Games Happy

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse launches this week for PC (Steam, Xbox PC), PS5, Xbox Collection, and Nintendo Change 1. Forward of its launch and following the discharge of the demo, I had an opportunity to play the complete model of Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse for Steam to cowl the way it scales on PC handhelds, the PC port options, and extra. After testing the demo, I used to be a bit involved for the complete launch on PC, and it sadly has points even now, however I’ve just a few suggestions for fixing issues primarily based on my time with it on ROG Ally and each my Steam Decks. I examined on each Steam Decks as a result of my OLED mannequin is on the general public SteamOS whereas the LCD mannequin makes use of SteamOS preview channel. I used to be curious to see if efficiency would enhance throughout completely different compatibility settings as nicely. 

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse PC graphics and show choices

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse on PC solely has a handful of graphics and show choices accessible. These are window mode (fullscreen, borderless, and windowed), decision (4K, 1440p, 1080p, 720p), v-sync, body charge cap (30fps to limitless), anti-aliasing (FXAA, SMAA, and a at the moment bugged third choice), and brightness. Notice that if you happen to play at 16:10 or 21:9, you would possibly run into points the place the gameplay is cropped. The one repair for that is forcing one of many resolutions I discussed. There aren’t any graphics choices to enhance efficiency like upscaling or lighting and shadows. The present full sport construct and demo each have the identical graphics and show choices.

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse Steam Deck impressions

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, a sport that’s good for Steam Deck, makes an terrible first impression. The sport is zoomed in so the left and proper sections are cropped. The repair for that is forcing the Steam Deck to run the sport at 720p or 1080p after which adjusting the decision in-game. Past that, whereas Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse appears to be like glorious on Steam Deck, efficiency is inconsistent and it feels terrible to play. 

I put in it on each my Steam Decks (Preview and secure SteamOS channels) and likewise examined 15 completely different Proton variations together with 4 GE variations and likewise Proton Experimental (bleeding edge). Nothing actually helped with efficiency. It’s simply inconsistent and feels prefer it is not utilizing the GPU a lot. I additionally examined forcing completely different clock speeds for the GPU and whereas 1000hz was a bit higher, there may be nothing I might do to make Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse really feel good to play on Steam Deck proper now. 

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse Steam Deck really useful settings

Again when Lifeless Cells launched on console, I foolishly trusted just a few individuals who instructed me it ran nicely on Change. It didn’t. I can not cope with inconsistent efficiency in side-scrolling video games like this. Given you possibly can’t even play at 30 or 40fps with out random hitching, I don’t advocate enjoying Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse on Steam Deck proper now. Look ahead to patches. 

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse ROG Ally impressions

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is unplayable on ROG Ally out of the field with a easy repair detailed beneath. With the repair out of the best way, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse runs very nicely delivering a 60+ fps expertise at 1080p all through on my ROG Ally Z1 Excessive mannequin within the 25W mode unplugged. I even opted to make use of SMAA and it held up nicely with only one occasion of the sport freezing for two seconds throughout an space transition.

The one space efficiency dropped beneath 60fps to the excessive 50s with SMAA enabled is when the sport zooms out quite a bit when you nonetheless have character management. If you wish to keep away from these drops, use FXAA. It holds up higher up to now with that. Based mostly on the demo, the Xbox model is definitely the very best one up to now for my use case since it’s Xbox Play Wherever and I might have the ability to play it on my Xbox Collection X and proceed enjoying on ROG Ally. 

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse ROG Ally black display repair

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse launches with a black display on ROG Ally and does not seem like playable out of the field. After checking with just a few associates, a Steam Neighborhood thread put up had the repair. You principally want to make sure your ROG Ally is about to 120hz or decrease within the fast entry menu or Armory Crate menu. When you do that, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse performs because it ought to and delivers a 65-110fps expertise on the 25W mode within the areas I examined. It is a gigantic enchancment over the way it runs on Steam Deck and it’s my most popular approach of enjoying Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse on the go proper now contemplating the Change 1 model appears to be like ugly on Change 2. 

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse MSI Claw and OneXPlayer3 impressions

Very similar to with the ROG Ally, anybody operating the sport on Intel {hardware} could have no points operating the sport at 60+ FPS, at 1080p. On the default max 30 watt TDP you will often see anyplace from 90 to 120 FPS on an MSI Claw 7 or 8 AI+ – each have the identical chip and TDP choices – and in follow this ought to be an identical energy draw to 25w on an ROG Ally, since this era of Intel {hardware} contains energy draw for the RAM within the TDP for the chip itself. You’ll be able to count on over 60 FPS with TDP set to 17 watts.

I did discover some bizarre efficiency oddity the place some rooms I might drop to a secure 90 FPS, however dropping the TDP after which elevating it once more improved efficiency. In some rooms this is able to be a minor enchancment from 90 FPS to 100~ FPS, whereas in a single case I observed it will go all the best way as much as 120 FPS, my framerate cap and the native most refresh charge of the show. Leaving and re-entering a room would reset efficiency. I am uncertain if that is associated to MSI software program, customized software program I’ve put in on the Claw – however efficiency remains to be greater than fantastic even with this quirk.

On my OneXPlayer 3, issues carry out even higher. Utilizing a 17w TDP, the system performs barely higher than my Claw 7 AI+ at 30w; on the max 35w TDP on the OneXPlayer, you get an nearly locked 144 FPS, matching the refresh charge of the show. In the identical rooms I had observed the efficiency discrepancy on the MSI Claw earlier than adjusting the TDP had no such points on the OneXPlayer. In some circumstances the efficiency variations between the 2 was fairly staggering, with uncapped FPS in rooms the place the MSI Claw was hitting a bottleneck at 90 to 100 FPS delivering 180 on the OneXPlayer. Spectacular stuff. I might extremely advocate utilizing an exterior framelimiter on Belmont’s Curse whatever the handheld; I observed the inner framelimiter had an antagonistic affect on frametimes, whereas utilizing RTSS to cap the framerate stored issues a lot smoother throughout each handhelds.– James

If Konami and Evil Empire patch the PC model to repair the Steam Deck points, I’ll replace this text.

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse will likely be accessible on October 15 for Xbox Collection X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Change, and PC (Steam, Xbox on PC).