Quantum Break has been out for a while now on Xbox One and Microsoft Windows, and while the former has been doing quite well, the latter has been suffering quite a few technical difficulties that has left players understandably upset.
In a rather lengthy blog post on the official Remedy forums, the developer has outlined their plans to improve the performance of Quantum Break's performance on PC. We will list the most important answers here, but you can check the blog post for the full details.
We are aware that some players are facing issues with the Windows 10 version of Quantum Break and some extent on Xbox One. We want to let you know that we are working diligently with Microsoft Studios on addressing all the feedback.
In the blog post the developer addressed the frame rate issues with the game, which apparently has something to do with screen refresh rates which leads to frame rate stuttering. Besides that, they are also working with NVIDIA and AMD to improve the game's performance and the address the memory fragmentations that are a result of extended periods of play. This fragmentation results in a slower rendering speed which causes frame rate issues. For now, Remedy recommends the AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.4.1 driver for AMD users, and the 362.00 driver for NVIDIA cards. This problem is expected to be fixed in a patch coming in the near future.
Unfortunately, SLI and multi-GPU support will not be coming anytime soon, if at all.
Remedy also spoke about Quantum Break's use of temporal resolution:
The Windows 10 version of Quantum Break uses the same reconstruction method as on Xbox One. If your resolution is set to 1080p, the game temporally reconstructs the image (except UI) from four 720p buffers rendered with 4xMSAA, just like on Xbox One. Engine assigns input geometry samples from 4xMSAA rendering into shaded clusters in order to maximize covered geometry while keeping the performance on acceptable level by reducing expensive shaded samples. When you change the resolution, the buffers used to construct the image are always 2/3rds of the set resolution, i.e. in 2560x1440 they would be 1706x960.
This most likely means that Quantum Break will not be getting traditional 1080p support. Higher resolutions are available, but those too make use of the untraditional temporal resolution technique.
Remedy also talked about the forced v-sync for games bought on the Windows Store, saying that Microsoft will allow developers to turn off v-sync for their apps come May. Microsoft will also enable support for G-sync and Freesync monitors so games from the store will be able to take advantage of those features, which should lead to better performance overall. Note that due to how games from the Windows Store work, they will continue to run in borderless fullscreen.
Remedy will also be giving PC players more control over graphical settings like film grain which some players found to be a bit over the top. They identify it as an artistic choice and a similar option will not be available on Xbox One.
If you're on PC and if you have been suffering from performance problems this might go a long way to assure you that they are working on fixing the admittedly broken at launch title. We will, of course, give you an update when we hear more!
