Opinions are apparently mixed, and hopefully this title will receive some heavy patching.

Reports of random crashing, framerate drops and overall PC shenanigans are unfortunately more common than not.

Things that might help you:

• Turn off AA
• Turn off V-Sync
• Turn off AO
• Don't play on mouse and keyboard, just don't

FIXES

• Run in Borderless Windowed mode to circumvent fullscreen bug (Borderless Gaming download link)
• Install unofficial fan patch by known modder Kaldaien that fixes the fullscreen bug and is reported to have improved performance for some ( Steam Forums Link )

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Lots of in-depth info on GAF (thanks to @slag for link)

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Digital Foundry breakdown thanks to @zurv

PC Specs:

MINIMUM:

• • OS: Windows 7 /8.1 /10 64bit
  • Processor: Intel Core i3 2100 or AMD A8-6500
  • Memory: 4 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 VRAM 2GB or AMD Radeon R9 270X VRAM 2GB
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 50 GB available space
  • Sound Card: DirectX® 11 supported
  • Additional Notes: Mouse, keyboard and game pad (XInput only). Screen resolution: 1280x720

RECOMMENDED:

• • OS: Windows 8.1 /10 64bit
  • Processor: Intel Core i5 4670 or AMD A10-7850K
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 VRAM 4GB or AMD Radeon R9 380X VRAM 4GB
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 50 GB available space
  • Sound Card: DirectX® 11 supported
  • Additional Notes: Mouse, keyboard and game pad (XInput only). Screen resolution: 1920x1080. Depending on the monitor and PC graphics card environment and setup used, this title can expand its display resolution to 4K. However, please be aware that 4K resolutions are not officially supported.

------------------------------------------------------------------Original Post------------------------------------------------------------------

So the game is out on PC. Granted it's only been a short while that it's out but are there any people that have played it and can give some first impressions on how this performs on PC? Graphic options, framerate? Any weirdness with controller support? Is there support for mouse and keyboard for the lunatics out there that would want to play it that way?

Is it generally a good port? I don't expect it to look amazing or anything, but I hope it runs smooth and has short load times.

I would love to tell you if it weren't for the fact that they region locked it.

Heard some chatter on the Steam forums that the frame rate's cap.

Reading the steam page, people say its not good.

hearing that the keyboard and mouse controls are absolutely fucked. granted its mostly a controller game anyway.

Can't get past prologue due to pretty much display freezing [in fullscreen] bug on my 1060 [it seems to concern people with rx470 & 480 too.]

Also, fullscreen is kinda broken as it downscales to 900p.

And cutscenes are prerendered and locked at not-smooth 30 fps.

So not great. Waiting for patch \ new drivers.

EDIT: Re: Controller support - xinput only as far as I can tell, steam thinks it does not support controllers, so it definitely ignores steam controller api. Though it works fine with dual shock 4 via ds4windows [360 prompts though, as pretty much always]

I've only played it for about an hour but the port seems good so far. It doesn't have the most extensive options list but there is a few fairly standard things you can change like resolution, anti-aliasing, texture filtering, and things like that. Load times are quick but I've got it installed to an SSD(they're probably not long on a regular hard drive though). Frame rate is a solid 60 at 1080p with all settings maxed on my 980 although nvidia's stupid auto-config thing suggests I turn down the AA I haven't noticed any drops in frame rate.

There is keyboard+mouse support but I'm using a xbox360 controller and didn't notice any weirdness with it, at one point the batteries in my controller died and I was able to pause by hitting esc then go fetch some new ones and reconnect it just fine.

The only bug I've noticed is that it doesn't always draw the crosshair when you're aiming. I'm not totally sure if that is a bug or if the game is trying to hide it as some weird tutorial thing since it has done that with other things already.

Overall it seems like a good port, I'll report back later once I've had some more time to play it.

Edit: hmmmm I didn't notice it downscaling or cutscenes being at 30fps but I'm still pretty early in the game, I'll have to keep an eye out for that.

@chris_sereday: it's steam forums though so don't trust it one bit,

Boy that doesn't sound comforting at all.

The early port reports I've seen are mixed to negative. Frame rate not holding steady even on very high end systems and general poor PC optimization seem to be the culprits.

We'll see what serious analysts like Digital Foundry have to say.

Everything I've been reading has said it's a really bad port. Very disappointing, was thinking of getting it but it appears that would be a mistake.

That's too bad.

The console version has some frame drops in a lot of areas but fortunately never in combat where it would really matter. Was still hoping they'd clear it up for PC though.

The issues people are having on Steam have been called out by the devs, it sounds like if you are trying to run it on an AMD card there are some issues.

I just made a thread on Steam and it seems many Nvidia users are having these issues too. How can the devs possibly test it on a variety of systems if they're unwilling to send out review copies or release an early demo like on the consoles? This is why you shouldn't pre-order. You tell the devs that their work is done before the game is even out.

Cutscenes are at 30fps. Game runs weird for a lot of people in fullscreen. Get borderless gaming, set the game up at the resolution you want + windowed mode and use borderless gaming to fix most the issues fullscreen causes for the moment. For me, the game was locking to 30fps ingame with vsync on though with vsync off I stuck at 60 with terrible tearing. That "fix" solved the issue for me, for now.

The framerate seems fine for me but I need to play more. I'm also running a geforce 1070, so there's that. Only just beat the demo prologue area then got busy with other stuff. They introduced higher than 1080 resolutions to the game, just, and they seem a bit unofficial for now.

Besides the crashing, which I don't know if the windowed mode fixes cause I didn't experience them myself, the port seems fine. Not great, but fine. A lot of people getting unplayable framerates are on laptops and the game is using their onboard chip by default. I'll be playing more to see how it holds up for me.

I played about 90 minutes of it. Seems fine, but there's some issues. Cutscenes have a lower framerate than gameplay. It's odd because they seem to be in engine.

Besides that, it runs pretty good. I'm running it at 1440p at a solid 60 FPS. I heard people mentioning the game crashing, but I've gotten to the open world portion of the game and it hasn't crashed yet.

@humanity: I saw my brother playing it earlier today. It ran very smoothly at 1440p on his 1070/6600K, though I'm pretty sure it's capped at 60FPS. Seemed like a fine port.

But then, my standards are fairly low, I guess? If it runs at a smooth 60FPS on a reasonable machine, I can change the resolution, I can rebind keys or has good controller support, and it doesn't crash, it passes all of my personal tests.

I dunno at this point. I held off on buying the PS4 version because I just upgraded my PC so I thought hey why not right, lets get that rock solid 60FPS especially since the game doesn't seem that technically demanding. Now half the people in this thread are saying it's a terrible port, while the other half like yourself are saying it works fine. I'm actually contemplating just getting the PS4 version because the alternative is taking part in what I absolutely hate, mainly the wonderful "PC lottery" where your components either agree with a game and it's a smooth ride or it's a nightmare with constant crashes, frame drops and lord knows what else and all you can really do is sit there and wait for a patch.

I guess I could get a refund if it acts like complete ass, I've never done this before but apparently it's a pretty easy process? It's just a shame that this isn't a uniform "works awesome!" across the board. Just when PC ports started being a sure-bet.

Played for 2 more hours in the open world. Framerate is a solid 60 outside of cutscenes, but again I'm on a 3570k/1070. Only playing at 1080p. I tried at 4k but the framerate didn't seem good, 40~, haven't bothered seeing if I can get it better now or go for a middle resolution.

No crashing for me, borderless gaming fixed the issues I had, and apparently keyboard and mouse controls are complete junk. I want to be "I'm sorry" to people who planned on playing this game with that control scheme, but at the same time I don't see why after all these years of console ports people expect and want to play any and every game with keyboard and mouse. Doesn't excuse bad controls, I just feel at this point you need to get something to play these types of games with.

That's my anecdotal evidence for how the game runs. Draw distance isn't super for shadow effects/foliage, probably the same as console if I had to guess, but a solid framerate when it sounds like console has some dips makes this still the better version for me.

@humanity: I don't know about the Steam Refund process, but I know people who have gotten refunds before and it seems easy enough. The first bit of Nier Automata is pretty action packed and probably as demanding as the game gets, so I'd say try it and if it doesn't work, refund it and go get the PS4 version.

Anybody who complains about how this game controls with a keyboard and mouse immediately loses any right to complain about how a first person shooter controls with a controller.

Grab game on Steam, make sure you don't spend hours working out if it's running correctly, go through the refund process if it's broken as that's why the system exists - to prevent issues with buying something that doesn't run right.

Also, as to "doesn't seem that technically demanding" - this is a game that's 900p without anti-aliasing on the PS4 and only hits 1080p with a basic post-processed AA (FXAA-style) on the Pro version, ie on the highest end of current console gaming. While there's a question of if that's comes through on-screen (where the 60fps target certainly is more burdensome than games that target 30 on console), I don't think there's a question as to if this game is really scraping by with even the top end of console performance. I'm not at all shocked that many PC rigs are having a hard time hitting high targets at 1080p (or going beyond) when a PS4 Pro (aka approximately equivalent to an RX470 GPU) is only just able to make 1080p60 without any overheads for Windows etc.

@shivoa: But why is that when the game itself doesn't look all that impressive visually? I mean I enjoy the style but I am not seeing some super high detail textures or other special effects to warrant this high bar?

On my 970 at 1080p I was getting like 40ish fps with settings maxed, and mostly 60 with them at low. Only did the prologue, once I get access to the open world I'm gonna tweak stuff to see what I can crank up without making the framerate dip since the city is where the game really hitched for me on PS4. Even with the low preset the game still looks on par with the PS4 version, doesn't seem like they did any work to make it scale below the console experience. No texture quality settings at all is odd in a PC game.

I don't know how well this potentially can play with a keyboard and mouse, but there are some third-person games I prefer with a controller and some I prefer with a KB/M. I would never play the Batman games with a controller or Assassin's Creed or The Evil Within or Shadow of Mordor or Splinter Cell or any third-person shooter. My ideal third-person action game would be designed for a mouse and keyboard rather than a controller. Controllers are too limiting.

hrmmm.. maybe i'll play some more wacky face mass effect and before the 10 hours are up they will have patched Nier :)

I already feel like i know the answer to this, but i assume the game doesn't support SLI.

EDIT:

i looked in the drivers and there isn't even a profile for Nier... so no SLI..

Pretty sure I read a pre-release interview that said they weren't sure they'd be doing scale down work for the PC port so it's entirely possible that you can drop the res but the low settings are just the PS4 (non-Pro) presets.

I mean, it's 60fps with a lot of effects on-screen (particle systems particularly but also there seems to be plenty of resource-heavy basic stuff from DoF to detailed shadows) and game engines are hard. Not sure if this is Nier bespoke (Google brings up a Yosuke Saito interview that seems to indicate this engine is just for this game) or if Platinum have a central engine tech but this seems around par for a custom engine. Lots of impressive stuff in this engine (even if much of the textures aren't as high-res as they could be*) almost certainly built just for a PS4 and so not designed to scale particularly to other configurations. I expect, with extra development resources, there is probably quite a bit of optimisation that could be done but also this is a (port) project that probably has a small budget so you get what you get.

* Really that stuff is more memory size constraints than actual processing-heavy concern for a game engine, the actual surface area that needs the highest detail textures are small and it's just a bandwidth hit (not fun but also often not your greatest bottleneck concern) to read them, not a shader load. That's probably the most common limitation for rendering times: shader perf (hence the race for ever-more FLOPS and counter-race for ever-more expensive shaders that look better to eat that performance). But if you think of a basic mip-map chain**, every smaller texture (the chain is textures halving in size each step) fits within 50% of the space of the largest one (the 1024x1024 takes double the space of a 512x512+256x256+128x128+...). So, to make a more detailed texture requires more work for the artist and then triple the VRAM to hold it. And if that surface isn't near the camera, that top mip-map won't even be used.

** In reality, you want anisotropic filtering so it's a bit more complex as mip-map chains aren't just scaled identically in each dimension.

On a 4690K, 970 and 16GB RAM @1080p Max Settings with 8x AA I was getting 60 frames. I only did the intro sequence up until the steel melting room though so I probably haven't experienced what everyone else has with the open world part.

I also only tried with a controller so I can't say much about the keyboard controls. I'm a very 'middle of the line' PC spec that generally gets targeted by PC games (no 21:9, 16:10 or weird peripherals etc.) so I've not had any issues around that.

I am convinced however the game isn't actually rendering at 1080p internally rather just stretched.

Fixed my issue with video freeze - it was nVidia DSR [their downsampling solution, it works globally - if you do not remember enabling it it's probably not that]

I am on i7 6700k and 1060 6GB and am getting solid 60 fps in borderless windowed @1080p no AA [had some framerate dips with any aa on, it seems it performs poor on pascals so new drivers or patch might help with that]

It renders whatever you set but then it presents 900p in fullscreen - thus for now you should force borderless windowed [borderless gaming from github is the most painless way probably, or some autohotkey script]

So my only problem are the not always smooth 30 fps cutscenes.

Also running the game from a SSD greatly helped.

And yes game is amazing, shame it came out like this.

@humanity: dunno if you've checked the GAF thread but it seems like it has a lot of helpful info.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1353278

Also PCGamer finally put out their take on it, they are one of the main sources I check for port quality.

http://www.pcgamer.com/nier-automatas-pc-port-is-playable-but-disappointing/

My PC is just under minimum specs for the GPU (GTX760), so might be awhile before I get to this one :( Game is super duper fun too, got to play some at PAX East.

I've played a bit more of this and I haven't gotten any deal breaking issues. There does seem to be some weird scaling stuff going on in full screen mode but the only time I actually noticed it was when looking at the steam overlay. I haven't seen any cutscenes long enough to get a good idea whether they are a lower frame rate(so far some seem like 60 but others don't) but the fps does drop occasionally in wide open areas outside of combat.

So I guess I'm one of the lucky ones as I don't have any major issues but people that haven't bought it yet might wanna wait and see how the patch process goes or just grab the ps4 version.

The cut scenes look pretty bad. Supposedly pre rendered at 30 fps but many look about 20. Heard reports of people with Titan XPs not able to get a stable 60 and the game has a tendency to tank to 45 or lower in certain areas without fully or even close to fully using GPU or CPU resources. AA and AO are very system intensive without actually doing much of anything. There is a strange bug that makes the game render exclusively in 900p when you're in full screen... Game itself is good enough where the modding community is likely to put in the time to fix it. A patch would be nice but a comprehensive one is pretty unlikely if it does happen.

Certainly not unplayable but performance is kind of a big deal in a game like this.

Why do developers still use videos instead of rendering the cutscenes (that they rendered with the engine) in real time? It always looks poor and wastes huge amounts of data.

"-700 series cards especially 780 and 780ti suffer from frequent "white screens". Where the game freezes but the sound can still be heard running properly in the backround."

I have a 780. Guess I have to wait and hope they fix it.

Short answer is because rendering in real time can cause uncontrolled outcomes (glitches breaking the scene etc).

Thought I'd come back and do a bit of a report after I've gone further into the game.

The open world is very unstable, it will frequently drop to 50 frames but whats worse is it's quite stuttery. The pop-in is very noticeable and the frame times can be inconsistent.

Other than thoughts on the port, I've just beaten the first boss and I gotta say the game is kind of boring. The combat is incredibly one note there's no real rhythm to it. Both side and main initial quests have been uninteresting and derivative while the first boss fight checks off numerous boxes on my 'boss behaviour no-nos' list:

• Frequent unskippable mid-fight cutscenes,
• RNG parry attacks with no tells from input reads
• Leaving the boss fight area becoming near invulnerable forcing you to wait for them to finish their 30 seconds of time wasting while you casually avoid projectile attacks

And to top it off the difficulty balancing is terrible. It's either enemies 1 shot or near 1 shot you with every hit on Very Hard or Hard but on Normal the damage they do is equivalent to a fart in your general direction.

I'm gonna stick with it but gotta say kinda bummed the fuck out.

If Kojima Productions can do it in every one of their games and GTA does it too, I don't see why it's so difficult for other devs.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@ezekiel: AKA, some of the highest funded video game development projects in modern gaming vs the minimally funded sequel to financial failure that is a miracle even exists. Hm, I wonder what the difference could possibly be.

The budgets of the old MGS and GTA games were modest. It looks terrible almost every time. The videos in Max Payne 3 and Remember Me look as if someone ripped a Blu-ray, compressed it to shit (2000 kbps) and then put it on the Pirate Bay.

Hmmm, I've had no issues so far after about fours hours. Bummer if it's been rocky for some because the game seems awesome from what I've played.

Played the PS4 demo and enjoyed it, but decided to hold off until I saw the PC version and glad I did, sounds like there are issues. Think I'll wait to see if they get fixed.

@ezekiel: Well remember this is a console game first and foremost and they look absolutely fine on PS4. It's pretty obvious the PC port was an afterthought in the development of this game.

Maybe someday more developers will take PC ports seriously and change their priorities, but that's likely a big reason it's common practice.

Pretty sure you just described the entirety of the visual aesthetic of Max Payne 3.

EDIT: Jesus H. Christ, people complaining about 2000kbps video and I'm over here with my hot VCD of Pantyhose Hero

@white said:

Yeah, this is horseshit. Square announces Nier Automata "WorldWide" PC release and just kind of forgets that Southeast Asia is part of the world.

Fuck Square.

At least it gives them a chance to patch it up before (if?) they release it here. I'm not holding my breath. We never got Metal Gear: Rising Revengeance either. I wonder if the developer being Platinum has anything to do with it?

On a 970 running the game at 1080p - played for 3 hours.

There were a few framey slowdowns in the very early sections (presumably coinciding with background area loading) but these seemed to smooth out and I haven't seen one after hour one.

Really enjoying this game so far.

I've played about 20 hours on PS4 and have now played through until maybe the first hour of the first time you get to the open world section on PC. I'm running Steam's built in frame counter which shows me a fluctuating frame rate between 57 and 61 fps. So it tries to lock itself to 60 which is fine. If I pay attention, I can see that there are some frame time issues but I'm not really sensitive to that. The most jarring thing is that pre-rendered cutscenes (not all of them seem to be pre-rendered) run at 30 fps. The switch from 60 to 30 produces noticeable stuttering before it smooths out.

I'm playing 1080p fullscreen, 2x AA, 16x texture filtering, V-Sync on. On a gtx1070, i5 3570k, 16GB memory, SSD.

That this port isn't rock solid is disappointing (also given the fact that it didn't release at the same time as PS4) but I'd say it's serviceable. The PS4 version is decidedly less fiddly in the sense that the performance is just what it is, obviously.

I'll do some more testing soon with borderless and ReShade soon.

It's working great for me, highest settings and all that junk. Looks gorgeous too... Yup. That's about what I got to contribute here.

Got a 970 GTX, latest drivers.

I'm running it on a 1080 with an i7 6400k processor. If AA is on, the framerate tanks. Without it, I usually get between 45 and 60 with the occasional drop. Cutscenes run like shit. I also have this weird bug where the game will switch from full screen to windowed mode, which isn't fun in combat.

Injecting a less expensive AA like FXAA or SMAA through ReShade seems to work well. So if you're looking for a little bit of AA, perhaps you can try that. I can also confirm that choosing windowed and then applying the borderless gaming app allows for a fullscreen-like experience. Maybe that will resolve your weird bug (haven't encountered it myself).

For what it's worth, here's my experience so far with a 970, 8 GB of RAM, and an i7 2600K (and on Windows 10):

I'm running it on medium settings with AA disabled at 1680x1050 and it seems to be fairly smooth for the most part. As mentioned before, the cutscenes are noticeably chunky, but the game itself is alright. Usually up around 60, although it dips from time to time.

So, I'm not sure if this amounts to anything but I've limited the frames to 60 fps through nvidia inspector (others have used different software to achieve the same effect) and it seems to reduce the frame rate fluctuations and, but again I'm not sensitive to it, appears to smooth the frame timing a little bit.

Really? Steam says mostly positive for me including all the results. Maybe it's a zelda type game where it's so good even pc folks over look the technical issues?