As the title says...

I'm still keeping this game on my wishlist in the hopes of a release eventually.
Hoping "eventually" doesn't mean in several years :/

Edit: Nvm, this is a lost cause.

Completely a lost cause. I'm guessing the publishers/stakeholders decided there's not enough "money first".

Releasing March 2024

Hands on preview (not yet finished!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HncH4PIficI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beog7ANmY8M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX8uTzA-USg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYpEexQrdms

Can now pre-order :)P

Done! ^^

Anyone also playing through Second Contact until release?

Best regards,
Raff

Just played it again (for the 3rd or 4th time) last year or year before so don't need to :)

(Might however play ANB a 2nd time right away after finishing the 1st playthrough.)

Demo is out on Steam.

Edit: For anyone that wants to know and not play the demo, it does have a hitching issue. Appears to be something in the game code with ~compatibility~ (edit: strike that, something compatibility or otherwise).

The CPU and GPU drop when it happens though and no new shaders are created either anytime near when it happens so its not really related to anything there. It works fine (barely a difference actually amazingly) from a USB HDD so its not storage controller, driver, problem with the NVMe drive, or directly of the game reading from the storage (when still its about 1-3MB/s and when moving it jumps up a lot to maybe 100MB/s.).

Linux no help. Faster RAM speed no help. Older GPU driver no help. Many more things no help. Small overclock no help. Nothing left to do here.

Game is dx11 but dx12 can be forced by command option (no real difference though).

Game saves are at "C:\Users\YOUR_USER\AppData\Local\O2\"

Deleting the game save folder of the demo allows to reset the 2 tries lock out :)P

Performance is actually great other than the hitching/stutters. Nvidia 2060 runs it at max graphics quality on 1080p. Maintaining 60 fps doesn't happen at max quality but it maintains 30 fps with only the hitching messing it up.

However, CPU is important. It uses plenty of that.

Can use up to 100% of the GPU so its very well created that way. You get the full value of your GPU if you want it. Restrict fps to lower usage.

The game itself is definitely looking like a fun game. The player character moves great and is animated great. Feels great. Not anything like Second Contact lol. Feels like it should.

Still playing it day one anyway :)

Nice post!

I just wanted to say that dx12 was a huge difference for me. Went from 45-55 FPS to almost double that! (80-90 ish, give or take).

Another thing I tried was using DXVK, which also improved things but not quite as much as dx12. DXVK FPS around 65-75 ish. Pretty short tests and very anecdotal, so nothing definite.

In any case I did have some stuttes when loading new areas.

System is basically an AMD Ryzen 5 5600 and RTX 4080.

EDIT: Resolution 2560x1440.

Nice confirmation on things and DXVK thrown in is an interesting twist :)

Continuation of my previous post:

Using with dx11:

Engine.ini

[SystemSettings]
r.CreateShadersOnLoad=1

Does heavily increase the shader cache file size after using spacebar to close off the initial welcome box after loading (tested a bunch of times so it is indeed happening and not fake like some people would say).

But, I'm not seeing any actual improvement here for the hitching (aka stutters) unlike another game with UE5 that I tested a similar thing for in a UE5 based way but that was directly for shaders whereas this demo has an issue related to the time of streaming of files from storage (aka traversal stutter as some call it).

Hence, still showing its not from shaders.

Also shows that tweaks to Engine.ini are being pulled in which is nice to know (since there's no log to show it). However, I haven't found anything as working for the hitching (aka stutters) and its not necessarily something that can be changed that way (eg code issues).

I preordered Outcast a New Beginning.
I'm playing Second Contact for the first time, but I have played 1999 several times.

CPU: i7 12700
VGA: Geforce 4060
Ram: 16 gb drr4
SSD

I have a lot of fps drops moving around with the Jetpack, lowest 13-15 fps on ultra 1080p. On low it runs better, but there are drops to 20-25.

In anycase I believe the game runs on UE4 not UE5.

Its a highly customized UE4 engine (demo is 4.27).

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1013140/discussions/0/6266251726404689484/#c6266251726406624589

If anyone can solve the stutters, they can as they have access to the engine in a way many devs don't. If they do or not is another question.

I'm guessing the low fps you get is on the stutter and not elsewhere? If its elsewhere then I'm not seeing that and not sure why you're seeing it. I went all over the map and its fine. Conversly, the stutters are fast enough that I'm not "counting" the fps there and they would obviously be low as they are hitches/stutters. Some attempts at a workaround can make it feel worse.

Still, I can't wait. Trying to avoid playing the demo further is terribly difficult lol. Curious to see if the demo gets locked out tomorrow. (Edit - looks like it may be staying up past the Steam event. But, I'm working on playing other things now until the game arrives.)

Edit - PS5 also has a bit of hitching/stuttering (demo dropped there too now). Possibly 90% better overall compared to what I see on PC. The one demo area doesn't really have any. In the wide open areas of the large map traversal is where more can be seen including one quick one while spinning the cam at the start. They're all very minor though imo but am sure someone may still complain. I've seen this in other well known games on the PS5 in graphics mode. Don't know if the demo has a performance mode since I don't ever use it but didn't see it in the the game's settings and I'd assume therefore it doesn't have it (although never know if only the full game will).

If i just try to cover as much ground as I can, moving as fast as I can with the jetpack, my fps get worse and worse. If i stop, in a couple of seconds they get back to normal. I hope the developers will improve the assets streaming. In anycase I'm used to play with frame drops. it's a bit sad to have them with a 4060...I know it isn't a 4090, still...

By the way, I also want to play the whole game very badly.

Its going to be fantastic :)

Edit - I see the demo has an update including performance fixes. Have yet to check it out.

For me the patch was a significant improvement :D

.
Interesting. It did nothing for me. Guess they did have something there after all from some :)

One other thing its doing for me is creating decent sized crash dumps on exit. Something to be aware of. 10-15x would be 1GB of space wasted for anyone seeing it. Those are found at "C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\CrashDumps" in Windows.