I'm not sure what's going on, but the game's performance tanks for me now after I die as you can see in the video (playback is choppy but you can see the framerate on the RTSS overlay). When I first load up the game it runs well using Alex's optimized settings with DLSS Performance, but after dying the framerate inexplicably plummets and never recovers. I'd be interested if anybody can replicate it. This is on my old 2080 TI with the Direct Storage DLLs removed. I know the game has some weirdness with its LOD management, maybe it's trying to render the highest LOD for everything after dying? Idk.
Ratchet & Clank technical analysis *spawn
- Thread starter Inuhanyou
- Start date
Flappy Pannus
Veteran
It still has the issue with the latest patch where vram balloons if you change any reconstruction setting after game boot, but no - I don't have an issue with dying reducing performance on my system:
I was just about to post this morning after seeing it on twitter. Pretty interesting behaviour, I wonder if Nixxes can do anything here as it definitely decreases the janky feel of those transitions on PC when the pso file is gone.
Very interesting, I've now had a chance to test on my system and can also confirm the portal sequence is now faster and smoother. I've got 2 observations relating to this:
1. I'm even more convinced now that the portal sequence is deliberately limited on PC to prevent it running too quickly (either on current or future hardware) which would make the transitions look janky. It's too coincidental that on a wide range of performance profiles, the actual timing of the entire sequence is almost identical both across the PC range of hardware and the PS5. I suspect the baseline timing is one element of the equation which would mean in the most ideal circumstances the PC can match (within half a second or so) the baseline PS5 timing, but then any additional processes on the PC side like this PSO caching can be additive to the overall timing, hence why prior to this find, all hardware was always slower, even if just marginally.
2. There's something wrong with the transition between the rails sequence and the 'sliding down roof' sequence. Not only does the portal appear much closer to Ratchet on PC making it appear less smooth overall, but Ratchet actually jumps back a bit towards the camera when it does in what appears to be a broken animation.
Flappy Pannus
Veteran
Yeah I noticed that as well. Also perhaps not specifically related, but the frame pacing/camera movement in most cutscenes still has some jank as well, that has not been fixed.
So I think I might have finally worked out what the issue is. Unfortunately it seems to be VRAM limitations. When I switch textures from Very High to High Textures AND reset the game, I now see much higher frame rates and energy draw alongside lower system RAM usage. VRAM use doesn't read much differently in Afterburner but I suspect that's just because the game loads up spare VRAM if it's available, at least to a point.
At this point toggling FG does indeed give the expected performance increase. I'm going to try shutting everything non-essential down now to see if I can claw enough vram back to put textures back up to very high.
Flappy Pannus
Veteran
The game has had bizarre vram management issues when futzing with settings since launch, yep. Pretty much to be safe you have to dial in your settings and relaunch the game.
This game is one of the first games since the mid 2000s I've seen where AF impacts performance.
Well, I tried reinstalling the game and deleting the roaming data, this time not touching the Direct Storage DLLs or anything else, and it still does it. Sometimes changing a graphics setting after dying will fix the performance, and sometimes it won't. No idea what's going on lol.
DavidGraham
Veteran
Turns out DS is not even needed. PC can beat PS5 without it.
Flappy Pannus
Veteran
It never had any effect really, except higher GPU usage on Nvidia from the outset, so not surprising. My tests were done without DS, I might bench it against a PS5 again but just from memory without the pso cache file, it would be identical, if not slightly faster on my modest rig. The biggest improvement was the stuttering in transitions, without the psocache it's been reduced significantly, DS or not.
However, that rift sequence is not the most demanding in the game, and it's also not really interactive. That's with a bug racing trial in the game which atm on the PC, has some significant pauses when transitioning to a couple of worlds. As it doesn't scale with texture setting like the rift sequence does my guess this is not necessarily a problem with streaming performance but some other bug, but regardless as to the reason, as it stands now the one area in the game that actually involves gameplay and rift transitioning performs much worse on the PC than the PS5. We'll see what the next patch brings.
I'mDudditz was so sure that it was all the extra tech that the PS5 has that was preventing any PC from being able to match the PS5 in that scenario too..
It's quite clear to me that if the devs actually took this game and utilized the PCs unique capabilities (RAM capacity).. it could actually probably be what I would call "instantaneous". Even as it is the only reason why those transition screens are there is to cover up the unsightly process of swapping out the geometry and updating the lighting. I guess there's only so fast that they can actually do that, regardless of whether the data for the next world is already in memory.
It's quite clear to me that if the devs actually took this game and utilized the PCs unique capabilities (RAM capacity).. it could actually probably be what I would call "instantaneous". Even as it is the only reason why those transition screens are there is to cover up the unsightly process of swapping out the geometry and updating the lighting. I guess there's only so fast that they can actually do that, regardless of whether the data for the next world is already in memory.
davis.anthony
Veteran
We all knew it was the game itself that was the problem.
I'm just interested to see what the Devs do with all this new testing and things people have found, hopefully they implement changes.
I'm just interested to see what the Devs do with all this new testing and things people have found, hopefully they implement changes.
davis.anthony
Veteran
I can just imagine Nixxes looking at twitter right now shaking their heads and being like.. "no.. don't delete your cache.pso file.." lol
People are out there just telling people to delete the file, not really clarifying that if you haven't already built up a complete driver side shader cache for the game the experience will be horrible lol
Some people are even saying that they intentionally "planted the file there to make the PS5 version look superior" smh...
People are out there just telling people to delete the file, not really clarifying that if you haven't already built up a complete driver side shader cache for the game the experience will be horrible lol
Some people are even saying that they intentionally "planted the file there to make the PS5 version look superior" smh...
Hah, just saw this image posted, Rebecca (from Nixxes) has responded to this on discord
She says there's improvements which are possible for the way they handle this. Would be awesome to see an official, workable solution.
I assume this is the talk she's referring to:
Advanced Graphics Summit: 'Marvel's Spider-Man' Remastered: A PC Postmortem
Marvels Spider-Man was originally developed by Insomniac Games in partnership with Sony Interactive Entertainment and Marvel for PlayStation 4 in 2018, followed by the PlayStation 5 version Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered in 2020. Marvel's...
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