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Nier: Automata and The Evil Within is/runs better on Xbox Game Pass PC than on Steam

pasterpl

Member



Nier: Automata is better on Xbox Game Pass PC than on Steam, it has emerged.

The PC version of Nier: Automata that launched into Xbox Game Pass this week is a port of the Nier: Automata Become as Gods Edition that launched on Xbox One in 2018 with the DLC thrown in.

This port, handled by developer QLOC, includes a number of enhancements, such as a borderless video setting, FidelityFX options, HDR, and user interface textures upscaled to 4k. The borderless video setting is particularly welcome - it means Nier: Automata runs at the right resolution when it boots.


 

Kuranghi

Member
This port, handled by developer QLOC, includes a number of enhancements, such as a borderless video setting, FidelityFX options, HDR, and user interface textures upscaled to 4k. The borderless video setting is particularly welcome - it means Nier: Automata runs at the right resolution when it boots.

I presume "borderless video setting" means borderless fullscreen? Yeah that shit sucks ass for frame pacing/stuttering, the trade off for a worse experience for every moment of the game is that it starts in the "correct resolution" on boot, WTF does that even mean? The native res? Yeah well maybe I don't want to run it at the native res, bizarre. Thats not how you PC gaming guys.

If MS actually try to deprecate exclusive fullscreen anymore and promote their awful fake fullscreen borderless trash than they already have I'm going to go back to Windows 8.1, I can't believe we have all these sync tools nowadays that can fix these problems for free and MS is trying to move towards something awful that will create more problems and break the solutions. Just please stop ffs.



The in-game v-sync must be really shit because the 3090 is nowhere near maxed out and its still got bad pacing. I'd like to see it running with external v-sync and an fps cap or scanline-sync from RTSS to see if that can defeat those stutters. Nearly good enough isn't good enough for this genre, its a character action game you want it to be perfectly fluid and smooth 100% of the time in combat.
 

Shakka43

Member
Anyone checked if TEW supports ultrawide natively on PC Gamepass? For the Steam version the Flawless Widescreen application is needed.
 

AphexTwunt

Member
Do we have any confirmation that there are no plans to get the 'better' version on steam or is all this just fractious tears before bedtime?
 

Futaleufu

Member
If MS actually try to deprecate exclusive fullscreen anymore and promote their awful fake fullscreen borderless trash than they already have I'm going to go back to Windows 8.1, I can't believe we have all these sync tools nowadays that can fix these problems for free and MS is trying to move towards something awful that will create more problems and break the solutions. Just please stop ffs.
They can't do that, it would break compatibility with a lot of games from the Windows 95/98/XP/Vista/7 era.
 
First or best

All in all, if MS paid for the ports to Windows Store, I am ok with no updates for Steam versions. After all, MS is not obligated to pay for Steam releases, not published by MS. Maybe gamers should ask MS to purchase Square Enix to get the updates or something.

Do we have any confirmation that there are no plans to get the 'better' version on steam or is all this just fractious tears before bedtime?
I personally fully expect the fragmentation of PC market
 
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Kuranghi

Member
I asked the guy who posted the youtube video above to check it with external v-sync + an fps cap and scanline-sync but he has g-sync so the stutters aren't really visible for him so not sure if he'll get round to it. Keep checking his channel if you are interested to know anyway.
 

AphexTwunt

Member
First or best

All in all, if MS paid for the ports to Windows Store, I am ok with no updates for Steam versions. After all, MS is not obligated to pay for Steam releases, not published by MS. Maybe gamers should ask MS to purchase Square Enix to get the updates or something.


I personally fully expect the fragmentation of PC market
You're catastrophising for dramatic effect.

There is no indication whatsoever that the pc user base would tolerate that.
 

Larxia

Member
borderless fullscreen? Yeah that shit sucks ass for frame pacing/stuttering
Exactly! I'm really surprised with how many people love borderless, it seems like everyone love it, but everytime I try it, the experience is awful because of terrible framepacing, so I've always been confused about this.
It's better on UWP games though, so maybe it's decent here, but on regular games, it's most of the time horrible.

I think the worsts are the games made in Unity, 90% of them don't offer exclusive fullscreen for some reason(you can force it with launch arguments, thankfully), only borderless, and the experience is absolutely awful, really surprised that not many people talk about it
 
There is no indication whatsoever that the pc user base would tolerate that.
Well, PC userbase tolerated EGS time exclusivity (time exclusivity within the same platform is hilarious though) and there are even defenders of such practices (more money to devs, recognition and so on), so in time people will be fine even with that. It is all about conditioning.
 

Kuranghi

Member
Exactly! I'm really surprised with how many people love borderless, it seems like everyone love it, but everytime I try it, the experience is awful because of terrible framepacing, so I've always been confused about this.
It's better on UWP games though, so maybe it's decent here, but on regular games, it's most of the time horrible.

I think the worsts are the games made in Unity, 90% of them don't offer exclusive fullscreen for some reason(you can force it with launch arguments, thankfully), only borderless, and the experience is absolutely awful, really surprised that not many people talk about it

I think they don't care about stuttering or consider it par for the course as well, but the main reason is how convenient it makes alt-tabbing, if you are streaming it makes it much easier because you don't need to have show a black screen to your audience everytime you want to make changes to your streaming window.

I feel the Unity pain, I've been talking to the dev (its just the one guy afaik) for Exo One via email, its made in Unity and I get this weird stuttering on the camera movement only, screen effects and many other graphical effects are locked 60 fps but its like the camera update rate is halved or something weird like that. I described it in detail to the guy but basically said "it might just be the engine" and I was like wth, how can such a widely used engine just have these, imo, severe problems that devs have to mitigate or fix themselves. You can find endless blog posts, comments and articles of devs and users alike talking about this problem in Unity for years now.

Even with the command line arguments I can't fix it all the time and it just appears to stay in borderless no matter what, but I did find that doing two alt+enters in a row, one to force it to windowed and then another to go back to fullscreen, can sometimes fix that, and then it stays exclusive even after an alt-tab or resolution changes. Keep that in mind if you can't seem to get it working in case it helps you in the future.

Outer Wilds is fucked up for me at any resolution and settings, constant stutters no matter what with no ryhme nor reason, I never went back and tried it with scanline sync now that I know how that works but it rarely fixes other Unity games with that kind of stuttering because I don't think its anything to do with the GPU, so it wouldn't + I wasn't a big fan of the game, it was a big letdown for me based on the hype.
 

01011001

Banned
well the difference for the GamePass version of The Evil Within is way cazier... like it's a full on upgrade in many ways not just some minor bug fixes like this one. we are talking new game mode, new camera settings, a new First Person mode, an FOV slider and more
 

GHG

Gold Member
Well, PC userbase tolerated EGS time exclusivity (time exclusivity within the same platform is hilarious though) and there are even defenders of such practices (more money to devs, recognition and so on), so in time people will be fine even with that. It is all about conditioning.

"Conditioning"? Are you serious? So PC gamers are just subjects to be psychologically manipulated so that they can get screwed over?

Let's take a peek at how this conditioning is going:

JCxwNY0.jpg
LdtgBa5.jpg


7D2UPJ5.jpg


And then for Nier Automata:

T8w51k1.jpg
RfbC4u8.jpg


If they are doing things that would prevent the Steam versions of games from being updated for existing customers then Microsoft should know better than to attempt to manipulate and "condition" PC gamers, its never ended well for them. They can strong arm all they like, good luck, we go again.

Didn't take long for the "pro consumer" good guy facade to fade did it?
 
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There are threads for this already


 
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M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
"Conditioning"? Are you serious? So PC gamers are just subjects to be psychologically manipulated so that they can get screwed over?

Let's take a peek at how this conditioning is going:

JCxwNY0.jpg
LdtgBa5.jpg


7D2UPJ5.jpg


And then for Nier Automata:

T8w51k1.jpg
RfbC4u8.jpg


If they are doing things that would prevent the Steam versions of games from being updated for existing customers then Microsoft should know better than to attempt to manipulate and "condition" PC gamers, its never ended well for them. They can strong arm all they like, good luck, we go again.

Didn't take long for the "pro consumer" good guy facade to fade did it?
Somewhat MS is responsible again. Well for TEW they might be, but frankly it's too soon, to do these kinds of moves. Is there some possibility, that MS did a "port" to Windows Store? Because for some reason FH4 was ported by some company to Steam, doesn't really make sense, but still....
 
"Conditioning"? Are you serious? So PC gamers are just subjects to be psychologically manipulated so that they can get screwed over?
Let's take a peek at how this conditioning is going:

If they are doing things that would prevent the Steam versions of games from being updated for existing customers then Microsoft should know better than to attempt to manipulate and "condition" PC gamers, its never ended well for them. They can strong arm all they like, good luck, we go again.
Why it should be their responsibility where at that time the games were not published by them (not sure how it's gonna work out with TEW though)? Owners happily "ate" the broken ports and gave favorable reviews. And after all these years they suddenly feel abandoned? Where they were before?

I find it absolutely hilarious, because they have been waiting years for fixes to arrive, without a lot of complaining.
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
You guys were thinking the "first, or better, or best" on GamePass thing was just about Playstation?

Told you this was going to be an assault on all fronts by MS.

And complaining about the versions on Steam isn't going to do anything, it just proves that their strategy is working as intended.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
Microsoft is a more important customer to Square than you are. Probably as it should be considering the money involved.
 

Stuart360

Member
I dont really understand why Microsoft is getting hate for this. The PC port has been broken for years, have a go at Square.
For all we know Microsoft may of paid to get the game fixed.
 
J

JeremyEtcetera

Unconfirmed Member
Question for those who know. If I have an XSX and I bought the game instead of getting the gamepass version, do I still get the upgrades?
 

Ellery

Member
Divide playerbases and make competitor platforms have less desirable products of the same game. Very interesting move Microsoft.

A very weird kind of exclusivity, but Microsoft wants PC players money as well so it is understandable from a business perspective.
 
J

JeremyEtcetera

Unconfirmed Member
Divide playerbases and make competitor platforms have less desirable products of the same game. Very interesting move Microsoft.

A very weird kind of exclusivity, but Microsoft wants PC players money as well so it is understandable from a business perspective.
People might be looking at this the wrong way if this was a Microsoft team that made the improvements instead of a Square team.
 

Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Probably because Microsoft paid for the best version that's only available on consoles.
Cancer thing
Divide playerbases and make competitor platforms have less desirable products of the same game. Very interesting move Microsoft.

A very weird kind of exclusivity, but Microsoft wants PC players money as well so it is understandable from a business perspective.
I don't think Steam even supports UWP games. win32 is like an entirely different platform. You can't just put the Windows Store version on Steam.
You guys were thinking the "first, or better, or best" on GamePass thing was just about Playstation?

Told you this was going to be an assault on all fronts by MS.

And complaining about the versions on Steam isn't going to do anything, it just proves that their strategy is working as intended.
They port their games to Steam. And many times the win32 version is superior. These are ports of games that have been on Steam for years, wouldn't the UWP version have some improvements?
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
I don't think Steam even supports UWP games. win32 is like an entirely different platform. You can't just put the Windows Store version on Steam.

They port their games to Steam. And many times the win32 version is superior. These are ports of games that have been on Steam for years, wouldn't the UWP version have some improvements?

They aren't ports. These are patched builds.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
They are ports of the Xbox version. Final Fantasy IX on Windows Store is the same thing. You can't just put a win32 app in that store.

Ports of the Xbox versions that just happen to have all the features that were formerly only in the PC versions.... Sure Jan.
Recompiling with a few libraries and wrappers swapped out isn't a port; its a reissue.
 
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Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Ports of the Xbox versions that just happen to have all the features that were formerly only in the PC versions.... Sure Jan.
With improvements. Its upto Square to update the Steam versions with those improvements. But is it worth it for them? FYI PS3 ports of games that first released on Xbox 360, sometimes had extra content. It just gives an incentive to buy the game again. Witcher 3 on Switch has cross save with PC and they never patched that to other console versions, Nintendo probably didn't pay for that.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
With improvements. Its upto Square to update the Steam versions with those improvements. But is it worth it for them? FYI PS3 ports of games that first released on Xbox 360, sometimes had extra content. It just gives an incentive to buy the game again. Witcher 3 on Switch has cross save with PC and they never patched that to other console versions, Nintendo probably didn't pay for that.

A PS3 to 360 conversion is a port because the underlying hardware has changed.

Going PC to PC is a just a patch or reissue, the latter being when they option to upgrade to the newer version is simply not offered and the product comes pre-patched like a GOTY edition.
 

01011001

Banned
A PS3 to 360 conversion is a port because the underlying hardware has changed.

Going PC to PC is a just a patch or reissue, the latter being when they option to upgrade to the newer version is simply not offered and the product comes pre-patched like a GOTY edition.

with the Microsoft store it is not always that easy. some MS Store games use the UWP format and that is not as simple to just move over to Steam. I am not sure if these 2 games in particular are UWP games (the MS Store now allows .exe apps as well) but if they are they would indeed need to be basically ported over if they want to move this to steam. UWP apps are designed to run on both Xbox and PC, that's how Retroarch came to the Xbox systems, it was originally a UWP app and someone just one day ran it on an Xbox One
 
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01011001

Banned
Question for those who know. If I have an XSX and I bought the game instead of getting the gamepass version, do I still get the upgrades?
YES, make sure the release date is March 2021 tho

uhm... no... the Microsoft Store does not mention Play Anywhere (their version of Crossbuy) and if you go on the Store page on PC it only lists PC as the compatible platform. that means it has an Xbox only version and a PC only version. that is true for both The Evil Within and Nier Automata.
now this could be an error of course, the MS Store has faulty lables all the time, but when it comes to platform compatibility/Play Anywhere it usually is correctly labeled

or what kind of upgrade are we talking here? the Xbox version does not become better through this, this is only about the PC version on Gamepass/MS Store
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
with the Microsoft store it is not always that easy. some MS Store games use the UWP format and that is not as simple to just move over to Steam. I am not sure if these 2 games in particular are UWP games (the MS Store now allows .exe apps as well) but if they are they would indeed need to be basically ported over if they want to move this to steam. UWP apps are designed to run on both Xbox and PC, that's how Retroarch came to the Xbox systems, it was originally a UWP app and someone just one day ran it on an Xbox One

UWP is just a wrapper, its not a port. You can convert from .exe to .appx in Win10!
 

01011001

Banned
UWP is just a wrapper, its not a port. You can convert from .exe to .appx in Win10!

how easy is that? I am no expert on this, but Microsoft also often needed some time to port over formerly Windows Store exclusive games to Steam.
 

01011001

Banned

well alright, it seems easy when we are talking actual apps like VLC. it can't be as easy to just move over a game. I bet it is not the hardest thing in the world, but there is no way you can just click a button and convert a game from UWP to Win32. UWP apps will most likely be also tied to DirectX 12 these days, and you can't release a DX12 only version of a game on Steam, Windows 7 and 8 users would be pissed. So the least they would have to do is to have DX11 support for this new version
 

GhostOfTsu

Banned
Switch Gamepass with Epic Store and there would be riots in the streets. Some people are lowkey enjoying this because it promotes GP.
 
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