Dragon’s Dogma 2 having an uncapped framerate was seen as good news initially, but the reveal has caused some heated debates online.
Director Hideaki Itsuno has revealed, that Dragon’s Dogma 2 will release with an uncapped framerate. More frames, hooray! Everyone loves a higher framerate, right? Wrong! What was initially seen as good news has sparked a bit of a debate online and might be more concerning than people are realizing.
Dragon’s Dogma 2: No Framerate Limit, No Problem?
This news was initially met with universal praise and excitement. Especially r/DragonsDogma is ecstatic about not having a framerate limit. However, higher numbers aren’t always better. Experts like Digital Foundry’s John Linneman have rung the alarm bell before about potential framerate issues in Dragon’s Dogma 2, as the game has so far looked “wildly unstable” in that regard, as Linneman puts it.
Was afraid of this. Hopefully there will be a performance mode of some sort. They definitely needed an optional 30 fps cap. At least the wide VRR window on Xbox should help. https://t.co/J9nbHvrkDn
— John Linneman @dark1x.bsky.social (@dark1x) February 13, 2024
In preview footage, the game has varied from running quite fluently to dropping the framerate pretty badly. Linneman says he wants stability, and I personally agree with him. VRR might help out here, but even that could struggle to paint over the cracks here. “I want stability and everything we’ve seen has been in the 35-40 fps range, which looks much worse than 30 fps locked. PS5’s VRR can’t cope with that either.”
VRR stands for Variable Refresh Rate, a technology used in games and display monitors to dynamically adjust the refresh rate of the display to match the frame rate of the output device, such as a console or a PC. This synchronization helps in reducing screen tearing, stuttering, and input lag, providing a smoother, more immersive gaming experience. VRR technologies include NVIDIA's G-SYNC, AMD's FreeSync, and the HDMI 2.1 VRR standard, which is supported by newer gaming consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
Having those higher framerate spikes is nice, but seeing that dip constantly is even worse in my opinion. While the concrete graphics options haven’t been revealed yet, this news suggests that the game won’t have an optional framerate cap, which would be a shame.
At the very least, consoles should have a performance mode. Hopefully the PC version, which will at least have some technical improvements over previous Capcom games, will also have enough option to ensure smooth and enjoyable performance for Dragon’s Dogma 2.