I’ve been looking at USF4 for a while, and it looks like a really good game to me. But since I don’t have a Xbox, I’m thinking of getting it on Steam. However, I’ve heard a lot of people badmouthing the Steam version saying the following:
-Not many people play it.
-Online is not only laggy, but the matchmaking is bad; you’re either going to run into somebody way better then you, or somebody who literally just picked up the game.
-When playing offline, it’ll freeze a lot and has monitor lag.
Audio problems.
My biggest concern is not that many people play it on Steam, and the online lag. Can anybody who owns the game on Steam confirm this for me?
if you dont plan to buy an xbox at all, get it on steam , and if you are worried wait till ultra drop in august and see if things are getting better, but if you preorder now you’ll get all the costume pack for free
I play on Steam, and I don’t struggle to find games. I usually host and get someone in pretty quick.
Sometimes there’s lag, but usually not. There is no skill-based matchmaking afaik, so you’ll face people of all levels. I think there’s an even mix of old and new, but I must admit I face more super-seasoned players that stomp me more than I’d like.
& 4) Never had these problems.
Overall, you should get it if it’s the only platform you’ll play on. I did and I’m having a blast overall.
Personally I find less shit heads play on PC. There are a lot of good players, but unless they fix the netcode, it’ll be dead in the water. I’d wait till it drops and see how that shakes out because it seems pretty bad right now from what everyone’s saying (I haven’t downloaded the new Steam patch)
Absolutely not until Capcom release some patches. Also since Capcom decided to be insanely greedy and remove the full costume pack from the store, don’t buy AE on its own even if it gets fixed - better to buy the full USF4 package instead, otherwise you’ll never get all the costumes unless you pay a whole heap to buy them separately, or buy USF4 in full even though you’d have already bought AE. That is, if you care about the costumes.
USF4 isn’t out on PC yet. I think it comes out August 1st, so wait until then. But yes it will be well worth getting. There are plenty of people still playing SSF4:AE and graphically it’s significantly better than Xbox version, assuming you have a half-decent PC. And you don’t need to pay XBL fees to play on PC, so it’s likely to last with a big community longer.
The netcode is unchanged from the “GFWL-version”. GFWL featured some port-mapping that caused most people to not have to bother with fixing their shit, but now on Steam you have to do it yourself. Fix your network (guide here) and play against other players who have a properly set-up network and you’ll be fine.
The matchmaking has always been this terrible in SF4, if you have played previous versions, it’s the same.
Audio- and freezing-issues seem mostly hardware-/driver-related, I don’t suffer any but I know there are hardware-compositions that struggle with the game, best do some research if your PC is old/uses weird components. Never experienced any monitor-lag, I’m using a BenQ2420T.
Couldn’t comment on player-numbers in the states, but in EU it’s surprisingly good; outside of the hours between 4am and 9am there are players, even on weekdays.
I play on the Steam version every day with absolutely no issues on my end since I have gone on DMZ.
tl;dr: My recommendation would be to get it on PC if you like playing on PC and you are able to access your router. The vast majority of people experiencing issues are on old hardware or badly set-up connections.
