Baldur's Gate 3 PC tech review: polish that puts other AAA games to shame : baldurs_gate

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

(Thankfully, you can use the launch command --skip-launcher to boot straight into the DX11 version of the game, or use --skip-launcher --vulkan to boot straight into Vulkan.)

And

In terms of overall recommendations then, I'd suggest DirectX 11 is a better choice than Vulkan for most users with Nvidia and AMD graphics cards, especially those with relatively modern CPUs that meet BG3's recommended specifications. While Vulkan did run better in static scenes when CPU-limited, its poorer performance than DX11 in NPC-rich areas is problematic, making DirectX 11 a better choice overall.

Looks like these guys say DirectX 11 is usually the better pick. I've been running Vulkan and the only negative I've seen is there is a large block that will flicker slightly on the right side of the screen in cinematics. I've going to try DirectX 11 and see if I get the same FPS and quality today. Vulkan with DLSS on quality I get around 100+ FPS. I have a Nvidia 3080TI and intel i7 12700KF.

Edit: I'm running the game on a 4k TV with 120hz. Looks great.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is so funny because it’s the opposite recommendation I’ve seen basically everywhere else. All other notes I’ve seen have recommended Vulcan for newer hardware. I’ve been running vulkan as well and have had no issues at all. 6800xt here.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Digital Foundry did their own testing and found that DX11 is better most of the time, but in some CPU-limited situations you can get higher framerates with Vulkan. Performance differed a bit across hardware manufacturers. YMMV

[–] shastaxc 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

RIP EVGA

[–] ThayWizGwar 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Such a loss. I'm sure Vince will land on his feet. But it's just hard to watch, a brand evaporate like this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I have a 5900x and a 2080S with 32G of ram. Vulcan triple buffering didn't work and it crashed on me in my brief time trying it. DX11 has been fine mostly. No crashes, but after playing for a while I'll occasionally just have my fps tank and start stuttering and have to quit the game and relaunch and it'll be fine. Running basically ultra 4k dlss on balanced or performance. Tried both, both give me 60fps.

[–] DepressedCoconut 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wut, i have a 3080 and a i5 10600k. I get stable 100 fps without dlss on and everything else cranked up to max on 2k res. Why have dlss on at that point? If you run 4k i'll understand.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I'm running it on a 4k TV with 120hz. Looks great.

[–] Frawley 3 points 1 year ago

I got to baldur's Gates but I said huge stuttering issues. I've got a 3080 TI and no problems anywhere else in the game. I switch from direct x11 to Vulcan and had no more issues.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I tried both and there is one particular late game fight with lots of NPCs that just murders my setup (5700X3D and 1070 Ti) on DX11 (30-60 fps) while the fight ran fine on Vulkan (60-70 fps) . Since it's quite late into the game, the reviewer probably didn't come across this issue. Or my setup is just weird.

[–] SirStumps 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's Kings like you that really make the world better. I will use your code to launch straight to the game.

I have found I have no game crashes with DX11 where I have had 3 with Vulkan and a computer blue screen on Vulcan. I am running on a 3080ti.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Wife and I are loving it but it needs some tunning for sure. Performance struggles and crashes are pretty common, and my wife clipped through a door just after the tutorial section. Didn't do anything crazy, just walked right on through a locked door.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Agreed on the tuning needed, but I'm surprised to hear how many have had crashes. I haven't had a single crash in like 50 hours of playing and another 50hours with it idling while I take breaks.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I agree it's odd. For some it's constant and others it's unheard of. Hopefully they're able to track it down. 3 patches since release is a good sign.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

My cousin is having crashing but we realized she had her video settings too high for her pc to handle

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I haven't had any crashes, but I've had loads of other issues. Laezel constantly breaks requiring a reload, scripts sometimes don't fire correctly so you don't get an important buff or item necessary to progress, my characters constantly end up naked after going to camp because it wants to hide their armor automatically and doesn't unhide it when you leave, my proficiencies are often not applied to rolls, etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Damn that sucks. I've had a few minor scripting issues and Shadowheart got legit stuck once, but other than that smooth sailing

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Vulkan crashed on me on launch day. And I haven't had a crash since then with 30 hours of play now. I would play more but I work long hours during the week.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Crazy, haven't experienced anything like that. Do you meet the minimum specs, and are you running it on an HDD or an SSD?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I3 12100f, gtx 1060 3gb, and ssd on Linux. We since switched to steam deck where we have only had 1 crash. I should be hitting a bit over the minimum specs but my bet is I was running out of vram in cutscenes where the detail is higher.

[–] YayIguess 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

4GB of VRAM is in the minimum requirements, seeing as you have a 12th gen Intel you really might want to look at getting a GPU upgrade. You can find used 6600/XT's or 6700's for pretty cheap and that would roughly double (or more) your performance in pretty much every game.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That is a good catch, I clearly glossed over that. I recently gave most of my rig a facelift as I was bottlenecked by my old CPU. A GPU is 100% next in line but thankfully we're still enjoying the game on our Decks.

[–] Crashumbc -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

linux There's your answer,

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Nah the game runs fine on SteamDeck, which is Linux. It's the 3gb of vram.

[–] SilverFlame 3 points 1 year ago

I walked through a cracked stone wall when I tried to attack it.

[–] dezmd 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

don't die on the top of a ladder, you might by lying in the air next to it and no one will be able to rez

[–] _Mantissa 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

you can directly target allies with health potions to pick them up btw. It might need a surface under it to apply the healing though, I've never tested it on someone floating lol. healing spells will always work though, especially

spoiler; spell name

mass healing word

which doesn't require you to target them directly.

[–] dezmd 1 points 1 year ago

I mean a full death that requires a 'touch' distance to use a resurrection scroll, not just a 'mostly dead' character. ;)

[–] MrBodyMassage 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Any game that

spoiler

___has an owl bear and a dog become friends and playfully chase each other around gets an A+ in my book

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

AAA Executive 1: What could they have done to be so successful?! No fun micro transactions? No wacky costume packs? What was it?

AAA Executive 2: My second wife's kid said something about a bear owl and cat playing tag was his favorite part.

AAA Executive 1: That's it! Lets start pumping out bear cat tag DLCs and events for all our games!

[+] NathanielThomas 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Some of the reviews I have read mentioned the Divinity series and that BG3 was built using the engine Larian made- Divinity 4.0 engine.

A lot of developers are using the Unreal Engine.

[–] JimmyMcGill 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I’m loving the game don’t get me wrong but I wouldn’t say that polished is the word that I would describe it with.

The game is definitely buggy (I believe that playing split screen only makes this more apparent). That being said I don’t know how AAA games are usually shipped because I basically never buy them at launch (except CP2077 which I promptly refunded because that was a complete mess) so if they are usually much worse that is more that the whole industry standard has dropped down massively.

EA definitely helped but I wonder if Larian made the right choice by releasing it ahead of schedule. Maybe not, they are being praised massively for BG3, which is 100% an amazing game but imo it very much needs a patch or two still.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Folks aren't ready to accept it but it's true. I'm loving the game, I really am, and I even recommend it, but it really needs more polish. I guess the bar really is just that low for people. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills seeing everyone saying it's perfect. A game can be great but still need polish.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Agreed, it's a great game to the point that I'm willing to look past the jankiness, but there are some huge gaps right now. For examples, I have Asterion equipped with a finesse longsword and it seems like the sneak attack animation is missing, the game just hangs for 5 seconds and then computes damage every time.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah I'm kind of baffled that I keep hearing about how polished it is - don't get me wrong, it's an amazing game and my wife and I have been playing practically every night - but I don't think a single night has passed yet where we haven't run into a fairly major bug, and usually a whole shit load of minor ones

Just last night I went to withers to change my class, when halfway through the dialogue, Li'zael popped up with some random, unprompted dialogue, canceling my class change without refunding my 100g

[–] _Mantissa 2 points 1 year ago

day 01 of begging Larian to fix the Spell Sniper feat

[–] Ravaja 2 points 1 year ago

Definitely buggy as shit, have had several issues straight halt progress, not to mention tons of hiccups with stuff like starting conversation. I'm having a blast and love this game, but it is still in EA as far as I'm concerned

[–] a1_15 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

is this game any good for peeps who never got into DnD or virtual turn based games?

[–] _Mantissa 3 points 1 year ago

I've never done any dnd but I did do some turn based games like xcom and civ so take it for what it's worth. Me and my group are having a grand old time. It started off a little bit rough for me as a wizard and not really understanding how the math behind combat works but there is an in-game combat log that you can hover over that shows all your bonuses, what targets you need to hit, and what you rolled (typically, it will do the DnD dice rolls in the background for you). But not so rough that it wasn't fun, just rough enough that I got really engaged in learning the system and mastering it. The really nice thing is that you can respec your character so if you are the type to get paralyzed by character creation, dont worry! use the recommended stats and as you naturally learn more about the game you can change them to better fit your style. I liked it enough that I started a solo run for when the group cant get together. I'd say if you are really interested in the story then solo is the best bet.

[–] howsetheraven 3 points 1 year ago

I think it needs to be said that even with some of the bugs and rare crashes, (I haven't crashed yet in 100 hours but there have been times I thought it might, ymmv) they are almost inconsequential given the sheer depth of the game. I can forgive things like that when you just take into how many different ways you can engage with the content. I say almost because they are certainly there and you should definitely save before and after most encounters and very often, along with pruning your excess saves when the file gets too big.

Apart from that, this is GOTY easily.

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