Respawn released Patch 5 for Star Wars Jedi Survivor. This is yet another weekly update coming to all platforms in an attempt to smooth out the poor performance on PC and fix a few issues and bugs overall.
Patch 5 was released for PC today, on May 17th, 2023. For Consoles the update is arriving later. It seems that Respawn has started a rotational tradition – one week the PC players get the patch first, next week console owners.
“These improvements will be a part of an upcoming console update, and we will share that timing later once it is confirmed.”,Respawn explains in the patch notes
I and my entire team only play the game on Steam PC, so we cannot comment on consoles much. The Steam download was 3.19 GB for this patch.
Patch 5 Performance Observations
Respawn’s uphill battle to polish the poor PC port continues. Rather unsuccessfully in Patch 5. I only tested Koboh today on two saves because this is the laggiest place with the worst performance of all. The reason is simple – it’s the largest and most open “open world” in the game.
On my 4090 in 3440×1440 I noticed absolutely no FPS gain whatsoever with Ray Tracing (RT) on. Much like with all previous patches, the game starts a bit on the high end, but after you run around for a bit, the performance drops to the usual low levels as always.
I tried with and without RT, of course. With RT off, there is a noticeable 3-5 frames improvement in my tests compared to Patch 4.
The one shiny improvement that I am noticing is the less amount of stuttering. This is also mentioned in the patch notes and Respawn did make progress on this issue at least.
Jedha with RT on is still as buggy as ever. I could not even test RT on Jedha today. Not that I could with previous patches. It still crashes like mad.
With Patch 3 and Patch 4, I started noticing more and more popping of shadows and textures, especially in cinematics. I watched and rewatched many of my recordings from the Review copy gameplay as well as the Day 1 Patch.
These popping issues were not there back then. The popping is even stronger now in Patch 5. For me, at least. It is most annoying during the Mantis landing cinematics, but I see it in regular gameplay as well now.
Note: these are just my own tests and observations. I will update later after we get a chance to play some more and test it on different hardware configurations.
Here are the patch notes related to performance for PC:
- (PC only) Improved content caching to reduce hitching.
- (PC only) Improved thread handling when raytracing is turned off.
- (PC only) Fix for an issue where lowering the PC visual settings would incorrectly lower your resolution scale if FSR is disabled.
Note: if you previously disabled FSR and are playing on a lower visual quality, you may want to readjust your quality settings. - (PC only) Fix for a reset button not responding on PC when using both controller and keyboard.
- Various performance fixes.
- Stability improvements.
What else is new in Patch 5
Since day 1 I and my entire team had some serious issues claiming our Deluxe Edition items. It turned out that this was a wide-spread issue. In today’s Patch Respawn made an attempt to resolve this by adding a “more robust detection” for the pre-order and deluxe edition items.
In case you are wondering, you cannot get these items right as you start the game. You need to progress a little bit and reach a Workbench before you ca customize your lightsaber and change BD-1’s skin. To customize your Blaster, you have to wait until you actually acquire it by progressing further with the game’s story.
We have a guide and overview to the Pre-Order and Deluxe Items in Jedi Survivor if you want to take a closer look at each one of them or are looking for a more detailed explanation where and how to get them in-game.
Various bugs have been squashed including some boss encounters and cinematics. Respawn also resolved a few potentially game-breaking issues that might have halted your progress if you experienced them.
I am most curious about this one bullet-point from the patch notes: “Fix for the Rancor and the Wampa not correctly leaving Cal’s XP behind when he respawns.“
What Wampa? Do they mean Mogu? Have you seen a Wampa in the game? Even the hilarious easter egg with the posing Mogu does not feature a Wampa. And this is a non-combat scene.’
Fixing the Rancor fight is cool, of course. You will encounter more Rancors later in the game, but I assume Respawn is talking about the Rancor boss at the end of the Sodden Grotto mine.
There’s a note about “improved sync for sound during one of the cinematics“. This issue was widely popular in the Day 1 version of the game. I was on my 4th playthrough save today (1 fully completed and 100%’d, one test and story run and two in progress), and the worst scene where the sound was way off – the escape from Coruscant, was completely fine. I don’t remember any other sound sync issues in Patches 3 and 4, but I guess there were some and it’s nice to have them resolved.
There is one weird bug that is not yet fixed and I haven’t actually seen it being brought up often. The limit to Perk Slots should be 10. However, I currently have 11 Perk Slots on my saves.
We start the game with three Perk Slots and unlock additional 7 Perk Slots through puzzle-solving and exploration. Where does the 11th slot come from? I had it in the normal game as well as in my New Journey + playthroughs.
Here are the patch notes related to bug fixes and gameplay from Patch 5:
- More robust detection of pre-order and deluxe content in-game, preventing players from only randomly having access to the content.
- Various collision and navigation improvements to prevent issues where characters get stuck out of bounds.
- Fixed an issue where Drya Thornne would become invincible.
- Music-related fixes
- Fixed an issue where Bode wouldn’t grab the senator during some New Game+ playthroughs.
- Fix for a bug where the Skriton wouldn’t appear correctly.
- Fix for Dagan not appearing correctly in a cinematic.
- Fixed some rare instances of players being unable to progress further in the game even after reloading.
- Fix for a bug where the Gorocco would disappear mid-combat.
- Fix for an issue where Cal would get stuck in a specific Blaster state if dying while in it.
- Fix for a bug where BD-1 wouldn’t be able to open a door.
- Fix for void tear interactions not working correctly.
- Fix for trying to load corrupt save games sometimes leaving you in the main menu. It will now correctly attempt to load your backup save.
- Improved UX for Koboh matter turrets that players were previously unable to exit out of.
- Fix for the Rancor and the Wampa not correctly leaving Cal’s XP behind when he respawns.
- Fix for a bug where the Skills menu wouldn’t correctly close.
- Improved sync for sound during one of the cinematics.
- Fix for the environment not loading correctly on Koboh after Cal respawns.
The patch notes are sourced from EA’s website where they were revealed on May 17th. If or when there are changes to the consoles patch, I will revisit this article and update what and where is needed.
If by any chance you have not yet finished the game, we have everything you could ever need. A complete Customizations Catalog, Puzzle Guides, Walkthroughs. Our Jedi Survivor Guides Master List is a great starting point.
