Quantum Break just landed on the Xbox One, and it was met with mostly positive reviews. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about the PC port because of several deal-breaking issues.
No Dedicated Quit Button
While this may not be a big problem at first glance, it does indicate that the game isn't exactly made as well as it could've been. In other words, it's a clear but minor sign that there's something wrong.
Frame Rate Issues
According to the Digital Foundry of Eurogamer, it's simply impossible to reach the 60 fps mark for buttery smooth gameplay on a 60 Hz monitor, hitting only 5/6th of the refresh rate.
The testers even tried Quantum Break at 720p on the lowest settings and ran it on an Intel Core i7-6700K and an Nvidia Titan X setup, and they still couldn't hit the sweet spot. They did note that a monitor with a higher refresh rate will increase the maximum frame rate, but that would result in inconsistent frames. Needless to say, this is arguably the hugest issue out of the bunch.
What seemed to be a viable solution at the time was to cap the frames at 30 fps. It was supposedly going to provide an experience similar to what the Xbox One has to offer, but that didn't work out either. Apparently, the PC version has a frame-pacing problem, and it will "never appear as consistent as the Xbox One version."
On that note, the cutscenes are locked at 30 fps by default, but the game can't provide a stable frame rate on that front as well.
Universal Windows Platform Trouble
Without the full-screen limitations of the Universal Windows Platform, the problem with the rocky 30 fps could've been resolved with the Nvidia half-refresh option or a third-party program such as the Rivia Tuner Statistics Server, but that's obviously not a possible fix.
The takeaway from this department is that users are left with no other choice but to wait for Remedy Entertainment or Microsoft to roll out an update.
Crash And Burn
Honestly speaking, when was the last time that anyone had their display driver crash? Usually, that only happens when the system is seriously overclocked. Well, surprise, surprise, Quantum Break crashes quite frequently on Nvidia-powered machines, even with fresh installs of the drivers both old and new.
With that said, the AMD R9 390 performed about 50 percent better than the Nvidia GTX 970 based on the Digital Foundry's test.
Blurry Image
Long story short, Quantum Break doesn't allow PC gamers to make the most out of their rigs in terms of image quality. To be exact, 1080p won't push out the expected quality. Instead, the game will produce a 720p image that's being forced to fit the resolution.
This is particularly noticeable when the screen is at a close distance, and that's why it just spells trouble on the PC.
SSD Is A Must
The Digital Foundry says that Quantum Break dynamically loads areas. The purpose of that is to make transitions from one place to another considerably smoother, but that obviously strains the hardware more. The testers ran the game on a 7200 RPM HGST mechanical drive, and blaring stutters kept coming up whenever they moved to another area. As a result, they concluded that an SSD is a huge requirement.
Bonus: A Pirate's Eyepatch Offline
Remedy Entertainment decorates their games' characters with a piracy eyepatch on cracked versions, but it looks like this feature isn't working properly either. The Digital Foundry found out that when Quantum Break is running offline, the infamous face pad makes an appearance.
This goes without saying, but that pretty much hints at the same issues that the absence of a quit button does, but in this case, it unnecessarily shames the player – well, kind of. At any rate, that's an unwelcome addition.
A Closer Look
Below is the clip of the test that the Digital Foundry conducted, with the AMD R9 390 blowing the Nvidia GTX 970 out of the water.
