FPS—down to 40—I never experienced the constant stutter or crash issues many mention. Still, I’ll note that the newest updates have made running, aiming, and animations faster, which can be helpful in combat.
Seriously, you're only considering performance? That's one of the main reasons many dedicated PC gamers steer clear of consoles—they only function smoothly with gamepads, and those devices aren't nearly as natural for players who prefer a mouse. Plus, keyboards offer a much wider range of binding choices.
I've studied a lot about the ZIM Apex keyboard adapter for PS4, and the truth is, it all came down to how the game was designed. There are plenty of PC games that work great with gamepads, but very few console titles that perform well with a mouse.
All the issues I’ve had are why I bought CP2077 on launch day, yet I haven’t played it before. After upgrading my PC this week, I intend to try CP2077 this weekend.
I’m also considering checking out this game, but I’ll likely wait a while because of similar complaints—though not as long as I’ve been waiting to play CP2077.
The complaints were justified with the CP 2077 release. TLoU Part I's complaints though are quite misleading, and largely due to reviews of pre-release versions of the game that never should have been sent out, and many players being too impatient to let shaders compile before playing.
I mean you can choose to jump on the idiot bandwagon and listen to only nonsense, and ignore the testimonials from those like myself whom have stated (and proven) otherwise, but with the no limit refund window Valve is offering, there's no reason not to at least try it and see for yourself.
I intend to. It's listed in my Steam wishlist and I'm likely to buy it soon. I've just begun playing Hogwart's Legacy and will try it out a bit.
Don't worry about potential problems; I think most complaints are due to hardware issues, which I haven't encountered.
No need for offense with the "idiot bandwagon" remark either.
I got impatient and went ahead to buy the game last night.
Shaders took 30 mins to build... nothing out of the ordinary. The CPU stayed between 80-90°C during that time. After rebooting, all settings auto-set to Ultra. I played for around 90 minutes without any problems. The graphics were impressively smooth, maintaining a steady 60 FPS in 4K Ultra. VRAM usage was about 14/24GB, with temperatures peaking around 60°C at 50% load. CPU usage was lower. Overall solid performance. If I encounter any issues, I’ll share them later, but so far everything’s fine.