Analysis of the patch for Darksiders

THQ has finally released the patch aimed at resolving the heavy tearing that plagued the Xbox 360 version of Darksiders, an annoying element that we did not fail to highlight in our review. We are usually used to seeing more performing multi-platform titles on the Microsoft console than on PS3, even if the phenomenon appears increasingly sporadic. Not bad anyway: the guys of Vigil Games immediately made amends for their mistakes and already from the release of the game they had declared to solve the problem with a small update on Xbox Live.

While it is now the norm It is common to release patches to put patches here and there within codes developed too quickly, on the other hand it is extremely rare that a single update is able to significantly increase the performance of the entire graphics engine. THQ, however, had declared that the problems encountered on 360 were not present in the preview version, so we assume that they were technical flaws born in the final sprint in view of the release.

Digital Foundry therefore wanted to analyze the versions of Darksiders together before and after patch implementation, to understand what has changed and what real benefits the player will benefit from. As you can see from the video that we propose below, the result is that most of the annoyances related to tearing have disappeared. The percentage of broken frames therefore decreased from the initial 43.5% to a very acceptable 21.6%.

As can be easily seen from the images, the improvements are quite evident. So the question is: how was it possible to reduce problems by a good 50%? From the video it seems that the original code ran without any limit to the frame-rate, as if the graphics engine were trying to produce as many frames as possible (and in some cases it gets very close to 60FPS), however causing that deleterious tearing effect that cut the images in half. The patch therefore set a limit, allowing the game engine to breathe a little and provide a more stable frame stream.

By keeping an eye on the frame-rate numbers, it also highlights a level of very similar performance between the two versions, which further supports the thesis put forward by Digital Foundry and explains the confidence with which the development team had hinted at a patch that could be realized with relatively short time. the technical qualities of the game have certainly improved, making the title certainly more enjoyable from an aesthetic point of view. Our technical staff is already going further in analyzing the game, and as always we will offer you explanatory videos on the differences between Xbox 360 and PS3 in the next chapter dedicated to Console War. Continue to follow us: the next few months look very exciting!