Page 13 • Thief (2014) • Gaming • General Gaming • Eurogamer.net

StarchildHypocrethes 27 Feb 2014 21:11:55 33,974 posts
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Dual Shock 4.

You members of the master race don't have to worry about needlessly shit design like this

MrWonderstuff 27 Feb 2014 21:13:21 3,617 posts
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Well indeed ;-)

Darren 27 Feb 2014 21:17:25 9,637 posts
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I've played about an hour of the PS4 game. I like it but, dear lord, is the performance shocking or what. It seems that the ageing and creaky Unreal Engine 3 doesn't run great on the PS4, much to my surprise. Contrast had a really erratic framerate, Outlast was rife with screen tearing, especially in the later sections of the game and now we have Thief that seems to run at 20-30 FPS during the game and what looks 10-15 FPS during the cutscenes!

It's never unplayable but I'm finding it distracting to the point where it mars the immersion of what is otherwise a fine first-person game. Despite the nice graphics and mostly small enclosed areas, the engine struggles to maintain 30 FPS at 1080p. Apparently the 900p Xbox One version has similar issues (I've certainly noticed similar slowdown in the YouTube videos I've seen). Unreal Engine 3 never ran that well on the PS3 but I really am shocked that such an old engine is struggling on the next-gen platforms. I'll be playing the PC version tomorrow so it'll be interesting to see how that runs in comparison. Can't wait for Digital Foundry's Face-Off either as I'm sure some of the framerate results are going to be shocking.

Edited by Darren at 21:18:22 27-02-2014

Darren 27 Feb 2014 21:23:46 9,637 posts
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Dizzy wrote:
@ChiefGB I don't know how the X1 version runs... but the PS4 version was pretty terrible compared to the PC version. Framerates in the low 20s I would say.

The DF faceoff might get really ugly on this one.

Agreed.

And while they don't affect the actual gameplay, the cutscenes often play out like slideshows! The framerate is clearly sub-20 FPS at times. I suspect that the game is running on high PC settings that are just a tad too much for the next-gen system. I might be wrong but it does look like the game is using tessellation from the roundness of the barrels. That can impact performance badly. There again, as I mentioned earlier, the other two PS4 Unreal Engine 3 games have performance issues as well and they definitely do not have tessellation so maybe the engine just isn't optimized for the hardware? Maybe it's the CPU which is clocked low compared with PC CPUs?

Edited by Darren at 21:24:28 27-02-2014

StarchildHypocrethes 27 Feb 2014 21:58:01 33,974 posts
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More games need to let you swoooooop.

DUFFMAN5 27 Feb 2014 22:05:18 26,891 posts
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An hour or so in on 360 and im enjoying, but fook me there is,q lot of loot about. ;-)

ChiefGB 27 Feb 2014 22:58:06 13,815 posts
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Weird how the cutscenes seem to show poor frame rates and yet they look much worse than the in game quality graphics.

Deleted user 27 February 2014 23:00:28

The cutscenes do look like crap on the PC.

mothercruncher 28 Feb 2014 07:21:20 19,475 posts
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Don't stop being Dale, Dale.

Darren 28 Feb 2014 08:16:36 9,637 posts
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monkehhh wrote:
The cutscenes do look like crap on the PC.

What is even more surprising is that these cutscenes do NOT appear to be real-time but videos as I've checked the Steam Thief game folder and there's 2 GB of videos in there, including ones titled "TheAccident" and "EnteringTheCity", which are two of the early cutscenes that judder and jerk on both the PS4 and PC (it's far worst on my PC though with the cutscenes actually pausing for a split-second!). :confused:

ChiefGB 28 Feb 2014 09:08:11 13,815 posts
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These are definately not in game, you can tell to look at the character models, they are like the ps2 versions lol. Can they be fixed with a patch I guess not without them being swapped out for better versions. Mind you if dead rising can get away with a 13gb patch I guess anythings possible, can't see eidos being arsed though.

DUFFMAN5 28 Feb 2014 09:16:29 26,891 posts
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...well im enjoying it, you miserable sods ;-)

and yes I have played the previous games and no it is not nearly as good for the most part, it was never going to be, still fun though.

Im up to mission 3, the previous 2 chapters taking around 50 mins. im doing shite re collectables and stealth mind you.
Have to admit the 360 version looks a lot like Deadly Shadows on my Xbox, but I have never Been a graphics whore.

Tricky 28 Feb 2014 09:31:50 5,088 posts
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Hour and a half of play last night on Xbox One and I didn't notice any slow down, either in actual play or the (stupidly badly encoded) cut scene videos.

I do have the March beta installed but I doubt that's done much (if anything) to improve performance, has it?

Vortex808 28 Feb 2014 09:49:36 15,598 posts
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Although I have this, I haven't fired it up yet. I had planned to seriously play tomb raider to finish it off before starting this, since I am more than half-way throuugh, but have been getting badly distracted by Persona 4 Golden on the vita instead after deciding to have a 'quick go' on that to see how it was at the start of the week.

This weekend will have a TR focus, so I hope to start this on sun or next week and see what all the fuss is about for myself.

ChiefGB 28 Feb 2014 09:51:02 13,815 posts
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Don't get me wrong I'm enjoying the little I've played (up to the shop in the first chapter), the environment art is great and very sharp, tend to notice the frame rates as it's a slow paced game. For the record I'm playing master with glint and direction markers off, and it seems challenging already but I'm still learning the mechanics, looking forward to spending time on it this weekend. I've been like a giddy kid waiting for it this week lol.

ChiefGB 28 Feb 2014 09:55:51 13,815 posts
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Oh and the frame rate is not a killer for me, it's not that bad just noticeable so far, those cut scenes though let's face it are criminal.

Masaroth 28 Feb 2014 10:09:21 332 posts
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Initial impressions after spending about 3 hours with it are a lot better than i expected after reading all the reviews. There is a solid stealth game there that when it all comes together is very reminiscent of the original trilogy as long as you can look past the linearity of it all. I surprised myself by actually liking the swoop mechanic, i thought i was going to hate it.

However there is quite a bit holding back from being a great game. Some can be patched, like the dodgy AI routines getting stuck in a animation and personally the most annoying, voice overs being incredibly buggy. Of which there are far too many I'm surprised it made it past QA.

The others, that cant be patched, the constant load screens(even to enter a single room and then a load screen to exit it!!!) and the linearity of the main missions thus far, though hopefully a sequel will get the go-ahead where they can remedy those issues.

For reference playing on master difficulty with focus off and most the UI turned off, to try and replicate the old games look and feel.

Darren 28 Feb 2014 14:12:02 9,637 posts
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ChiefGB wrote:
Oh and the frame rate is not a killer for me, it's not that bad just noticeable so far, those cut scenes though let's face it are criminal.

+1

Especially the ones that are pre-rendered videos! There's no excuse for those running so poorly on a high-end PC nevermind a PS4. PCs can be difficult to beta test admittedly because of the numerous hardware/software configurations but the PS4 has fixed hardware for goodness' sakes! Did no-one bother to test the game?

Darren 28 Feb 2014 14:19:45 9,637 posts
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Masaroth wrote:
I surprised myself by actually liking the swoop mechanic, i thought i was going to hate it.

It was an hour before I even started using swoop because holding LT/L2 seemed to work as well and made Garrett move faster. However, now I've started using it I like it because it looks so damn cool!

However there is quite a bit holding back from being a great game. Some can be patched, like the dodgy AI routines getting stuck in a animation and personally the most annoying, voice overs being incredibly buggy. Of which there are far too many I'm surprised it made it past QA.

I'm playing on Thief difficulty (the default) and the AI is pretty stupid in certain circumstances or is made to appear than way because, for example, Garrett can lean right out when peeking around crates and corners such that anyone in reality would see him stood right in front of them! Yet the game has the AI remained oblivious as long as Garrett doesn't stand up or actually move in front of them. At one point in a game cutscene Garrett can see Erin clearly dragging a guard's body into the bushes yet another guard who is looking right at Erin and in front of Garrett doesn't see her or the body. It's jarring and that's an unplayable cutscene as well!

How is the AI on the hardest difficulty? Is it more realistic or just more frustrating because the flaws become more apparent?

SomaticSense 28 Feb 2014 15:13:02 15,062 posts
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To be fair, the peek mechanic has worked that way in every stealth game that has ever used anything similar. It works like that for a reason. Namely to give the player an increased awareness of their surroundings, without the instant and harsh penalty of a 'red alert' alarm state.

It's guaranteed you'd be on here ranting if every mere quick peek led to an awkward Thief-signature blackjack spamming one-on-one fight or a mission fail.

Masaroth 28 Feb 2014 16:08:54 332 posts
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Darren wrote:
How is the AI on the hardest difficulty? Is it more realistic or just more frustrating because the flaws become more apparent?

Its actually pretty good from what i have experienced so far and not been frustrated by it, though I haven't played on normal for comparison.

Still early days but everything is behaving as i would expect it to, except a couple of times the guards were inconsistent and almost had super senses for a second. I'm doing a proper ghost run (no alerts/knockouts) so i haven't really seen what the ai is like in alert or spotted mode, it could still be pretty bad there.

Deleted user 28 February 2014 16:28:53

@Dizzy

Tiger_Walts 28 Feb 2014 17:48:41 16,674 posts
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Played a couple of hours. It's not a Thief game. I am enjoying it.

Set up the graphics to what I expected my PC could handle. Start screen ran fine. Started the game and the framerate became immensely unstable. Staring in one direction was fine but turning the camera resulted in mega-chuddering.

So I set it to the Low preset and it runs buttery smooth and get this, looked almost exactly the same! After a bit of fiddling I discovered that some of the optional effects caused the turn-chuddder. So I was able to increase the texture size and filtering back up.

I think there may be some video card driver shittiness going on.

MrWonderstuff 28 Feb 2014 17:56:00 3,617 posts
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@Tiger_Walts Anything in particular caused the judder...what spec and settings are you on? Got a GTX 570 here and it is pretty good with all stuff highish.

Deleted user 28 February 2014 18:29:42

K/m or controller? Make decisions for me!

Tiger_Walts 28 Feb 2014 18:51:39 16,674 posts
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@MrWonderstuff Radeon HD6870: Screen Space Parallax Occlusion and the fancy shadow one that I forgot the name of seem to be the main culprits (Shadows set to low because: AMD + Shadows = LOL). SSAO and FXAA have a higher performance hit than other games too. I also didn't notice any AO when I turned SSAO on. I'm not missing AA too much, not many jaggies without it. It's not like a game set in dimly lit places needs AO anyway.

Edited by Tiger_Walts at 18:53:15 28-02-2014

MrWonderstuff 28 Feb 2014 19:33:53 3,617 posts
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@Tiger_Walts Cheeers.

Thief (2014) • Page 13