Highlights
- German tech outlet ComputerBase has discovered a simple fix for the PC version of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, which addresses issues like low frame rate and stuttering by deleting two files.
- The problem seems to be related to the DirectStorage feature, which should enhance game performance but appears to favor AMD graphics cards over Nvidia Geforce cards. The speed of Nvidia cards also depends on the type of storage medium used.
- Removing the mentioned files can improve performance and bring it closer to how it runs on AMD or Radeon machines. In fact, deleting the files can result in a 10% increase in frame rate, according to ComputerBase's tests.
The PC version of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart has been experiencing issues such as low frame rate and stuttering for some users. But thanks to German tech outlet ComputerBase, there's now a simple fix for the problem that involves deleting two files only on PCs with Nvidia GPUs: "dstorage.dll" and "dstoragecore.dll".
We haven't tried this method ourselves, but according to Computerbase, this fix helps alleviate the problem caused by the DirectStorage feature. Technically, DirectStorage is supposed to make games run better even on traditional hard drives by streaming data from the SSD or HDD directly to the GPU, bypassing the CPU and its associated performance bottlenecks. At least that's the theory, according to Insomniac's own statement about the feature and PC Gamer's analysis.
The reality is that there's a discrepancy in performance between AMD graphics cards and Nvidia Geforce cards when running Ratchet & Clank with the DirectStorage feature. AMD cards were found by Computerbase to deliver better performance and more FPS than their Nvidia counterparts. Moreover, the speed of Nvidia graphics cards was found to be more dependent on the storage medium used.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart runs significantly slower on a SATA SSD than on an NVMe SSD (mainly two different methods of communicating with the rest of the PC), even though DirectStorage is supposed to fix the performance issue on any storage device. And by removing the two files mentioned above, the game can achieve performance closer to how it runs on AMD or Radeon machines.
Computerbase also adds that there's currently no benefit to keeping the two files. In fact, if players leave the two files in the game folder, Rift Jumps in the game takes longer to load on GeForce PCs than without the files. But if you delete the two files, you will get a 10% increase in frame rate. On RTX 4080, the game will reach an average of 118.6 FPS with DirectStorage files present, and an average of 129.7 FPS without the two files (according to ComputerBase sampling tests and graphs).
Currently, the only game other than Ratchet and Clank that supports DirectStorage is Forspoken. And Forspoken's studio, Luminous Productions, has previously shown (Timestamp 2:14) that the game takes about 20 seconds to load on older HDDs and about 2 seconds on modern SSDs. So DirectStorage isn't exactly a useless feature, but there seems to be a certain bug in its implementation in the case of Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart.