It’s a technical channel. We don’t need another mainstream channel that ignores the technical problems. If anything, they are not harsh enough.

You are not harsh enough

From Soft is my fav dev you need to keep roasting them until they fix the issues.

it's incredible that people treat From Software like it's this vulnerable little indie dev that needs to be protected, even though it's a big company with decades of experience and funding from some of the largest publishers on the planet.

Tone down the harshness until the industry gets back on its feet... The industry was never off its feet, what are you referring too? More successful then ever before. More money then ever before. More harshness is needed. The norm for these companies is to release early, broken and buggy just to make a few more dollars so that they can fix it later using YOUR money you paid for their half assed attempt at releasing their game. Drop the hammer down harder guys. Releasing these games in the states they are is a choice, not a necessity

That line of thinking is why they can get away with it.

Stutters are not “fun and immersive” contrary to what that supporter claimed. I love fun gameplay and great story, but great performance is a major factor in my enjoyment of a game.

Alex is absolutely based.. dont tell me how expensive is to optimize your games while you hoard almost a billion dollar in sales for each game

The drops/slowdowns while I was playing on the PS5 via the native PS5 version was bad enough to prevent me from playing any further after a few hours of persistence. Furthermore the fact that these problems still occur on a top end pc (7800x3d, 4090) is simply inexcusable and deserves the harshness and criticism of its technical issues.

AS YOU SHOULD.

The question from that one user was embarrassing and it's surprising that it comes from someone who enjoys DF enough to be a Patreon supporter. Getting defensive over a game that's sold >25 million copies and trying to dress it up as genuine concern for the industry is so unbelievably corny, man.

I have zero clue why nobody's talking about the HORRENDOUS pop-ins on consoles!!

I kind of can't fathom how a studio like Fromsoft can care so much about the art and so little about their tech. It's like they're musicians writing these beautiful, striking symphonies and then recording them on a webcam mic. Do they not see how absolutely incredible a game like Elden Ring would be to experience if it had the software quality and rendering prowess of a game like Doom Eternal?

No. You gave the exact kind of investigation and critique the community needs.

I'm 100% with you on this topic. I'm glad you go into the specifics and call out problems. Please never stop doing it. Thanks!

No. Wouldn’t even say you were hard enough. Fromsoftware hasn’t added fsr support or DLSS on pc. Even Lance McDonald’s discovered a simple switch of a button that increased performance by 20% and essentially fixed most of the base game performance issues. I have no clue what runs through the heads of this billion dollar corporation.

Give them hell, DF. We should not tolerate inferior products, a trend too common in various industries.

The FromSoft Stans are in full defense mode....can you imagine asking a technical review website to not review a game you like critically for known performance issues that would normally be a major criticism of every other game. It's crazy these are the same people saying how they hate that modern games release broken and aren't worth thier price, yet when it's a game that they enjoy then it's not a problem or it's not gamebreaking or it's not that bad or it only drops to below 30fps sometimes or it just stutters every now and again or if you have a VRR display..... Bruh the level of copium in this community because someone critiques your favorite game is absolutely insane. YA'LL DUDES GOTTA DO BETTER!!!!

If a game doesn't run well, it doesn't run well - you can still have fun with it, but making excuses for a company not doing a proper job doesn't change the issue.

This Wicca guy probably thinks OG Blighttown on PS3 was _"fun and immersive"_

PC gamers get so used being treated like red haired step child its no surprise stockholm syndrome has set in I love Erdtree, DD2 but defending it make me sad

About the performance issues. I was fighting the last boss and frames were dropping like hell because there's a lot of things going on on the screen. As if the fight wasn't hard enough.

I'm still pissed that the deadzone on the right stick is off center. Really annoying to play when the camera moves faster going right than left, and I rarely hear people complain about the issue.

That's kind of surprising to see a comment like that, because I consider DF to be the most tip-toeing, careful, drama-free, cautious gaming channel on the KZfaq (arguably too much), and I'm not exaggerating. IMHO, that's why that (mildly) critical statement from Alex in his ER DLC video came out as harsh - we're not just used to that. 🤷‍♂

Game performance and critique about bad performance is exactly the main reason I watch DF. This is why I hope DF keeps revisiting games when patched so I know if I can finally enjoy playing the game that I find interesting (Dragons Dogma 2). I still have PTSD from Just Cause 3.

Alex was very fair. It’s surprising to experience performance issues when 99% of the reviews never state that there are any. I’ve always had issues with ER’s performance, shadow of the erd tree just ramped it up lol. I appreciated that finally someone wasn’t afraid to point it out 🙏

The state of the industry should never factor in the review process. Even in a scenario where you know for sure a review will cause the closure of a studio, you should still push it out. Because it is not your job to worry about the producers, but to keep consumers informed. Just make damn sure you are accurate in your assessments.

No you are just telling the truth. That’s why i subscribe and look forward to those game analysis. From software still made the best game of the last 5 years though lol.

2 years later still no better upscaling, 9 years later bloodborne is still locked in 30fps. Classic fromsoft

I encountered this same pushback when I bitched about BG3. The game still runs like ass in Baldurs Gate, and our last mp campaign before dropping it encountered a game breaking save ruining bug where all travel to lower city caused those not hosting to tpose and the world not load in. It is a known issue on their forums and they still have yet to fix it. If this final farewell patch for modding doesn't fix it we are cooked and that has forever marred my opinion of the game. This on pc btw.

Please don't tone down your criticisms, your work in bringing these problems to light is invaluable. You are in a very special position, as not only do you have the technical ability to make these criticisms, but you are also one of the few groups capable of putting pressure on the industry. We developers and gamers alike appreciate and respect your opinions on these issues.

Elden Ring is an incredible game with lots of performance problems. I've had micro stutter, long lurches, crashes, big frame drops (last boss) and more. And that's while not supporting DLSS, FSR, XeS, Ultrawide, unlimited frame rate etc. They don't get shit on enough for their lack of care when it comes to performance because the games are so good.

Not really, someone has to do it

i'm so tired of how games industry people expect to be coddled by the consumer and others in the industry because of how shitty it is to work in. like, welcome to the club, man.

In the age where VRR displays are so common, I feel like DF puts way too much emphasis on “locked frame rates”. Give me an unstable frame rate with the potential for 60 fps with VRR any day over a locked 30 fps. Their reviews are also inconsistent. We get a locked frame rate for Starfield at 30 fps and DF is commenting we should’ve had an option for an unlocked frame rate that works with VRR.

Here is one recommendation. Prior to discussing technical problems with any game, issue a survey on how players perceived the performance of said game for each platform. Then present the technical issues to avoid biasing the survey. We will then have somewhat of an idea of how much specific technical issues impacted gameplay from both the experts perspective and players perspective as a group.

Having review teams like DF help tremendously to push the industry forward on console and PC. We need tech deep dives to keep devs/publishers accountable.

I had to reinstall my whole freaking windows because I had a bug and I wasn't able to find the source where FPS like I had 20fps on my 3090/5800X @ 4k and 14fps on my 3080/5700X @ 1440p.... reinstalling windows on the second computer solved the issue. That dreaded feeling you have when you enconter the same bug as someone from 2 yrs ago on reddit, and there's no fix to it... And people are still asking the same question even today. I did try everything suggested online, enable unlimited cache, putting the game in high perf mode, setting the CPU prority to above average, .... No other game had this issue, DG2, BG3, all ran fine except ER SotE. And even then I had terrible frame pacing in Belurat where being at 80 fps, I looked choppy AF, I had to restart the game to solve it. Beside that, one of the best game I played this year.

Tldr: nah

imo this is easily the best performing souls game that's not a remaster lol

Absolutely not 1000percent justified

I'm guessing the souls fan base were harassing them over being critical of their poorly designed/optimized precious perfect game. The souls fan base is honestly the absolute worst with their tantrums.

Fromsoft makes good games but has always been PROFOUNDLY INCOMPENTENT ON THE TECHNICAL SIDE to the point I sincerely wonder if Fromsoft understands what framepacing is

The lazy loading of assets before boss fights is where it gets me. Do not let me go through a fog gate before my equipment/abilities are fully loaded. Also maybe not before the FRIGGIN BOSS is loaded because that gives ME an unfair advantage.

Thank you DF for this review and post-review discussion. Elden Ring (and SOTE) is fantastic game, no doubt about it! But 2+ year after original PC release, game still does have basic technical issues which are being easily resolved by modders - certain stutterings, dlaa/dlss/fsr/xss support, unreasonable framerate limiting (hardcoded FPS/timeframe!), lack of chromatic aberration/sharpening filter disablement, ultrawide support, game pausing :) , AA option in game menu still not working correctly (saving in config), lack of any quest log, minimal user interface improvements, etc, etc ... Its pity you have to use mods for some of those elementary options in 2024. which are automatically disqualifying you from online game play. I don't even want to mention how user unfriendly user interface is. It took me quite a time to figure out how to bind torrent whistle, sorceries/incantations, how to use certain items and pouches with keybindings - thanks to modders! All this just shows that FS don't care so much about it's user base and feedback - why would they after selling 25 million copies? :) But still, game is fantastic and I would recommend it to everyone. I was never fun of medieval worlds (I am more Fallout world type of guy :) ) but the amount of gameplay content, world exploring and it's size, action and lore immersion ... it will just suck you in - if you manage to figure out unfriendly user interface and squirt one eye on PC technical issues which FS doesn't acknowledge :) For that reason, maybe it's a good idea to have modern game reviews in two parts - where game/gameplay and technicalities are being reviewed kinda separately. DF is obviously based more on technical aspects of games (thats why I follow it as IT systems specialist :) ) and your review of SOTE was not harsh for a second - just objective after 2+ year of original game release. 10/10 for a game, 6/10 for technicalities and FS support - in average 8/10.

Pointing out technical highlights or problems is what DF is about!

Hate to be one of those "it runs fine for me" people. But I really don't think it's that bad. I use RTSS to lock to 60, and sure there's some small stutters here and there but nothing intrusive at all. Jedi survivor however... now that's a stutter struggle.

No. Unequivocally, no. You have not been critical enough. The performance on display for such technically bland games is absurd. Their aversion to using basic methods-AI upscaling, dynamic resolution, et al.-wholly available to them gives them no excuse. FromSoft’s titles have been highly acclaimed and very profitable for over a decade, and yet they continue to illustrate that money does not buy talent. I believe it is your responsibility, due to the influence you possess, to hold all developers to a reasonable standard. We have supported Digital Foundry-we admire your integrity, and appreciate the cost it took to achieve your accomplishments. Wield your authority for those who do not have the industry’s respect.

The wild thing is that Armored Core VI does have really good ultrawide support and doesn't seem to have as many stuttering issues...

The players dont need to care how much it takes to retain programmers that know how to optimize, it is not our concern, the game is a full price game. Also i think this issue runs deeper than just fromsoft open world games, all of their games run poorly since ps360.

The only reason I am not buying the expansion on PC is due to the lack of ultrawide support, STILL.

as much as I hate ppl whining fps drop from to 59fps for one sec, that's your job anyways

From Software games don't ALWAYS have technical issues. Sekiro and Armored Core VI run quite well honestly. When they do have technical issues they almost never get fixed though, and that's a big problem.

Elden Ring was reported to be making about $50+ a day, for the first couple weeks and has for sure at least approached $1 billion, total.

DF isn't that harsh. I appreciate their honest technical reviews. It helps me decide whether to buy a game or not. I'm not buying broken games.

Skill issue, never stopped me from getting good.

Even a beautiful painting starts to blur after looking long enough and what are you left with? Gameplay. That needs to be good because you engage with it every second of play. I can't believe we are in an era that people are actually advocating for lower standards.

I wish people were as easy on Cyberpunk when it launched, it was an awesome game even then

A problem for day zero reviews, is that reviewers often are not playing on release-day-patch-update game code. Further, many games get additional patches in the first ~week. I think that alone, can make it very difficult for any reviewer to say anything solid, about performance. There is a lot more to say on that topic. But, youtube comments aren't a great place for it.

It's always a breath of fresh air when Tom does the analysis and commentary. I'll leave it at that.

I've done a lot of coverage of FromSoft's games on my channel, and I often turn a blind eye to technical performance issues because I lack the technical knowledge to address what is going wrong and how it's going wrong. To add onto that, while my rig is pretty decent and probably better than most users', it's not particularly impressive, and I wouldn't be able to tell you if the issues I have are due to hardware vs. software, so I appreciate DF playing hardball on the things I can't address from both a knowledge and hardware perspective. Just because times are tough doesn't mean that a job shouldn't be done well, so I say continue holding their feet to the fire in the hope it'll inspire positive changes in the future

Wont somebody please think of poor fromsoft and their piss poor optimization

DO NOT tone down the harshness. That's ridiculous. You are a treat. I still haven't played elden ring, RE4, or any other game with traversal stutter. Make them fix these ridiculous issues!

Nah not too harsh fromsoft fandom is just the most toxic one in gaming

Shadow of the Erdtree is hands down a masterpiece even if we consider it standalone, but From really needs a new modern engine that does not look and perform like a mid 2010s game.

No you weren't too harsh. Alex, you do what you do for us, the customers. I trust what you guys say for this exact reason that you aren't gonna sugarcoat it - and you shouldn't have to. I also think that implementation for a technical aspect of Steam reviews is a wonderful idea. Someone @ Valve and get them to hopefully implement something like this! Would help a lot more than straight review bombing something to oblivion.

Awful performance on ps5, and still stutters using backwards compat?? How do you even manage that

1. To say one needs to tone down the harshness implies digital foundry reviews tank sales of otherwise good games and for that citation is needed. 2. Games need to scale across different PC hardware which means someone's tolerable stutter is another person's unplayable game. 3. Stutter has become a problem because of changing graphics pipelines and not just our current economy. 4. Some games have done the work to mitigate this issue. I play Jedi Survivor on PC despite it's issues, and I knew what I was getting because of Digital Foundry's hard work that I consider a public service. I don't look at is as harsh, they serve a specific purpose and are doing what they need to.

Any game that does not run in perfect 60fps on modern machines should not be aloud to go on sale.

Alex was spot on in his review. FromSoftware games are based around reaction times. Having a big lag or even a stutter in the middle of a battle is critical. Its not just about the time they've had to optimise Elden Ring and the DLC, they have had years across all their games and its no better now than it was 10-15 years ago

Went to put a comment about "making more money than ever and selling a poorly optimised product when they have the financial resources to update/amend the engine for what we have paid for and future releases" to see everyone else is on the same page. I can't believe the attitude so many take for things they buy like they are shareholders or something. Corporations are not people or our friends. Vote with wallet.

Im just gonna say i dont notice dropped frames. I can see the diff between 60 and 30, but most of the time im oblivious to these issues unless there is a drastic change during game play.

Anyone who is ready to willingly ignore substantial technical issues (ones that interrupt gameplay or cause issues with gameplay and/or saves) is a fanboy that just wants their favorite developer to not be held to standards, standards that were once common and even held to high thresholds by Nintendo and other companies. The whole idea of "gone gold" used to mean the game was READY for sale, often finished MONTHS ahead of release, allowing for further polish. One of my favorite franchises ever is DOOM, and ID is one of my favorite developers. If DOOM TDA stutters or has technical issues on ANY platform it releases on, it would be unacceptable and also odd for that team. I would 110% call them out, and wait for the issues to be fixed AND for the game to go on sale before buying, and I LOVE those guys. Now, if a game is CLEARLY ahead of its time, such as Crysis was, that's different. It's different because it COULDNT run on anything but the top-of-the-line hardware, and it was obvious to anyone with eyeballs and an understanding of physics simulations. Elden Ring is NOWHERE NEAR that, not in the slightest. In fact, it looks like a PS4 game at best, with some nice skyboxes and draw distance. It is obviously unoptimized.

I love from soft but that apologist made me threw up in my mouth a little. I'm playing elden ring offline because I have to run a mod that allows me to use Dlss. The fact they even patched in ray tracing yet didn't do this at the same time is mind boggling to me...

Fromsoft should “get good” on a technical level. Just pay John Carmack his contracting fee and get it over with already and you’ll have me buying your dlc sooner than later.

FromSoftware have made most of my favorite games in the past decade, but they deserve to be criticized for the engine problems. It’s a very old engine that they’ve been using ever since the original Demon’s Souls on PS3 and they’ve made very little improvements to it. They’ve learned nothing about frame pacing either, they simply do not care about the player experience on the performance side, and they somehow don’t realize that making the bosses harder while the performance gets worse actually creates an extremely unpleasant gaming experience since the real battle is actually against the game’s atrocious performance. By now, FromSoftware’s games should look as good as Demon’s Souls Remake does on PS5, which for me is simply the prettiest RPG I’ve ever played in my life with flawless 60fps, instant loading of hugely detailed environments with immaculate level design, super high res textures, photorealistic character modeling, tons of cool lighting effects, etc. Even Lies of P deserves some credit for how smooth it runs on all platforms. Elden Ring being open world isn’t a good excuse because the original Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3, and Sekiro all had bad performance and none of them were open world. I’ve also played lots of open world games that had way better graphics than Elden Ring and they run at 60fps on PS5. FromSoftware is just out of touch when it comes to game performance overall, they’re clueless on the matter and keep making the same mistake even after all the money they’ve made. It’s unacceptable now.

Agree - as summed up at the end by DF "this is the basic stuff" re Ultrawide and a steady framerate. Not forgetting the fact that the game itself deserves better. It is one of the Souls gaming greats; and is let down by poor execution.

I hate seeing workers taking company side when people do some critique.

People need to be reminded that a game is a product. And an expensive product. Therefore, we must always demand quality. If you buy a computer, and a single key doesn't work properly, you will require repair or replacement. If you buy a book and a single page appears bent, you will demand an exchange. If you buy TOILET PAPER and it is missing 50cm, you will demand an exchange. Why the hell with games do people accept different types of problems as if it were something natural and impossible to solve?

Too few even dares to criticize FromSoftware because of its insane fandom and that FS is often backed up by Sony which has an even more insane fandom, which this even more difficult. Elden Ring (main game + DLC) has too many severe issues yet it's always to 99.8% awarded with a 10/10, while not even Nintendo can come away that much as FS does, not even close, not by 0,1%.

No. Keep it up!

that wicca question was just absurdly stupid holy shit

Alex got angry here :)

a stable perfomance is hella important when you fight bosses like elden ring dlc bosses.. smooth 60fps should be highest priority we really need to bully fromsoft until they do smth about it

Wicca's points would be valid... if technical issues like stuttering didn't TAKE AWAY from the immersion and gameplay they put importance on

The entire industry is not harsh enough

Would someone please think of multi-billion dollar companies

PS4 Pro gets down to 14 FPS in the DLC. That's a 79.99 EUR and a 39.99 EUR DLC. This is unacceptable. Period

Nah. No ultrawide in a game selling 25M copies after 2+ years is just a meme.

One thing is that most reviews of this game will be done on PS5. PC Gamer etc. should be a different story but they might get very lucky with their hardware and not experience them to the extremely annoying degree that most of us do.

I'm playing Elden Ring on a AMD 5500U laptop with 8 GM RAM 2 GB VRAM and being able to get immersed into its world and gameplay.

You do not have to hire 500k a year optimizing developers, if you write the code well in the first place

2:53 That guy is truly amazing. He has been in the games industry for years. Yet doesn't understand that a game needs to run well. Do you only make games and never play them? Ever thought about why someone would spend $2000 for a gaming PC? You might need a hint because you have only been a few years in the gaming industry. A game is more fun when it runs well. I can also tell you how much it costs: it should be in the budget of your game. You shouldn't even release the game in a state where your game stutters.

i think there are some areas that run pretty well in the dlc and others that dip down for me pretty low. even some rare moments where i get constant stutters for a couple seconds. reminds me of the initial elden ring launch. wouldnt be surprised if a big part of these performance issues are LOD based. that would explain why the base game runs so well now but this new map doesnt.

It makes perfect sense to me. Why release a well optimised game when they can re-release it in a few years with improved features. It's a win/win for them. They're playing the long game.

The game clearly isnt opitimised because even when you lower graphical settings the fps stays the same so might as well run it at max settings 4k raytraycing full hdr my pc rig is high end 4080super 77800xr3d 32 gig ram. for the most part the game runs well staying at consistent 60fps it tanks and dips down to the mid 30s in the cerulean coast charos grave and some of the more hectic boss fights.

Till this day my game still micro stutters at random times on my high end pc. Elden ring has technical issues that have gone unaddressed for far too long.

I have no stuttering issue on my PC. The game is perfectly smooth. Frame drops happen only when traversing areas.

Not at all, from software games on pc lack basic features that every release should have in 2024.

I am genuinely shocked this was a supporter question.