Bethesda Blaming RAGE PC Issues on Drivers
Bethesda is blaming RAGE's technical issues on drivers, but as seen in a forum post, it may be that many PCs just aren't built to handle id Tech 5's texture streaming.
As reported on Tuesday, id Software's new shooter RAGE -- and its first new IP since the release of Quake back in 1996 -- launched on the PC with mixed reactions, as many gamers immediately faced technical issues that, for some, left the highly-anticipated shooter nearly unplayable. The biggest complaints described intense screen-tearing, poor texture loading and numerous glitches. But as Kotaku demonstrates, not every PC gamer is experiencing problems, and John Carmack even jumped on Twitter telling everyone to update to the latest drivers.
"While many folks are playing RAGE on PC and not running into issues, we’re aware that some of you are experiencing issues with screen tearing and texture issues," Bethesda said Tuesday. "These problems can be attributed to driver issues, and we’re currently working with Nvidia and AMD to resolve them as quickly as possible. We know that you want to experience RAGE at its absolute best, so we’ll continue to use this blog post to keep you posted."
Wednesday the company updated its blog to reflect AMD's updated "Catalyst Rage Performance Driver" for Windows 7. This release supports Radeon HD 6000 and HD 5000 series cards and is supposed to bring "significant performance gains for single GPU configurations." Bethesda's Pete Hines said that the version released prior to October 4 included very old OGL files, and that's why many AMD users were experiencing corruption.
On the Nvidia side, Bethesda says that users should install the GeForce 285.38 driver and should make sure to install the "Nvidia Update" component and leave it enabled. "As long as updates are enabled the driver will automatically be updated when RAGE specific improvements become available," Bethesda said on the forums. Nvidia owners can download the R285 drivers for Windows 7 64-bit here, and Windows 7 32-bit here.
This forum post also reveals how RAGE PC gamers can deal with the issues of screen tearing, blurry textures and texture popping. Here's an interesting bit about the texture streaming:
The texture streaming is limited by the performance and number of cores of the main processor (CPU). The higher the resolution at which the game renders and the higher the anti-aliasing setting, the more texture data is needed to texture the environment. If you do not have a high end CPU you may momentarily see blurrier textures and texture popping when the view changes quickly.
If you have a processor with few cores and you have a high end NVIDIA graphics card then you can try turning on the "GPU Transcode" menu option in the video settings menu in RAGE. By enabling this option a large percentage of the texture calculations are moved to the graphics\ processor (GPU). However, this option is not available on all graphics hardware and may not appear in the menu if your hardware does not support the necessary features.
Wednesday Bethesda said that the RAGE team is currently working on an update that will allow players to more easily make configuration changes (rather than let the game do it for you). More details regarding the update will be released shortly.
Honestly, the RAGE launch is seemingly similar to Quake's own launch back in 1996, only the latter classic title required something new called a math coprocessor (FPU) which many 386 and 486-based DOOM fans still didn't have. Quake eventually required another new tech -- the GPU -- in order to make the game look pretty.
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Bethesda are console fanboys. I won't buy this trash or Skyrim till they are $5 each, and patched.
bout right...blame others!
I grabbed Rage the second it came out and it played horrible on my Radeon HD 6870 (with a Phenom x6). Textures would refresh way to slow and frame rates were almost unplayable. After the Rage drive patch, though, it plays very well at 1920x1200.Still a few texture glitches, but it is now playable and then some. What an incredible game. New things to do around every corner. Best I have played in years.
er, i thought 486 got FPU built in the chip :|
RAGE's PC issues ARE related to the drivers. When I first played it on my Nvidia GTX 295, it was choppy as hell. It hardly worked. It was worse than Duke Nukem Forever. Then I read IGN's review for the game and they recommended downloading the beta drivers and it's worked like a charm ever since. This game is practically unplayable without the beta drivers.
it seems they are very high on themselves. They need to come down to the average user level and make a game that can be played without breaking the bank!
So in reality, this is a poor optimization issue on the PC version. If the video drivers are to blame, why isn't everyone experiencing the problems? Perhaps there are magical drivers in the hands of some PC users. During the development process, was id Software testing the game with video drivers that have yet to be created by Nvidia and AMD?
Although I don't mind waiting a few years for the game to come down in price like Crysis. I have never played Crysis before today. I bought on Amazon.com Crysis Maximum Edition for $9.99. What a steal! Now that I have a gaming rig I am able to enjoy it on max settings and did break the bank doing it.
What there are people not playing the BF3 beta... why even log on a computer.
Bottom line this game was built for consoles and its another hash job PC port, which is more than obvious given the technical problems and lack of graphical options. I refuse to buy anything like this anymore, developers need to start respecting the PC again as a premier platform.
I just installed those AMD beta drivers and went from 20-30 fps to 50-60 fps. It made a HUGE difference in frame rate. I can still see the texture pop issue, although it does load up quicker than before. Better, but still annoying. Hopefully the next full driver release will help texture pop out more.
crap gameeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! ever! now is the problem nvidia and ati... LOLLLLLLLLL!!!
i never want play this game... I WANT DIABLO 3! BLIZZARD RLZ!
it seems they are very high on themselves. They need to come down to the average user level and make a game that can be played without breaking the bank!
I don't know what you mean by this, you can run this game on an old 9800 gt with stable framerates, its not like Dragon Age 2 where the game looks crappy but melts video cards. The engine is very well made and it can run on a ton of hardware.
Price wise, I agree $60 for any game is ridiculous, and as Gabe Newell once said its silly how much % increase in purchases a game gets each time you cut $10 off the price tag. But thats genre wide, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, etc all cost $60.
"The texture streaming is limited by the performance and number of cores of the main processor (CPU)."
Ha! Heres to hoping a 990x is good for something in the gaming world~
What about the console issues that is not driver based it's called no QA that is what QA is for.
My impression of Bethesda went from neutral -> bad very quickly. Their suit against MOJANG of Minecraft doesn't help my opinion either.
I did a review on this texture loading issue if your interested check it out. youtube.com/watch?v=VkZUzotJm3g
er, i thought 486 got FPU built in the chip :|
the 486dx did, the 486sx didnt. same with 386dx and sx, although the sx could have a separate co-processor installed with the right motherboard. Quake couldnt be run properly without a pentium anyhow.
They made Quake! They get 9999 points just for that. Give them a break.
Bad drivers? I'd like to see what type of hardware id Software used to beta test this game internally.
http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.p [...] n/]xbox360 texture issues
http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.p [...] pping/]Ps3 texture issues
I can post dozens more its NOT just pc its console as well how can you blame drivers??.
The problem is that they can't stop blaming people and simply find a fix. I was so looking forward to this game, but issues as this is a simple deal-breaker for me. I'm probably not getting it anymore.
So in reality, this is a poor optimization issue on the PC version. If the video drivers are to blame, why isn't everyone experiencing the problems? Perhaps there are magical drivers in the hands of some PC users. During the development process, was id Software testing the game with video drivers that have yet to be created by Nvidia and AMD?
Exactly! How come they don't test those games on actual PC's before releasing? :-)
Are the drivers they use different from the ones we use?
Of course the drivers have their share on the issue (they will be optimized), but blaming the drivers is ridiculous since they had to test the game under those same drivers when they were developing the game...
What there are people not playing the BF3 beta... why even log on a computer.
Why Waste Time playing a limited and glitchy beta with only a few maps for more than a few hours?
I dont have rage but bf3 beta got old fast.
So in reality, this is a poor optimization issue on the PC version. If the video drivers are to blame, why isn't everyone experiencing the problems? Perhaps there are magical drivers in the hands of some PC users. During the development process, was id Software testing the game with video drivers that have yet to be created by Nvidia and AMD?
UM... not everybody is pushing the computer at max settings, i assume most of the issues are related to higher end graphics levels that isnt being handled well due to graphics and cpu issues.
crap gameeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! ever! now is the problem nvidia and ati... LOLLLLLLLLL!!!i never want play this game... I WANT DIABLO 3! BLIZZARD RLZ!
Nobel in Trolling achieved.
I've been playing and the game works fine up to 8X setting. Anything past that and it will refuse to show any graphics. Overall that aspect of the interface is still buggy and sometimes requires a complete game reboot after changing the settings. Just FYI to those curious
For me it seems to be a mixture of driver and game issues
under windows XP, the game run faster and doesn't really have the texture issue at all even if I spin around rapidly. But then again it gets random artifacts which makes the game annoying to play
Under windows 7 x64 the game runs smooth but only has a small texture streaming issue (noticed in the corners of the screen but it updates fast enough to not impact my gaming at all)
It is also not a resource issue as on both OS I have ample memory left over, and on both OS the CPU usage on my Phenom II x4 965 at 3.78GHz is only around 40%
The game runs at a solid 60FPS at all times (so far)
GPU usage on my GTX 460 is at about 30% on average even when fighting, but jumps to around 60% if I spin around rapidly.
Hopefully ATI, Nvidia, and the makers of Rage work to fix the texture issue entirely.
Anyway, these issues tend to happen when there is a lack of beta testing.
Most of the devices and games that have come out and had little to no bugs, were generally on sites like onlinebeta.com
(I have even done a few and weird issues like this are generally found quickly and fixed quickly, especially since the hand picked beta testers have a more direct line to developers and you can do things like have them collect machine data while gaming while at the same time you have your camcorder record the game play process and select the recorded info needed and send it directly to a developer)
But sadly gaming betas (where developers actually take input from users (where a single user can get a developer to fix an issue) don't happen much anymore, instead, they have users pay for what is essentially a beta copy of the game then they rely on the fallout to figure out what needs to be fixed then they release a patch.
The graphic issues is one thing, but for me I did not have that problem and the game run smooth.
The real problem in this game is the lack of inovation and a more dynamic world as oposed to "static maps" like what I saw so far. I mean, I tried shooting at a couple of things hoping they will move, or windows will break.... but no, everything is static like Doom 1. It is just another traditional FPS game with guns&kill without anything new.
@iam2thecrowe: the 486DX had a FPU, and the 486SX didn't, indeed - you could add a 487 (a 486 with the FPU enabled but the execution core disabled) to it and effectively have a complete system.
However, in the 386's case, the 386DX had a 32-bit FSB while the 386SX didn't - allowing the latter to be used on 286 boards and being cheaper to make and use. And yes, I did own a 386SX 16 MHz and a 386DX 20 MHz.
In the current case, "megatextures" are not conventional textures, and actually require pre-rendering - and since the process on which it is based depends on particular OpenGL functions on the driver (which are probably badly optimized and gathering mold on the driver writers' code repositories), well, the need for software rendering (on top of the actual game's mechanics) makes the game reliant upon:
- very high bus speeds with little latency
- high parallel processing capabilities
- and a responsive graphics hardware.
On a console, once you've circumvented a hardware limitation or done an optimization, it's alright on all machines; on a PC, you have so many cases where a snag can appear, especially when hitting on little used functions, that the first bad optimization can bring the whole rig to its knees.
badly designed, taking gamers for cash cows... that's no good really...