Something is terribly wrong with The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition’s PC performance

rockpapershotgun.com:

Surprise RPG remaster The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition has turned out to be even more of a PC wilter than its raised system requirements would suggest. I’ve only been bumbling around the starting planet of Terra-2 so far, and thus haven’t seen every single weather system upgrade and character model touch-up that the Spacer’s Choice Edition has to offer, but it’s made a worrying first impression in the performance department.

I started on an RTX 3070 (matched with an Intel Core i5-11600K and 16GB of RAM, all well above the recommended spec), and slapped on Ultra quality to try at 1440p. The result: a dismal trudge through the 30-35fps range, with regular drops down into the twenties. A few interior areas helped it creep up to 40fps or so, but still, that’s staggeringly low when the same setup will often stay above 100fps in The Outer Worlds’ original version.

What of the graphics cards listed in the official requirements? First I tried the 6GB GTX 1060, as per the minimum spec. Switching to the Low preset could, in fairness, allow this GPU to spit out anywhere between 40fps and 60fps in most areas. Medium, however, dropped too often into the 20-30fps zone to really play comfortably. You could still say this minimum GPU requirement is accurate, but is there really much point in buying a remaster if you can only engage its ugliest settings? Especially with the sting of knowing that in the original, the humble GTX 1060 could average 70fps on Ultra quality.

Then there’s the GTX 1080 Ti, which is listed as a recommended GPU. This could only barely manage Ultra at 1080p, sadly, mostly varying between 30fps and 40fps with occasional drops below. It took a lowering to Very High quality before a more stable 45-50fps could