For the test, they have used a real PS4 hard drive that is about 10 years old.
Ratchet does not seem to be very convinced by the game’s performance in these conditions
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Just a few weeks ago, when the requirements for Ratchet & Clank: A Separate Dimension for PC were confirmed, a good part of the community began to tear their hair out about how it was possible for the new from Insomniac Games to work on PC with an HDD hard drive at its lowest requirements if the game could not work on ps4 (which also has an HDD) because it was absolutely necessary for it to be PS5 exclusive to take advantage of your SSD super fast.
Ratchet & Clank: A Dimension Apart
Well, now that the game is on sale on PC, it has been possible to test it with a traditional hard drive and the truth is that it worksbut it does so bad that we would almost prefer it not to.
The benefits of an SSD compared to the last generation
As usual, these types of technical experiments are carried out by the guys at Digital Foundry. As part of a three way play session where Digital Foundry played side by side with Ratchet & Clank: A Dimension Apart in both a PC with maximum capabilities, a PC just in line with the minimum requirements, and on PS5 To see them graphics and performance differences clearer between versions, Richard Leadbetter tried to play from a PS4 hard drive and the result is worth seeing. Check out.
Our first look at Ratchet on PC! It has a few issues but it’s overall in good shape! Infinitely better than TLOUP1 and Jedi Survivor at launch. The funniest bit is when Rich tried running the game off an actual PS4 hard drive on a machine just above min spec! https://t.co/Qt0qkYwzeu pic.twitter.com/hgFrXKVGSG
— John Linneman (@dark1x) July 26, 2023
“The funniest thing is when Rich tried to run the game from a real PS4 hard drive on a machine just above the minimum specs!” says John Linneman, along with a clip from that moment. Aside from all the stuttering the game does, it takes more than a minute to load the next zone when going through a portal, when on PS5 it is almost instantaneous, apart from the fact that the screen freezes. Basically, it’s unplayable in this state.
Leadbetter himself later clarified that PS4 hard drive is over 10 years old and runs at only 5,400 rpmwhen modern hard drives work at more than 7,200 rpm, so in that case the game would work in acceptable conditions to play, although Insomniac continues to recommend using an SSD.
Do bear in mind that this is a 10-year-old 5400rpm laptop HDD. Newer 7200rpm+ desktop HDDs are far, far faster and the game works OK there. On the flip side, cross-gen game developers still need to accommodate this ancient drive.
— Digital Foundry (@digitalfoundry) July 26, 2023
To top it off, this story was quoted by one of the studio workersJames Stevenson, from the Insomniac Games marketing team, who only settled the controversy with a simple “as we said”.
As we said https://t.co/un1Nku4q3o
— James Stevenson (@JamesStevenson) July 26, 2023
As for the game itself, overall Digital Foundry considers it to have some technical problemsbut works better than other ports that have recently arrived on PC, such as The Last of Us Part I.
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