Mafia 3 limited to 30 frames per second on PC, but update coming soon [Update]

Hangar 13 prioritized getting the game running consistently on all platforms.

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Update: 2K has issued an updated statement with more details on when we can expect the patch to arrive.

"We currently have a patch running here at the studio that includes 30, 60, and unlimited frames-per-second options in the video menu, among other improvements for the PC version of Mafia III. We’re verifying the patch now to ensure everything is working as expected. If everything goes well, we expect the update to go live this weekend. We will be keeping the PC community up-to-date on the status of the patch throughout the weekend and thank you for all the feedback!"

Original Story: Mafia 3 will be limited to 30 frames per second on PC when it releases tomorrow, but developer Hangar 13 and publisher 2K are already working on a way to let players give that number a boost.

"We know how important having options that best suit your PC's performance capabilities are," reads a message posted on Mafia 3's website. "The team has been hard at work ensuring that Mafia III's performance is consistent across all platforms, and right now the game runs at a solid 30 frames-per-second. We are currently working on an update for PC that will give players the option to play Mafia III at higher framerates. We'll share more details about the update, and when you can expect it to arrive, very soon."

Mafia 3, which casts you in the role of a member of the Black Mob in New Orleans circa 1960s, launches for Xbox One and PS4 tomorrow, October 7.

Long Reads Editor

David L. Craddock writes fiction, nonfiction, and grocery lists. He is the author of the Stay Awhile and Listen series, and the Gairden Chronicles series of fantasy novels for young adults. Outside of writing, he enjoys playing Mario, Zelda, and Dark Souls games, and will be happy to discuss at length the myriad reasons why Dark Souls 2 is the best in the series. Follow him online at davidlcraddock.com and @davidlcraddock.

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From The Chatty
    • reply
      October 6, 2016 1:28 PM

      [deleted]

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      October 6, 2016 2:28 PM

      The Steam reviews for this game are a shit show because of this. So many fucking entitled little shits

      http://store.steampowered.com/app/360430/

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        October 6, 2016 5:55 PM

        [deleted]

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        October 6, 2016 6:27 PM

        I said this in another thread, but what is indefensible on 2K's part is that they didn't communicate this ahead of time and pre-order people got to discover it for themselves. Another reason why you don't pre-order games, but seriously what a terrible move by 2K. +30 FPS is the standard on PC and the fact that they they really fucked up not communicating that this wouldn't be the case when they obviously would have known ahead of time.

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        October 6, 2016 7:21 PM

        [deleted]

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      October 6, 2016 2:31 PM

      hmm will thats a little deflating I was looking forward to a new game are the resolution options limited to 16:9 as well?!?!

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        October 6, 2016 2:52 PM

        1024x768.

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        October 6, 2016 6:42 PM

        ugh seriously? 21:9 is great for open world games, such a shame.

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          October 6, 2016 7:00 PM

          From what I've seen, it has native 21:9 support, but the cinematics are 16:9 (can't say if that's just because they're pre-rendered videos, no one mentioned if that includes all game cutscenes). Also some hud elements / menus can be skewed or glitched.

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            October 6, 2016 7:02 PM

            cut scenes as 16:9 isn't the end of the world, gta5 was the same way.

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      October 6, 2016 2:53 PM

      What a fucking joke.

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      October 6, 2016 2:55 PM

      Meh, 30fps just doesnt bother me.

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        October 6, 2016 3:35 PM

        Then you haven't really lived

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        October 6, 2016 9:30 PM

        I definitely don't have a problem with it in games that tend to be somewhat cinematic to begin with.

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        October 7, 2016 12:11 AM

        Just play any first person or 3rd person game and rotate the camera. It judders like crazy at 30fps but 60fps it's nice and smooth.

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      October 6, 2016 3:37 PM

      Developers need start taking this shit seriously. This is going to cost them money and I hope it's enough to make it sink in that locking your frame rate to 30 on pc is not acceptable.

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        October 6, 2016 5:58 PM

        It will cost them, but then they'll just start making games for consoles only because the PC platform doesn't bring in enough money. I don't understand why devs don't make games for PC then scale them down to consoles instead of the other way around.

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          October 6, 2016 6:11 PM

          Then we need newer consoles refreshed more often. This is an end of 2016 title with a 10 year old crippling effect for old ass consoles. Fuck them. Consoles need to get their shit in gear faster.

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            October 6, 2016 9:38 PM

            You can blame consoles all you want but the simple fact of the matter is that the devs just need to delay the PC port or even better yet publishers need to stop forcing games to be released unfinished. You can have the most powerful console ever and there is still a ton of work to enable all the settings and optimizations for a PC. Gamers will wait for a proper port. Once the memory increased on consoles the biggest hurdle was overcome.

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          October 6, 2016 6:35 PM

          Mafia II has 2.3 million copies on Steam. It's clearly within their financial interests to port for the PC, but then they don't give enough of a shit and instead just squander a bunch of potential sales?!? I don't get it. I mean, I do get it, but it's frustrating. I loved Mafia II, barring good reviews I would totally consider picking this game up soon, but not capped at 30 FPS. I have other games to play.

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      October 6, 2016 5:58 PM

      Console ports gonna port

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      October 6, 2016 6:10 PM

      I'll hold out for an update...and a sale.

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      October 6, 2016 6:12 PM

      How much are they charging for the unlock update?

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      October 6, 2016 6:30 PM

      Indefensible that they didn't tell people about this ahead of time. Fuck your pre-order crowd and you're going to get railed on Steam reviews. Bad move.

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        October 6, 2016 6:34 PM

        Did they deliberately dodge this issue, or did no one think to ask as this sort of thing is expected now?

        Usually the press gets some major or basic details on the PC version and its limitations and features before release.

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          October 6, 2016 6:37 PM

          I don't think they ever brought it up, and I guess no one actually asked them HEY IS YOUR GAME CAPPED AT 30 FPS because it's a fucking AAA release and no one would think to even ask that question

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            October 6, 2016 6:40 PM

            I think old Mafia fans will be especially burned because the series started as PC-only, and even Mafia II still was a great PC port with graphics options up the wing-wang

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            October 6, 2016 6:45 PM

            I don't know about that. A lot of recent AAA devs and publishers have been more outspoken in saying the framerate is unlocked or will support above 30 / 60 fps with multiplatform releases on PC because the people with 120-144hz monitors constantly want to know if their displays will get the most out of these games.

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      October 6, 2016 6:42 PM

      I could do so much more bootlegging if I only had an additional 30fps.

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      October 6, 2016 6:53 PM

      They updated the blurb on the site:


      A message to our PC players
      10/6/2016

      UPDATE [10/6 / 6PM PT]: We currently have a patch running here at the studio that includes 30, 60, and unlimited frames-per-second options in the video menu, among other improvements for the PC version of Mafia III. We’re verifying the patch now to ensure everything is working as expected. If everything goes well, we expect the update to go live this weekend. We will be keeping the PC community up-to-date on the status of the patch throughout the weekend and thank you for all the feedback!



      ORIGINAL POST: We know how important having options that best suit your PC’s performance capabilities are. The team has been hard at work ensuring that Mafia III’s performance is consistent across all platforms, and right now the game runs at a solid 30 frames-per-second. We are currently working on an update for PC that will give players the option to play Mafia III at higher framerates. We’ll share more details about the update, and when you can expect it to arrive, very soon. In the meantime, the team welcomes feedback and would like to hear from you about what performance adjustment options are important to you. We’re actively considering a number of additional post-launch improvements on PC that would give players more control over how they can tailor the game’s experience to suit their rig’s performance. It’s been an incredible journey developing Mafia III and we couldn’t be more excited to get the game in your hands and hear what you think!

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        October 6, 2016 6:54 PM

        That's a good turn around. Sad that it'll launch without it though.

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        October 6, 2016 7:07 PM

        This almost sounds like it was intended to be a day-one patch but they just couldn't get it out the door in time. Shame, if they had told people UP FRONT that the uncapped framerate was a few days away they wouldn't be getting so much shit. Still some shit, sure, but because this is a SURPRISE, they ensured that the biggest story about Mafia III's release was about the underwhelming PC version. Just sucks.

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          October 6, 2016 7:10 PM

          I understand that they didn't want to just come out with negative info about a game that was about to be released, but fuck, guys, have some foresight. It's so much worse if it's a surprise with no immediate official info or patch ETA.

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        October 6, 2016 7:10 PM

        Mafia 3?? True story, the first Mafia is the only single player game I ever finished in the whole wide worldddd

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      October 6, 2016 6:59 PM

      HEY SHACK GAME DEVELOPERS, question:

      For those of us with little to no experience with game engines, it always seems like this is an unnecessary move - just let the thing be uncapped on the PC and worry about limits on consoles.

      But this comes up so many times (game launches with cap, removes it later) that I guess there's more to it.

      What is it about a game or game engine that benefits it in development to limit frame rates on fluid hardware? Like I said I get it for consoles but for the PC it's never made sense to me. But I've never made a game before.

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        October 6, 2016 7:12 PM

        "Game rate has uneven framerate, 6 out of 10" - reviewer

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        October 6, 2016 7:15 PM

        Some games are designed so that the gameplay is tied directly to the framerate. This makes it nearly impossible to change it after the fact, as you'd have to go back and re-time all of the attacks and animations and such, otherwise the whole game would just move twice as fast.

        It's obviously not the case here if they're able to so quickly make a 60/uncapped patch for it, so in this case they just didn't want to bother with the additional testing to see if 60 fps broke anything.

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        October 6, 2016 7:18 PM

        I'm no game developer, but I think it's a bigger issue in 2D games and engines, which can have strict timings for everything. Going above the frame lock can break things. Recent example of this is Hyper Light Drifter, which launched at a locked 30fps. Many months later the devs added preliminary 60fps support, but to do this they basically had to re-work the entire game.

        “This conversion was indeed a massive task to undertake: we worked through over 115 thousand lines of code the past several months in order to make this happen, manually changing timings of each object and enemy, fixing the dozens upon dozens of little problems that arose when changing frame timing, optimizing the game and testing the bits out of it internally.”

        Still, 3D games and engines can have similar limitations and restrictions. I'm thinking of the physics systems in all those Bethesda RPGs, go above 60hz and everything can freak out. And then there are specific examples with fighting games that are also frame and timing based - in SF4 or SFV, if you go above the framerate lock of 60, things go into turbo speed. Likewise going below everything moves in slow motion.

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        October 6, 2016 7:32 PM

        every single part of a game's development is staggeringly, stupefyingly difficult. shit happens. designs change while the game is in progress, systems change, and sometimes you don't go back and fix everything that was a consequence of the original design.

        it's possible that the physics simulation was locked at 30hz regardless of the rendering thread to make physical interactions 100% reliable independent of framerate (this can be a fucking nightmare to deal with), then you get the game up and running on console and the render thread is also locked at 30hz so you don't see things ever get out-of-sync or stutter (like the original Bioshock). Then, when nearing ship, you realize that when you upcap the framerate on the PC version, you see all sorts of weird issues with physics updating slower than the rest of the game, and when you uncap physics the entire fucking game shits itself.

        Then you make the call: "we have to ship this on time", and the PC framerate gets bumped to zero-day patch, and sometimes that slips a few days.

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          October 6, 2016 8:06 PM

          ^^^^

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          October 7, 2016 1:44 AM

          [deleted]

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          October 7, 2016 6:35 AM

          I understand and agree with all of that, but any negative press that comes from shipping a game in that state is deserved. They have to make the choice to delay it and fix the issues or ship it in a poor state to meet a deadline and then deal with the consequences. They had to know shipping a PC game locked at 30fps was going to be a huge black eye in terms of reviews.

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        October 6, 2016 9:16 PM

        I have a feeling that there are going to be some issues with going over 30fps. Like, a 1080 and skylake i7 will be getting 50fps or something stupid.

        I've seen enough games that were designed for 30fps on consoles and just have trouble going much higher on PC. The last Batman game probably being the worst offender.

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      October 7, 2016 3:27 AM

      [deleted]

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      October 7, 2016 7:43 AM

      [deleted]

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      October 7, 2016 7:53 AM

      i wonder if this is because the 60fps patch includes further DRM.

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