Elden Ring releases on PC to very negative reviews

Currently at 59% positive reviews on Steam which is considered terrible. The game peaked at 762K players so far which is close to Cyberpunk 2077. There's a chance it matches or even exceeds that number comes the week-end.

Steam page

There are also reports of poor performance on PS5 but especially on Xbox where the load times are 3x as long as on PS5.

Both fail to maintain their target of 60fps on performance or quality mode and exhibit frequent stutters and frame rate dips. The PS5 so far seems to be the best version to play but is still far from perfect or even good.

Seems the massive backlash from people experiencing the game did not stop reviewers from scoring it a whopping 95 on PC and 97 on PS5.

It also plays terribly with M+KB and frequently shows Xbox button prompts instead of the proper ones.

Yeah, this shat is broke on PC. I got my copy for free and im still highly upset. 4/10, fix your freakin game Formsoft.

Love this dudes review,

Another good game spoiled by the need for performance updates.

Got it cheap others I would have waited for patches before buying.

Developers must be under some pressure to get the game out, made worse by covid.

Japan is so far behind when it comes to PC anything. Its as if they've never seen one.

I guess it just goes to show that you should never base game purchases on critical reception. I did. And I gave up on it very quickly and got refunded.

No idea how this game gets 10s, and hzd fw gets an 8.

Reviews should be regulated, tired of shit performing games constantly getting a free pass. Eurogamer are a bit of a joke, this gets recommended while Horizon does not, also forgot they gave AC games a solid recommendation too.

The loading time for a game that you will die alot is gonna be a major issue to some. I hope there is a patch for this specially for the xbox version.

Yeah what's good and acceptable on console is generally not up to snuff on PC. Especially if it is a shit port.

Glad I didn't impulse buy this game, will wait for sale. Though even that is doubtful as Japanese publishers tend to keep their games at high prices for a long time in my experience.

It does look pretty rough in practice - glad I stuck to my general aversion to day 1 purchases. I'm super stoked for this, but I've got other good games to play while this gets sorted out

Lets hope they get a lot of heat under their ass with this one. When DF releases their analysis, you know damn well it'll create a mini shitstorm. And with how popular this game is gonna be, lots of people will be complaining about a poor pc port. Might even teach fromsoft a lesson. My hope is that this is the last time we see their trash in-house engine.

From what I've played so far I'm not having issues, but that doesn't mean people aren't. Which makes me wonder, how the **** is this game scoring so high with this many hiccups out the gate? This gaming industry is wholly stupid sometimes.

Yeah the framerate issue sucks. I've been experiencing it but I do have a 1080 GTX and an i7 6700 so not the latest and greatest by a long shot but I was able to find some settings to turn off like motion blur and depth of field and that actually mostly fixed the issue so far. Obviously not ideal, but I had this in mind when I saw the specs and I'm not too keen on upgrading right now so it is what it is and I can't really complain a whole lot.

The game itself is great. I love the world and atmosphere.

I was able to fix most of these issues on my PC, but most people won't be able to find these fixes or do them since they require offline mode and disabling EAC (which is causing most of these issues). So I do not blame these scores.

Currently playing at 21:9. 80-90 FPS. All max settings. ZERO stuttering. Don't ask on how, as it bypasses idiotic EAC and that could get me banned here. Just google all of this.

@Juub1990:

First off, some of those are review bombs. No one should ever take video game user reviews as anything more than a passing glance. Giving a game a bad review because it's locked at 60fps is asinine. The game requires a controller - so what?

Secondly... WTF, bro? You can't step out of your cow shoes for 10 seconds? You have to try and take a dig at XBox every single fricken post. "Especially on Xbox"??? How pathetic and sad.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2764248316

It shows Xbox prompts you say? I've seen worse.

Send me a private message how to disable EAC, get rid of stuttering and unlock higher framerates please

Give broken stuttery games that are nowhere near perfect 10 out of 10 and you accept broken stuttery games that are not perfect.

Put review in progress till games are playable, regardless of platform/first party or multiplat.

Good to see pc gamers give an honest score based on the game in its current state

@R4gn4r0k: I mean if you google "disabling EAC" like Zaryia says it is literally the first result and it is a few easy steps. Not trying to be rude.

90% of the times its stable and fine... but then it just gets strange frame pacing at all the worst times.

@Juub1990: 3 times as long means nothing without numbers .. while it is a true statement it is not like you will be waiting minutes on the Xbox (7ish seconds on PS5 vs 21ish seconds on Xbox .. sometimes it is not even that big)

I suspect that developers are using PS5's compression and other APIs and which affect loading and have not utilized the Xbox velocity architecture yet

PC and Xbox are both are gonna need some work, PS5 is better but still has issues of it's own. Hopefully they patch it quick.

It's a japanese attempt at a WRPG, so of course the game is going to be garbage. I would be willing to believe that nearly every positive review of the game is going to be a paid or pressured review, or done by a fanboy who is really confused.

PSA...

Elden Ring PC Frame Rate Issues, PS5 Save Loss Being Looked Into

PC and PS5 are the two most-affected platforms.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/elden-ring-pc-frame-rate-issues-ps5-save-loss-being-looked-into/1100-6501050/

I looked at disabling the 60fps lock and this is what I got:

I'm sorry but Zaryia is making it look easy, if it's that easy, all I'm asking is for a PM

Elden Ring FPS Unlocker and more

A small utility to remove frame rate limit for Elden Ring written in C#. More features soon! Patches games memory while running, does not modify any game files. Works with every game version (legit steam & oh-not-so-legit), should work with all future updates.

Download

Get the latest release here

Features

• does not modify any game files, RAM patches only
• works with legit, unmodified steam version as well as with unpacked, not-so-legit versions
• unlock frame rate (remove FPS limit) by setting a new custom limit

Usage

The graphic setup has to be done only once but as the patcher hot-patches the memory you have to start the patcher every time you want to use any of its features.

The game enforces VSYNC and forces 60 Hz in fullscreen even on 144 Hz monitors so we have to override these.

Nvidia: Use Nvidia Control Panel to set 'Vsync' to 'Off' and 'Preferred Refreshrate' to 'Highest available' on a Elden Ring Profile.

AMD: Use Radeon Settings to set 'Wait for Vertical Refresh' to 'Enhanced Sync' on a Elden Ring profile. Start Elden Ring in windowed mode and switch to fullscreen once ingame. Troubleshoot: see the guide further down below.

60 Hz monitors: disable VSYNC via driver (use 'Enhanced Sync' on AMD) and use fullscreen, see guide below

high refresh rate monitors: use borderless or force monitor to always use highest available refresh rate and then use fullscreen, see guide below

Follow these steps on Nvidia:

1. Open Nvidia Control Panel
2. Navigate to Display -> Change resolution
3. Make sure your monitor is set to the highest Refresh rate possible:
4. Navigate to 3D Settings -> Manage 3D settings -> Program Settings -> Elden Ring
5. Set Preferred refresh rate to Highest available
6. Set Vertical sync to Off
7. Hit apply and close Nvidia Control Panel
8. Start Elden Ring FPS Unlocker and more and start the game through the first button
9. Use fullscreen (144 Hz or 60 Hz Monitors) or borderless window mode (144 Hz Monitors)
10. Set your new refresh rate limit and click Patch game

Follow these steps on AMD:

1. Right click on Desktop -> Display settings
2. Scroll down and click Advanced Display Settings -> Display Adapter Properties
3. Switch to Monitor tab and make sure your monitor is set to the highest Refresh rate possible:
4. Open Radeon Settings
5. Navigate to Gaming -> Elden Ring or add it manually if it's missing: Add -> Browse -> Elden Ring
6. Set Wait for Vertical Refresh to Enhanced Sync:
7. Apply and close Radeon Settings
8. Start Elden Ring FPS Unlocker and more and start the game through the first button
9. Use fullscreen (144 Hz or 60 Hz Monitors) or borderless window mode (144 Hz Monitors)
10. Set your new refresh rate limit and click Patch game

To play the game with GSYNC do these additional steps (Nvidia):

1. Under Nvidia Control Panel navigate to 3D Settings -> Manage 3D settings -> Program Settings -> Elden Ring
2. Set Monitor Technology to G-SYNC
3. You can keep Vertical sync on Use the 3D application setting now to help remove frame time stutters (see here)
4. Make sure that Preferred refresh rate is still set to Highest available
5. Don't forget to Apply and close Nvidia Control Panel
6. Use a 3rd party frame rate limiter like RTSS and set a frame rate limit just a few fps below your monitor refresh rate, on a 144Hz Monitor use 138
7. Start Elden Ring FPS Unlocker and more and set FPS lock to your monitors refresh rate
8. Start the game and set it to Fullscreen
9. Enjoy perfectly tearing free variable high refresh rates without VSYNC

To add a custom resolution:

soon!

To use the FOV changer:

soon!

Troubleshooting:

• Utility can't seem to find the game? - Make sure your game exe is called eldenring.exe
• Make sure you followed the appropriate steps and didn't skip any
• Try disabling Fullscreen optimization for Elden Ring: right mouse click on eldenring.exe -> Compatibility-> tick 'Disable fullscreen optimizations'
• If you are using ReShade make sure your preset doesn't enforce 60 Hz, try removing ReShade and see if it solves the problem
• Try adding the whole game folder and Elden Ring FPS Unlocker and more to your antivirus's exclusion list
• Try disabling Steam Broadcast (streaming via overlay)
• Try to force disable VSYNC even when you are using GSYNC
• Close and disable all screen recording and streaming applications
• Close and disable all overlays
• Close and disable all performance "booster" programs and alike
• Do a clean reinstall of your graphic driver:
  1. Download latest graphics driver for your GPU
  2. Download DDU
  3. Disconnect internet so windows update won't auto-install minimal driver as soon as you uninstall them
  4. Boot into safe mode
  5. Completely uninstall graphics driver and all of their utilities using DDU
  6. Reboot
  7. Install the latest driver you previously downloaded
  8. Reconnect internet

If spending that much time on something that a developer should have included themselves, nah, I'm not up for that.

But if like Zarya said it's super easy and straightforward, then yeah I'll give it a chance.

Now I'm wondering if all these reviewers actually played the game...

Can you post reviews of games you don't own on Steam?

@R4gn4r0k: that's not actually complicated at all... that's basically no more work than setting up your PC for proper GSYNC use in general. The reason that wall of text is long is it offers information both both AMD and Nvidia, and for GSYNC vs no GSYNC scenarios, plus troubleshooting tips. The actually steps to do this on a particular card are minimal if you look

I think he's talking about the "critics".

@R4gn4r0k: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disable-anti-cheat-elden-ring

That's the first result I got when I typed in "disabling EAC". It has 6 steps in it. I think you searched for something a bit different as you're getting into graphics settings. This is just talking about getting rid of EAC, which may or may not be the solution. I haven't tried it myself yet.

Yeah is is why buying games on day one sometimes isn't the best idea. That's why I always wait until the game goes on sale and everything is at least fixed.

Yep, the video games industry sucks now. It has been this way for a while. I've gotten used to some of it, like poor performance can typically be patched and fixed in updates but we all shouldn't have to lower our standards to this level. Games should work without having to fuss with settings but I can deal with this. From Software may not be great at PC versions of their games but they are one of the last bastions of good game developers left that hasn't fallen to the corporate bullshittery of microtransactions and being tone deaf to their fans and blaming other games for their failures....stop me if this rings any bells.

I anticipated this, as from soft doesn't get PC versions quite right at release. PC will inevitably end up being the best version by far, but for now, PS5 it is.

Damn....you think that's difficult?

How long have you been in PC gaming?

• Ever have to deal with irql_not_less_or_equal?
• setting proper memory amount?
• trying to figure out what GPU out of a countless list that works for the GPU that your computer has that isn't on the list?
• Get a game to load and only find out audio isn't working because it's not configured correctly?
• Tracking down an update/patch and making sure you installed it to the correct directory?

Those are just some of the issues you had to deal with....some of it has improved a lot over the years, but sometimes you're still stuck with irritating things that you may have to do yourself.

PC gaming is not the same as console gaming. What made consoles popular was the simplicity of it - basically just a plug and play device. Plug it in, put the game in and play.

PC gaming was always more then that and that's what the allure was for me. Being able to mod stuff you couldn't do on a console. Being able to adjust settings by figuring out what files to manipulate. If you're not comfortable doing these things or being able to take a few minutes out of your time to fix something, then PC gaming is not for you.

Big surprise. Buy better games.

@neatfeatguy: You're just twisting everything I said to make a point, a weak one.

And no, you don't come over smart.

It's been 13 years and from still haven't hired any competent coders.

@neatfeatguy: The older I get the less time I have and having to fiddle with settings that could have been easily implemented is tedious. I get it though, PC gaming you have an array of options and tools at your disposal to customize what you want, how you want

I don’t mind hex edits but having to Google through information, watch videos, browse forums, Reddit, and find fixes like this can be annoying. Makes me appreciate the simplicity of consoles

Yes. I'm referring to the journalists. I never pay attention to user reviews. But when EVERYBODY is talking about performance and stability issues, it brings all those "critics" into question.

I'm not saying the game isn't great. Don't get me wrong. I just feel like the performance issues aren't represented in the reviews or their scores. And that's an issue when so many games can run at 60+, while looking MUCH better graphically than this game. And the PC port is in shambles...

@goldenelementxl: I think the game is one case where the game itself is so good that incorporating performance issues into the assessment does not detract from its achievements. Think BoTW, Bloodborne etc.

That's because the day 1 patch critics didn't play on made the game perform worse.

Just another game you need to wait before is optimal to play ... big surprise.

That is fanboy nonsense.

@Pedro: how come? Another perspective: We've given those games a pass despite their garbage tier performance. Why do we draw the line at a game that is decidedly better than them?

As I said previously no day 1 for me until all the kinks are ironed out. I don't trust From at all. Like the vast majority of Japanese devs they are incompetent when it comes to technology.

Because different platforms has different standards according to the times. Just like you won't accept a 480game/movie in 2022 when 4K is the norm.

And the game requiring a controller is a valid complaint. How would you feel if a game your precious Xbox game require you to play via iPhone instead of the standard controller?

Just because consolites bend over for their corporate overlords, doesn't mean that PC gamers should do the same.

Let's go from the top here:

Someone mentioned disabling EAC helps with performance issues on PC. You then asked for PM on how to disable EAC, then someone else came through and without being a total prick, told you it was easy enough to google the answer. Then you complained about fps lock and said it's not easy to do. I appears you haven't done a thing about either issue even though there are ways to handle the two things you're complaining about.

I think I made my point that PC gaming isn't for you.

Sure, sometimes it's irritating to do these things that could have been implemented in the game by the developer, but people need to stop being lazy and expecting everything to be done for them immediately. Fix it yourself, or don't. The information is out there, if you choose not to do it, then so be it.

There is no we in that. Some people may have given the games you listed a pass but don't falsely claim that "we" given those games a pass for their poor performance. NO game should be given a pass for poor performance.

Who is making the call on what is decidedly better in this situation? Please don't tell me the same people who ignore performance.😐