In Dark Souls 3, however, we see a wide variation in frame persistence times ranging from 16.7ms to 50ms. In a 30fps game, each frame should persist on-screen for 33ms in order to provide an even, consistent presentation. Patch 1.03 arrived in time for the Western launch, and improves frame-rates significantly in trouble-spots.Īs things stand, there are some minor drops to frame-rate in the current code, but the more noticeable, persistent issue concerns frame-pacing. Players of the Japanese code have noted performance issues in earlier builds of the game. With our saves operating at version 1.03, and without the ability to return to older versions of the game, it's not possible to re-test, but we can at least confirm that new players shouldn't run into anything too serious - just be sure to download the latest update for the game as soon as you start playing. We only have limited assets showing issues on earlier builds but the snapshot of the game shown below tells its own story: Dark Souls 3 still has some issues, but the optimisation effort has paid off - 1.03 is clearly running much more smoothly.Īs things stand, it's very likely that early adopters did indeed run into performance issues in certain areas of the game. Now, all of Dark Souls 3's updates have mentioned performance improvements, but 1.03 actually delivers some tangible improvements. These tests were carried out with the latest patch - 1.03. However, the evidence suggests that this wasn't always the case. Lothric Castle definitely exhibits extended dips to roughly 28fps at certain points, but aside from this specific section, the game maintains a 30fps average fairly easily. While slowdown is present at points, it is limited to minor pockets triggered by asset streaming or alpha effects in close proximity to the camera. After playing through each of these areas, we noted some issues, but failed to encounter anything resembling the apparently crippled performance levels being reported. We tackled three key areas - Farron Keep, Irithyll of Boreal and Lothric Castle - each of which has been reported as a trouble spot by multiple users. If frame-rates degraded later on in the game, we needed to check it out. Clearly, remaining spoiler-free wasn't going to cut it.

Since then, many players have reached the end of the game and reports have emerged, suggesting that late game regions were suffering from sluggish performance reminiscent of Blighttown - the original Dark Souls' most notorious performance trouble spot. We took advantage of this, testing the performance level of the earlier, spoiler-free parts of the game. Dark Souls 3 was released in Japan a few weeks before the rest of the world, offering an early glimpse at the game on both PS4 and Xbox One.

Dark souls 3 codex 1.8