Dragon’s Dogma 2 September Update Tested – More CPU FPS Gains!

Dragon’s Dogma 2 now runs faster on PC thanks to the game’s September update

Dragon’s Dogma 2 has received another performance-boosting update, promising to deliver “Further fixes to issues around CPU overload in certain situations.” Additionally, this update (release notes here) promised to reduce instances of crashing, adds a “Casual Mode” to the RPG, and makes other quality-of-life changes to the game.

Since this performance issue was our major complaint in our Dragon’s Dogma 2 PC Performance Review, we thought we would test the game’s performance with this new update. We downloaded the update and retested the game’s demanding Vernworth City area, one of the most demanding scenes within Dragon’s Dogma 2. Once again, we tested the game with our standard game test system. This system features an i9-13900K CPU and an Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti graphics card.

Higher framerates in CPU-limited areas

Below, we can see further improvements to Dragon’s Dogma 2’s overall performance in built-up city areas. Overall, we see performance gains of around 10% in CPU-limited areas. This can be seen in Dragon’s Dogma 2’s average and 1st percentile framerates compared to the game’s June 2024 update.

Compared to the day-1 version of Dragon’s Dogma 2 on PC, framerate stability has increased dramatically. 1st percentile framerates have increased by almost 65%. Furthermore, average framerates have increased by 22.6%. While the game remains CPU-limited, frametimes are much more consistent. This makes the game feel much smoother. Regardless, constant 60+ FPS framerates remain impossible on PC, even with our Intel i9-13900K CPU.

It’s a solid improvement, but Dragon’s Dogma 2 could still run faster

While Dragon’s Dogma 2’s last few updates have allowed the game to run at higher and more consistent framerates in demanding areas, overall performance remains poor. Simply put, Dragon’s Dogma 2’s city areas are not impressive enough to justify these huge performance costs. While we are glad to see these performance improvements, we wouldn’t say that the game’s performance woes have been entirely fixed.

The good news is that Capcom doesn’t appear to be finished with Dragon’s Dogma. The game’s performance has steadily improved over the past few months. Additionally, we also know that a PlayStation 5 Pro update for the game is planned. If Capcom wants this game to run at 60 FPS on PS5 Pro, it will need further CPU optimisations.

Today, Dragon’s Dogma 2 runs better on PC than before. Regardless, the game is still a CPU-hog and doesn’t run well in many areas. We thank Capcom for their commitment to improving this game’s performance on PC and consoles. However, there is still work to be done before this game will run at 60+ FPS on PC.

You can join the discussion on Dragon’s Dogma 2’s increased performance on the OC3D Forums.