Is Star Wars Jedi: Survivor fixed on PC? Update 9 Tested

Is the PC version of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor finally fixed?

EA has released Update 9 for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, bringing some much-needed changes to the game’s PC version. Since its launch, this game hasn’t run well on PC, but now, around 18 months after release, that has changed. So, has Star Wars Jedi: Survivor been fixed? Now, it’s time to find out.

For starters, update 9 has made this game’s settings much easier to adjust using a keyboard and mouse. The game’s original PC version was clearly made with a controller in mind, making settings adjustments a strange process using a mouse and keyboard. Now, the game works as PC gamers should expect. Honestly, I don’t know how this issue made it past QA; never mind take over 18 months to fix.

Shader Compilation stutters have pretty much been eliminated with Update 9, at least based on our testing. We replayed the first few hours of the game with a fresh CPU install and shader cache, and we found no shader compilation stutters. That said, the game isn’t stutter-free. Traversal stutter remains, though it is much less intrusive.

Overall, the game runs much smoother than before, though its ray-tracing effects remain a major CPU performance hog. As such, we recommend that most PC gamers play this game without ray tracing enabled. Another problem we faced was that DLSS would not enable correctly. We only got it to work by enabling DLSS in-game and then exiting and re-entering the game. That’s a strange bug, and one that has been present for us ever since DLSS support was introduced. Shame EA couldn’t address this issue with their next PC-fixing update…

Greatly improved Performance – Some Stuttering Remains

Before we dive deep into performance numbers, we will note that our original testing was conducted with an Nvidia RTX 4090, and our new patch 9 tests were completed with an Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti. Sadly, I do not have access to an RTX 4090 anymore for game testing. Even so, we can still see CPU-based performance improvements at 1080p with our RTX 4070 Ti. Yes, that’s how CPU-limited this game was.

Below, we have tested the CPU performance of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor by running around the village in Koboh. This scene frequently stuttered on PC while traversing through the game environment. Now, lower percentile framerates are much higher than before, and the game is much smoother than before. Overall, game performance is much more consistent, though traveral stutters do remain. Thankfully, these stutter are a lot less intrusive than they were before.

With ray tracing enabled, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor remains highly CPU-limited. That said, overall game performance has greatly increased since the game’s day-1 version. Yes, the game is still CPU-limited, but it runs at much higher framerates. However, larger, more noticeable stutters occur when ray tracing is enabled. This is likely because there are fewer CPU resources available to get past these stutters quickly, leading to larger performance dips.

At higher resolutions, where the game is more GPU-limited, stuttering is much less frequent. This is because there is some CPU performance left to deal with these stutters quickly. This is why PC gamers should consider setting a framerate cap when playing Star Wars: Jedi Survivor on PC. That’s how PC gamers can achieve the smoothest, most consistent experience possible.

Conclusion – Is Star Wars Jedi: Survivor fixed?

Would I say that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has been fixed? Not entirely. That said, major improvements have been made here. Had the game launched in its current state, it wouldn’t have such a bad reputation on PC. Even so, the game remains CPU-bound, and stuttering can still be problematic when it is CPU-bound.

The good news is that PC gamers can finally have a good experience when playing Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. EA/Respawn Entertainment have made huge strides here, and hopefully, that means that they can avoid these issues if this game ever gets a sequel.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s PC version is far from perfect, but it is now perfectly acceptable in its current form. Things have improved, and now PC gamers can finally enjoy Cal Kestis’ latest adventure

You can join the discussion on Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s game-fixing update on the OC3D Forums.