Control’s performance issues are getting a fix

Control sounds like a lot of fun. I’m going to start it at some point today. I would have started it last night, but my PC and TV were disagreeing about the HDR setting. If only I would have known that Control doesn’t support HDR, and probably never will. But while that’s the bad news, developer Remedy Entertainment is addressing many of Control’s performance issues on PC and consoles.

In a blog post today on 505 Games’s website, the publisher and the developer say they’re aware of the problems people are encountering. Remedy also already has some fixes ready to go or in the works. If you are having problems with the Nvidia RTX features on PC, for example, you probably just need to update Windows 10 to version 1903. And the studio is going to add toggles to turn motion blur and film grain on and off in mid-September.

But the biggest problem for many players is that Control doesn’t run well on consoles or on non-RTX graphics cards. Remedy and 505 say they’re working to fix that.

“Right now, the team [is] looking at possible ways of improving console optimization in Control,” 505 Games producer Antonela Pounder wrote in a blog post. “But as you can hopefully understand, these things do take time and don’t happen at the press of a button — as much as we wish they did.”

Remedy won’t add HDR as it focuses on Control’s performance issues

Remedy doesn’t plan to add support for HDR displays into Control. This high-dynamic-range feature enables certain televisions and monitors to display brighter whites and darker blacks simultaneously. And it’s something that Control might benefit from given its excellent use of RTX ray-tracing tech. But the studio is prioritizing other work instead.

“Early on in Control’s development, it was decided that HDR would not be implemented in-game,” reads Pounder’s blog. “This is a decision based on the fact that development resources are limited, and we need to allocate what we have in a certain way. Moving into post launch, we prefer to use the resources we have to focus on future free content for Control like the Photo Mode. We realize this may disappoint some players, but we hope the additions we plan to bring to Control more than make up for the absence of HDR.”

In a post on Twitter, Remedy communication director Thomas Puha explained that the company is trying to do its best with what it has.

Update on @ControlRemedy https://t.co/BGI5utQCdX

I have to reiterate how small our dev team is and that the game has been out for three days. We are working on updates as fast as we can, but in a sensible way.

— Thomas Puha @ PAX West 2019 (@RiotRMD) August 30, 2019

And if no HDR means the team can work on that additional content without having to overwork themselves to death, then that seems like a fair sacrifice.

“We want to take this opportunity to make it clear that this is just the beginning,” reads Pounder’s blog. “Next week, we hope to provide our players with an update on future content plans, something we know many of you are very keen on.”