Avowed -Discussion Thread

bssunilreddy

bssunilreddy

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Avowed PC performance analysis: Sometimes good, sometimes bad, frequently odd​

Temper your expectations, avoid upscaling, and just go by feel rather than frame rates.
Release Date: 18 February 2025
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Originally planned as a Skyrim-like open-world game, set in the Pillars of Eternity universe, Avowed eventually transitioned into being semi-open. By that, I mean lots of very large, open levels, all connected together. But that change aside, in many ways, Avowed does feel like a cross between Skyrim and PoE, and if you're a fan of both games, you'll almost certainly like this one too.

What you might not be so keen on is that developers Obsidian targeted a 30 fps performance window for the Xbox Series X/S version, and while that doesn't necessarily mean the team set out for the PC version to be the same, as you'll soon see, Avowed isn't pushing out ultra-high frame rates.

On the plus side, it does look very good, with some notable caveats. Created using Epic's Unreal Engine 5, Avowed doesn't tote path-traced global illumination, but you do have the option to switch to Lumen. From my testing, it seems to be operating in the 'software RT' mode, which means you don't need a ray-tracing-capable GPU to enable the feature. However, that mode isn't as visually accurate as the hardware-accelerated one, so don't expect Alan Wake 2 levels of graphics.

Obsidian lists the minimum PC requirements for Avowed as being a Core i5 8400 or Ryzen 5 2600 CPU, with an Arc A580, GeForce GTX 1070, or Radeon RX 5700 for the GPU. These suggest that the game is more likely to be GPU-limited, rather than being super heavy on the CPU, but it's a little more nuanced than that. At least you don't need a lot of system memory, as 16 GB of RAM is both the minimum and recommended amount.

Test PC specs​

Benchmark runs were carried out in an early location, a seaport called Claviger's Landing, which offers a good range of graphics loads. From geometry-heavy buildings and environmental detail, to open vistas, and expanses of water to showcase how the game's engine handles reflections. Other areas of the world of Avowed can be more demanding than this region but it's a good indicator of how well the game will run in general.

If you're a frequent reader of these game performance analysis pieces, you may have already noticed that one commonly used platform is missing from the list of test PCs above. On the Asus ROG Ally X I use, the game ran fine once but after changing the graphics settings, it would just fully crash upon loading. Deleting the game and all other associated files didn't help, and I never managed to complete any benchmark runs with that device.

The review code was otherwise very stable, with just the odd glitch, including an old-school 'falling through the floor' bug that occasionally reared its head. On some systems, the game would crash when executing its initial shader compilation but never did so on the second attempt.

Final thoughts​

The title of this performance analysis is 'Sometimes good, sometimes, frequently odd' because I feel this best summarises the PC version of Avowed. On the High or Epic preset, it does look good and even runs pretty well. The bad? Well, that's obvious: the shoddy upscaling, the wonky antialiasing, the disappointing 1% lows, and the fact that it's yet another Unreal Engine-powered game that sports traversal stutter.

But what's odd about it? Well, at the start of this article, I described Avowed as being Skyrim in the Pillars of Eternity universe. Not because it's a fantasy RPG but because the world has that same expansive-yet-empty feel as Skyrim. While testing the early area of Claviger's Landing, I decided to look at the frame times on two systems, the Core i7 9700K and the Ryzen 9 9900X, to see if I could better understand why the 1% lows were so…well…low.

Looking at the old Coffee Lake chip first, you can see just how variable the frame times are, bouncing around all over the place. And yet there's nothing about the world that suggests there's a huge demand on the CPU. There aren't hordes of NPCs and what few there are either stay in one place or wander through short paths.

It's a smoother affair with the Zen 5 chip, as one would expect, but it's still not great and bizarrely, in the section of the benchmark run where the 9700K's frame times even out, they get worse with the 9900X. In the same test, the Ryzen 7 5700X3D was being worked surprisingly hard, with four logical cores (i.e. four threads on two cores) averaging 60% utilisation, with another four being around 50%.

That suggests Avowed is quite CPU intensive, but if it were, then the more modern test PCs would achieve far better 1% lows than the older and lower-tier ones. Only the Core Ultra 7 265K gaming rig stands apart, though that's certainly due to the use of DDR5-8000 in that system. As I said, it's odd.

Avowed is a lot of fun to play and it's rich in 'old-school RPG' vibes, which help in no small way to move one's attention away from the wonky performance. Just stick to the High preset, avoid upscaling unless you have a GeForce RTX graphics card, and aim for an average frame rate around the 60 fps mark (reducing shadow quality and draw distance are the main things to change). Oh, and ignore the 1% lows. In fact, just ignore any performance metrics altogether and judge it on feel.

Check this Source for a more detailed graphs based on 1080p/1440p/4k \Low/ Medium/ High Presets : Avowed PC performance analysis: Sometimes good, sometimes bad, frequently odd

Steam Store Link: Avowed

Avowed Gameplay: First 27 Minutes on PC | 4K 60FPS​

 
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