Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a stellar RPG, however as you could have seen in our efficiency evaluation it is not precisely the smoothest one. It is extremely demanding on CPUs, leading to efficiency points that you just will not be capable to escape no matter how beefy your rig is. Capcom is conscious of this, it says, however it appears unlikely they will be resolved by launch.
Talking with IGN, a Capcom consultant defined that “a considerable amount of CPU utilization is allotted to every character and dynamically calculates the influence of their bodily presence in varied environments. In sure conditions the place quite a few characters seem concurrently, the CPU utilization could be very excessive and should have an effect on the body charge”.
This explains why, as Nick famous in his efficiency evaluation, “any location the place there are a number of buildings and NPCs” places a heavy pressure on CPUs, and “general efficiency drops significantly”. That is most noticeable within the Vermund capital of Vernworth, which you may encounter early within the recreation. It is essentially the most densely-packed settlement, with a lot of NPCs wandering round always of the day.
I assumed I might don’t have any points on condition that I used to be reviewing Dragon’s Dogma 2 on a high-end setup: RTX 4090, Intel i9-13900k, 32GB RAM. And for a lot of the sport the body charge is totally acceptable. With ray tracing on I have been getting round 80-100 fps, generally larger, when adventuring within the wilderness. However any time I hand around in Vernworth, it tanks, and I not often get larger than 60 fps, and it usually drops to 40 fps or decrease.
Tweaking graphics settings does little good. That is additionally one thing that Capcom acknowledges, however it’s nonetheless wanting into options. “We’re conscious that in such conditions, settings that cut back GPU load might at present have a restricted impact; nonetheless, we’re wanting into methods to enhance efficiency sooner or later.”
Whereas Dragon’s Dogma 2’s NPCs aren’t mind useless mannequins and comply with particular routines, few of them are what I might contemplate important. Other than these referring to quests, most of them do find yourself serving largely as set dressing, giving areas like Vernworth the phantasm of life. I doubt Capcom’s answer can be to chop the variety of NPCs, but when that have been to occur there’d be little misplaced.
The efficiency points did not massively detract from my enjoyment of what’s an distinctive RPG, however most gamers aren’t going to be working it on a PC with my specs. And given the period of time you may spend in Vernworth, the problems are completely noticeable, even once they’re not being very disruptive.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 launches this night within the US and at midnight within the UK. To search out out when it launches in your area, check out our Dragon’s Dogma 2 launch timetable.