Hogwarts Legacy's PC Port Is Loaded To The Brim With Performance Issues

The AAA Wizarding World venture Hogwarts Legacy is plagued with many performance issues on PC, making it a hit-or-miss experience for users.

[masterfox]

this one of the main reasons why I dont buy PC games on day one, and the other reason usually they get price reduction pretty fast.

[Sonic1881]

I agree. It's only good if the game is a PC exclusive majority of the time. It's really up to the developer.

[got_dam]

Too bad there is not as many pc exclusives these days. Ya know, now that I actually have one. Growing up in the 90s all wanted was those sweet pc rpgs. Now that I'm old and have money I don't get to lord over the console players like they could in the good ol days.

[Sonic1881]

I agree with you on that. We can only hope. It'll be a lot better if developers focus on PC first if it's a multiplatform game

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

The sad thing is that sometimes the PC version is the inferior version because it got a shi**y port, so your better off going with one of the console versions or hoping for fans to fix the game with mods, if only it was the other way around (made predominantly for PC and then ported to consoles).

[porkChop]

It could be much worse. I remember in the 2000s we'd often get literal ports of the console games. Sometimes they'd be generous and let us change the resolution or unlock the framerate. Sometimes the video settings would just be a gamma/brightness slider.

[TeamIcoFan]

The "benchmark" option is also useless. All it does is do a quick scan and suggest some recommended settings; it doesn't do an actual benchmark run and let you play with the settings to find that custom sweet spot of visuals and performance.
Plus I heard that you can't use some actual, real names because they contain "offensive" phrases, which if true, is annoying. I luckily haven't ran into that when I put in my first and last name, but RIP to those that have.

[Snookies12]

I really don't get how a developer can screw up on a PC port. Was the game not MADE on a PC? Wouldn't that be the first thing you test? Loving the game, but the frame drops are brutal and out of nowhere. Please for the love of Merlin, fix this!

[Psychotica]

But we all have different configurations and hardware. That's the big difference between PC and consoles

[Snookies12]

My hardware is fine... I can run most things easily at ultra settings. So that doesn't mean anything. It absolutely should stay at 60 FPS on my PC. I get what you're trying to say, but that's more about the consumer's system. This is a matter of the game having poor coding of some kind.

I get that sometimes PC parts throttle things when paired in different ways. But when you're dropping 80-90% of frames randomly for no reason. There's an actual problem on the developer's end.

[EvertonFC]

So many different variations with rigs, all them CPU, gfx cards etc

[Tacoboto]

This seems like an ignorant question to ask, no? You've seen the state of PC gaming deteriorate over the last couple years and we're now 3/3 for Major 2023 Titles having performance issues on PC - Forspoken, Dead Space, now this.

Being built on a PC means little.
- What is the lead platform?
- Is there a team dedicated to the PC version?
- Is QA observing stutter once, not seeing it the second time and therefore doesn't report the initial observation?
- Is the team allowed to dedicate time specifically to PC? Is the team aware of QA issues?
- Does the game have a dedicated shader compilation step?

On PS5, unless this changed with a Day One Patch this morning if that happened, you have to reboot the game at the game's menu to toggle Ray Tracing. There are spots where the obvious lead platform needs polish, so of course the version that can run the game on thousands of configurations significantly weaker than PS5 will have its own issues.

That all goes without mentioning or asking - with GPU stock and prices being so awful throughout HL's development, what kind of cards did they even have access to? This doesn't seem to be a title partnered with either Nvidia or AMD unless I'm wrong

[lonewolf10]

Seems to hit NVidia users harder than AMD, as consoles also use AMD seems like someone dropped the ball during PC development in regards to testing/coding for NVidia cards.

[Anunnaki]

Same story with every PC release. The extra few frames aren't worth the headache.

[ZycoFox]

It can be a lot more than "an extra few frames". This is just a lazy release, simple as that. It will hopefully be fixed in an update.

[Zombieburger638]

Tell me you’ve never used a pc without telling me you’ve never used a pc.

[moongrim]

DENUVO Strikes again

[XxINFERNUSxX]

Could be that hopefully EMPRESS cracks it but, the real reason is the shitty unreal engine 4 on PC. I'm going to pass on this game.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

This is why I bought mine on consoles first tbh.

[Elda]

One of the very reasons I don't game on PC. Turn on console & play.

[Zombieburger638]

99.9% of pc games are turn on and play. It’s not 2005 anymore.

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

My brother in the master race, there's always a 50-50 chance a PC game wouldn't launch or crash to desktop with no error message.

[Zombieburger638]

@Username something is wrong with your pc if that’s the case. I occasionally get a crash from Elden ring on launch but I also have a mod and reshade running. Most of the games I’ve had issues with are either really old or have lost support.

[Elda]

With the current AAA releases of games these past months on PC it doesn't seem that way. Again with the latest consoles, it's turn on & play.

[Sgt_Slaughter]

This is why 9's for this game were far fetched to begin with

[CrimsonWing69]

I feel like whenever any new game comes out for PC I see the same stories about it being a complete and utter sh*t show. It makes me glad to be a console pleb.

[anast]

It good to wait a few years if you want to play a new game on PC.

[ZycoFox]

Funny, didn't know you had to wait years after the release of games like Half Life Alyx, to be able to play it.

[anast]

That's a simple game. If they couldn't get that to work out of the gate, maybe developing isn't their thing.

[RaiderNation]

Imagine that.

[Inverno]

I'd really hate to be the one to say "I'm having no problems" but…and admittedly I am playing on low to medium-ish settings… I'm finding that it's running pretty smoothly on Deck. It is however, judging by the Decks own performance overlay, it's very GPU demanding and that's mentioned in the article. Idk much still about PC performances but maybe once they see themselves without the need to keep Denuvo it'll get better?

[XxINFERNUSxX]

Unreal Engine 4 is the real reason. That engine is just shit to use on PC. I'm sure once Digital Foundry has their own performance review up, you will see the issues. Companies need to stop using that crap. I been avoiding many games built around UE4, this one I will pass on, won't take it for free.