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Comment by calsy | Hacker News Reader

Why not explain the 'bells and whistles' that are missing, for e.g. "It doesn't support ray-tracing", rather then in general terms that are trollish like "rendering isn't good".

How does that impact the game exactly? If a game does not incorporating the latest features in DX12 or whatever the features Nvidia brings out for its cards, does that compromise the artistic integrity of the game? Does a painstakingly detailed boss with incredible art and fluid animation just not cut it without these graphics settings?

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I feel like some people are playing a different game to me.

There's constant pop-in, flicker and shimmering, the lighting is flat, the textures are low resolution, the meshes are low geometry. Graphically it just sucks, many last generation console games beat it easily. It also has completely crashed the console multiple times.

And I'm playing on PS5 which is reportedly the best experience.

PS5 is the best experience? Who said that?

What you described sounds bizarre and far removed from most peoples experience (mine included) with the game regardless of platform. How exactly do you know what resolution textures are or how many polygons are rendered.

Everyone is saying the PC port is a mess. Some people say it might be compatibility issues with certain hardware, but unless you think it's a huge conspiracy you surely have to admit there are swathes of players finding it unplayable on excellent machines. The critic reviews for the PS5 version are the best of the bunch.

My experiences are similar to what a lot of people are saying on Reddit, here and user review sites. Multiple different parent posters in this thread also said it but you dismissed them too. Even people who like the game are saying the graphics are poor.

I can't tell you what the actual resolutions, are but I can tell you that I can see the textures are blurry and that I can see lines on objects that would appear curved on most modern games. I can tell the same way I can tell that Horizon Forbidden West has a higher density mesh than classic Tomb Raider.

I also recently played the Demon Souls remake. It has better graphics.

Conspiracy, give me a break. Show me a new release AAA game on PC which ran flawlessly for 700,000+ people day 1.

People have issues, but everyone saying the PC port is a mess is not true. I have the game on PC and its runs better than most new release games I've played and I've player more than enough of them.

The critic reviews stating PS5 version is the best is baseless, I could say the critic review state the PC version is the best.

Listing some random social site names or pointing out a vocal minority isn't proof of the games graphic quality, I could find 10x more people who would say otherwise.

I recently played Demon souls remake, It doesn't have better graphics.

Basically every post-release review for the PC version mentions stuttering and performance issues. They aren't affecting everyone but they are widespread enough that Bandai Namco have apologised and said they're going to work on a patch.

Clearly you aren't having issues, it does seem to be hardware dependent, but for me and many, many others it's the first game I've played in a while to be so buggy at release (though I didn't play Cyberpunk). I've never had a game crash my PS4 or PS5 like this game does, and quite a lot of people are reporting the same.

However the general consensus is clearly that the PC version has serious performance issues for many people. PS5 certainly doesn't seem to have performance issues but it is crashing the entire console for me and others so that's hardly better.

I'm not even saying it's a bad game. It might be great. I just can't get far enough to tell because the game crashes my console.

> How exactly do you know what resolution textures are or how many polygons are rendered.

A couple comments ago you were complaining at me for not being specific about why the rendering was bad, and then when someone gives you specific examples you lash out with "well how do you know that's why it's bad!?". We know because we have eyes.

No your eyes aren't good enough to know the resolution of minute textures or the polygon count on screen on for games on current gen systems. You see low textures while others don't, it's completely subjective without really numbers and your obvious negative bias plays into it.

I asked for details, and now they are provided you can see they are flawed.

And please, stop pretending that you even played the game past 5 minutes and you know what you are talking about.

Why would we have a negative bias? We bought the game. We wanted to enjoy it. I'm not in the habit of buying things simply to criticise them online.

You're trying to deny that it's possible to see difference in the visuals of video games, which is bizarre considering the whole point of new generations of consoles and GPUs is for the graphical improvements. I can see the difference in mesh density, texture resolution and lighting when I upgraded from an RTX 2070 to an RTX 3080. Do I have figures? No. But the obvious improvements were why I'd shell put so much for the card. Ditto for the PS5. And I can tell you with absolutely certainty: this game looks far worse on PS5 than Demon Souls does, or The Last of Us 2 does on my PS4 Pro.

Even people who really like the game generally will admit the graphics are not great. You can watch YouTube videos of people playing and there is plainly evident pop-in, low render distance and LOD issues. Also various other things like enemies walking through each other and so forth. None of it is critical, the graphics are perfectly playable, but it's well below what you'd normally expect in a highly reviewed AAA game on the latest hardware in 2022.

You can argue it's unimportant and the art direction makes up for it as many fans do, but instead you just seem to be sealioning.

You paid $1000s for a GTX 3080 but bought the game on PS5 and claim it is some low res, pop-in, shimmering graphics on console but yet its the best version although you never played it on other platforms.

You can differentiate texture resolutions and polygon counts across platforms. You claim everyone agrees that the PC version is horrible port and has some major performance problems and crashes, but strangely enough it's currently the most played game on Steam.

You say for many many people it's one of the most buggiest games they've experienced at release, yet it hasn't been taken down for sale like Cyberpunk or had its player base disappear like BF2042 or New World.

You continue to make generalised statements like 'many many people', 'all critics', 'everyone agrees' and name random social sites giving the misleadingly impression that everyone agrees with you.

I can tell you with absolute certainty that it looks better then Demon Souls remastered from a PS3 game with reused upscaled textures. Everyone agrees so it's true.

...Sorry but I don't think anything you say is genuine, so there is no point continuing the argument.

I didn't buy a 3080 for Elden Ring. I play other games too. I bought the game for PS5 because the reviews said the PC version is a bad port and I prefer the PS5 controller. I'm more typically a console gamer because PC games tend to be worse ports now, but if you think that's so suspicious, the reason I bought the 3080 is for Flight Simulator in VR.

I said for me and many others it's one of the buggiest games, but that I haven't played Cyberpunk. I don't know statistically how many people that is but it seems fairly widespread. I haven't even heard of New World.

I'm making generalized statements because what else can I do? If I point out individuals, you just say that's one person. I don't keep stats for reviewers. If you can't see that most post release PC reviews mention performance and stuttering then that's up to you I suppose.

It's like I said - it may be a great game. I just can't play it. I think the graphics suck but that wouldn't stop me playing it. The last buggy at release game I played was Flight Simulator, and I quit it after buying it for a few months as a result, and picked it back up later. Now it's one of my favourite games.

It's strange to me that you appear to be taking criticism of a video game so personally.

What?

I'm also playing on PS5 and had zero crashes so far (20+ hours).

Pop-in, flicker and shimmering? It feels like I'm playing a different game to you.

Perhaps there is some sort of issue within the game that's making it render and behave differently for different players.

I don't know what to say other than my console works perfectly for every other game and I've never had a console crash before I played ER, or since while playing any other game.

The whole console suddenly turns off, I have to yank the power, and when it comes back on it sends an error report to Sony. Suffice to say, I lose my progress.

See:

* https://www.futuregamereleases.com/2022/02/elden-ring-ps5-cr...

* https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/t102fd/ps5_keeps...

I have also experienced hard crashes.

For some unfathomable reason, the game comes with HDR turned off by default. You need to start / load a save, press start -> system -> video -> enable HDR (you cannot do that in the main menu for some reason). This improves visual fidelity significantly and makes it feel at least like something resembling a PS4-era game.

Coming from Horizon: Forbidden West, the graphics of Elden Ring still feel very dated, with low-res shadows & textures, flat lighting, low draw distance and constant frame drops. The UI is also rather clanky - this is the first game in a decade I actually had too look-up instructions for equipping items.

Even with that, I find the atmosphere and experience very enjoyable and I'm looking forward to exploring the world in more depth. I also love the lack of artificial level scaling/gating - go unprepared to the wrong spot and you are dead.

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