Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems PS5 - Massive small freezes in Splitscreen

At the start, everything was fine. Now 12 hours into the game, we have 3 seconds freezes if you change the character or choose a attack. So mainly in fights.

Unplayable

It just seems to be later in the game. So maybe too much in the inventory? Or too many attacks?

I have read from other persons, they have it directly after loading a pc savegame, cause there also have more progress an no problems with a new game…

Having the same issue. Started happening after ~15 hours into the campaign, after loading a saved game.

I have also mentioned this issue on Reddit:

Link to Reddit

Youtube Video for proof and reference

The game is currently not playable in splitscreen after 10-15h into the game.

Having one person use a summon like Find Familiar also causes a freeze. Summons in general cause a lot when playing with my significant other. They'll have Find Familiar and Ranger's Companion cause lag when either are summoned and again when destroyed. A cleric's Invoke Duplicity also causes a massive lag upon creation and destruction.

Created an account just to corroborate the issues laid out here. My wife and I have put in somewhere around 12-15 hours and in split screen the whole game just...stops. Switching characters, accessing the inventory, sometimes talking to random NPCs around the grove etc (we're still in act 1). Also agree that the summons are a major issue. Using flaming sphere is almost impossible. Very much debating cutting my losses and taking my save to PC. Maybe even asking Sony for a refund (unlikely).

To be clear, I think the game is still playable, though not up to modern standards or Larian's. I would not currently reccomend the PS5 version to anyone looking to play this game in co-op.

But Larian is very good at what they do, so I have faith they will try and address this. But am worried that there are limitations to what can be done. Hoping for some kind of communication about the issue or at least a recognition that it has issues.

Same here. Hoping to hear an official statement on it soon. Game is amazing, but it's sad to see it launched in such a state.

First time ever commenting on a video game forum. This game is utterly fantastic. I know Larian had some nice advantages in making this game (Divinity mechanics and DnD lore at their fingertips), but it's still a fantasy RPGer's dream come true and so they're to be congratulated. Personally, the inclusion of a couch co-op option was the decisive winning factor -- anything that lets you enjoy a game of this quality both locally and cooperatively is a victory for gaming.

BUT ... I agree with the OP.

The freezing and stuttering of the game (when switching but especially when summoning) make it VERY frustrating, and massively detract from the otherwise immersive experience (think: regularly breaking the tension or atmosphere for as much as thirty seconds or more during an awesome moment of gameplay). Frankly, it's so annoying that, unless it gets fixed fairly soon (or an announcement is made to say it's being worked on) I'll consider petitioning Sony for a refund.

Me and my girlfriend are enjoying this game a lot. We first played it on the Steamdeck in coop mode (this is possible with a start command).
We were able to play it with 720p and minimum graphics in splitscreen for about 25h without any big issues.
There have been some crashes but the gameplay overall was very smooth.

When we learned that BG3 will have a cross save for the PS5 we were happy to continue our game on the PS5.
On September 4th we immediately started the game once we were able to and tried to continue our journey.
Right after the start we noticed that the game is freezing constantly when we tried to change the charracter.
The combat is even worse.

I thought it might had something to do with my M2-SSD that I have installed to my PS5 and installed the game on.
But after transferring the game onto the internal PS5 SSD there was no change.

Because we have seen the amazing graphics and effects on PS5 we couldn't get back to our mushy graphics on Steamdeck anymore.
So I placed my gaming PC into our living room on our dining table.
The last week we played at this spot and it is quite annoying that we are not able to play the game on the PS5.

In Germany the early access version (Digital Deluxe) costs 80€ what is a lot if you already spend 50€ for the PC version.

Today is the official release for the PS5 - are there any news from Larian regarding a new patch?
Is there any recognition for the bad split screen performance on PS5 at all?

Same here, after a month of playing with my wife on the PC version, we continued our cross-save (from act 2) in our brand new PS5. Single player working pretty smooth, but split screen is unplayable, switching characters or making any actions freeze the game 5-10 seconds every time.

Same, 20h in, still in Act1 but the freezes while swapping char or even basic action during combat is becoming unbearable. Summoning or mirror images straight out freezes the game for a minute.

Same thing here. We are 30h+ still in Act 1 and a few things freeze the game for like 2s. Swapping characters, summoning minions... We're doing our best to ignore it and just enjoy the rest of the game, but it got to the point where we don't see many things that happen in combat due to the freezes. The game also freezes forever if you try to sort your inventory while putting things inside containers on certain situations, but this is an engine bug that was also present on Divinity 2.

Just made an account here to confirm the same issue. Wife and I played on PS5 for about 12-15 hours and just got a little ways into the Underdark in Act 1. There are a solid 2 seconds of hitching/lag every single time we switch characters. Essentially unplayable in split-screen. It's was also occurring every time I cast Minor Illusion. We had to stop playing last night due to this issue. Larian please fix!

Guys, I can't stress this enough, please make sure everyone of you opens a bug to the support team: https://larian.com/support/faqs/how-to-submit-a-bug-report_85
They do respond to every email!

Did they release a PS5 patch today for the official release date? I haven't had a chance to download it and examine it yet. Some online articles are already saying it addresses performance problems in local multiplayer/split screen (the wording I've found is that it addresses the character-switching lags, but I'm hoping this also applies to the other sources of stuttering, summons and some illusions.)

The bug report form requires a screenshot or save file to be submitted. I may be reading into this too much, but if you try without a screenshot or save file it returns the rather sarcastic error message: "You are submitting a bug report. Please attach a file demonstrating the issue such as a save file or screenshot.").

However:
1 - Clearly a screenshot is useless for evidencing a bug of this nature...
2 - Furthermore as far as I am aware, you cannot copy individual saves of PS5 games off the PS5 to a USB in order to get the file onto a PC to upload it to their form. This feature is only available for PS4 games. I tried to see if there was a way around this - but as no solution was evident, even if it is possible its far from convenient...

Created an account to further lend weight to this really frustrating issue.

While the game ran fine in the first few hours, now we are 20+ hours into a playthrough, still in act 1 - the game hangs / freezes in split screen coop every single time without fail when:

* we use L2 to switch party members
* split or group party members
* allocate characters to people in the multiplayer menu
* change turns in combat
* cast a transformation effect spells
* cast a summoning spell that adds a controllable unit like spirit weapon or an animal.

The freeze when summoning can last as long as 20 - 30 seconds.
The game is great (!) however when you have two people doing all the above, it's really awful and barely playable in all honesty. It's making us instinctively not want to split party members when the game clearly intends us to do it for tactical reasons, not manage our or change gear because it requires character swaps, not change gear or do anything that requires switching between characters. We constantly find ourselves apologizing to the other because on of us switched characters while the other was doing something. Or we warn the other when we are about to summon etc...

If you have two or three characters casting a summoning spell at the start of a fight - you will summon (freeze for 20-30s), change turns (freeze for 2-3s), summon (freeze for 20-30s), change turns again (freeze for 2-3s) and then freeze again when you summon or transform. That's almost 2mins of freezing in the space of what should be 30s of gameplay - and the player is literally spending more time frozen than playing.

edit: they responded to my bug report within 5mins of it being submitted, even after the auto response coming in saying that responses may take longer than expected...They said its being looked into and to monitor social media.

They released a hotfix, I think it was yesterday of over 1gb that claimed to address this, but we (and others on reddit) noticed no measurable improvement in the character switch freezing during ps5 split screen coop. We've had to stop our playthrough and wait for it to be addressed as its ruining the game. The freeze can sometimes be longer than 20s and when you have two people...disappointing since we got it only to play split screen coop and purchased the deluxe edition specifically for early access.

Since I've continued a crosssave from my PC, I've uploaded the PC save, but you could upload a video as well. Even record it with your phone or something.

We're pushing through it and still managing to play somehow. But yeah it would be much better if it was fixed, it is such a great game that I don't want other people having the wrong impression because it wasn't polished enough.

I feel the same. Though, tbh, this issue -- the game halting and being unplayable for ~30 seconds every few minutes when you need to do something essential to gameplay -- seems more like a basic functionality issue, so I wouldn't call it a lack of polish. But I bet there has to have been SOMEONE at Larian/Sony who flagged this before release ... I just really hope it gets fixed soon.