qubit
Overclocked quantum bit
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2007
- Messages
- 17,865 (2.99/day)
- Location
- Quantum Well UK
System Name | Quantumville™ |
---|---|
Processor | Intel Core i7-2700K @ 4GHz |
Motherboard | Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 |
Cooling | Noctua NH-D14 |
Memory | 16GB (2 x 8GB Corsair Vengeance Black DDR3 PC3-12800 C9 1600MHz) |
Video Card(s) | MSI RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio |
Storage | Samsung 850 Pro 256GB | WD Black 4TB | WD Blue 6TB |
Display(s) | ASUS ROG Strix XG27UQR (4K, 144Hz, G-SYNC compatible) | Asus MG28UQ (4K, 60Hz, FreeSync compatible) |
Case | Cooler Master HAF 922 |
Audio Device(s) | Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty PCIe |
Power Supply | Corsair AX1600i |
Mouse | Microsoft Intellimouse Pro - Black Shadow |
Keyboard | Yes |
Software | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit |
I bought RAGE when it came out back in 2011, but like so many other games I've got, I tend to take a long time to getting round to playing them, what with so many other things competing for my time. This time it's RAGE's turn.
Most games with teething troubles at release pretty much have them ironed out after a few months, so waiting like this means I normally get to play a nicely working game, with few glitches. Not so with RAGE and I'm regretting buying it.
It looks like a good story in a great sci-fi setting with really great visual effects, just the sort of thing I'd like to play and have built a high end rig for. However, it's badly let down by idiotic, simple technical issues with large consequences that I can't believe plague it to this day.
Yeah, John Carmack might know how to write a video game, just like many other hotshot developers, but I think he's overrated if he puts out sloppy work like this, with so many rough edges. It's not a fucking beta and I paid good money for it that I want back.
So, what peeves me off about it? Several things which either just don't work properly or are implemented badly, that's what.
The first one is the complete dealbreaker which inspired me to write this rant: it's the idiotic capped framerate.
On clicking the Play button in Steam, I get the option of running the 32-bit version (default option) or the 64-bit, unsupported version. Heck, from what I can see, they're both unsupported anyway, so I can't see what the difference is.
So, the 32-bit version is capped at 60fps regardless. I've looked online, but nothing I did would lift it. The monitor refresh is 120Hz, so it's judder all the way and therefore completely unacceptable. I can set the monitor refresh to 60Hz to match it, but then the backlight strobing doesn't work and I get motion blur, plus there is much more lag, so I can't win.
I've spent thousands of pounds on a system which has enough power to get rid of the annoying judder in most games and LCD monitor motion blur. Smooth animation is the whole point, isn't it? However, my investment has been compromised by some dumb developer's policy.
I can unlock the framerate in the 64-bit version, but at the cost of the game doubling in playing speed at 120fps vsync locked - it's even faster with vsync unlocked. Again, completely unacceptable. It's possible to adjust the running and walking speeds by using commands in the config file, but all the effects and other animations would still happen at double speed, which isn't good enough. Of course, there doesn't appear to be a global speed setting command which would have mitigated this problem.
Carmack, you've written/ported this game for the PC. Of course, gamers are gonna want to run it at their chosen framerate and not at some console-limited rate. Every other other decent PC game can do this, so it's idiotic how yours can't. What, don't you know how to write a game engine that can handle higher framerates properly? You should have seen some of the angry forum comments I came across about this issue...
- SLI is officially not supported! This one I find hard to believe, except that the driver defaults to single card for this game. Every other major game supports it, so why can't Carmack manage it? It makes such a big performance difference, that a developer cannot afford to leave out support for it.
- GPU transcode (hardware compressed texture expansion using the GPU) cannot be enabled on my system. Seems like the game hasn't been updated to recognize my graphics cards perhaps, which were released two years later. Still, poor show that it can't have wider compatibility as later GPUs tend to support earlier instruction sets and features, or just allow the option with a compatibility warning and let the user see how it goes.
- To make advanced changes to graphics settings and enable the really large, hi res textures, one has to mess around with config files and obscure, poorly documented commands rather than conveniently selecting the options from the menu. Seriously, how much developement work does it take to make a proper user interface? No more than a day at the outside. This is so lazy.
I remember when Crysis 2 had only simple console style graphics settings at release and PC gamers rightly complained, loudly. EA listened and fixed this with a later update, making the game a real graphics powerhouse that is often used in graphics card reviews.
- vsync setting in the game doesn't work. Not a huge deal, as I can override it in the driver but still a stupid glitch which shouldn't be there after several patches.
- In an early version of the game, the command console could be enabled and changes made to the game on the fly. This ability was then disabled for some mysterious, unexplained reason in a later patch. While some people have been able to re-enable it, I haven't, in either version, likely due to further patches preventing it. Also, enabling it punishes you by disabling Steam achievements!
I spent several hours trying to get around some of these issues, but with the failure to get proper 120Hz animation out of it, I just said fuck it and gave up on this game. I might come back to it one day, but there are over 100 games in my Steam library, plus several in my Origin library that deserve my attention much more than this piece of crap.
If someone here knows of a fix for this framerate issue, then I'll look at the game again soon, otherwise I won't bother.
Rage over.
Most games with teething troubles at release pretty much have them ironed out after a few months, so waiting like this means I normally get to play a nicely working game, with few glitches. Not so with RAGE and I'm regretting buying it.
It looks like a good story in a great sci-fi setting with really great visual effects, just the sort of thing I'd like to play and have built a high end rig for. However, it's badly let down by idiotic, simple technical issues with large consequences that I can't believe plague it to this day.
Yeah, John Carmack might know how to write a video game, just like many other hotshot developers, but I think he's overrated if he puts out sloppy work like this, with so many rough edges. It's not a fucking beta and I paid good money for it that I want back.
So, what peeves me off about it? Several things which either just don't work properly or are implemented badly, that's what.
The first one is the complete dealbreaker which inspired me to write this rant: it's the idiotic capped framerate.
On clicking the Play button in Steam, I get the option of running the 32-bit version (default option) or the 64-bit, unsupported version. Heck, from what I can see, they're both unsupported anyway, so I can't see what the difference is.
So, the 32-bit version is capped at 60fps regardless. I've looked online, but nothing I did would lift it. The monitor refresh is 120Hz, so it's judder all the way and therefore completely unacceptable. I can set the monitor refresh to 60Hz to match it, but then the backlight strobing doesn't work and I get motion blur, plus there is much more lag, so I can't win.
I've spent thousands of pounds on a system which has enough power to get rid of the annoying judder in most games and LCD monitor motion blur. Smooth animation is the whole point, isn't it? However, my investment has been compromised by some dumb developer's policy.
I can unlock the framerate in the 64-bit version, but at the cost of the game doubling in playing speed at 120fps vsync locked - it's even faster with vsync unlocked. Again, completely unacceptable. It's possible to adjust the running and walking speeds by using commands in the config file, but all the effects and other animations would still happen at double speed, which isn't good enough. Of course, there doesn't appear to be a global speed setting command which would have mitigated this problem.
Carmack, you've written/ported this game for the PC. Of course, gamers are gonna want to run it at their chosen framerate and not at some console-limited rate. Every other other decent PC game can do this, so it's idiotic how yours can't. What, don't you know how to write a game engine that can handle higher framerates properly? You should have seen some of the angry forum comments I came across about this issue...
- SLI is officially not supported! This one I find hard to believe, except that the driver defaults to single card for this game. Every other major game supports it, so why can't Carmack manage it? It makes such a big performance difference, that a developer cannot afford to leave out support for it.
- GPU transcode (hardware compressed texture expansion using the GPU) cannot be enabled on my system. Seems like the game hasn't been updated to recognize my graphics cards perhaps, which were released two years later. Still, poor show that it can't have wider compatibility as later GPUs tend to support earlier instruction sets and features, or just allow the option with a compatibility warning and let the user see how it goes.
- To make advanced changes to graphics settings and enable the really large, hi res textures, one has to mess around with config files and obscure, poorly documented commands rather than conveniently selecting the options from the menu. Seriously, how much developement work does it take to make a proper user interface? No more than a day at the outside. This is so lazy.
I remember when Crysis 2 had only simple console style graphics settings at release and PC gamers rightly complained, loudly. EA listened and fixed this with a later update, making the game a real graphics powerhouse that is often used in graphics card reviews.
- vsync setting in the game doesn't work. Not a huge deal, as I can override it in the driver but still a stupid glitch which shouldn't be there after several patches.
- In an early version of the game, the command console could be enabled and changes made to the game on the fly. This ability was then disabled for some mysterious, unexplained reason in a later patch. While some people have been able to re-enable it, I haven't, in either version, likely due to further patches preventing it. Also, enabling it punishes you by disabling Steam achievements!
I spent several hours trying to get around some of these issues, but with the failure to get proper 120Hz animation out of it, I just said fuck it and gave up on this game. I might come back to it one day, but there are over 100 games in my Steam library, plus several in my Origin library that deserve my attention much more than this piece of crap.
If someone here knows of a fix for this framerate issue, then I'll look at the game again soon, otherwise I won't bother.
Rage over.
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