DS will decrease loading times but it would be interesting to see about memory becose loading game assets directly to the gpu could increase vram usage not reduce it. Idk we need more games to try beside Forbroken.
I'm reaaaally not sure the stutter is vram related, as I strolled around the big city with AB reporting ~12500 usage and 0 stutter at night (at day time with 11500 usage, there is some stutter in the same spots). I'm leaning towards network/server issues in certain conditions. Anyway, got to level 21 and it's an amazing experience for me. Also took down a world boss 1 hour ago with like 15 other people, we each died like 20 times but we made it with 30 seconds left... got like 7 legendaries from that kill and it kind of trivialized the rest of the quests/side missions, lol...
Game allocates all of my 4080's 16Gb of Vram. Also runs smooth and at about 50% GPU load, 1440p 162fps. No DLSS, it doesnt seem that demanding.
My ping was ~50 the whole time I played and the stutter was greatly reduced when I turned down textures so…unlikely to be network related in my case.
No because a game can see how much VRAM is avaliable. So if a game at max settings needs to use only 5GB of a 10GB card in any given level/scene then the game will just fill the remaining 5GB of data with stuff the game would need to load more often or what the game "knows" is going to come up soon. To save the system having to go out and consistently fetch the data from the SSD/HDD. Moving data around is VERY demanding on processing time and further it needs to travel the worse it will be. Hence why we have AMD using IC on RDNA2 and 3 and the reason why CPU's have built in memory controllers and more and more cache like the X3D chips from AMD. DirectStorage solves a lot of this issue. It allows the GPU to directly access storage across PCIE (so Nvme drives). This cuts out the "middle man" so to speak, the middle man being the rest of the system (CPU, RAM, etc). So now a game shouldn't have to cache/fill the remaining memory as NVME drives are super fast upwards of 5+GB for PCIE4 drives and now inexcess of 10GB+ for PCIE5 drives. Just look at Rachet and Clank on PS5, that game showed what could be possible using the same sort of tech where completely game worlds can be loaded within an instant. Video starts at 4:12 I would have thought DS would decrease the VRAM usage seen as assests can now be loaded in and out of VRAM directly from fast storage rather than having to traverse across the whole system or without the need to cache/fill the remaing "unused" VRAM. Watch the video I posted above, they talk about how memory usage is actually lowered as you use portals/rifts to traverse the worlds. Everything is dumped and new data is instantly pulled from the SSD.
Hmm I didn’t realize this game was using direct storage so I didn’t put it on my gen4 NVME. I’ll have to move it there to see if I can turn textures back up.
Moving to gen4 NVME didn’t solve the stutter but it did decrease dungeon loading times from like 1-2 minutes to a few seconds. Not sure what’s up with that because it was still on a fast SSD before.
Yes, exactly the same here. Most of the stuttering is definitely caused by VRAM usage, especially when the game basically freezes then “rubber-bands” itself a split-second later.
Yep the rubberbanding is exactly what was happening to me. Once I lowered those settings it got considerably better. I hope they can iron out the VRAM usage and the other various random but less severe stutters I’m still getting.
Got to participate in a world boss kill yesterday, it was freaking epic, the images don't do it justice. We each died like 10-15 times, all armor broken at the end but we did it in the last minute of the timer. Phat lewt of course at the end. Can't remember the last time I was this excited for a game. The only downside is the 2,5 month wait until release. I doubt it will be delayed as there are very few bugs for me at least. Other than 1 side quest not having interaction available and 1 dialogue that I had to skip for it to advance, I didn't notice anything.
The boss fights especially stand out to me in this game. They all feel different and varied while still being heavy on the action. The gameplay in general feels really good. It’s very fast paced and even playing as a sorceress (lightning with a little ice) the combat really has a weight to it. I’m kind of loving the whole open world aspect to it, I’m feeling more of a sense of place in this one than in the previous games. I’ve been able to do quite a few dungeons and a good amount of story content at this point and they really knocked it out of the park with the visuals, the sound effects, the music, and the story. The skill progression is really fun and leaves a lot of room for variation especially with the enchantment slots. The weapon aspect system seems like it’s going to be pretty deep and really affects your play style. Then there’s going to be the paragon board system which is even more in depth. There’s going to be so many unique builds out there. All in all I’m super excited and this definitely seems like it could be GOTY material.
I don't like their lighting. They're still using that isometric view with just a small part of the world in view and yet their lighting looks like from 15 years ago. For such a small and perfectly predictable view I'd expect every light source to cast its own area shadow with at least semi-dynamic GI and proper AO. I don't know what they had been doing all those years, but I guess they were polishing their renderer for use on smartphones...
Blizzard never cared about high-end visuals, they just want their games to be playable even on potato PCs.
I don't know, maybe it's more the art style, but I really, really find the visuals to be fantastic and very fitting with the overall atmosphere of the game (I THINK it might be the same engine as in D2R, but of course more advanced). But yeah, the combat is nice and quite varied. There were boss fights that took over 5 minutes to beat with more phases etc. At one point I had to completely respec to beat one in a dungeon, which brings me to another point, THANK FVCK for easy on the fly respecs. I was so triggered when I found out in D2R that you only get one respec per playthrough, jeez... They managed to bring back the horror/"serious" tone from D1 and 2 but have the accessibility and gameplay of D3 with even more quality of life features. I think they hit a sweet spot. Of course it remains to be seen how things develop, balancing, microtransactions etc., however, this Beta, given how extensive it is (there is a LOT of content in the 90 GBs of install size, I would wager a good chunk of the full game), made a good impression to say the least.
You guys are making me believe that D4 is going to something amazing. I think i`m going to try the open beta when it opens.
Players are reporting memory issues, leaks etc. https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d4/t/d4-out-of-memory/473/17
Depends on what users have running in the background too. Could be user error or another app/anti-virus causing it. It will be interesting to see how DirectX 12 and Direct Storage interact (well) with each other in that regard.
While I don't mind the isometric camera, I think the engine is good enough to have behind the character camera options (I know it will likely never happen, but still...). Hit the level cap for the Beta, I'll stop here as I don't want to burn myself out. Will probably play around with the character creator some more next weekend, as I really think you can make some wicked looking characters. I mean just look at that Kratos wannabe.
What I am doing wrong? I returned to the main town to sell some loot to free up space for stuff I was unable to pick up in a dungeon but the portal disappeared after I sold the loot so I am unable to return to the dungeon. I was able to do this twice but the issue happened the third time. Now when I try to teleport to another town. I just get instantly returned to the same town I am in. If I try to leave via the various exits from the town then there is a snow storm that pushes me back. Basically I am completely stuck in the town and unable to do any of the quests now. Is this a bug?
