Saints Row 2 brings PC gaming to shame

[CyberAkuma]

This [http://www.gametrailers.com/player/44216.html?type=flv] is what was promised:

Saints Row 2 in amazing 60 FPS in glorious 16:9 resolution.
(This is directly from the Saints Row 2 for PC trailer released yesterday)

This is what was delivered:

The game looks like an Xbox 1 game.
It runs at 7-15 FPS and the game doesn't even supports Wide-Screen resolutions.


After being traumatized with the very poor port of Grand Theft Auto IV on the PC this is really not what PC gamers wanted. The game runs tremendously bad on all computers, even on Hi-End rigs. Not only is it a poor port directly from the Xbox 360 version, but also it suffers from tremendous preformance issues making the game downright unplayable.

After messing around with configuration settings for half an hour I discovered

* The game runs tremendously bad regardless if the resolution. 800x600 or 1600x1200.
It won't make a difference in the preformance

* The sound is mono and will only come out from the left speaker

* The game will run at a slow paced 7-15 FPS even when all settings set to low

* The game does not support widescreen resolutions at all.

* The game does not support SLI nor Crossfire.

Reading some game reviews online:

...I was getting performance around the 15-20 fps mark which I don't think is particularly acceptable in 2009 for such a decent gaming PC. Clearly developers recently feel we should all be running Skulltrail with 3 280 GTXs in SLI to get acceptable performance from our console ports!

Graphically, the game is a disaster. Sure they look nice on still frames, but the whole experience is a rushed and half assed effort which results in a half assed game.

Saints Row 2 is basically the same core game that was on the 360 and Ps3, but it has suffered from a shoddy, half assed port which has all but ruined the experience for PC users. Only if you lower a lot of the graphical niceties does the game speed up to become playable, but you begin to wonder why a machine with almost four times the power of the aging 360 console struggles to keep framerates high. Only those with a ludicrously expensive PC need apply."

Gaming Heaven [http://www.gamingheaven.net/gamingreviews.php?reviewid=686]

From IGN [http://pc.ign.com/articles/941/941952p1.html]:

The technical shortcomings are the only truly bad part of Saints Row 2, and, sadly for PC gamers, it pretty much kills their experience unless they can play with the bulk of the visual settings turned down or off. Not doing so ruins your gameplay experience.

What does that translate to in terms of quality? A crazy good time. Or at least, what would have been a crazy good time if not for the game's poor coding on PC. For whatever reason the PC version absolutely chugs. Even on my Intel Core2Quad 2.4 GHz with 2GB RAM, an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX, and a Vista 32 operating system, the game ran between twenty and seven frames per second and had a host of other performance issues. In other words, it was nauseating and almost unplayable. The core gameplay is the same, but the general performance basically kills the experience.

This is in essence why the PC is not getting the attention it deserves by the gaming community.

This is a disgrace - No; an INSULT to PC gamers to bare with a port like this by 2009 years standards of gaming.

Oh, and here is the kicker:

In an article [http://www.gameguru.in/pc/2008/30/saints-row-2-pc-delayed-till-2009/] posted 2 months ago the developers mentioned this:

The PC version was delayed because we wanted to make the highest quality game across all platforms, but it just needed more time.
The game is a port of the console version from an external company, but that doesn?t mean the code can just be copied over, and ship it out.

The PC version is still being produced and tested at Volition with support from the design and programming teams as needed.
This is in no way a hands-off external port of the game.

In the game, when you use the quick-selection function of weapons, there's an Xbox360 controller D-Pad on the screen:

 

[Gormers1]

Some of your points were really ridiculous. Sound one one speaker, lmao.
GTA 4 was poorly ported as you wrote too. Are we seeing a starting trend?

 

[curlycrouton]

Try and port Crysis to a PS3 and then tell me PC gaming has been "brought to shame".

 

[Dommyboy]

GTA 4 wasn't even this bad. This is a bloody insult to PC gamers. Why the hell would they release it? Even the staff knew how bad it was. Atleast GTA 4 was playable and Rockstar immediately got on the issue. I actually prefer Saints Row to GTA games but this is just f#cking terrible. I waited ages for Saints Row 2 for PC. It promised the world and delivered it but just for console gamers.

 

[The_Deleted]

GTA 4 was poorly ported too btw.

After being traumatized with the very poor port of Grand Theft Auto IV on the PC

I'm not a PC gamer for these types of games, but I'd be monumentally pissed if a Total War game was given such treatment.
And that's the problem. The developers know that the game has already made it's money on consoles. Why put any effort into it for the PC? Shame. But surely you PC-ers would have learned your lesson by now?!

 

[Theo Samaritan]

To be fair, GTAIV may be a poor performer if you are used to having everything maxxed out, but if you can hold back on your urge to slide everything all the way up, you can run it at 40fps easily at medium or high settings assuming you have a reasonable PC (these days, a basic quad core, 3-4 gigs of ram, and an 8800GT or above graphics card is not exactly unreseasonable).

The moaning for GTAIV comes from people who were expecting to max it out. This simply isn't the case.

Saints Row 2 on the other hand doesn't even give room to max out. I looked it up, and it appears that while GTAIV has had a lot of stuff added to it graphically (higher res textures etc), SR2 had none of the polish.

Sorry for the comparing of the two ports, but they are the closest comparison currently. I would be interested in knowing if SR2 uses 3 of the 4 cores on a quad core like GTTIV does (emulating the behaviour of the tri-core 360).

I hope for SR fans that they patch it for you.

 

[Gormers1]

GTA 4 was poorly ported too btw.

After being traumatized with the very poor port of Grand Theft Auto IV on the PC

Yeah but I edited it a while before you posted this though. Since I sometimes post before having read the whole thing.

 

[General Crespin]

In the game, when you use the quick-selection function of weapons, there's an Xbox360 controller D-Pad on the screen:

That's a 360 analog stick too, just to be clear.

 

[Dommyboy]

I just had to link that picture of the weapon menu to the Saints Row 2 forums. Violation sure did mess up. All the SR2 forums are at the moment are constant posts about how people want their money back or other performance issues.

 

[The_Deleted]

GTA 4 was poorly ported too btw.

After being traumatized with the very poor port of Grand Theft Auto IV on the PC

Yeah but I edited it a while before you posted this though. Since I sometimes post before having read the whole thing.

That makes two of us, apparently.

 

[meece]

so the developers are retarded and are just trying to make as much profit as they can.

Why is THAT not surprising?

 

[CyberAkuma]

To even add more insult to injury, the game is VERY high paced.
The game is A LOT fster than GTA IV.
Driving from 0-60 mph takes less than a second and aiming and firing is really really fast.

Low FPS rates really hurts a game like that.

 

[Valatix]

I say that SR2 is actualy a pretty good game, but it still has several bugs in it as you said

 

[Ace of Spades]

This is why I quit PC gaming.

 

[CmdrGoob]

And speaking as a PC gamer, PC gamers pretty much deserve it. If you release anything on the PC, half the PC gamers out there shit on you by pirating it, if you use DRM to try to stop that, half the PC gamers out there shit on you for using DRM. Why should anyone put a lot of effort into doing a PC game with PC gaming in it's current sorry state?

 

[sirdanrhodes]

Lucky for me then, I am in 360.

But that wasn't that great, LOTS of game crashing bugs.

 

[ksn0va]

So you're saying because someone else steals the game, honest people who buy those games deserve to suffer?

 

[CmdrGoob]

So you're saying because someone else steals the game, honest people who buy those games deserve to suffer?

No, I'm saying there are too many dishonest people and not enough honest people to make it really worthwile to do better.