For quite some time now, Insomniac Games has been consistently delivering exceptional games. In 2023, their masterpiece, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, graced our screens. Building on the success of the original, they expanded the concept with a more immersive open world, creating an experience that surpassed the ordinary and was truly remarkable.
Following a decent amount of anticipation, “Marvel’s Spider-Man 2” has officially landed on PC, backed by Nixxes Software. The question now is: how does this new release stack up against the initial version? What improvements can players expect, and more crucially, how does its performance fare in comparison to the PS5 edition? Without any more preamble, let’s dive straight into exploring these aspects.
What’s New?
Nixxes Software has demonstrated exceptional skills in transferring PlayStation games to the computer platform. The internal engine of Insomniac has been successfully ported to the PC on several occasions, as seen in titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man, Miles Morales, and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. Remarkably, even though these games showcased remarkable fluidity on the PS5, they have primarily offered impressive PC adaptations.
On personal computers, Spider-Man 2 takes advantage of the PS5’s capabilities to their absolute limit and offers various methods to boost image quality even further. Notably, Insomniac has incorporated a great deal of flexibility with ray tracing, allowing players to adjust settings such as DLSS ray reconstruction, adjusting ray tracing draw distance, and more for an enhanced visual experience.
Absolutely, you’ll have the ability to play in ultrawide resolution, along with choices for DLSS 4.5, AMD’s FSR, and Intel XeSS to enhance the visuals. Furthermore, it also supports DLSS frame-generation, aiming to deliver a smoother gaming experience across various PC hardware.
As a gamer diving into Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC, I can say that while the visual overhaul isn’t revolutionary compared to its PlayStation 5 debut, it’s still an impressive upgrade. It’s important to remember that this is an iterative enhancement, but that doesn’t diminish the significance of these updates. There have been a few missteps, which we’ll delve into later, but overall, the PC version offers a rich and engaging experience similar to the PlayStation 5 release.
Test Bench Specs And PC Graphical Settings
In Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, there are numerous graphic adjustments and performance settings that let players achieve an optimal blend of realism and smooth gameplay. You can manage aspects ranging from texture detail to ray tracing distance to resolution scaling, among other options. Hints appear when you click on a setting explaining how each toggle or slider affects different visual elements. However, adding VRAM usage meters along with screenshots for comparison would have provided a more seamless experience for tinkerers like myself.
For our testing, we operated the game on a setup that included an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X processor, an Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti graphics card, 64 GB of memory, and a PCI-e 4.0 NVME SSD to approximate the read-write speeds similar to those found in the PS5. To provide some context, Insomniac Games advises players should have an AMD Ryzen 5 5600 CPU, 16 GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 GPU to run the game at high settings with a resolution of 1440p and a consistent frame rate of 60fps.
It’s no surprise that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, much like most big AAA games for quite some time now, could prove to be quite challenging for PC players. After all, its expansive and intricately detailed open world, boasting impressive character models and textures, is nothing short of breathtaking. With such visual splendor having left a mark on the PS5, there’s a legitimate question about whether it will manage to maintain steady performance on PC.
Regardless of the route taken, our computer setup met the suggested specifications, so we decided to give the game a spin using primarily maxed-out settings, with ray tracing set to ‘very high’. We ran the game at a 4K resolution and enabled DLSS upscaling in Quality mode.
Comparison With PS5
We examined several sequences on the computer under previously mentioned conditions versus the PS5’s Quality setting, and the outcomes were pretty much in line with our anticipation. Upon initial launch of the game, there was a delay in loading time, likely due to the shaders being compiled during that period for improved performance in subsequent runs.
As you delve into the game, it becomes clear that certain enhancements stand out compared to the PS5’s Quality mode. Textures appear sharper, likely due to superior upscaling owing to DLSS 4.5. However, character models and material quality appear consistent across all aspects of the game.
As for ray tracing, PC reflections appear more vivid compared to PS5’s Quality mode. Extra bounce lighting enhances scene detail, particularly in cinematics where close-up lighting significantly enriches character depiction. Regarding post-processing effects, there isn’t a significant difference when compared to the PS5 quality mode.
We increased the ray tracing reflection distance for a more immersive and detailed visual experience, with distant objects receiving equal focus. This enhancement also extends to shadows, making scenes appear deeper. While world streaming functions well generally, occasional pop-in issues during gameplay can be noticeable, especially considering how crucial swift movement is in the fast-paced Spider-Man 2 gameplay experience.
PC Performance
When it comes to the smoothness of gameplay in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC, I can confirm that it ran at 60 frames per second (fps) during certain sequences. However, during more computationally challenging scenes, there were noticeable drops in frame rate, dipping as low as the mid-30s and occasionally even to around 25fps. The addition of DLSS frame generation and upscaling certainly helped mitigate these performance issues somewhat, but a consistently smooth 60fps experience wasn’t guaranteed.
In essence, it’s important to mention that Spider-Man 2, being a fast-paced game, experiences noticeable drops in performance, which affects the smoothness of gameplay. Additionally, we found some visual bugs and glitches during testing, such as an odd appearance of Norman’s eyes in one scene. These issues are primarily aesthetic and don’t significantly disrupt gameplay, but they are worth noting since they aren’t present on the PS5 version. Currently, there are numerous reports of crashes and errors when running the game on PC, a problem we encountered while reviewing the PC version ourselves. Consequently, it’s fair to say that Spider-Man 2 isn’t currently performing smoothly on PC at launch.
Conclusion
Playing Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on a PC can be an experience with varying outcomes. On the positive side, it doesn’t fall short when it comes to unique PC features. However, it unfortunately encounters a range of performance and optimization problems across the board. From lengthy shader compilation during the initial launch to unstable gameplay and bugs, the PC version of Spider-Man 2 could significantly improve with a post-launch update that addresses these issues.
It’s surprising, given Nixxes Software’s past successes, that the porting of Spider-Man 2 to PC didn’t go as smoothly as expected. However, the bright side is that PC gamers now have a chance to play Spider-Man 2, even with some problems. Here’s hoping these issues will be resolved soon.
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2025-02-03 18:41