'Dark Souls with guns' shooter Remnant II sets a worrying precedent by making upscaling...

[midian182]

A hot potato: Upscaling technologies like Nvidia's DLSS have become a big asset for gamers who want to improve performance. For most people, they're optional features that help with the likes of ray tracing, high resolutions, or ultra settings. That's not the case for Remnant II, though, which is the first PC game "designed with upscaling in mind."

The first Remnant: From the Ashes is an excellent 'Dark Souls with guns' shooter. The sequel has been receiving rave reviews for addressing some of the original's faults, like the bullet-sponge boss battles. But there's one element few people are happy about.

Developer Gunfire Games has specifically designed Remnant II to be used with DLSS, FSR, and XeSS as standard – I.e., turning on the upscaling tech isn't really optional if you want smooth performance.

Following complaints about poor game performance of under 60 fps on even the meatiest of rigs – 40 fps with an RTX 4090 and Ryzen 9 7950X3D - the company posted a message on the official subreddit that read: "…for the sake of transparency, we designed the game with upscaling in mind (DLSS/FSR/XeSS). So, if you leave the Upscaling settings as they are (you can hit 'reset defaults' to get them back to normal), you should have the smoothest gameplay."

Comment
by u/genericusername610 from discussion Technical Information and Troubleshooting
in remnantgame

While the Unreal Engine 5-powered Remnant 2 looks nice, it's not mind-blowing and doesn't offer any form of ray tracing or the Lumen dynamic global illumination and reflections system.

Gunfire Games has said it is definitely rolling out more post-launch updates to improve Remnant II's performance, though it's unlikely these will turn DLSS/FSR/XeSS into optional features.

With the launch of the much-maligned RTX 4060 8GB, Nvidia leaned heavily into its use of DLSS 3 and frame generation during the marketing and pushed FPS benchmarks with the technologies enabled. This is despite most gamers not wanting to see upscaling become the base standard for a game, especially when using it comes at the cost of a minor graphics hit or reduced latency.

Some are calling out developers for using upscaling as a crutch for poorly optimized PC ports; a problem we've seen many times this year. Sadly, it looks as if Remnant 2 might be setting a precedent in which these technologies become an intended requirement for games to be playable.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/99553-remnant-2-sets-worrying-precedent-essentially-making-upscaling.html

 

[kira setsu]

C'mon, as soon as "frame generation" was uttered on a stage you knew this was the outcome, just didnt think it would hit this fast.

 

[Watzupken]

Game developers may think they can get away with sloppy optimisation, but the reality is that it will just make less people interested in PC gaming. Most people won't run 4K displays, but to require a RTX 3070 for 1080p is quite a 'high bar" with what I read as pretty unimpressive graphics.

 

[loki1944]

Such a gimmick; DLSS looks worse than native; noting "upscaled" about it. Should be called downscaling quality.

 

[takaozo]

What a joke not even the mighty 4090 can't push this game too far

 

[Lew Zealand]

Even better: have a look at the 1% lows. Want to keep it above a paltry 60fps at a modest 1440p?

7900 XTX or 4090

Ok, just drop settings to Medium to include more GPUs. Medium gets you about 20% more fps and still looks pretty good.

1440p/60 Medium GPUs:

7900 XTX, 7900 XT
RTX 4090, 4080

 

[J95qRP7]

I don't see a problem with this. Let them do what they want. I'll do the same and buy the game when it hits 50% off, since I'm only getting 50% of the expected performance.

 

[return]

I can't even run it because it crashing.

 

[Rocky4040]

Got the game and it runs fine and plays smoothly. I am not sure what all the fuss is about. I don't even have FSR turned on. My rig is only an AMD Ryzen 9 5900x optimized with a sweet curve setting. An AMD Radeon 7900XTX and 32GB 3800Mhz DDR4. I have played for about 3 hours and the game runs just fine. Everything is on Ultra except Shadows which is at high setting. 1080p it averages around 176-182 FPS but in certain spots it will dip to 136-145 FPS. at 1440p FPS is still way over 100 FPS. and at 4K it goes down to 52-56fps with FSR at quality and 4K it hits 69-84 FPS this is on AMDS last set of drivers not the ones just released. I figure if AMD decides to optimize for the game in the next drivers FPS should go up even more. My point is if you got the hardware to play the game upscaling is not required to have a good gaming experience. I play it at 1440p no FSR because once turned on there is a weird halo around the character when you move around. FSR at 4K seems fine the weird halo effect is pretty much near gone. My GPU is set to +15 power target and core set to 3100 and it hovers around 2950-3025Mhz at 4K FSR Quality. At 1440p it sits at 3000-3075Mhz. This game seems to like AMD GPU's more so than Nvidia GPU's in my opinion.

 

[wiak]

Oh nooo people with 4090s and 7950X3D can't play a new game at 120fps, this used to be NORMAL, there is a reason people used to say "can it run crysis?"

 

[wiak]

I can't even run it because it crashing.

thats why you dont pre order and wait a week for them to fix the game

 

[Stingy McDuck]

Oh nooo people with 4090s and 7950X3D can't play a new game at 120fps, this used to be NORMAL, there is a reason people used to say "can it run crysis?"

Yeah, but Crysis looked amazing and way too advanced for it's time.

 

[wiak]

Yeah, but Crysis looked amazing and way too advanced for it's time.

true, crisis still looks pretty good to this day

 

[PsyDuck87]

What middle finger to 1080p users. FSR looks terrible on a 1080p monitor.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Got the game and it runs fine and plays smoothly. I am not sure what all the fuss is about. I don't even have FSR turned on. My rig is only an AMD Ryzen 9 5900x optimized with a sweet curve setting. An AMD Radeon 7900XTX and 32GB 3800Mhz DDR4. I have played for about 3 hours and the game runs just fine. Everything is on Ultra except Shadows which is at high setting. 1080p it averages around 176-182 FPS but in certain spots it will dip to 136-145 FPS. at 1440p FPS is still way over 100 FPS. and at 4K it goes down to 52-56fps with FSR at quality and 4K it hits 69-84 FPS this is on AMDS last set of drivers not the ones just released. I figure if AMD decides to optimize for the game in the next drivers FPS should go up even more. My point is if you got the hardware to play the game upscaling is not required to have a good gaming experience. I play it at 1440p no FSR because once turned on there is a weird halo around the character when you move around. FSR at 4K seems fine the weird halo effect is pretty much near gone. My GPU is set to +15 power target and core set to 3100 and it hovers around 2950-3025Mhz at 4K FSR Quality. At 1440p it sits at 3000-3075Mhz. This game seems to like AMD GPU's more so than Nvidia GPU's in my opinion.

So how do you explain all the reviewers being unable to hit such framerates? Or is your machine just magic?

Oh nooo people with 4090s and 7950X3D can't play a new game at 120fps, this used to be NORMAL, there is a reason people used to say "can it run crysis?"

Crysis was a game that pushed the boundaries of graphics, it still looks pretty good today.

Remnant 2 looks like something form the PS4.

These are not the same.

 

[godrilla]

Yeah, but Crysis looked amazing and way too advanced for it's time.

Crysis turned me into an enthusiast. I doubt anyone is enthusiastic about Remnant 2. Lol.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Imagine paying $1600+ for a GPU and not being able to run 4K 60.

 

[pcnthuziast]

Played the first. Got free on Epic. Gfx are a bit bland and nowhere near groundbreaking or stellar, but decent. Gameplay is repetitive AF, but that's the genre in general IMHO. All around good game for what it is, but not close to aaa quality. Feels about like a 20 dollar game at best.

 

[Nobina]

Got the game and it runs fine and plays smoothly. I am not sure what all the fuss is about. I don't even have FSR turned on. My rig is only an AMD Ryzen 9 5900x optimized with a sweet curve setting. An AMD Radeon 7900XTX and 32GB 3800Mhz DDR4. I have played for about 3 hours and the game runs just fine. Everything is on Ultra except Shadows which is at high setting. 1080p it averages around 176-182 FPS but in certain spots it will dip to 136-145 FPS. at 1440p FPS is still way over 100 FPS. and at 4K it goes down to 52-56fps with FSR at quality and 4K it hits 69-84 FPS this is on AMDS last set of drivers not the ones just released. I figure if AMD decides to optimize for the game in the next drivers FPS should go up even more. My point is if you got the hardware to play the game upscaling is not required to have a good gaming experience. I play it at 1440p no FSR because once turned on there is a weird halo around the character when you move around. FSR at 4K seems fine the weird halo effect is pretty much near gone. My GPU is set to +15 power target and core set to 3100 and it hovers around 2950-3025Mhz at 4K FSR Quality. At 1440p it sits at 3000-3075Mhz. This game seems to like AMD GPU's more so than Nvidia GPU's in my opinion.

You bought litteraly the fastest possible AMD GPU and you're gonna tell people game runs fine? You even admit you hit 52 FPS with FSR on 4K which is not even true 4K. Hmm, yeah, it runs perfect!

 

[scavengerspc]

A lot of people here predicted this, and here it is!
Kudos to all of you that saw this coming.

 

[kiwigraeme]

Well are the graphics spectacular??? - if not them this is a farce - As for DarK Souls - looks ugly as - dark , dreary textures hiding poor graphics - runs smooth - hardly surprising no detail or real lighting affects .
No one here has raved how beautiful this looks

Given its a fps . quick action game etc you would think optimising for smooth high frame rate would be a good priority

 

[bviktor]

So it's been like 10 years and game developers still can't figure out 4K 60 FPS.

Yet all we hear about 8K and 16K displays already.

What a joke.

 

[loki1944]

I don't see a problem with this. Let them do what they want. I'll do the same and buy the game when it hits 50% off, since I'm only getting 50% of the expected performance.

awesome

 

[ShadowDeath]

It's typical AAA developer BS. Make a game and don't bother optimizing it. Then pray that the next gen hardware will make up for your lack of optimizations.

 

[magisys]

What a shame.