Just Cause 4 has next-level physics - but does it run smoothly?
We're closing in on the launch of Avalanche's Just Cause 4 - a game that looks to push the series' signature open world and remarkable physics systems to a new level, which begs the question... what's the score with performance? Just Cause 3 is our go-to game for testing CPU limitations on consoles, while the PC version launched with severe loading time problems and obvious driver issues for Radeon cards, which took some time to resolve. Based on what we've seen of the sequel so far, we should be in for a smoother ride this time around.
Square-Enix invited Digital Foundry to its London office last week to take a look at a near-final PC build. The console versions of the game are still undergoing final performance optimisations (and we'll cover these as soon as we can) but having seen the PC build running on several hardware configurations, and having discussed the nature of the technological changes under the hood, there's genuine reason for optimism here - and the game itself is looking rather impressive.
On the face of it, the PC build of the game initially looks quite similar to its predecessor - the options menu is effectively a match for Just Cause 3 - but crucially, there are vast revisions under the hood, including a fundamental change in how the CPU is utilised. Core utilisation for physics especially was somewhat limited in JC3 (perhaps explaining why console frame-rate could drop so low when the carnage really kicked in) so the focus this time around is on spreading the load across more cores, using a fibre-based system - essential in getting the most out of the console CPUs, and with obvious benefits for PC users as we move into the many-core era.
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