Hello Games promised the world, or maybe even the entire universe, in it’s extremely ambitious marketing push for their space exploration title, No Man’s Sky. What gamers got was interesting, but very much not what the hype promised. Crashes, bugs and unfinished features plagued the launch version of the game, with Hello Games having to turn around and run a ton of damage control against the backlash that gamers unleashed.
The Vulkan API is a next-generation of programmatic optimizations which AMD uses in it’s latest generation GPUs. The Vulkan API replaces older rendering solutions as it allows for much more in-depth customization and effects in titles where the tech is implemented. In the case of this title, gamers will notice more graphical options, especially with a focus on performance, as new V-Sync and HDR capabilities have helped make No Man’s Sky look and run better.
In addition to this big new graphical update, Hello Games has addressed a handful of bugs and crashes with this patch.
If you wish to download the patch on PC, there are a few options you’ll have to mess with. Right-click on No Man’s Sky from the Steam library page and select “Properties”. Then, look through the tabs for the BETAS option, and look for a text box. Enter “3xperimental” in the textbox and click “Check Code”. You will have the choice to enable the Experimental build in the resulting drop-down menus.
No Man’s Sky Patch Notes 16 April
- OpenGL has been replaced by Vulkan. Many players, particularly players with AMD graphics cards, should see a performance improvement
- Revised HDR support, updated output curve in line with advances in HDR calibration
- Adaptive and Triple-Buffered V-Sync are now selectable from Graphics Settings
- Players with more than one GPU can now select which is used from Graphics Settings
- Changing the following settings no longer require restarting:
- Window Mode
- Resolution
- V-Sync
- Shadow Detail
- Reflection Quality
- The ‘LOADING SHADERS’ load step has been removed, improving the loading experience.
- Crash data is gathered via Steam to help us track down and fix issues.
