No Man's Sky in action.
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No Man’s Sky hammered by PC players for performance issues on launch day

  • Posted byby Jeff Grubb
  • Updated
  • 2 min

No Man’s Sky debuted today on PC, but its performance is leaving many people disappointed.

Developer Hello Games launched No Man’s Sky — its universe-exploring space simulator — on the Steam distribution channel this morning, and some players are already reporting troubles with a stuttering framerate. Sony’s PlayStation 4 home gaming console got it earlier this week, and that iteration does not suffer from the same problems. This has led to only 29 percent of players giving the game a positive user review on Steam. Even on the most powerful gaming rigs with top-of-the-line video cards, No Man’s Sky freezes up for up to a second at a time while the game struggles to render the visuals. This makes it often nearly unplayable. This is a rough introduction for one of the most anticipated releases of the year (which I like), but Hello is already launching a patch.

In a post on Twitter, No Man’s Sky director Sean Murray said his team is getting to work immediately. They have found that the biggest trouble is with people who don’t have a certain common programming library on their system. The first patch, which is out now, brings that important piece into the install process.

On PS4, No Man’s Sky tends to run well. That version does have extreme pop-in where visual elements will suddenly appear in front of your character as the game catches up with building the scene around you. That can look jarring and ugly, but it doesn’t make it difficult to play.

Sony Interactive Entertainment published the game on console, but PS4 also has a tougher certification process (as do Microsoft and Nintendo for their systems) in which its testers can find bugs. PC stores like Steam don’t offer the same service as console holders do.

Whatever the reason, PC gamers are feeling like developers don’t care about them, and that has led to some interesting rage-quit tantrums.