No Man's Sky Launches On Steam and GOG and It's Off To A Rocky Start (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Ars Technica: No Man's Sky, an indie "video game that promises 18 quintillion planets" from a "small development team," has launched today for Windows PC gamers via Steam or GOG. Unfortunately, the "worldwide simultaneous launch on all kinds of PCs" is off to a rocky start -- as evidenced by the "mostly negative" Steam reviews. Many gamers have complained about frame rate hitches and total system crashes. Ars Technica reports: "Even users with high-end solutions like the GTX 1080 or two GTX 980Ti cards in SLI mode are reporting major stutters -- on a game that runs on a comparatively so-so PS4 console with a mostly consistent 30 FPS refresh. The game's PC version defaults to a 30 FPS cap, which can be disabled in the normal options menus. But with this setting turned on, the game can't help but hitch down to an apparent 20 FPS on a regular basis, not to mention throw up frequent display hitches of half a second at a time. Removing that frame rate cap can get play up to a smooth 60 frames per second, and we enjoyed more consistent frame rates without the cap. But even those frame rates can bounce down to 30 or less at random intervals. The game also suffers from freezing hitches, even without apparent spikes in visible geometry like creatures or spaceships." Ars also mentions that the on-screen prompts don't update the button remapping accordingly. There's been some frustration among PC gamers who have had to learn the hard way that the game's floating-menu interface was built with joysticks in mind. Mouse scroll wheels don't seem to work to scroll through text and between menus, and players are required to hold-to-confirm every menu interaction in the game. What's more is that alt-tabbing out of the game is a "guaranteed crash." For those looking for more information about the game, The Atlantic has a captivating report describing the game as if it were like reading a book.

Comments

Partially agree...

[Archfeld]

If we as avid gamers don't buy things expecting them to be rocky at the start and get better we'll never get anything worth having. What we need to do is make sure that we support the companies that DO make things right, and fail to support the companies that have a track record of failing to address issues. Another thing users need to do is take over the data gathering about bugs and features that need fixing by utilizing 3rd party forums and making links into the company support forums. Often less than responsible companies try and control 'official' support structures as if they were PR sources. By utilizing more open sources we can ensure that things don't get swept under the carpet or covered up. We as the end users need to be vocal in our support of said fixes and those companies that are most proactive, emphasizing responsive customer service and highlighting those that fail. The cost and procedures of making games these days has ensured that small companies will go under before they have a chance to fix things, or big companies will drop production houses if too much bad press comes out too early. You sort of have to grow a decent brand or it will wither and die on the vine and then everyone loses.

settings

[meglon]

The big problems seem to be had by those with top of the line systems and who are jacking their settings to max. I have an older machine/graphics card, and i'm not having any problem at all... other than getting really cold when night rolls around (although i actually do think that in this game it's a feature, not a bug... (yes, place obligatory "fuck Sony" here)).

This is not a fast paced shoot 'em up game. I just spent ~ 2 hours figuring out the controls, how to repair my ship, and gathering the materials to do that. Along the way i found a language stone, an alien artifact plaque (i haven't got too yet), and made friends with 2 animals... one of which ran around digging up some materials that i hadn't found just laying around.

My only annoyance so far (other than almost freezing my nads off at night), is that you have to exit your ship to save game (apparently). So if you get in, construct a few things, then log out... well... you'll get to practice making things all over again when you log in.

So my suggestion is: if you're having trouble, turn your settings down a little.