Soon you’ll be able to test Dragon Age: The Veilguard yourselves and apparently look forward to a really well-functioning game: Some experts are surprised by the strong PC version.
Why is a good PC version surprising? Video game releases have often been marred by buggy game versions in recent years. Usually, the most serious issues have been ironed out through several patches and updates.
Examples include CD Projekt’s Cyberpunk 2077, which only became really good with the DLC released in 2023. But Bethesda games such as the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series almost traditionally launch with partially game-breaking bugs. As an example: The over 10-year-old Skyrim still has known issues that can be fixed via mods and have never officially been patched.
However, this is not the case with Dragon Age: The Veilguard: Experts praise the PC version even in the highest terms.
The experts are excited: Healthy 60 FPS in almost every scene
What is special about The Veilguard? Dragon Age: The Veilguard is released on PC with very good performance and few bugs, says among others Alex Battaglia from Eurogamer. According to him, it could have been different, as The Veilguard uses the Frostbite engine, which is also the basis for the buggy Dead Space remake.
The shader preload via a Ryzen 7 7800X3D would take about four minutes, while with a lesser Ryzen 5 3600 it would take about 10. This is beneficial because the process improves the game’s performance while playing. On the less powerful Ryzen 5 3600, the game would still achieve healthy 60 FPS in every scene
because of this.
What is a shader preload?
A shader preload is a process performed by some PC games at the game’s first startup. For some, this happens automatically, as is the case with The Veilguard, while for others the process can be initiated optionally.
During this, the shaders used in the game are loaded completely once. This ensures that the PC does not have to constantly reload them while playing. This can cause low FPS and stutters in gameplay on less powerful systems.
Shaders themselves are specialized programs that breathe life into graphics with shadows or textures. In short, the colleagues from GameStar Tech explain this to you in this TikTok.
In the article, he continues to praise:
- The UI
- The menu navigation
- The many different optimization options for graphics such as Ray Tracing
The YouTube channel Digital Foundry is also impressed with the version. In the video, the differences between the PS5 and PC versions are repeatedly shown. The latter always looks a bit better. They say: Dragon Age feels like a PC game and it deserves to be celebrated at release.
In conclusion, it is also emphasized that the game would still perform well on weaker CPUs. The speaker also specifically hopes that more games will be released in such a polished state.
Perhaps the very good release state of the game is due to the fact that, according to the developers themselves, the game has been finished for over a year and the testers have apparently invested over 200,000 hours.
What are the minimum requirements for the game? If you want to know whether the game will generally start on your PC, we have the minimum requirements as well as the recommended configuration for you.
Minimum Requirements
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
Operating System: 64 bit Windows 10/11
Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 3 3300X
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 970/1650 / AMD Radeon R9 290X
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 100 GB available storage space
Additional Notes: SSD preferred, HDD supported; AMD CPUs on Windows 11 require AGESA V2 1.2.0.7
Recommended
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
Operating System: 64 bit Windows 10/11
Processor: Intel Core i9-9900K / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 2070 / AMD Radeon RX 5700XT
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 100 GB available storage space
Additional Notes: SSD required; AMD CPUs on Windows 11 require AGESA V2 1.2.0.7
MeinMMO was also able to test the game in advance and no serious bugs or performance issues were noticed while playing. How our team finds the game in terms of content can be read in our preview report: The latest Dragon Age in review: The Veilguard is the ideal Dragon Age for those who do not know Dragon Age at all
