{"id":204,"date":"2022-05-15T14:54:21","date_gmt":"2022-05-15T14:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/engadget.vip\/?p=204"},"modified":"2022-05-15T14:54:21","modified_gmt":"2022-05-15T14:54:21","slug":"heres-a-nier-automata-steam-patch-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/?p=204","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s a Nier: Automata Steam patch analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

It\u2019s been a hell of a four-year wait, but Square Enix has finally patched the Steam version of Nier: Automata<\/em>. For years, fans have made use of the FAR mod to improve the Steam version, but everyone might not need to rely on that as much now. For the time being, this version of the game is incompatible with the FAR mod, although a patch is in the works and might be ready as soon as tomorrow. For the most part, the patch does a lot of what the FAR mod did, only you don\u2019t need to download anything from a third-party source.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll notice that the Nier: Automata <\/em>patch is roughly 14 GB in size. Surprisingly, the game\u2019s install becomes 8 GB smaller after the install, moving from 48 GB to just 40 GB on storage. After installing the patch, I braced for any issues when starting up only to find none. My old save worked perfectly, and the game started automatically in borderless mode.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a healthy host of changes, plus you can now alt-tab while the game is running without it going into windowed mode. The mouse cursor is also no longer visible if you\u2019ve got a controller plugged in, which fixes another annoyance that the previous version had.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go over the complete list of changes, aside from the inclusion of borderless windowed. CAS sharpening is in, and Nier: Automata <\/em>will launch in HDR if you have the HDR games and apps function selected on your PC. The anti-aliasing options are different. Before, the settings offered no indication of what kind of AA was being used, but now we\u2019re given a clear choice between SMAA and MSAA up to eight times. Granted, AA is still an enormous resource hog, as having MSAA up all the way will bring a lot of rigs to their knees still. Here are the two different menus.<\/p>\n

\"20210713215626<\/p>\n

Original menus.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"20210713215632<\/p>\n

Original menus.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

New menus.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"nier<\/p>\n

New menus.<\/p>\n

Halfway there<\/h2>\n

The list goes on. Many UI textures have been increased to support 4K, global illumination can now be freely utilized, and ambient occlusion is now supposedly improved to render at the window\u2019s resolution. Notably, the patch promises that videos are now all 60 fps, but I\u2019m going to need a bit more time to verify this across the board. Players are reporting that cutscenes are still rendered at 900p and 30 fps, though, only at a higher bitrate and with less stuttering. The patch has made performance better for some, and worse for others according to what I\u2019ve heard. Some players have required fresh installs.<\/p>\n

The ambient occlusion changes do appear to have made shadows higher resolution as promised. At 4K, Nier: Automata<\/em>\u2018s performance is noticeably worse for me, though. The game mostly ran at around 60 fps for me before, but now it likes to hover in the 40-50 framerate range. However, there are now aspects of distance object that are now plainly visible through geometry at times, which is an issue that the patch seems to have added. Some players have speculated that this is due to the ambient occlusion, but it occurs even with that option turned off.<\/p>\n

Overall, the Nier: Automata <\/em>patch makes some definite improvements. But, unsurprisingly, it still doesn\u2019t appear to be all it could be. I\u2019m not going to hold my breath for another patch, so I\u2019m going to try and be satisfied with what we\u2019ve got here. Although I\u2019m mostly just miffed that the game doesn\u2019t run as well in 4K anymore. Regardless, the game seems more vibrant and colorful now, unless the screenshots from before are merely inferior. Here are some pre and post-patch comparison shots with everything maxed out, save for AA and AO being off in the new version:<\/p>\n

\"Nier<\/p>\n

Before.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Nier<\/p>\n

After.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Nier<\/p>\n

Before.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Nier<\/p>\n

After.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Before<\/p>\n

Before.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Nier<\/p>\n

After.<\/p>\n

Kaldaien, the maker of the FAR mod, has said that their upcoming update will have a better frame limiter than what\u2019s in this current build, but I saw no issues with frame-limiting. At 1440p, I get a very solid, stutter-free 60 fps at least. Your mileage may vary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a hell of a four-year wait, but Square Enix has finally patched the Steam version of Nier: Automata. For years, fans have made use of the FAR mod to improve the Steam version, but everyone might not need to rely on that as much now. For the time being, this version of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[307,308,39],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204"}],"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=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}