Dragon's Dogma - Performance Analysis

DSO Gaming takes a look at Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen's performance.

Thanks to Couch for tonight's news.

Given its old-gen nature, Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen is not really a demanding title. Even though the game scales well on multiple CPU cores (thanks to the MT Framework that was always friendly to multi-core CPUs), it does not require a high-end CPU in order to run with constant 60fps. In order to find out whether an old CPU was able to offer an ideal gaming experience, we simulated a dual-core CPU with and without Hyper Threading. Without HT, we experienced minor stutters. With HT enabled, the game ran with constant 60fps and without any stutters. In other words, those with Intel’s i3 CPUs will not be CPU limited under any-case scenario.

Regarding the game’s GPU requirements, Capcom recommends an NVIDIA GTX760 or an equivalent card. And we are happy to report that this recommendation is spot on. Due to the lack of an SLI profile, our GTX690 performed similarly to a GTX680 (that is slightly faster than the GTX760). And while there was one scene in which our framerate dropped at 60fps (in the prologue when you first encounter the dragon), the game ran with constant 70fps at 1080p with max settings.

Dragon’s Dogma performs great on the PC, no doubt about that. PC gamers won’t encounter any stutters while exploring the game’s world, there are no mouse acceleration and smoothing issues, the mouse is supported in all menus, and there are proper mouse/keyboard indicators while playing the game. And Capcom has provided a respectable amount of options to tweak in case you own a really weak PC system.

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All in all, Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen performs great on the PC. Thanks to the MT Framework, PC gamers will be able to enjoy this game on a variety of PC systems. It’s also great that the game ‘behaves’ like a PC game. However, Capcom did not do much to improve the game’s dated visuals. Yes, PC gamers can use the ENBSeries mod and Reshade in order to improve them, however it would be great if the developers actually did something more about it. A more advanced lighting system, higher polygon characters, out-of-the-box support for NVIDIA’s HBAO+ and better textures would do wonders to this game.

More information.

More information.

Huh. Seems to me that the PC looks much better than the PS3 version, with better textures, lighting and anti-aliasing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UnxufWhAnQ

I agree. I have both the PS3 and PC versions, and the difference is significant. I don't understand why the author would claim otherwise.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I agree. I have both the PS3 and PC versions, and the difference is significant. I don't understand why the author would claim otherwise.

Because DSOG are complete amateurs and don't have any actual credentials in regard to technical analysis and art analysis. I'm not trying to be mean; just stating the truth. None of their technical analysis articles have been good, at all.

Originally Posted by Thaurin
Huh. Seems to me that the PC looks much better than the PS3 version, with better textures, lighting and anti-aliasing.

The PC version looks SIGNIFICANTLY better. A lot of people forget how bad the console version looked and performed.

Yes, PC gamers can use the ENBSeries mod and Reshade in order to improve them, however it would be great if the developers actually did something more about it.

I do agree everyone should use something like ReShade. I'm using the Modern Look preset and it really helps brighten and sharpen the rendering.

Also, I will admit for me on my i5 2500k with GeForce 680 I had to turn the Draw Distance to Low because Medium and High would ruin my framerate at certain locations. At Low it runs at 60 FPS always.

I played on the PS3 slim. Never noticed any slowdowns or anything, but then I'm not super particular about frame rate.

PC does look better obviously. I'll give ReShade a try. Thanks for the link!

I'll avoid reshade and enb whatever.
If there will be a vote somewhere, I'll vote on the actual game, not 3rd party programs.

Originally Posted by Thaurin
Huh. Seems to me that the PC looks much better than the PS3 version, with better textures, lighting and anti-aliasing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UnxufWhAnQ

Some of the textures are pretty rough. In other words they look like console game textures. And some are ok. The game world overall looks good. The menus, not so much, they're pretty ugly, but the character mod screens look pretty good.

There are some mods out already, but I wouldn't recommend installing them, at least not the ENB mod. I installed that and while it did make the game look somewhat better, it's not worth the degraded performance, especially load times.

With regards to performance, with a single GTX 970 (SLI is not supported) I get 120 FPS at 1080 and 100 FPS at 1440, with the graphics settings maxed. So it's well optimized, although I'm sure a few HD texture mods will bring those numbers down quite a bit.

Originally Posted by joxer
I'll avoid reshade and enb whatever.
If there will be a vote somewhere, I'll vote on the actual game, not 3rd party programs.

Uh…closed-minded much? ENB and ReShade should NOT be compared. ENB makes the game load longer and it is very much a weird hack. I don't recommend ENB.

However, ReShade is a much, much better programmed suite of graphical rendering tools. ReShade Modern Look that I linked doesn't hurt performance or load times. Rather, it just makes the game look better.

Just look at this comparison picture on the page. Notice the rocks become proper rock hues and the overly harsh brown haze is removed.

Originally Posted by Brumbek
Uh…closed-minded much? ENB and ReShade should NOT be compared.

I think his point is that any assessment he makes about the game (esp. in regards to 'best of' lists, etc) will be about the game as created by the developers.

Joxer is kinda religious that way

Originally Posted by Kobu
I played on the PS3 slim. Never noticed any slowdowns or anything, but then I'm not super particular about frame rate.

PC does look better obviously. I'll give ReShade a try. Thanks for the link!

To save anyone else the pain, the FPS counter is disabled in Common.cfg:

#define RFX_ShowFPS 0

Originally Posted by Shagnak
I think his point is that any assessment he makes about the game (esp. in regards to 'best of' lists, etc) will be about the game as created by the developers.

Joxer is kinda religious that way

This is partly why I don't get into discussions on Skyrim or similar style games. I'll install any mod, hack any file, change any CFG files, etc etc to make the game better for myself.

By the time I played Skyrim "for the first time" there was well over 30 mods changing textures, UI, lighting, AI. The "second time" was well over 100 mods.

Mods, enb , reshade, ini. and file hacks, etc are one of the main PC perks why anyone would not take advantage of them is beyond me.

I never played a minute of vanilla skyrim and the first thing I do with any game after installing it is to check the web for mods or tweaks that I'd be interested in.

Originally Posted by Kobu
To save anyone else the pain, the FPS counter is disabled in Common.cfg:

#define RFX_ShowFPS 0

Looks nice, but it's causing bad shadow striping so back out it goes.

Originally Posted by sakichop
Mods, enb , reshade, ini. and file hacks, etc are one of the main PC perks why anyone would not take advantage of them is beyond me.

I never played a minute of vanilla skyrim and the first thing I do with any game after installing it is to check the web for mods or tweaks that I'd be interested in.

What's beyond you is easily explainable - there are games out there that need no "improvements". Why? They so good without cherry on the top of the cake.

The game you mentioned I played vanilla and later added two mods just to make it bearable (SkyUI and norespawn). It's not PC perk. It's the case of a bad game. Then again, you're trying to see things from the positive angle ignoring the actual cause you're using those mods for.

Originally Posted by joxer
What's beyond you is easily explainable - there are games out there that need no "improvements". Why? They so good without cherry on the top of the cake.

The game you mentioned I played vanilla and later added two mods just to make it bearable (SkyUI and norespawn). It's not PC perk. It's the case of a bad game. Then again, you're trying to see things from the positive angle ignoring the actual cause you're using those mods for.

Easily explainable? No. You are a very lucky man if you've played games that need no improvements. I've never encountered a perfect game that couldn't be improved in some way.

I'm not ignoring anything. I don't mod games because they're bad. If I think a game is bad I don't waste my time with it in the first place. I mod games because as of today no developer has ever called me to ask me exactly what I want in a game. So having the option to mod in things that I personally want to see in a game is a huge PC perk that you are ignoring.

You recommended a mod for drakensang, did you do that because it was a bad game? Of course not it's a fantastic game made a bit better by the mod.

If you truly want to experience games as the developer intended then buy a console and just play. That's typically the lead platform the developer is making the game for anyway.

Of course you won't do that and neither should you. You sing the praises of PC gaming here on a daily basis and then shun one of the very things that make PC great. The ability to customize games to your liking. I'm sorry Joxer, but that's not easily explainable at all.

Hmm I have this….and I agree the graphics look nice but you can definitely tell it isn't a newer game. The textures are obviously better then when it originally came out but I think they just upped the resolution.

I use ENB too….

Don't get me wrong the game looks good, but dated. Not that it is bad or anything.

EDIT: I run max everything in the settings.

Originally Posted by sakichop
You recommended a mod for drakensang, did you do that because it was a bad game? Of course not it's a fantastic game made a bit better by the mod.

True, I did, but only after I finished the vanilla game without modding it.

Originally Posted by sakichop
If you truly want to experience games as the developer intended then buy a console and just play. That's typically the lead platform the developer is making the game for anyway.

No. The developer intended many things, but most of ideas were scrapped due to limitations. These things, at least visual stuff or frames per second, work as developer intended only on PC. So buy PC.

Originally Posted by sakichop
Of course you won't do that and neither should you. You sing the praises of PC gaming here on a daily basis and then shun one of the very things that make PC great. The ability to customize games to your liking. I'm sorry Joxer, but that's not easily explainable at all.

I do and will do sing praises.
What I won't do is praising modding something just because. A new expansionlike mod, sure. A new UI that corrects horrible mushroomoriented one, yes, definetly.

But mods that distort original already looking good visuals? Peh.
I'm a graphics whore but that doesn't mean I judge the book by it's cover.

Originally Posted by joxer
True, I did, but only after I finished the vanilla game without modding it.


No. The developer intended many things, but most of ideas were scrapped due to limitations. These things, at least visual stuff or frames per second, work as developer intended only on PC. So buy PC.


I do and will do sing praises.
What I won't do is praising modding something just because. A new expansionlike mod, sure. A new UI that corrects horrible mushroomoriented one, yes, definetly.

But mods that distort original already looking good visuals? Peh.
I'm a graphics whore but that doesn't mean I judge the book by it's cover.

Well, Joxer I gave you my best pitch so I don't really have anything else to say.

That's ok though because another great perk of PC gaming is that everyone can play how they want too.

That's the only perk.
It's you who specialized it into modding and forget the rest possibilities PC provides.

Originally Posted by joxer
That's the only perk.
It's you who specialized it into modding and forget the rest possibilities PC provides.

I disagree with you 100%
Computer games are created with the lowest common feasible denominator in mind.
Its not really the "developers intent", its… we need to capture the widest possible PC market.
Modding allows me to skip this crap limitation.

You should see tech support forums on a new release.
"Hi, why is this game not playing on my Apple IIe or my pentium II?"