Performance Bugs after 11/7 Update - PC / Steam - Unplayable in current state
Okay, so roundup of the persistent bugs have gotten since the update.
Again, game is fun, but it's been really painful to play on PC, when I can play it on my partner's PS5 with far less issues, when my PC set up should be above the minimum requirements.
i7 Intel processor, and 2080x Nvidia Graphics card, no performance change between high or low settings, all drivers up to date. Same PC runs other CPU and graphics heavy games like Wukong without issue.
I'd refund it if I could until bugs sorted, but I pushed through too much of the game to get funds back from Steam at this stage, because right now the game is near unplayable on my PC. Disappointing because I have really enjoyed the love that was put into this game, and want to support it ( and even maybe see DLC in future if things get fixed ) but it's been really upsetting to not even be able to open the game for an hour or two after work without spending 85% of that time running into issues. If you're considering the game on PC, I would hold off for a bit.
- Popping In Assets - slightly improved since the last update. I have less buildings appearing on top of me now, but still seeing assets appear beside or around me frequently. Game struggles with crowds, buildings in Minrathous and Treviso, and have had an issue since update where leaving the main hub in the lighthouse to go outside facing the watcher, the floor hasn't rendered in yet and fall into the fade. Basically cannot sprint on the game or assets pop in like crazy. Have shader cache set to unlimited, game is on an SSD, high CPU priority set to DA:VG, no improvement. Gets worse longer game is on and CPU usage starts to skyrocket - memory leak? Can get so bad that assets loading in will just crash the game.
- Stutter - Screen stutter has improved a lot, but those high asset areas still seeing a lot of stutter. Seems to be slightly better when triple buffering disabled, weirdly, when it was better before the update.
- Audio Crackle/Popping - this has gotten much worse since the update. Before it was infrequent, now it is almost constant. Main menu really bad, cut scenes, any dialogue. It's migraine inducing. Doesn't affect any other games, just DA:VG, audio up to date. It's really negatively impacting enjoyment of the game, and it's nearly unplayable in this state if you have any audio sensitivities.
- Character appearance preset defaulting on game load - Issue with loading a save an finding your custom character defaulting to a bald preset still happening. Reloading save doesn't always fix. Only sure fix is to go to the mirror and adopt your customer appearance, which is really immersion breaking when you are just before a cutscene and your Rook now looks like a potato.
- Qunari Vitari colours not accurate - the qunari vitaar are defaulting to red/blue/yellow colour map when equipping. You need to cycle through multiple times for the actual vitaar colours to show, and sometimes it will just change back to the red/blue/yellow mid cut scene.
- Character Menus taking a while to load/pop in models and icons - Really bad since the update, when opening menu for character or companion screen, sometimes takes 20-30 seconds for model and icons to show and lags really badly while model loading in, meaning it can take a ridiculous time to equip companions, or update skills if doing a bulk update to companions.
- English Male Rook voice gone - So the English male voice actors for my Rook have disappeared, and my Rook is now American. Little bit of a kick in the teeth to need to pause that playthrough, because their voice has just completely changed, and the low English voice was my favourite for that character. Has really put a damper on playing.
- Controller - Controller inputs are changing to mouse and keyboard constantly while playing, even if removed. I can be mid fight and suddenly it changes to mouse and key, and none of my active skills will now work, even if corresponding buttons are pressed. Only way to change back is to open and save game ( which you can't do in a fight ). Disabled steam inputs which slightly improved frequency ( from every 20-30 seconds to a few minutes ). Xbox Elite Series 2 controller, which I have not had a single issue with my other steam games, and use it for DAI, and ME:LE and never a problem, drivers up to date.
- Load out/build profiles suggestion - one thing as QoL more than anything, it would be great to be able to save loadouts for characters, or skill set ups? It's really fun being able to change skills to try a new play style, but it's really cumbersome to allocate skill points again, especially if I just wanted to play around with a build to try out, and want to go back. Having loadouts you could maybe save with skill trees, or even armor sets would be great to make it make this a little less tedious, when this is such a fun way to have a flexible skill trees set up.