The Last of Us Part 1 made it to PC in somewhat disastrous fashion, though later upgrades did improve the game substantially. Today marks the release of The Last of Us Part 2, and we were interested to see whether porting specialists Nixxes were able to deliver a better experience on launch - and how many legacy issues remain. Part 2 certainly makes a more positive first impression, without the extreme issues that caused us to recommend against buying the first game on launch, but there are still some technical continuities here that drag the package down. Nixxes came in late to the port's development to add in their own fixes, which are evident, but some things are still taken wholesale from the previous port handled by Iron Galaxy. A great example is the game's options menu, which looks to sport a different look but actually delivers the same mix of settings as the previous port - with some new additions including DLSS frame generation and dynamic resolution scaling, the latter from Nixxes libraries. As with the prior game, there are plenty of tweakables here, but there's minimal scaling above and beyond the capabilities of the PlayStation 5 release. Screen space shadows and contact shadows are some of the few notable additions here, and do provide a small bump to visuals - helped by the higher overall image quality allowed on the PC platform by running at arbitrary resolutions. If you want to see how The Last of Us Part 2 plays out on PC - and to see the various issues we encountered... well, here you go.Watch on YouTubeThe Last of Us Part 2 is also almost uniquely demanding in terms of the amount of GPU horsepower required to equal the PS5 version, in comparison to other releases that have targeted both PS5 and PC. The official system requirements suggest an RTX 3060 for 1080p 60fps gameplay, but these medium settings correspond to graphics that are worse in many ways than that of the PS4 release. For example, SSR exhibits full-size crosshatching not found in the PS4 release, and there are similar visual downgrades for flashlight bounce lighting, subsurface scattering and more. If we instead adopt PS4-equivalent settings, you might be surprised what level of GPU horsepower are required to simply double the frame-rate of the 30fps PS4 release. The RTX 3060 falls below 60fps in many scenes, despite the GPU ostensibly having 12.74TF of theoretical compute and 360GB/s of bandwidth versus just 1.84TF and 176GB/s on PS4. Even ignoring "flopflation" from dual issue FP32 on Ampere GPUs, we are looking at a GPU that has ~3.5x the level of compute, even at its non-boosted clocks. That's a huge outlier relative to other ports, and users have to adjust their expectations accordingly. This also applies to the CPU side of things, though things have at least improved versus TLOU Part 1. Nixxes has changed how streaming is done by using DirectStorage CPU decompression with a different compression format, as well as preventing the engine from spin locking CPU threads, which is a huge no-no on Windows. That means the CPU is not faltering as often in P2, but this is still what we'd consider to be a CPU-intensive game. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. One element of this is due to how shaders are compiled. In previous Naughty Dog games on PC, shader compilation occurred in the main menu over multiple minutes, whereas in Part 2, a short shader compilation step occurs on first boot, with the rest of the shader compilation proceeding asychronously as the game world streams in. As new objects are loaded in as you walk forwards, the associated shaders precompile before the objects and materials are visible, with the game using less utilised CPU threads for this task. This manifests as sudden, extremely high CPU utilisation as you cross an invisible threshold in-game. It's nice that you don't have to wait for ages in the menus, but it does have performance consequences. Even without asychronous shader compilation, it's still possible to encounter frame-time disruption on CPUs like the mainstream-grade Ryzen 5 3600 as data is loaded in. For example, when crossing a field, we see consistent frame-time spikes above 25ms, and sometimes above 33.3ms - with 16.6ms being the required frame-time for 60fps. The basic loading behaviour here is strangely heavy on the CPU for a game that was initially designed to target a 1.6GHz tablet CPU and a 5400RPM hard drive. Of course, the first time you visit a given area, you will get more intense frame-time disruption, the game is trying to load in new data and compile shaders in the background. Running through the intro area with Abby, for example, frame-times are erratic and there are frequent bounces above 30ms. Despite Nixxes' upgrades, Part 2 unfortunately runs a lot worse on a Ryzen 5 3600 class CPU - one that's significantly stronger than the PS4's CPU, mind you - than similar vintage games. DF contributor Mohammed also documented similar frame-time spikes on a more mid-range Ryzen 7 5700X3D CPU, and I also saw frame-time spikes on the extremely high-end Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Shadow quality is one of the few areas, beyond overall image quality, where the PC version of The Last of Us Part 2 is noticeably improved versus the PS5 release. Contact shadows and screen-space shadows have been added. | Image credit: Digital FoundryBeyond frame-time hitches across all CPUs tested, I also saw some strange behaviour on occasion. On the Ryzen 5 3600 system, the game completely ground to a halt - 0fps - and they suddenly started again. I had a similar experience on the Steam Deck. On the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, we also saw big stalls when traversing through the game. The latest Ryzen 9000 X3D processors from AMD generally seem to exhibit much worse performance than you would expect, with the 9800X3D running only 20 to 25 percent ahead of the 3600 at a curiously fixed ~85fps with most of the CPU running at idle. As a Steam Deck release, TLOU P2 has a dedicated Steam Deck performance profile, but even using gamescope it's hard to attain a locked 30fps, with rough frame-pacing and spikes to 66ms or higher. On a more fundamental level, the camera doesn't move smoothly with frame health this poor, making the game look jerky even at a nominal 30fps. Given the exhibited CPU performance, I recommend using a frame cap. Using 60Hz v-sync on the Ryzen 5 3600 gives the CPU enough breathing room to hit 60fps fairly consistently - though it doesn't solve the issues related to shader compilation and data streaming. VRR, by constrast, has to deal with such a wide swing in frame times that the experience doesn't feel smooth at all. If you're planning to use VRR, I suggest not using the in-game frame-rate cap, which seems to consistently break VRR and exhibits uneven camera movement. Unfortunately, instituting a frame-rate cap elsewhere has a deleterious effect on load times - eg using Special K to enforce a 60fps cap causes load times to quadruple. If you can ignore that, Special K with VRR enabled and v-sync disabled provides the smoothest experience, while traditional v-sync is even more consistent and doesn't suffer from load time issues, though input latency is worse. SettingPS4 ProPC Optimised(~RTX 3060)PS5 PerfPC Optimised(~RTX 4070)Level Of DetailMediumMediumVery HighVery HighTexture QualityHighHighVery HighVery HighVisual Effects QualityHighHighHigh/ Very HighVery HighTexture Filtering2x16x4x16xShadow QualityCustomCustomCustomCustomSpotlights Shadow ResVery HighVery HighVery HighVery HighPoint Lights Shadow ResHighHighHighHighAmbient ShadowsHighHighHighHighDirectional Shadow ResHighHighHigh/ Very HighVery HighDirectional Shadow Distance~HighHigh~HighHighScreen Space ShadowsOffHighOffHighDynamic SSSOffOnOffOnContact Shadow QualityOffOffOffHighImage Based LightingOnOnOnOnBounced LightingOnOnOnOnAOQualityQualityQualityQualitySSRHighHighHighHighReal-Time ReflectionsHighHighHighHighCloud Shadow ReflectionsOnOnOnOnSub-surface ScatteringOnOnOnOnRefraction QualityVery High?Very HighVery High?Very HighDepth of FieldHighHighHighHighMotion Blur QualityMediumMediumMediumMediumParticle DensityHigh/Very HighVery HighVery HighVery HighVolumetric EffectsLowLowMediumMediumLens FlareHalf ResHalf ResHalf ResHalf ResBefore launching into optimised settings, I want to briefly cover some smaller issues I discovered that proved visually distracting. For example, there are numerous shadows in the distance on PS4 Pro that don't load in until they are extremely close on PC. Flickering was also not uncommon, with textures such as blood stains on the floor. The last issue I want to mention is related to upscaling, specifically DLSS. For some reason, DLSS and DLAA in this title are of a lower quality than you may be used to, with even DLAA showing obvious ghosting on vegetation and particles, areas where it usually excels. In this case, I recommend users of Nvidia graphics cards use the newer Transformer model for DLSS, eg by using the DLSS override feature in the Nvidia app. With visual bugs out of the way, let's talk settings. Given the heaviness of the game in general, I recommend lower-end GPUs like the RTX 3060 or 4060 keep to around the PS4 Pro quality level, but with texture filtering ramped up 16x and with screen space shadows on as that is a nice quality win. Then, leverage VRR or an upscaler of your choice to hit your desired level of smoothness. GPUs at the RTX 4070 level and above can use PS5 performance mode settings, with the same upgrades to screen-space shadows and AF. Thanks to Mohammed again for working on these PlayStation-equivalent settings for us to ensure this article was ready for the game's release.Beyond this, I have the feeling that there is more to come from The Last of Us Part 2 on PC. It's a better game on launch than Part 1, but with some frustrating elements and a buggy feeling that's hard to shake. Beyond the disappointingly high GPU requirements, the biggest complaint here are the frame-time spikes that occur even on high-end kit, which seems incongruous with the game's cinematic presentation. It's hard to know what kind of resources Nixxes has at its disposal for post-launch improvements, but I hope that these issues are at least on their radar and we see a similar trajectory of improvements as the last release.