Horizon Zero Dawn PC patch actually brings performance improvements
We have a new Horizon Zero Dawn PC patch, and it is more interesting than the last few.
Guerrilla Games has deployed patch 1.04 for the PC version of Horizon Zero Dawn this morning. This week's patch follows on from 1.03, released exactly a week ago.
Alongside a host of yet more crash fixes, the new update actually tackles the game's performance problems. It is a slight boost, according to the patch notes, but it's the first attempt to address the game's performance issues on PC.
Guerrilla says CPU performance should be improved. Depending on your CPU/GPU combo, you will see anywhere between a 1 to 10% boost. The update also addressed the framerate drop that sometimes occurs in cutscene/conversation camera cuts. Speaking of cinematics, texture pop-in shouldn't occur in cutscenes anymore.
Other welcome additions include a fix for colour banding when running the game in HDR. There was also a problem that created blinking artifacts in volumetric effects, which has now been fixed. The Adaptive Performance setting, which many rely on to sustain a locked framerate, should no longer cause lighting glitches.
Outside of that, you'll find plenty of fixes to causes for crashing. Sadly, the known issues list remains intact. See the full change log below.
Crash fixes
- Fixed a crash that could occur when users would create a new game and their save game slots were full.
- Fixed a startup crash related to temp folder.
- Fixed an AI crash that could occur during combat.
- Fixed an AI crash in the EventMessageHandler.
- Fixed a crash related to WorldData sampling (the callstack would end in WorldMapData::SampleAtPixel).
- Fixed a crash when users would instantly back out when changing sliders in the Settings menu.
- Fixed a crash that would occur when having the "Greetings" option open in photo mode and then exiting.
- Potential fix for memory corruption in AI routines which could lead to crashes.
- Potential fix for a GPU hang caused by a threading issue.
- Fixed a mismatch that would occur on Shader Model 6.0 and 6.1 hardware which could lead to a crash.
Performance improvements
- General improvement to CPU performance (depending on CPU/GPU speeds, this can result in a 1-10% performance improvement).
- Improved performance of camera cuts in cinematics and conversations.
Other improvements
- HDR - Fixed colour banding issues in HDR mode.
- Mouse Controls - Fixed an issue where mouse sensitivity was incorrect when framerate wasn't constant.
- Aiming - Fixed an issue where Aloy was unable to shoot while being able to do a critical attack near a machine.
- Cutscenes - Fixed an issue where geometry and textures would pop in after camera cuts.
- Adaptive Performance - Fixed an issue where lighting glitches would occur when turning on Adaptive Performance.
- Volumetrics - Fixed an issue which could cause blinking artifacts in volumetric effects, like fog.
- Reverb - Fixed several issues where excessive reverb was noticeable in specific quests.
- Visibility - Fixed an issue which could sometimes cause geometry to briefly disappear after streaming
Known issues
- Some players are experiencing an out of memory error during the game optimization process.
- Some players are experiencing graphical settings issues, such as Anisotropic Filtering or HDR not working correctly.
- Some players are experiencing performance issues on specific GPUs or hardware combinations.
- Some players are experiencing issues with Aloy's hair when the game is running above 30 FPS.