OFFICIAL Batman: Arkham Knight (Review)

[RCoon]

Introduction

Batman: Arkham Knight is the fourth in the Arkham series, though it's only the second title to be developed by Arkham Asylum developer, Rocksteady. Many argued that Asylum was the best in the series, particularly with the launch issues Origins had. Published by Warner Bros., Arkham Knight is being built on the older Unreal Engine 3. Despite the engine's age, Arkham Knight does look significantly better than its predecessors, though it's hard to tell whether that was in part because of NVidia's Gameworks additions to the title. It had a rather frosty reception on release for the PC, getting 0 rated reviews on Steam and Metacritic, mainly down to the terrible quality assurance after having the game ported by Iron Galaxy Studios. While the performance of the overall title may be terrible, is the underlying story and gameplay of Arkham Knight good enough to prop the game up while we wait for the inevitable patches? You may be pleasantly surprised.

To read the full review, go to: http://www.nextpowerup.com/news/22221/batman-arkham-knight-review/
To read the performance analysis, go to: http://www.nextpowerup.com/news/22222/batman-arkham-knight-performance-analysis/

 

[Steevo]

So your stuttering is probably caused by the 3.5GB frame buffer being hit on the 970, do you have another card to test with?

 

[azngreentea01]

So your stuttering is probably caused by the 3.5GB frame buffer being hit on the 970, do you have another card to test with?

i dont think so, the game is buggy. He playing at 1440p, which dont even use up that much of vram.

Edit: The game very buggy, it use too much resources when it doesnt need to.

 

[Pill Monster]

^Yeah it's not the GPU. that should've been obvious. lol

The intro credits before the game even loads stutter,

Btw the CPU load on the i7, is that average per core or avge across the CPU?

 

[RCoon]

So your stuttering is probably caused by the 3.5GB frame buffer being hit on the 970, do you have another card to test with?

No, but it stutters during the opening credits of the game (a la the batman logo, warner bros logo, unreal engine 3 logo), so I doubt that is caused by VRAM limits.

Is the CPU load on the i7, average per core or avge across the CPU?

Average across the whole CPU.

 

[rtwjunkie]

So your stuttering is probably caused by the 3.5GB frame buffer being hit on the 970, do you have another card to test with?

His GTX 970 frame buffer is not the reason they actually pulled the game and are working furiously to fix it. It's borked.

 

[Pill Monster]

And I thought Gamebryo was bad...

It must be when loading map areas then, is the HDD thrashing? That's what Gamebryo does...although not quite that bad. lol

Does Batman have a bigger map area than Mass Effect? I haven't played it...

 

[Pill Monster]

Yea it is. They're working on a patch....

Rocksteady is leading our team of developers and partners as we work on the PC performance issues that players have been encountering. The work is significant and while we are making good progress on improving performance, it will take some time to ensure that we get the right fixes in place.

Below is the list of the key areas where we are dedicating our resources to improve the experience for our loyal fans:



- Support for frame rates above 30FPS in the graphics settings menu

- Fix for low resolution texture bug

- Improve overall performance and framerate hitches

- Add more options to the graphics settings menu

- Improvements to hard drive streaming and hitches

- Address full screen rendering bug on gaming laptop

- Improvements to system memory and VRAM usage

- NVIDIA SLI bug fixes

- Enabling AMD Crossfire

- NVIDIA and AMD updated drivers

How can they release something that buggy.......?

 

[R-T-B]

And I thought Gamebryo was bad...

Gamebryo was decent... back when Oblivion was released...

Now it's just shoddy. But this game makes it look like it's cutting edge / something from the future performance wise.

 

[Pill Monster]

Gamebryo was decent... back when Oblivion was released...

Now it's just shoddy. But this game makes it look like it's cutting edge / something from the future performance wise.

Haha yeah well considering how old Oblivion is....


Thay certainly got their money's worth out of that engine.
Biggest issue in my opinion isn't so much the engine but x87 which went out with the ark. That's why it performs so poorly on AMD.

 

[Steevo]

No, but it stutters during the opening credits of the game (a la the batman logo, warner bros logo, unreal engine 3 logo), so I doubt that is caused by VRAM limits.



Average across the whole CPU.

His GTX 970 frame buffer is not the reason they actually pulled the game and are working furiously to fix it. It's borked.

i dont think so, the game is buggy. He playing at 1440p, which dont even use up that much of vram.

Edit: The game very buggy, it use too much resources when it doesnt need to.

So 3.7Gb is NOT beyond the 3.5GB boundary?

 

[RCoon]

So 3.7Gb is NOT beyond the 3.5GB boundary?

It is beyond the boundary, but it doesn't hit 3.7GB during the intro credits, so it doesn't explain 100% of the stuttering. From what Warner Bros. have described, it's largely an issue with streaming from the HDD.

 

[manofthem]

Very nice review @RCoon. I read through it a bit ago, and I'm glad to hear that the game can be good and fun, if only it ran decently. I said it before, but it baffles me that this game made Its release in this condition, as if it never got tested before shipping. Insane really.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

How can they release something that buggy.......?

Because like a lot of dev and pub teams lately, Rocksteady and WB don't care about PC.

There have been testimonials from more than one of their testers stating they have flat out lied about not knowing the poor condition of the port. Some have said it was known as much as a year ago, and they did nothing to fix it.

I actually like it when culprits like this are brought to light before the PC gaming public, so PC players get to see just how bad they are. We need to let them know with our voices and wallets that it's not OK.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

So 3.7Gb is NOT beyond the 3.5GB boundary?

You Do realize don't you that a VRAM usage chart that doesn't even list what res was being benched, is pretty much useless?

It is widely known by reviewers that have done such benching, and now 970 owners, that for the most part, the 970 has no VRAM issues at 1080p, expect for a few poorly optimized games like Shadow of Mordor, Arkham Knight, etc.

 

[Steevo]

You Do realize don't you that a VRAM usage chart that doesn't even list what res was being benched, is pretty much useless?

It is widely known by reviewers that have done such benching, and now 970 owners, that for the most part, the 970 has no VRAM issues at 1080p, expect for a few poorly optimized games like Shadow of Mordor, Arkham Knight, etc.

You do realize if you read the review it does show this is from the 1080, and the vmem for 1440 is the same, but hey I get it, reading is hard, and it's easier to argue when you feel instead of think.

 

[Xzibit]

Driver is doing what its suppose to do. Its artificially limiting 970 to the 3.5 GB as much as possible.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

You do realize if you read the review it does show this is from the 1080, and the vmem for 1440 is the same, but hey I get it, reading is hard, and it's easier to argue when you feel instead of think.

As I stated, the chart itself doesn't show that, and the chart was all that was posted, with no reference as to what res it was. Is it really that hard for you to grasp? All you had to do was mention it was benched at 1080p since it didn't show. And that's on YOU, not the review. Hell, you were too lazy to even link to the review page or mention what review it came from. Which makes it come off as a quick post out of angst, more than anything informative.

Furthermore, everyone knows AK is one of THE most poorly coded games on PC right now, which also means it can't be trusted as a typical VRAM usage scenario.

 

[Steevo]

As I stated, the chart itself doesn't show that, and the chart was all that was posted, with no reference as to what res it was. Is it really that hard for you to grasp? All you had to do was mention it was benched at 1080p since it didn't show. And that's on YOU, not the review. Hell, you were too lazy to even link to the review page or mention what review it came from. Which makes it come off as a quick post out of angst, more than anything informative.

Furthermore, everyone knows AK is one of THE most poorly coded games on PC right now, which also means it can't be trusted as a typical VRAM usage scenario.

So let's see, you came into a thread about a game review to debate a point you didn't research or bother to read the posted review, just to disagree and say I am wrong.


Superb.

Do you use these life skills in real life too?

 

[Frag_Maniac]

So let's see, you came into a thread about a game review to debate a point you didn't research or bother to read the posted review, just to disagree and say I am wrong.

Geez, the denial. First off, it was YOU that tried to turn a mere review thread into a VRAM bench discussion, quoting 3 people in the process, arguing the 970's VRAM boundary, without even mentioning which res the bench was taken at.

Are we all supposed to jump on your VRAM bench claim and suddenly have knowledge of how the review was done?

All I'm saying is, if you have an argument to present, esp if trying to call someone out, present it correctly, don't just show some lame vague pic.

 

[R-T-B]

Seriously, this game is just shit coding at it's finest. It has NOTHING to do with the vram and would run equally shitty on a 980...

 

[Xzibit]

Reading the OP is just too much for people.

Geez, the denial. First off, it was YOU that tried to turn a mere review thread into a VRAM bench discussion, quoting 3 people in the process, arguing the 970's VRAM boundary, without even mentioning which res the bench was taken at.

Are we all supposed to jump on your VRAM bench claim and suddenly have knowledge of how the review was done?

All I'm saying is, if you have an argument to present, esp if trying to call someone out, present it correctly, don't just show some lame vague pic.

If you had the decency to read RCoons review which this thread is based on you would have know how the test were done and which graphs belong to what.

To read the full review, go to: http://www.nextpowerup.com/news/22221/batman-arkham-knight-review/
To read the performance analysis, go to: http://www.nextpowerup.com/news/22222/batman-arkham-knight-performance-analysis/

 

[Pill Monster]

Driver is doing what its suppose to do. Its artificially limiting 970 to the 3.5 GB as much as possible.

It's nothing to do with VRAM. Deal with it.

Geez, the denial. First off, it was YOU that tried to turn a mere review thread into a VRAM bench discussion, quoting 3 people in the process, arguing the 970's VRAM boundary, without even mentioning which res the bench was taken at.

Are we all supposed to jump on your VRAM bench claim and suddenly have knowledge of how the review was done?

All I'm saying is, if you have an argument to present, esp if trying to call someone out, present it correctly, don't just show some lame vague pic.

I have him on ignore, his logic gives me a headache.

 

[Steevo]

I asked a question, if it was the boundary that was the issue and if there was another card that could be tested.

 

[Xzibit]

It's nothing to do with VRAM. Deal with it.

Its abundantly clear that the game is screwed. In being screwed it shows the driver for the 970 doing what its suppose to do. People have a hard time dealing with that.