Seeing as the PC version on Steam is currently free to play this weekend I thought I would download it and compare to the PS4 version that I’ve been playing. Now my PC is 7 years old so by no means is it a powerhouse by today’s standards. I was actually expecting Conan Exiles to run very poorly on it to be honest but…
The game runs pretty damn good on it. High graphical settings, max field of view and it runs absolutely beautifully. 60 FPS for the most part with some drops to around 45FPS but no stuttering whatsoever. And the graphics look better than the PS4 version as well.
If my 7 year old PC can run this game on high settings and have no issues whatsoever and maintain a solid frame rate and look noticeably better while doing so what’s going on with the PS4 version? The PS4 version looks very poor in comparison, running at sub 30FPS and with stuttering to boot. The difference is night and day and it’s almost like the console versions do not receive the same amount of polish and optimisation as our PC counterparts.
Some other observations:
No field of view options on console version - why not?
Load times are absolutely horrible on the PS4 version. From main menu to in-game on PC took no longer than 10-15 seconds. PS4 takes 1-2 minutes, sometimes much longer. The strange thing here is my PC is only using a standard HDD whereas my PS4 is using an SSHD.
Can someone connected to the development team give us some insight into how much time is spent on polishing and optimising the console versions in comparison to the PC versions? It certainly seems like we don’t get anywhere near the attention as what the PC version does and it’s not right considering we all paid for and are playing the same game.
Has anyone else played both versions and care to share their experiences? I was happy with the PS4 version before testing the PC version (except for some performance issues and bugs that still haven’t been fixed) but now I’m sort of regretting getting the console version as it’s clear that resources are not evenly spread between versions.
The recent patches, including the performance improvements, have not been patched to consoles yet.
Certification of console versions, which is for Sony and Microsoft to handle, may take up to a week. With previous versions they have been able to push a patch to consoles within a few days. It’s possibly more of a struggle with numerous patches being stacked up (idk if the firmware update slowed it down any)
I do think there might be more unsolved problems with the console version than on PC.
I’m not an expert on this, but I’ll give it a try: consoles have to deal with a lot of weight(s) from the game. Other titles may manage this better in places, although those are not all open worlds. Performance may be worse depending on one component in your device, but is not going to get way better by having just this one better component in it. PCs have had longer to develop themselves. They’re not really better than consoles, but are better capable to handle certain things than consoles are and vice versa.
Interesting,
I’m all Mac at home (except non-fit-for-gaming old PCs) so I never tried. However I’ve asked myself the same question but from a different motivation.
The Game-Dev Kit of Conan Exiles on UE4 is free but only for PC. I would love to fool around with that. I would also really like to try mods from users.
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I played the game long enough so that my interest is gone for the actual single player gameplay. I’m also not in a context to commit to online PVP gaming. I still like the game very much though.
What’s left to me is to play the game like LEGO blocks and build stuff. Although the game allows for a lot of that in Admin mode, bugs & limitations are met quickly. Few modifications to that extent would really unlock possibilities but it doesn’t seem to be a priority at Funcom.
I understand that admin features are meant to support official gameplay (single/multiplayer; PVP; PVE; PVE-C). My point is that despite the original intentions of the developers on how to play the game, I wish the “LEGO blocks” perspective would become recognized as a legitimate approach to play this game and thus gain more support from the development team.
Allegedly Funcom faces ressources/priorities/timeline issues which greatly limits the course of actions being undertaken since game launch. Moreover, their agenda is greatly driven by users feedback (board on Trello) so if you are an out-of-the-box thinker, your ideas are doomed.
Censorship is also a major irritant on PS4, thanks to Sony, although there are ways around. You can import a UK disc-version of the game and access full features. However if your PSN account doesn’t match (UK) you won’t have access to DLC (I purchased 2 and I can’t use it).
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For those reasons (Dev Kit on PC; access to users mods; buggy PS4 version; PS4 censorship; inaccessible DLCs) I came to think a few times that I wish I had a gaming PC. I simply haven’t because I’m tied to much higher priorities/obligations in terms of spendings and use of my time.
That said, what you wrote reinforces my thought that PS4 is the poor child of Conan Exiles. If I had the choice in the first place I’d opt for the PC version.
Everything that @TheLOLxd2 said. I understand that people feel consoles aren’t receiving a fair shake, and I know Funcom would be the first to admit that they can do better. But something that needs to be said is that a lot of the performance improvements you see on the PC version (and more coming) is in part because of the performance feedback Funcom has received from consoles specifically. PC is gaining those benefits too, but a lot of the changes were spearheaded by the console community.
PC takes all of an hour or so to push a patch to Steam. There are no size limitations, no waiting on Microsoft or Sony to give a thumbs up during certification, just push it and good to go.
Since I pretty much live in the Dev-Kit, I’m biased when I say this, but this reason alone is why i always recommend PC over console. Having access to the dev kit and mods. Mods “can” happen on consoles, but the logistics are far more complicated (and takes financial resources, which is why its typically only the big juggernauts of the developer world who have mods on consoles), and why Funcom most likely won’t ever have mods on consoles.
Though if you ever do make the switch and want to play in the dev kit, look me up so I can get you the discord information and all that stuff to get you going on the right path! Dev kit is fun!
I am well aware that the console versions have not yet received all of the updates applied to the PC version. Having said that I do not expect the console versions to magically improve to the point that they resemble the PC version that I tested out over the weekend, even on my antique 7 year old PC.
I think the point of my posting was that from an outsider’s point of view (ie the players) it certainly does appear that the console versions do not receive the same amount of care and attention that the PC version does. It doesn’t matter which platform you play on you should be subject to the same focus from the developers. Otherwise, why release on platforms that you do not plan to support equally?
Just wait til we get the patch. It’s coming soon. Then we can all get to putting our two cents in about if we are being treated fairly. Problems come and go and I’ve had mine run for months without a “previously posted” problem only to appear out of nowhere with nothing changed. It was mentioned that this very forum is responsible for changes that helped the PC community to. We aren’t the red-headed step-child you think we are. Console is just a different beast. I play a few console games that all have “Better” PC equivalents. Truly the only thing better is the PC’s ability to hardware improve and ease of updating. Also, they do seem to get better ping, but I’m not an IT professional, so I don’t know why. Blaming Funcom for something that is prevalent with many game titles and companies isn’t good, but I totally uphold our right to demand better and these guys respond way better than say, UbiSoft. (I like those guys also, but they have similar problems -PC vs Console)
I have never owned a PS4 or Xbox so this is a completely naive question … does the television that you hook it up to make a difference at all?
I did the quick google search on PS4 … and read one of the Wikipedia entries … they use AMD cards? The PC version has had issues with AMD graphics cards I believe (old old forum post: AMD Workarounds Thread )
… maybe it’s also a factor … but of course funcom should optimise for the type of graphics cards consoles come with … its not like you get a choice when you purchase the machines…
There are some nice things in the Devkit that were not implemented (or practically not implemented) in the game itself. I’ve found two models of kitties there: black (the one that you can see in the Derketo temple) and tabby! I’m thinking of becoming a modder too
Yup, it’s pretty standard to have unused assets. There is a lot of goodies to be found in the dev kit, a lot modders have added into their mods. Just glad Funcom kept them in the dev kit so we can play with them.
Considering the free play weekend was just on I figured it was better to compare directly while I had access to the game on both platforms. I will make another comparison once the updates are deployed on the console versions but without access to the PC version it will be harder to compare properly.
As I said in my previous post I am not expecting some magical fix that will boost console performance to that of my experience with the PC version on my old PC. They would have already done this if they could.
Obviously games are going to perform better on the PC platform because specs of modern day PC far exceed that of the current gen consoles. The point I was making is that they have probably not done enough console specific optimisation and improvements as this is not their primary platform of choice. But I feel that if they are going to release a game on these platforms then they should probably put in the effort to make sure it is a pleasant experience for the players on these platforms.
I think we need not compare PC VS PS4 but instead compare other titles on the PS4 Vs Conan Exiles on the PS4 to see how well games can look graphically and how well they can perform even on the console specification. It is very clear that Conan Exiles is failing to deliver on both of these aspects.
I think Funcom need to devote more time and resource to the console platform moving forward.
And as I said, various performance tweaks done for the version you see on PC because of console feedback. Before you hop on the train that console performance tweaks are being ignored, I would wait for the actual patch that has console based tweaks done on it to come.
Funcom has repeatedly said that performance is an ongoing project for them, they’ve been saying and doing this since the early days of EA. Even after this next wave of performance updates are done (including ones not yet released, even on PC), they will still keep tweaking it to try and find improvements. I know console players are justifiably frustrated, but your comment that “they would have done so if they could,” isn’t accurate.
