1y ago

Why Baldur’s Gate III is an accidental PS5 console exclusive

www.engadget.com Why Baldur’s Gate III is an accidental PS5 console exclusive | Engadget

Larian is having trouble fitting Baldur’s Gate III on the Xbox Series S, the lower-priced and lower-powered console in Microsoft’s ninth-generation lineup.

Larian is having trouble fitting Baldur’s Gate III on the Xbox Series S, the lower-priced and lower-powered console in Microsoft’s ninth-generation lineup.

I was looking up more information on why there’s such an issue getting BG3 on Xbox, and found this article with a lot more detail on the topic.

EDIT: The issue isn’t graphics or frame rate; it’s memory. The article goes into detail.

You're viewing a single thread.

56 comments

I hope this leads game engine developers to improve their optimization skills. Chances are the technique(s) needed here have been around for decades.
- And how would you recommend they optimize a game so they can render it twice in split screen, when the S only has 10 Gb of RAM? Because that’s the issue here.
  
  It's obviously impossible for me to recommend specifics without seeing their code and data. But a lot can be done in 10 GiB with some effort and clever resource management. They might have to make fundamental changes to their engine if they didn't plan for such constraints ahead of time, so maybe it won't happen for this game. But what they learn through this experience could benefit their future work.
  
  We get it, you're a huge xbox fan and you're disappointed it doesn't have a release date. But let's be clear here: this is 100% on Microsoft. Larian has made it clear they aren't happy with the level of quality of the game on the S (believe specifically for split-screen) and they are holding out on a release date until solutions can be found. That is 100% their right, and you better believe if they released with a shitty performing S version there would be tons of articles, tweets, threads, etc moaning and calling them out on it (instead of the universal praise it is currently receiving). If Microsoft really wants the game on their console sooner they have options: They can help Larian get the S version running properly by providing developers/knowledge/tools/etc, or they could allow for games to have exceptions for certain game features on X vs S.
  If anything, Larian have gone above and beyond what most other larger AAA companies put out: Cross-play, cross-save, DRM free, and a huge open-world full of enough options and branching paths to put basically every other RPG to shame. It's clear they want to deliver a great game that has everything possible they can put in it to please their customers. And part of that is not putting out a crappy version of the game. If you don't like it, maybe take it up with Microsoft; or wait patiently and see if they can't optimize and get things figured out once they game releases on the other platforms and they can spend more time focusing on the xbox platform.
  
  They can help Larian get the S version running properly by providing developers/knowledge/tools/etc
  Iirc, Microsoft is actually trying to help them get it running on S. I wish I could remember where I heard that, but I’ve been reading and watching too much on the game recently to find it.

56 comments