Marvel Tōkon patch traces its PC stutter and CPU spikes to audio device polling

A new patch for Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls has fixed the performance problems that dogged the PC version from launch, closing a gap that had left desktop players well behind their console counterparts, Eurogamer reports. The update targets the three complaints that dominated player reports: micro-stutters, unusually high CPU use and frame-rate drops.

According to the breakdown posted in the game's official Discord, and announced on the game's social channels, the CPU and performance issues traced back to "periodic audio processing" and "unnecessary" periodic checks of audio devices — an audio-side cause for a problem players had assumed was a rendering or shader fault. The same patch fixed customisation settings reverting to default when the game restarted, and online lobby button inputs now display properly.

The developers paired the patch with two suggestions for PC players who want more headroom: warm up the in-game shaders before playing, and use the auto graphics option in the in-game settings. Auto graphics had already circulated as a community workaround before the patch, and the setting itself has been improved.

Player reaction on social media and in the official Discord indicates the fix landed.

The commercial consequence is showing up on Steam, where the launch state had pushed the communal review score to 'mixed' and some players are now revising their votes. One reviewer, Rayden Belmont, wrote that the game "launched in a near unplayable bad state" and stayed that way for several days, but that a 10GB patch on August 10 fixed the performance issues, moving his vote back to Recommended. Netcode, as abhinav's comment notes, remains a separate and unresolved complaint.