Maybe you’ll like Mad Max more than Kotaku‘s Chris Sullentrop did, and if you’re gonna be playing on the PC, I’ve got some good news.
Warner Bros.’ track record with the PC lately is not so great. While Shadow of Mordor was excellent, Mortal Kombat X and Batman: Arkham Knight were both trainwrecks. With Batman, the outcry was so vocal that Warner Bros. was forced to stop selling the PC version and assign a bunch of people to work on a major patch for the game. Months later, the game still isn’t being sold on PC, and said patch has been vaguely promised to arrive in a few weeks time.
You can imagine why I approached the PC version of Mad Max with some… trepidation.
After spending an hour roaming the wastelands, though, it appears developer Avalanche Studios has delivered what PC owners are looking for: flexibility, customizability, and attention to detail. A PC version is not rocket science, but it requires care to make sure it’s on point.
At high settings and 1080p, the game runs at a rock solid 60 frames-per-second on my machine, with the occasional dip when the game’s loads a new area. I suspect that has more to do with not installing the game on an SSD, and the “dips” I’m referring to are from 60 FPS to 54 FPS.
This is definitely not Arkham Knight, where simply traversing the city or hopping into the batmobile could tank the game to sub 20 FPS.
Hand-to-hand combat in Mad Max? 60 FPS.
Blowing up vehicles with your car in Mad Max? 60 FPS.
Exploring the desert landscape in Mad Max? 60 FPS.
Here are my specs, by the way:
- nVidia GTX 970
- Intel Core i7 950 @ 3.07 GHz
- 16GB RAM
- Windows 7 64-bit
Granted, Arkham Knight is a much better looking game than Mad Max, but that means very little if you can’t enjoy playing the game. I have no idea if Mad Max is worth playing yet — the first hour of an open world game is always weird — but when I get around to it, I’m psyched the experience won’t be actively hampered by endless frame rate issues.
Hmm.
Here’s a few minutes of the game running off my machine, too. (The video is 720p, but I’m running the game at 1080p with zero problems. Your mileage may vary at higher resolutions!)
The launch has not been without a few problems, though. Some Steam users are reporting crash issues and a few are saying the game won’t launch at all. I haven’t encountered any of this, and it seems to be pretty isolated so far. (I’m keeping an eye on it.) As with any new PC game, make sure to update your drivers; doing so can make a big difference.
Let me know how it’s been for you, of course! With PC gaming, you can never be totally sure.
Comments
7 responses to “Mad Max’s PC Version Runs Really Well (So Far)”
Aw… I thought “Sullentrop” was a pun in light of the grumpy review. Turns out it’s actually his name.
Combat looks pretty boring, same 4 punches over and over and over…….
Yeah, was starting to think that a little myself. I mean, it looks a lot better than I was expecting from reviews, but it only took two fights for the hand-to-hand to start looking a bit stale. It was interesting to see variety opened up a little more when he had one of the enemies up against a wall – there were new attacks there. I wonder how much other variety is hidden behind environment and unlocks.
I’m having a blast with this game so far. It’s optimized really well.
Unlike that batman piece of crap.
Avalanche >>>> Rocksteady
I’m not totally convinced that Arkham Knight actually does look better, definitely not MUCH better at any rate.
The cars and car combat especially are beautiful, with vehicle destruction and effects that give anything of the sort in Arkham Knight a definite run for their money. Then you throw in the overall look of the world, the super storms, etc… It’s a very, very good looking game.
Arkham Knight at 4k is impressive. The rain and watching the water slide down the rivets of batman’s armor is mesmerizing. I didn’t notice at 1080p, but at 4k its very obvious.
Will need to get Mad Max to check this out. 😀
my pc specs are identical but “only” 12gb ram.
I need to remember that i have a new graphics card and i can actually buy these games on pc for dirt cheap 🙁 instead of buying them for ps4