{"id":190,"date":"2022-01-04T14:54:20","date_gmt":"2022-01-04T14:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/engadget.vip\/?p=190"},"modified":"2022-01-04T14:54:20","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T14:54:20","slug":"dungeons-dragons-dark-alliance-tech-review-smooth-as-a-dwarfs-shield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/?p=190","title":{"rendered":"Dungeons &amp; Dragons: Dark Alliance tech review \u2014 Smooth as a dwarf\u2019s shield"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='booster-block booster-read-block'><\/div><p><em>Dungeons &amp; Dragons: Dark Alliance<\/em> launches today and brings with it hours of hacking and slashing. While I found the game itself to be poor throughout, its PC version\u2019s performance is much more satisfactory. That being said, there are some issues with controls and a bevy of technical problems that come down to the programming, but as far as visuals go, this is an impressive offering in many respects.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s take a look at the game\u2019s minimum and recommended specs to see if you\u2019ve got the wherewithal to get that framerate to skyrocket.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MINIMUM:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>CPU:<\/strong>\u00a0AMD FX 8320 \/ Intel Core i5-6600K @ 3.5GHz<\/li>\n<li><strong>RAM:<\/strong>\u00a08 GB RAM<\/li>\n<li><strong>GPU:<\/strong>\u00a0AMD Radeon R7 360 \/ NVIDIA GTX 750 ti<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\"><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>RECOMMENDED:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>CPU:<\/strong>\u00a03.6GHz AMD Ryzen 5 3600 \/ Intel Core i5-9600K @ 3.7GHz<\/li>\n<li><strong>RAM:<\/strong>\u00a016 GB RAM<\/li>\n<li><strong>GPU:<\/strong>\u00a0AMD RX Vega 56 \/ NVIDIA GTX 1660 ti<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\"><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>REVIEWER:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>CPU:<\/strong> Ryzen 2600x<\/li>\n<li><strong>RAM:<\/strong>\u00a016 GB RAM<\/li>\n<li><strong>GPU:<\/strong> AMD RX 5700 XT<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\"><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>With a recommended GPU being either a Vega 56 or a GTX 1660, it\u2019s clear that <em>Dungeons &amp; Dragons: Dark Alliance\u00a0<\/em>is\u00a0<em>not<\/em> a demanding game at all. Despite this, the visuals are honestly fairly impressive. The texture quality, lighting, and shadows are surprisingly high quality for a game of this sort. Better yet, even a midline card can easily hit a sturdy 100 fps <em>most<\/em> of the time. The game simply runs beautifully for the most part, which is great considering how often you\u2019ll be fighting if you choose to play the game. I didn\u2019t have a single crash in the 15 hours I played, although I did get some surprising frame drops on the occasion.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d be walking in an area seemingly no different from one that granted me over 100 fps , only to find that the framerate had dived down to the 40s for no good reason. This wasn\u2019t a constant occurrence, but it happened enough to annoy me. Still, it\u2019s hard to fault <em>Dungeons &amp; Dragons: Dark Alliance\u00a0<\/em>too much for this, as it\u2019s a mostly lovely experience from a performance standpoint. The quality of the character models and animations are, of course, not counted in this assessment. Next up, let\u2019s take a look at the game\u2019s performance options.<\/p>\n<h2>Performance anxiety<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d30xqvs6b65d10.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/performance-750x422.jpg\" alt=\"Performance\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a standard assortment of options. The framerate can be set as high as 300, and if you\u2019ve got a great card, you may well be able to get up there. There\u2019s no ultrawide support, though, so if you\u2019re expecting to be able to use your 21:9 monitor, you\u2019re going to be rather disappointed. Otherwise, it\u2019s your usual suspects. You choose how much motion blur you want, but there\u2019s no much in the way of surprises here. Strangely, the lowest quality setting for all options is medium. Let\u2019s take a look at some comparison images between medium and very high.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d30xqvs6b65d10.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/textures-medium-750x422.jpg\" alt=\"Textures Medium\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-276059\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Textures Medium.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d30xqvs6b65d10.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/textures-high-750x422.jpg\" alt=\"Textures very High\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-276058\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Textures very High.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d30xqvs6b65d10.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/shadow-quality-medium-750x422.jpg\" alt=\"Shadow Quality Medium\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-276056\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shadow Quality Medium.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d30xqvs6b65d10.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/shadow-quality-very-high-750x422.jpg\" alt=\"Shadow Quality Very High\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-276057\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shadow Quality Very High.<\/p>\n<p>Remember when I said it was weird that the lowest setting was medium? It\u2019s because of this and the following setting. On medium, the shadows are unrecognizable. If anything, they\u2019re a single step above being turned off altogether.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d30xqvs6b65d10.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Foliage-medium-750x422.jpg\" alt=\"Foliage Medium\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-276051\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Foliage Medium.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d30xqvs6b65d10.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/foliage-very-high-750x422.jpg\" alt=\"Foliage Very High\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-276052\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Foliage Very High.<\/p>\n<p>Much like the shadows, turning foliage to medium pretty much turns off any grass. Your foliage isn\u2019t exactly set to medium when that just totally deletes it from existence, I\u2019d say.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d30xqvs6b65d10.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/AA-medium-750x422.jpg\" alt=\"Dark Alliance tech review Aa Medium\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-276069\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">AA Medium.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d30xqvs6b65d10.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/AA-high-750x422.jpg\" alt=\"Dark Alliance tech review Aa very High\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-276068\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">AA very High.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d30xqvs6b65d10.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/view-distance-medium-750x422.jpg\" alt=\"View Distance Medium\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-276060\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">View Distance Medium.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d30xqvs6b65d10.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/view-distance-very-high-750x422.jpg\" alt=\"Dark Alliance tech review View Distance Very High\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-276061\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">View Distance Very High.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d30xqvs6b65d10.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/post-process-medium-750x422.jpg\" alt=\"Dark Alliance tech review Post Process Medium\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-276055\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Post Process Medium.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d30xqvs6b65d10.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/post-process-very-high-750x422.jpg\" alt=\"Dark Alliance tech review Post Process Very High\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-276054\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Post Process Very High.<\/p>\n<p>That should give you a solid idea of how the different settings affect the visuals. As for the controls, you can play the game with your mouse and keyboard or controller. Due to the camera, I\u2019d suggest you stick with your mouse and keyboard, as the camera is mostly glued to your character. Not that it controls well either way, mind you.<\/p>\n<p>You can rebind keys, but some of the specific menu keys can\u2019t be rebound whatsoever. For instance, you\u2019ll need to use enter to select certain things, which can get cumbersome. This cannot be changed. Additionally, while you can often use your mouse to select certain options in regards to your character\u2019s specifics, the cursor either turns invisible or mouse movement is converted into digital input. I\u2019m not sure which.<\/p>\n<p>There you have it. <em>Dungeons &amp; Dragons: Dark Alliance\u00a0<\/em>mostly has a strong showing on PC from a performance standpoint. Some of the control issues can be annoying, but I was satisfied by what was on offer here. Now if only I could say the same for the rest of the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dungeons &amp; Dragons: Dark Alliance launches today and brings with it hours of hacking and slashing. While I found the game itself to be poor throughout, its PC version\u2019s performance is much more satisfactory. That being said, there are some issues with controls and a bevy of technical problems that come down to the programming, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[299,300,301],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}