Test of the PC version of God of War Ragnarok

The following article only covers the technical aspects of the PC version, you can find a review of the entire game on PS5. Here.

Sony continues its initiative to release original exclusives on PC. Back in January 2022, we saw a reboot of God of War, which was originally released on PS4 in 2018. Unlike most others handled by Dutch studio Nixxes, the team at Jetpack Interactive took care of the port, and overall they did a very good job. It is therefore not surprising that the recently released PC port of the finale of the Scandinavian saga, subtitled Ragnarök, originally released on PS4 and PS5 in 2022, was also handed over to developers from Jetpack. How did they cope this time?

• Platform: PC (tested version), PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5
• Release date: 09.19.2024 (PC)
• Developer: Jetpack Interactive (PC version), Santa Monica Studio (original game)
• Publisher: Publisher PlayStation
• Genre: Action adventure game
• Czech localization: yes (subtitles)
• File size: 175 GB
• Game time: ~25 hours (main story)
• Price: €59.99 (Steam)

PC assembly:

• CPU: Intel Core i5-13600K
• FRAME: 32 GB DDR5 6000 MT/s
• Video card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 (16 GB VRAM)
• Storage: Solidigm P44 Pro (NVMe PCIe 4.0 2TB SSD)

PC

First, I would like to clarify the most important thing. In an age of poorly optimized PC ports full of stutters, we’re often skeptical about conversions, but until Jetpack arrives we can do nothing but smile. The game is not very demanding (of course, also thanks to the fact that it is a cross-gen game), and on my set it ran in 4K with maximum settings and DLSS Quality upscaling absolutely smoothly, I achieved 60 FPS at about half the maximum consumption of the video card.

That’s to be expected from such a powerful lineup, but nothing like that is guaranteed these days. And first of all, it is necessary to note how stable this entire experience is. The game compiles shaders in advance, so you won’t encounter any associated crashes here, and panic in the form of slowdowns won’t happen either. The timeline between frames was incredibly stable even when using in-game locking, and the entire game felt extremely smooth. In that regard, this is undoubtedly one of the best PC ports of recent times.

• Pre-compilation of shaders: Yes
• Stuttering when compiling shaders: No
• Traversal stuttering: No
• Upscaling technology: DLSS, FSR, XeSS, TAAU
• Image generation: Yes (Both DLSS and FSR version 3.1)
• Ultrawide monitor support: Yes (21:9, 32:9)
• Motion Blur Settings: Yes

I also have to appreciate the rich customization. The graphics contain a fair amount of items and range from low to ultra. There is indeed an impact on performance, but the graphical differences are not that big, so even on low settings the game can look very nice. Plus, the menus are transparent and settings change in real time, so you can compare the changes yourself.

Of course there is upscaling, there are four options: TAAU, DLSS, FSR and XeSS. You can see a more detailed comparison below. Note that I tested XeSS in Ultra Quality mode because it scales to the same resolution (1440p) as FSR and DLSS in Quality mode. Then TAUU has completely different values, and the Balanced mode is closest to the rest of the technologies, scaling from 1512p, so in this case it has a slight advantage in higher resolution over the rest.

Overall, it provides better DLSS image stability. If you don’t have an Nvidia graphics card, I recommend using FSR, as XeSS produces very annoying flickering here, as does TAAU, albeit to a slightly lesser extent.

Otherwise, I appreciate that right in the menu you can tell what resolution the image is being scaled to so you have a better overview of the data. It would have been nice to also save the output resolution information, because at first I was a little surprised that the resolution would switch itself before I realized what the game actually meant by that.

The rest of the settings are also very extensive, just like on PS5, you will also find many accessibility options that will provide a more enjoyable experience for people who cannot play the full classic due to visual, hearing, motor impairments and others. In addition, all this is available in high-quality Czech localization, just like on PS5.

But, of course, there are caveats. On the one hand, this is a change in buttons for interaction and dodging, because basically interaction occurs on the wheel, and dodging on the cross, which is somewhat atypical compared to most games. The PS5 version already allowed you to swap buttons, but for some reason it doesn’t work correctly on PC. Although the UI showed the correct icons, the controller accepted the wrong inputs, so you had to press the wheel on the cross icon, for example. After several patches, most of the problems have been fixed, but the button still moves when jumping.

Either way, the biggest problem with the PC version is the sound. Firstly, it’s impossible to set the headphone mode even when I have headphones plugged in, but basically the overall volume level is very poorly balanced. On default settings, you can barely hear the characters Kratos is talking to. For now, this can only be done with a setting that centralizes all the voices at one point, which will increase the volume, but again, you’ll lose any spatiality.

Likewise, I was unable to separate the haptic and adaptive triggers of the DualSense controller, which seems to me to be a pretty fundamental flaw in the previous PS exclusivity, so hopefully it will be fixed soon. Otherwise, other than the issues mentioned, the controls work well and of course you have the option to play with a keyboard and mouse, even if this option is not recommended for Ragnarok. It’s functional, but far from ideal compared to a gamepad.

Comparison with PS5

And how does it compare graphically to the PS5? If we look at 4K with DLAA and maximum settings and in Quality mode, the differences honestly aren’t that big. Compared to the original, the PC version offers almost no improvements in terms of graphics, on the other hand, of course, you can count on higher image quality thanks to DLSS and other technologies, although it is also very good on the console.

On PC you will also find both image generation technologies, i.e. through DLSS and FSR. AMD’s FSR is present in version 3.1, allowing you to use frame generation with other upscaling technologies, which is great news for owners of Nvidia’s RTX 20 and 30 graphics cards that don’t support DLSS frame generation but do support upscaling.

The fact that we also find some objective degradation on PC is somewhat surprising. First of all, we are talking about fog, which is completely absent almost everywhere, which still spoils the atmosphere a little. I hope this error will be fixed. At the same time, in an interview with Eurogamer, the developers said that perhaps in the future they will add RT reflections to the PC version, which could be very interesting, because reflections using SSR technology can be very easily broken by moving the camera, especially in large locations , which Ragnarok has.

Steam deck

I also tried the game on my Steam Deck OLED, and unfortunately it’s not nearly as fun as it is on PC. The culprit appears to be a Zen 2 processor, which Digital Foundry found has serious issues in Ragnarok. Because of this, the time between frames is extremely unstable and the experience is not very good (at low settings with balanced FSR scaling). At least in Svartfalheim, where the game is a little more demanding even on PC, it still runs relatively well in Midgard.

So if you experience certain crashes, you can lock the game to 40 FPS. If stability is your primary concern, I’d recommend locking at 30fps, which the game should keep relatively stable.

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

On the other hand, I would also like to point out that the game has rich support for aspect ratios. On Steam Deck, in addition to the classic 16:9 format, you can also play on the entire display in 16:10 format. Owners of ultra-wide monitors will be pleased with the support for 21:9 and 32:9 aspect ratios.

Summary

Overall, the PC version of God of War Ragnarok did well. It runs very smoothly on PC and you’ll encounter virtually no stuttering or inconsistent timing between frames, which is almost unique these days. In addition, the game has very extensive settings that can be changed in real time, rich accessibility options, all possible scales and image generation.

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

On the other hand, there are a few aspects that still need to be fixed, mainly around graphics downgrades, audio mixing, broken icons, and general DualSense controller support. You can already enjoy the game, but it might not hurt to wait for a few more patches, the developers are still updating the game regularly and fixing more and more bugs.