Comme de nombreux joueurs possédant une carte nVidia le savent, le nouveau Tomb Raider rencontre pas mal de problèmes de performances et de stabilité avec celles-ci, et bien que les sites d'actu aient annoncé qu'un "patch" nVidia était en préparation, plus de nouvelle depuis, et le temps commence à sembler long pour les joueurs qui ne peuvent pas profiter pleinement de leur jeu !

Et pourtant, des solutions ont déjà été proposées par le développeur et par le fondeur, réglant la majorité des problèmes il semblerait !

En effet, déjà deux mises à jour du jeu sont parues, et corrigent divers problèmes, ou améliorent les performances avec les cartes nVidia ; la dernière en l'occurrence, semble optimisée pour fonctionner avec un pilote en beta publié il y a deux jours sur le site de nVidia.
A en croire certaines sources, le gain en performances est phénoménal, de l'ordre de 45% ! Un taux pas si étonnant en même temps, vu les piètres performances de départ...

Un premier patch du jeu, passant de la version 1.00.716.5 (vendue dans le commerce) à la version 1.00.718.4, est paru le 10 Mars :

This update addresses a variety of issues that we either found out about shortly before release or immediately after.

Fixes include:

- Addressed some stability and startup issues on machines that have both Intel and NVIDIA graphics hardware.
- Fix for players being unable to progress related to the boat in the beach area.
- Some fixes for crashes on startup and when selecting Options.
- Some small improvements to TressFX hair rendering.
- Fixes for various graphics glitches, including certain effects not being visible in fullscreen mode.
- Fixed a problem that caused some users to not be able to use exclusive fullscreen.
- Added support for separate mouse/gamepad inversion for aiming, as well as support for x-axis inversion.
- Fixes related to the benchmark scene and benchmark mode.
- Various other small fixes.

While we expect this patch to be an improvement for everyone. If you do have trouble with this patch and prefer to stay on the old version we made a Beta available on Steam, Build716.5, that can be used to switch back to the previous version. Please note however that you can only play multiplayer with people that share your version.

Si le correctif est mineur, c'est le second patch paru le 15 Mars, passant le jeu à la version 1.0.722.3 qui améliore grandement les choses :

In addition to various PC specific fixes this patch brings all the fixes available in the 1.02 console patch to the PC as well, but note that the majority of those was already included in the originally released PC game or version 718.4.

New fixes in 722.3:

- Addressed an issue in ”Shipwreck Beach” where the mast on the wooden ship was occasionally missing depending on the player’s path.
- Fixed a gating issue in “Research Bunker” where the elevator would get stuck in an unintended state.
- Fixes for multiplayer connectivity
o An issue related to security certificates that stopped many users from connection to Square Enix servers was resolved.
o Improved messages when you are unable to connect with Square Enix servers.
- Improvements to voice-chat for multiplayer
o New Push-To-Talk feature, by default mapped to F1.
o New voice-chat volume option.
o Improved overall quality of voice-chat.
- Fixes for crashes on startup in specific situations when no audio output is available.
- Fixes for various reported crashes during both single-player and multi-player.
- Movies are showing up again when using SSAA.
- Cost of TressFX reduced, especially in combination with SSAA.
- TressFX memory usage reduced for AMD Eyefinity and NVIDIA Surround setups.
- TressFX simulation and graphical quality improvements.
- New Ultra-quality shadow mode for contact hardening shadows. This is not enabled by default in any quality profile, but can be enabled from the advanced settings.
- Improvements to fullscreen/windowed switching and multiple display handling.
- Various UI improvements.

While we expect this patch to be an improvement for everyone, if you do have trouble with this patch and prefer to stay on the old version we made a Beta available on Steam, Build718.4, that can be used to switch back to the previous version. Please note however that you can only play multiplayer with people that share your version.

We’ve been working closely with NVIDIA to address the issues experienced by some Tomb Raider players. In conjunction with this patch, NVIDIA will be releasing updated drivers that help to improve stability and performance of Tomb Raider on NVIDIA GeForce GPUs. We are continuing to work together to resolve any remaining outstanding issues. We recommend that GeForce users update to the latest GeForce 314.21 drivers (posting today) for the best experience in Tomb Raider.

Comme expliqué, il est donc recommandé de mettre à jour le pilote de votre carte nVidia avec la version beta 314.21 disponible ici en 64-bit, ou ici en 32-bit. Assurez-vous donc, si vous êtes concerné, que votre jeu soit bien à jour et d'avoir installé ce nouveau pilote graphique, pour optimiser vos chances de jouer au jeu dans les meilleures conditions possibles actuellement.