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Rage's PC Launch Problems Attributed to Driver Issues [UPDATED]

id Software, Bethesda working with hardware creators to smooth things out.

Expect a full review of Rage from Mr. Shoemaker pretty soon.
Expect a full review of Rage from Mr. Shoemaker pretty soon.

UPDATED: ATI/AMD have issued updated drivers for Rage, which you can download here.

We've installed the updated drivers on our in-office machine, and the frame rate and texture pop-in seems much improved. There's still texture pop-in, but that's just part of the engine at this point. There does appear to be some significant tearing, however, which proved pretty distracting.

--

If there was one thing people expected from Rage, it's that the PC version would be impeccable on day one. If PC owners could count on any developer to knock it out of the park, it would be the father of the first-person-shooter. Right? Right?

Unfortunately, for reasons partially out of id Software's control, Rage has had a bumpy launch since its midnight unlocking around the Internet.

The response from players has been...loud. Just take a look at the gaming section of Reddit today.

The main issue is performance, which id Software and Bethesda Softworks are currently squarely blaming on driver issues. Players are experiencing an incredible amount of texture pop-in, especially so on ATI/AMD cards. We can confirm this, having loaded Rage on our in-office PC. It's inexcusably bad right now.

The texture pop-in is not exclusive to PC; it's also very much present on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

There are problems with both ATI/AMD and nVidia cards, but it's reportedly most egregious on ATI/AMD.

"While many folks are playing RAGE on PC and not running into issues," said the company on its blog, "we’re aware that some of you are experiencing issues with screen tearing and texture issues. These problems can be attributed to driver issues, and we’re currently working with Nvidia and AMD to resolve them as quickly as possible."

For the moment, it's recommended you do not update the ATI/AMD drivers and wait for the updated drivers to come "in a few hours," according to AMD's Catalyst developer on Twitter. Also, if you're using the Battlefield 3-specific drivers, the CTD (Crash to Desktop) rate is apparently 100%. A driver/battlefield-3/61-27006/ rollback is necessary there.

nVidia owners should be using the current beta drivers, which will be automatically include more Rage-specific improvements as they happen, so long as you've flipped updates on.

Expect more updates on this throughout the day.

Patrick Klepek on Google+

178 Comments

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Shenanigans19

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Edited By Shenanigans19

Stopped home on my lunch break to fire up rage, just to see if I had any issues. I did have some major texture pop-in issues with my GTX260s in SLI, tho I didn't have time to get the newest drivers installed. Will do that first thing when I get home, hopefully it will take care of that. Unplayable the way it is right now.

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ribeye

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Edited By ribeye

yay nvidia sucks less!!!!

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bigstupidface

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Edited By bigstupidface

"should be using the current beta drivers"

I'm sorry but that's bullshit. No one should need beta drivers for anything.

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Anthony

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Edited By Anthony

@Vegsen said:

Remember when games used to work perfectly on day one?

When was that? Even Starcraft 1 had a day-1 patch

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Branthog

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Edited By Branthog

Does this mean we're going to start running two dozen different video drivers?

Okay, I'm done playing Rage today. Time to play BF3. Better switch drivers!

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LordCmdrStryker

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Edited By LordCmdrStryker

Yet another reason to never buy AMD (ATi) video cards. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to playing RAGE on my 560Ti.

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SSully

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Edited By SSully

John Carmack has been building to many rockets, he needs to set his priorities straight!

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B_Heart

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Edited By B_Heart

Good to hear they are trying to fix this as quickly as possible

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Vexxan

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Edited By Vexxan

Remember when games used to work perfectly on day one?

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Crash_Happy

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Edited By Crash_Happy

I think Brad ought just post his review and add any appropriate addendum later.

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Vinny_Says

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Edited By Vinny_Says

no no no no PC is best platform.

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gbrading

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Edited By gbrading

Kind of expected this to be honest. This is why I'm probably waiting a few months before I play Rage, to when it gets smoothed out. The same thing happens with many PC games these days, sadly.

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FirePrince

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Edited By FirePrince

@Delta_Ass said:

Sounds like there's a lot of rage over these problems.

Dear god.

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Afroman269

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Edited By Afroman269

Rage's PC Launch Problems Creates Rage

Why did you past that up?!

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James0890

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Edited By James0890

@Gav47: People have a right to complain when the product they got was shit, if all my others games work fine on AMD cards how is it their fault that Rage is broken at launch?

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MachoFantastico

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Edited By MachoFantastico

Mate as been going mad about this all day, it's even unplayable for him. What a joke!

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therealminime

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Edited By therealminime

The drivers do not help at all. The texture simply do not load in some spots, or when they do, they are hideously low resolution. Pretty much none of the Dead City section textures are loading whatsoever.

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delta_ass

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Edited By delta_ass

Sounds like there's a lot of rage over these problems.

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Gav47

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Edited By Gav47

Sad to see the game getting so much hate for this (I'm looking at you Steam forums). Its really AMD's fault for always putting out shitty OpenGL drivers. Hope this is fixed before the European launch. 

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wolf_blitzer85

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Edited By wolf_blitzer85

I saw some video for this problem. It completely boggles my mind that this got missed, during play testing. Especially since this seems so widespread.

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limpbishop

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Edited By limpbishop

But - have they put Top Men into fixing this? - if not, then get a hold of Vinny - he will allocate the needed resources!

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InternetDetective

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How did they not know about these problems, did the play tester not notice?

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Rattle618

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Edited By Rattle618

This is so disgusting I cant even start, fuck them.

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iamjohn

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Edited By iamjohn

@rjayb89 said:

I bet too much ICI points on this. I will lose all one million of them.

Aw man, that's fucking harsh. Hope it works out for ya yet.

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coffeelars

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Edited By coffeelars

Kinda glad I have to wait to the European launch on Friday, hopefully they will have fixed it by then.

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dekkadekkadekka

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Edited By dekkadekkadekka

Glad to see they're on top of this.

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rjayb89

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Edited By rjayb89

I bet too much ICI points on this. I will lose all one million of them.

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Edited By patrickklepek
Expect a full review of Rage from Mr. Shoemaker pretty soon.
Expect a full review of Rage from Mr. Shoemaker pretty soon.

UPDATED: ATI/AMD have issued updated drivers for Rage, which you can download here.

We've installed the updated drivers on our in-office machine, and the frame rate and texture pop-in seems much improved. There's still texture pop-in, but that's just part of the engine at this point. There does appear to be some significant tearing, however, which proved pretty distracting.

--

If there was one thing people expected from Rage, it's that the PC version would be impeccable on day one. If PC owners could count on any developer to knock it out of the park, it would be the father of the first-person-shooter. Right? Right?

Unfortunately, for reasons partially out of id Software's control, Rage has had a bumpy launch since its midnight unlocking around the Internet.

The response from players has been...loud. Just take a look at the gaming section of Reddit today.

The main issue is performance, which id Software and Bethesda Softworks are currently squarely blaming on driver issues. Players are experiencing an incredible amount of texture pop-in, especially so on ATI/AMD cards. We can confirm this, having loaded Rage on our in-office PC. It's inexcusably bad right now.

The texture pop-in is not exclusive to PC; it's also very much present on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

There are problems with both ATI/AMD and nVidia cards, but it's reportedly most egregious on ATI/AMD.

"While many folks are playing RAGE on PC and not running into issues," said the company on its blog, "we’re aware that some of you are experiencing issues with screen tearing and texture issues. These problems can be attributed to driver issues, and we’re currently working with Nvidia and AMD to resolve them as quickly as possible."

For the moment, it's recommended you do not update the ATI/AMD drivers and wait for the updated drivers to come "in a few hours," according to AMD's Catalyst developer on Twitter. Also, if you're using the Battlefield 3-specific drivers, the CTD (Crash to Desktop) rate is apparently 100%. A driver/battlefield-3/61-27006/ rollback is necessary there.

nVidia owners should be using the current beta drivers, which will be automatically include more Rage-specific improvements as they happen, so long as you've flipped updates on.

Expect more updates on this throughout the day.