Progress Update and First Patch for Batman: Arkham Knight

[Lizzy Finnegan]

Progress Update and First Patch for Batman: Arkham Knight

In a Steam update Saturday, Rocksteady shared their plans for fixing the flawed PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight.

The June 23rd release of Batman: Arkham Knight immediately presented pulled from Steam [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/141320-Players-of-the-PC-Version-of-Arkham-Knight-are-Reporting-Gameplay-Issues] until the issues were resolved.

"Rocksteady is leading our team of developers and partners as we work on the PC performance issues that players have been encountering," Warner Bros' Gary Lake-Schaal wrote in a Steam update [http://steamcommunity.com/games/208650/announcements/detail/145587678178226617] Saturday. "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."

The primary areas of focus include addressing bugs that affect texture and performance, improving the system memory, fixing NVIDIA and AMD bug issues, and what was one of the most frequently cited complaints for fans, support for frame rates above 30FPS.

"While we work on improving performance, we will also continue to make interim patches available to address issues for those still playing the game on PC. The first patch is being released now and the updates include:

Fixed a crash that was happening for some users when exiting the game
Fixed a bug which disabled rain effects and ambient occlusion. We are actively looking into fixing other bugs to improve this further
Corrected an issue that was causing Steam to re-download the game when verifying the integrity of the game cache through the Steam client.
Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash when turning off Motion Blur in BmSystemSettings.ini. A future patch will enable this in the graphics settings menu"


The full list of areas being addressed long term are:

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 laptops
Improvements to system memory and VRAM usage
NVIDIA SLI bug fixes
Enabling AMD Crossfire
NVIDIA and AMD updated drivers



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[laggyteabag]

Nice to hear that Rocksteady themselves are spearheading this one; then again, anything is better than a 12 man team that has only ever really done last-gen console ports. I will certainly be interested to see how much the performance is improved, and how extensive the options menu becomes.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Jesus, look at that list. It's an Unreal Engine 3 game. There's no excuse for this. I hope that no one is naive enough to think that this game was even half finished. It doesn't even utilize the hard drive properly. That's something that you might expect from a pre-alpha build. I know that some of you are thinking "it's an enhanced UE3 engine". Yes, it is. So is the Bioshock Infinite engine. Which means that if it's in such a sorry state, there was no optimization at all. Which indicates that this title wasn't just ported from the consoles, it was ported a lot more recently than people might think.

The rumor that was flying around how the development of PC version started a few months ago is probably 100% true. Nothing else would explain the complete lack of optimization on such an old engine, regardless of the enhancements. 12 people would have been enough too if they had the time. That studio is responsible for the PC version of Bioshock Infinite and that game is pretty much a next-gen title on the PC, running on an enhanced UE3 engine.

 

[Buizel91]

Good to know it won't be long, they weren't kidding when they said they won't rest till they get it sorted. (Or something along them lines)

Rocksteady should of done it from the get go, but still, better late than never.

 

[MCerberus]

Well if this is the first patch, it looks like GMG is going to be handing out refunds.

 

[Aggieknight]

It stuns me that after all the high profile fails we've seen in the last year, this crap still happens.

I passed on this game as a result of this mess. Will pick it up when it's $30.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

This bears repeating: Stop farming out ports to other companies. Either do it right in-house or don't fucking bother because all that ends up happening is stuff like this and a lot of pissed off gamers.
Its better to make people wait a few months for the port than to put out a horrible job.
I've always said I respect a company that realizes its limitations over a company that ends up having to cover its ass because of impatience.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

It stuns me that after all the high profile fails we've seen in the last year, this crap still happens.

I passed on this game as a result of this mess. Will pick it up when it's $30.

I too will be waiting for the GOTY edition. That is, if the bugs are fixed.

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

It it took them 48 hrs to fix all that shit they pretentiously were not aware off at release date?

Fuck, that only means they WERE aware of but did not give e dime about it.

 

[drkchmst]

The parts about changing how it handles memory is scaring me a good bit that major changes are needed and it will always be duct taped together.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

It is good to see those beta-testers working hard.

Hopefully they will enjoy the experience, and someday learn NOT to become a beta tester?

 

[Rituro]

This bears repeating: Stop farming out ports to other companies. Either do it right in-house or don't fucking bother because all that ends up happening is stuff like this and a lot of pissed off gamers.
Its better to make people wait a few months for the port than to put out a horrible job.
I've always said I respect a company that realizes its limitations over a company that ends up having to cover its ass because of impatience.

This. This right here. You'd think after multiple high-profile failures (the boss battles from DX:HR spring to mind instantly), there'd be a blanket industry policy of "it is far better to delay BEFORE and get it right than delay AFTER because it's all screwed up". Apparently the almighty deadline is still(?!) mistakenly worshipped by some.

 

[EndlessSporadic]

Not a bad start, but there's still a lot of work to do.

Honestly I think the price of a AAA should be as such:

Price = Min(60, FPS Cap)

If your game is capped to 30, it is probably only worth 30 to most PC gamers.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Corrected an issue that was causing Steam to re-download the game when verifying the integrity of the game cache through the Steam client.

Nice that they fixed that after I finally downloaded it. Fucking thing restarted on me 3 times.

 

[MercurySteam]

Not a bad start, but there's still a lot of work to do.

Honestly I think the price of a AAA should be as such:

Price = Min(60, FPS Cap)

If your game is capped to 30, it is probably only worth 30 to most PC gamers.

Don't see how FPS cap determines the dollar value of the game, may as we'll say the price should be determined by how many different levels of AA it has.

OP: Good to see they've identified most of the issues and have begun fixing them. Frankly, most issues described above shouldn't even be in a final product and the fact that even Nvidia is experiencing this many games when it's supposed to be 'Bought to you by Nvidia' is incredibly poor. No doubt that heads will roll at Rocksteady for this.