Bandai Namco, in a note to players on Friday, acknowledged performance issues with Elden Ring on Windows PC and promised improvements are on the way. Nonetheless, stuttering, slow frame rate, and other distractions have given the otherwise critically acclaimed RPG a “mixed” reputation in Steam’s customer reviews.
“We will be constantly working to improve the game so that it can be played comfortably on various PC environments and platforms,” the publisher said. However, “for the PC version, updating your graphics card drivers to the latest version may significantly improve performance.”
It may not, as well. Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry on Thursday noted that PC version 1.02 of Elden Ring “has a number of issues that will affect all hardware configurations on all graphical settings presets.” The report said that stutters of up to a quarter of a second — therefore dropping the frame rate for a 60 fps game into the 40s — are detected when “new effects, enemies, and areas appear on screen.”
Loading new game areas also apparently triggers “a second and more pervasive stutter,” Eurogamer added. While higher-end monitors with variable refresh rates can ameliorate these distractions, “leaning on the technology” isn’t an acceptable solution given that console versions of Elden Ring don’t have the same problems.
“It could be sensible to wait for further patches before investing time into the PC version of Elden Ring,” Digital Foundry concludes.
Steam’s user reviews are livid with complaints of even worse problems, and ad hoc suggestions for fixing them. One user reported four crashes in their first two hours with the game, intolerable alongside a frame rate capped at 60 fps and no ultrawide monitor support. “This is unacceptable,” they said.
Bandai Namco said patches are forthcoming for two unrelated issues, one pertaining to mouse sensitivity and another that fails to launch the Easy Anti-Cheat software. As for consoles, the publisher acknowledged a problem saving progress in the PlayStation 5 version of Elden Ring, and advised players to manually save their games by exiting Elden Ring from the system menu.
Elden Ring’s official launch came at midnight on Friday. Reviews published earlier in the week have given FromSoftware and George R.R. Martin’s high fantasy collaboration universal acclaim, resulting in Metacritic scores of 97 on PlayStation 5, and 95 on Windows PC and Xbox Series X. Elden Ring is also available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Source: Polygon
