Elden Ring's latest PC patch fixes a game-killing fire giant
As well as graphics cards not being detected.
An Elden Ring patch snuck out today, announced by FromSoftware in thread of updates on Twitter. It's a very small patch for a very large game, amounting to only 13.1MB. Don't expect anything game-changing, then.
Well, not unless you've tangoed with a fire giant with a penchant for killing the game. That's one way to win a fight. And it's also one of the fixes tackled in patch 1.02.2. The next time you start scrapping with it, you should be in for a fairer fight, or at least won't find the game quitting on its own.
The patch also fixes an issue where graphics cards weren't being used, which as you can probably imagine is not an optimal way to play Elden Ring. Not that even the best GPUs guarantee decent performance. Frame rate dips and stuttering continue to be an issue, regardless of what's in your PC. Even my 3080 Ti is having problems.
(1/2)Patch 1.02.2 for PC and PS5 available now.PC:💠Fixed an issue where the graphics card was not being used, resulting in slow performance.💠Fixed a bug that caused the game to quit under certain conditions during a battle with the Fire Giant.💠Fixed other bugs.March 2, 2022
And that's about it for the specifics, unfortunately. The last item on this very short list is "Fixed other bugs", which implies they weren't very big ones. There aren't any patch notes, just the tweet, so these fixes will have to remain a mystery for now.
I'm lucky enough to have avoided running foul of bugs, so what I'm waiting for is optimisation and an end to the damn stuttering, which has, to be fair, been lessened since launch. It's not been fully excised yet, though. Thankfully, the team hasn't been silent on this, and an outline of how it plans to deal with performance issues was shared last week.
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Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.