I was able to play Destiny 2 for about an hour and a half today before having to head out for some last minute business travel, so you’ll have to forgive the short post here as I toss out just a few very early impressions.
These impressions are strictly about the ‘feel’ of the game and the ‘look’ of the game. They’re the superficial snap judgements one forms within minutes of playing.
Destiny 2 is a very nice looking game. In fact, one of the nicer looking games I’ve played recently. I say that as someone who appreciates stylized graphics. I don’t think Destiny 2 will win any awards for technologically advanced graphics or anything, but I still think it’s beautiful.
What I like best about the way it looks is that it runs just as smooth. My computer is now over 3 years old which means it’s ancient in computer years. That’s like 21 years in doggy years, and 100 years old in computer years. Much longer and I’ll have to take it out back and put it out of its misery. Speaking of which, I think a power outage we just had yesterday forced my audio to get stuck at one level: insanely high. Something must have shorted.
Anyway, the game runs perfectly. I have no complaints at all about performance. The game runs smooth, controls smooth, feels good playing, etc.
Jumping is a little floating at times, which is more of an observation than a complaint.
Gunplay is top notch. I wish more games would control and feel like this. I don’t understand why we can’t have a Battlefield game that feels like this.
Looking forward to getting back home to log a few more hours and give you my thoughts on the actual gameplay and story.
The concept of a computer being quickly outdated is, itself, outdated.
Most PC games are console ports. And since early in the Xbox360/PS3 generation, consoles have been much slower than PCs. Even the brand-new Xbox One X has extremely slow CPUs, slower than any commodity corei3 laptop from several years ago. It does have a fast GPU, but every Xbone and PS4 game needs to run well on launch Xbones and PS4s, so games scale well.
That’s why Destiny runs great on a potato computer. Because consoles.
“Most PC games are console ports.” Um what? Ignoring counting all games on Steam and getting a % that are available on a console (a number likely to be around 2%, maybe less?), none of the top 10 games on Steam right now are console titles.
Agree that Destiny runs fine on a potato because its a console game (and why it looks pretty average for a PC game), but if you don’t have decent PC hardware (which 3 year old hardware is certainly not), you are going to have a tough time running PUGB, ARK, DOS2, etc at high settings on a no-poors monitor.
Who cares about the percentage? Steam posts hundreds of garbage unity asset flips every day.
I’m talking about AAA+ studio titles, not indie sensations or esports. You’re right that consoles fall behind on those, but they usually aren’t particularly hardware intensive either.
Hardware just doesn’t matter very much these days. A 1050ti/GTX960/GTX770 (same basic perf) will play pretty much everything at 1080p great, and many at 60fps and high settings to boot… and the 770 launched 5 years ago in 2013.
I’m talking the most popular games on the PC, as seen on Steam, not garbage titles or even indies. Zero console ports on the top list. Also please with the AAA+ studio titles. Yea, I’m really dying to play the latest EA garbage like Andromeda over current PC exclusives like PUBG, LoL, DOS2 etc, or to play Witcher 3, GTAV, RE:Bio etc at potato settings on a console that dips fps vs maxed and modded on a PC. And good luck running those titles on a 1050ti with max settings.
Can you get away with being a PC games on older hardware? Sure, especially if you don’t have a newer monitor or don’t play games with top-end graphics. But if you do? Either you are under 60fps and just living with it, or you greatly limit yourself to what you can play and how well (for PvP titles).
A 1050ti will play PUBG, LoL, DoS2, Witcher3, GTA5, and RE:Bio great at 1080p. Not all at literally max settings, even without DSR. Particularly PUBG which is poorly optimized being in early access. But you will get a very good 60fps play experience in every single one of those games.
I don’t know if that’s the entire story, though. I think there are plenty of console games that don’t have the magnificent performance that Destiny 2 or even Overwatch have.
Battlefront is a console port and it does run well on PC, but not as well as these games. I don’t know if “runs well†is the vernacular. I guess it runs just fine. Perhaps polish contribute to the overall experience.
“Gunplay is top notch. I wish more games would control and feel like this.”
It’s by far the best part of Destiny. Xbox gamers have been enjoying that feel since 2001. If Destiny wasn’t married to a really bad “MMO quality” story I think Destiny could be a lot bigger than it is.
As for computers getting long in the tooth? CPUs have stagnated big time. There are a ton of us out there still using our i2500k’s from SIX years ago playing today’s games just fine! Still waiting for that big leap to hit that makes me finally move on.