30fps Cap and Minimum System Requirement
Update: June 19, 2014
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Here's the second gameplay footage that was captured in uncapped frame rate mode (but v-synched to a 60Hz monitor).
Footage #2:
https://mega.co.nz/#F!G1wXgZAC!aJtEBsc92rCl6dRwb3f31w
(note: you may have to copy/paste the above URL into a separate web browser if you're viewing this thread through the Steam client)
Yesterday's footage was designed to show one of the more stressful, system-demanding scenarios within the game by selecting the latter part of game where there are thousands of zombies.
Footage #2 focuses on Nick Ramos' melee combat abilities and realtime cut scene, followed by a quick tour of the in-game menu options.
(Quick link to
Footage #1:
https://mega.co.nz/#F!DkIRRI4b!7sunyPNNiXgCE8hZXN5FKw)
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Hey folks,
It’s been really awesome to see how passionate you guys are about Dead Rising 3 on the PC. Now that the game is coming to Steam, there has been a ton of positive response and excitement in the community as well. There also has been a ton of discussions around the game’s min and rec specs as well as a lot of speculation on how the game might run with the frame rate uncapped.
Allow me to set the record straight -- while Dead Rising 3 is optimized to run at 30 frames per second for gameplay reasons, you can expect it to still run fine uncapped under most conditions provided you have a capable enough hardware. We can’t guarantee that there won’t be issues, and obviously depending on your rig you may see different results. Rest assured the beefier your gaming machine, the smoother your zombie killing experience will be.
Bear in mind the frame rate
will fluctuate in uncapped mode in certain areas, particularly later in the game, where streets are literally filled with zombies and other complex objects. Couple that with an open world sandbox game engine, big explosions, complex physics interaction, and huge draw distance and you’re bound to experience dips here and there. Speaking from personal experience, here’s
one example[mega.co.nz], a 4-minute gameplay footage, where I play-tested one of the builds in uncapped mode on an i7-4770K & GTX 780 Ti setup.
wbacon’s system:
Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K @3.5GHz
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 780 Ti reference board w/3GB VRAM
Memory: 16GB DDR3 RAM
Motherboard/Chipset: ASUS Maximus Hero VII (Z97 chipset)
Monitor/TV: Samsung 55” plasma TV set (60Hz) connected via HDMI
For those who really care about video frame rate, I highly recommend you download the source video since the footage was rendered out in 59.94 frames per second. Footage was captured through nVidia's ShadowPlay feature, and hence the use of GTX-based video card in my reference system.
Source video:
https://mega.co.nz/#F!DkIRRI4b!7sunyPNNiXgCE8hZXN5FKw
It's also worth noting that the footage will inevitably make its way onto YouTube. Just keep in mind that the YouTube encoder automatically truncates the source video's frame rate down to 30fps and at a much lower quality.
Back on topic. For this particular rig, the game played fine from the very beginning all the way to the true ending without any showstopper issues. There were no noticeable lip synching or audio issues, no sped up animations, and best of all, not a single crash or freeze during my entire playthrough. Again, this does not guarantee you’ll have the same experience as I did, but this is just to give you an idea on a particular reference setup.
Minimum / Recommended specs
Many of you have asked -- what does the min spec / rec spec mean for Dead Rising 3 and my particular PC setup? Short answer is if you have a min spec machine, you will be able to play the game at 30fps at Low settings, which still looks very nice.
If your system meets the recommended specs, you will be able to play the game at High settings and at 1080p resolution. That’s what we’ve formally tested at, and that is the consistent experience you can expect from the minimum and recommended specs outlined on the store page.
That being said, some of you may still attempt to play the game below the official min spec.
While not officially supported/tested, and again please take this anecdotal test with a grain of salt, but running DR3 on my work laptop with graphics settings set to ‘Low’ and video resolution set to 1280x720, the game overall seemed playable with frame rate hovering around 30fps. Naturally the game is a lot more susceptible to regular dips below 30fps when there are lots of objects, complex geometry, and/or explosions on screen. I’ve only had the chance to play the first hour of the opening section, so it’s hard to say what the experience may be later in the game.
The particular laptop I use is an ASUS UX51VZ Ultrabook/hybrid gaming laptop featuring GeForce GT650M w/2GB VRAM, Core i7-3612QM@2.1GHz, and 8GBs of system memory. Again, I'd like to stress that this isn’t a confirmation nor guarantee that the game will be fully playable below minimum specs.
Hopefully this helps answer some of your burning questions
wbacon
EDIT: Looks like the video URL doesn't parse correctly when you click it via the Steam client. You may have to copy/paste the full URL into a web browser.
Note the video footage was encoded at 25Mbps. It may cause slow downs or frame skip if the PC isn't strong enough.