id Software Releases RAGE Patch, Carmack Curses
id Software released a patch for Rage Saturday night, right after John Carmack called the driver issues a real cluster !@#$.
After a rocky start, id Software's new shooter Rage has reportedly become a bit more stable thanks to the release of optimized drivers from both AMD and Nvidia. As reported earlier, both Bethesda and id Software indicated that the problems users experienced stemmed from outdated or incorrect drivers. Rage creative director Tim Willits even said that the studio was very upset over the issues "which are mostly out of our control."
"We are working with both AMD/ATI and Nvidia to help them identify and fix the issues with their drivers," Willits told Kotaku. "We've had assurances that these problems are being addressed and new drivers will be available soon."
John Carmack's reaction to the initial launch on PC was a bit more seasoned. "The driver issues at launch have been a real cluster !@#$," added Carmack. "We were quite happy with the performance improvements that we had made on AMD hardware in the months before launch; we had made significant internal changes to cater to what AMD engineers said would allow the highest performance with their driver and hardware architectures, and we went back and forth with custom extensions and driver versions."
"We knew that all older AMD drivers, and some Nvidia drivers would have problems with the game, but we were running well in-house on all of our test systems," Carmack continued. "When launch day came around and the wrong driver got released, half of our PC customers got a product that basically didn't work. The fact that the working driver has incompatibilities with other titles doesn't help either. Issues with older / lower end /exotic setups are to be expected on a PC release, but we were not happy with the experience on what should be prime platforms."
On Saturday the studio launched its first patch for Rage less than a week after the game's launch which adds an option to change VSync, increase the texture cache, and to enhance the image quality of textures on surfaces that are at oblique viewing angles via the new Anisotrophic Filter option.
"RAGE defaults to lower video settings to allow the game to work on a wide variety of hardware and software configurations," the team wrote on Bethesda's forum. "Unfortunately, it is not possible to anticipate all possible graphics driver issues in combination with unique end user hardware and software configurations. For this reason RAGE does not automatically increase video/graphics settings as this could result in negative side effects on specific hardware and software configurations. The original release of RAGE does not expose many video/graphics options for people to tweak because some of these settings, although desirable from a quality perspective, simply will not work on specific configurations either due to hardware limitations and/or driver bugs."
A list of changes and fixes are as follows:
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- Implemented workaround for AMD driver crash right after intro cinematic on Win 7 32-bit systems.
- Disabled UBOs because they are causing animation issues with AMD drivers.
- Don't allow swap-tear to be enabled on AMD while the extension is not exposed because it may crash.
- Support for new video settings: "texture cache", "vsync" and "anisotropic filter"
- Automatically adjust vt_maxPPF based on the number of available cores.
- Improved performance for SLI cards when GPU transcode is enabled.
- Fix for GPU Transcoding option being disabled after exiting gameplay.
- Added safe mode to restore video settings to default values.
- Allow g_fov to be changed from the RAGE launch options in Steam.
- Server now forwards text chat from clients to all other clients while in-game.
The patch was distributed via Steam on Saturday night. So far there's no sign of a standalone installer.
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bennaye Every game that comes out of Bethesda seems to be riddled with bugs. Fallout 3, Fallout NV, Oblivion etc. But thankfully, the gameplay in each of those games was exceptional, and more than made up for the technical glitches, which the mod community patched up anyways. I just hope that RAGE will have a saving grace. It can't be graphics, obviously,, so it has to be gameplay.Reply -
bavman bennayeEvery game that comes out of Bethesda seems to be riddled with bugs. Fallout 3, Fallout NV, Oblivion etc. But thankfully, the gameplay in each of those games was exceptional, and more than made up for the technical glitches, which the mod community patched up anyways. I just hope that RAGE will have a saving grace. It can't be graphics, obviously,, so it has to be gameplay.Reply
I agree with fallout 3, but new vegas ran perfectly fine, i dont think i ever had a problem with it since launch date (except for that weird save bug). Fallout 3 though was riddled with problems but after all the patches they released it worked almost perfectly
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brotoles The game is very good, I'm really enjoying it.Reply
It's old school shooting with a mission hub structure. The fact that you can carry all your weapons at once is very nice too! :-)
And the graphics aren't the best I've seen, but they run silky smooth for what they deliver. It really adds to the experience.
I just don't understand why they only tested the game in-house, or at least why they didn't use the actual realease amd and nvidia drivers, instead of custom ones. -
Why dont they just work with AMD and Nvidia to release their games AFTER AMD and Nvidia have a stable driver release available for their games? Then make a driver check and update system that launches when you install the game.Reply
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netkcid they should just use the api like everyone else and not request custom extensions... kinda defeats the whole idea behind a standard api...Reply -
Bugaw It seems since the advent of consoles (Nintendo being the big one) most people have bought those since it's easy to just drop the game in and play. Apparently it has gained popularity over the PC.Reply
I am in no way bashing consoles as I like them as well but not for certain games. FPS mostly.
I have owned both but prefer the PC due to the flexibility. I've been playing PC games since the late 90's. Since then I have noticed a decline in quality control. Why release a game when it obviously has bugs? I'll explain later. It has happened but not as bad has it has recently.
Oblivion is a great example. Multiple official and unofficial patches for the PC. Even console issues. Really bad. Who were the beta testers and what kick backs were they given? I'm just speculating on that last statement. I have installed that game on three different (progressively better) systems and all had issues. The same issues!
Now Rage has come out. Bethesda has failed to impress me but ID has always been gold in my eyes. Not anymore. The graphics are no where superior to that of say Crysis or Crysis 2. Hell, MW2 and COD: Black Ops have better graphics and I didn't like those games for the money grubbing issues of acquiring new and better multiplayer maps simply because there wasn't a SDK provided so the company could make money on new, bigger and better MP maps. They saw the success and long lasting appeal of the original Half-Life and COD series of user created maps and mods. Effing greedy!
Back to Rage and my rage.
I had to maually go into the the file folder (DC:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\rage\base) and rename/delete the video file to get the game to even start. This was after the first patch!
All of the graphical tweeks that used to be included in the in-game options are not here in order to release a stable game. LOL. Leads me to believe the console versions were more important.
The almighty $ seems to be the issue. I remember when Half-Life came out. Life in the PC world was bliss. Great game, great story, great everything including mods and maps that you didn't have to pay extra for because of the SDK that was provided. Counter-Strike and Day Of Defeat to name couple. The Call Of Duty series was another great PC exclusive game with mods and maps you didn't have to pay for because of the SDK tools that were given for the end-user to create and provide. Those games lasted beyond their initial release. Hell I was playing CDO:UO for a year after it's initial release.
I can also name a load of PC games that never had issues like they have now. Even back then there when many differnet PC configurations concerning hardware. Not much in the way we have now but no where near the CTD, audio and video problems nowadays.
PC games never had the major issues they have now. Multi-platformed games have changed this.
Quality control seems secondary now when it comes to the PC. Even some games released on consoles have issues as well. Dead Island on the PS3 has had issues. Quality control has taken a back-seat when it comes to release deadlines and it's very sad.
Sadly, bottom line:
"Just release a patch and get this thing out the door so we can make money and I won't lose my job because of a deadline"
That's the comment I believe is the standard nowadays. -
Bugaw
Because it wouldn't be cost effective. They would lose money doing so. Release the game and patch later. Been that way for many companies for years.9316250 said:Why dont they just work with AMD and Nvidia to release their games AFTER AMD and Nvidia have a stable driver release available for their games? Then make a driver check and update system that launches when you install the game. -
Bugaw 9316245 said:Every game that comes out of Bethesda seems to be riddled with bugs. Fallout 3, Fallout NV, Oblivion etc. But thankfully, the gameplay in each of those games was exceptional, and more than made up for the technical glitches, which the mod community patched up anyways. I just hope that RAGE will have a saving grace. It can't be graphics, obviously,, so it has to be gameplay.
Full agreement on that statement except for the Rage graphical/gameplay one. Gameplay is good just not the graphics.