Despite receiving critical acclaim and cementing itself one of the highest-rated games of all time, Elden Ring has been having a rough time on Steam. The game is currently sitting at a mixed rating (opens in new tab) with 60% of its 19,000 user reviews being positive.
It's all down to the squiffy performance PC players have been dealing with. It's something Tyler also grappled with in his Elden Ring review (opens in new tab), though the hopes were that a day one patch (opens in new tab) would fix the issues. While it did squash some of the early build's major bugs, players are still experiencing major framerate drops, stuttering, crashes and screen tearing. (opens in new tab)
Complaints about poor optimisation are happening across both positive and negative reviews, with one Steam review (opens in new tab) summarising it as "Elden Ring runs like liquid ass," while another review (opens in new tab)called it a "typical FromSoftware PC port." Players also lamented the addition of Easy Anti-Cheat which makes modding fixes for these things more difficult.
do not buy elden ring on pc if you want to play it right now imothe pc port is VERY bad and laggy, capped at 60 and drops to 10-20 frames maybe every 5 seconds during bossfights, (ON LOWEST SETTINGS) will eat inputs and get you killed constantly. Just current first impression.February 25, 2022
Controller input also appears to be mighty sporadic, with one review claiming it only works "80% of the time." It's not exactly clear what's causing the problem, though we've put together a few fixes if Elden Ring isn't recognising your controller (opens in new tab). While it's a choice than a bug, reviews have also lamented the 60fps cap and lack of ultrawide support.
On the other hand, many have reported a smooth experience and very few issues while playing. It seems pretty random as to who deals with the issues. A friend of mine who recently installed some pretty beefy upgrades has been dealing with some intense stuttering issues, which he said was making bosses "literally unbeatable." However, some Steam reviews are reporting little-to-no issues on midrange rigs, so it seems like a case of your mileage may vary.
Poor optimisation had been a worry in the run-up to Elden Ring's release—between FromSoftware's track record and suspiciously beefy minimum specs, it was already expected that some players may end up having a hard time getting a smooth experience. While we've got some recommended settings for Elden Ring (opens in new tab) to help that happen, it might be a case of waiting for future patches before PC players can experience the game in its best form.
In fact, just as I finish writing this, a brief update (opens in new tab) has been provided on the current state of the PC version. A small news post on Bandai Namco's website acknowledges the frame rate and Easy Anti-Cheat issues, writing: "We will be constantly working to improve the game so that it can be played comfortably on various PC environments and platforms."
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