I decided to pull the trigger on DAI.
Initial impressions:
- Tactical mode is useless.
- Herald not moving to the target is annoying; he just stands there and stabs the air
- Had to rebind Pause and jump. Put the Pause to Space and Jump to Ctrl; must less annoying.
- Cutscenes look choppy as hell, even though my gameplay frame rate doesn't seem much better.
- Game has some annoyingly long load times.
- FRAPS doesn't seem to work in DAI; I don't get a frame rate overlay.
- Ingame benchmark using DX11 and Ultra settings/2x MSAA at 1440p gives me a choppy 28/33 fps. Turning MSAA off entirely jumps it up to 38/47. Using Catalyst 14.9, just installed the 14.11.2s, will see if those offer any improvements.
- Mantle is greyed out for me. I have a 290X, which should work with Mantle. Intel CPU though.
Edit -
Ok, FRAPs now works. As does Mantle, after updating to 14.11.2. But, wtf does it force a windowed mode? No full screen and Mantle? Performance with DX11 at the same settings above was 50/39. Under Mantle, 44/38. Yeah, I'll be going back to DX11, I think.
A few notes about what you've written that you may find helpful:
- tactical mode, once you start to understand how it works, is becoming a lot more useful. You just have to avoid the instinct to try and drive the characters in this mode. In tactical mode, you drive only the camera, you direct the characters.
- I don't know why your Harold stabs at the air. Perhaps you need to click "P" and see what you have selected under the tactics and behavior tabs. My characters all follow the target if they are melee.
- I had the same issue with space and ctrl, but then again, I rebind everything to my G13. I can only assume they did not consider past games at all in deciding how to use the UI. It works, as long as you don't have past preconceptions.
- Cutscenes are a lot better with the 60 FPS work around. It's back a few pages, or simply Goggle it. This 30 FPS thing should not be the default.
- Yeah, load times are long, but then again, there are very few load screens. You get what seems like miles and miles of area before you need to load, which might be why they are long.
- Fraps works for me. It doesn't require windowed mode either. That may be a Mantle version issue.
- The game is demanding. Just turn down some settings. There is no requirement to max out a game, just because the settings exist. MSAA is a big killer, that would be the first one to adjust.
Anyways, the game is good, but it does require some adjustments and time to get into it. Once you get used to it. It is fun.