Send any bug reports or performance problems for specific games to ryan@venusoft.net. Since Steam has so many games, you may be the first one to ever try it on Via, so let us know.

Performance can vary a lot game to game, so we are putting tested results here so you can easily see how well a game will play before trying it. If it isn't on this list it doesn't mean it won't run, in fact it probably will, it is just not verified by us. Also note that these performance numbers are for the first time you play a game and have nothing downloaded. When returning to a game you've already played it will come off disk and run as fast as a traditional install.

A game could run worse than another for totally uninteresting reasons like "the dev just didn't spend the time on it", so don't try to make assumptions about what Via itself is capable of. These are just early adopter pains both due to game devs not testing against it and us not having enough locations to keep ping low (~30 ms). Also note that these test results are true of the system at the time of testing, but over time we are making improvements to Via to bring these numbers even lower. Most of the times here could be improved by another 30-60 seconds or more if we were better.

Our current region list is in the table below. You can ping the domain from your machine to check your latency and compare with the game's test results.

Games are tested at 64, 120, and 240 Mb/s (little b for bits) on Via at 10, 50, and 100 ms. This shows how they perform at various network parameters so you can estimate how it will run for you. Times are colored green if they are under 5 minutes, yellow if they are under 10 minutes, and red otherwise.

The specific thing measured varies from game to game. We pick some sequence that fairly represents "time to play". For example, in Destiny 2 we time how long it takes to get from "Play" in Steam to landed on "Savathun's Throne World" and shooting. We then show that time minus whatever time it normally takes to load. Unless stated otherwise, tests are all ran on max settings. Depending on the game, you can cut load times by 20% or more if you lower certain graphics settings.

If you are the first one playing a game on Via (which may happen more often than not at our small scale), you can expect worse performance at startup. This is because our servers have to fill their caches from Steam, and we have no control over how fast or slow they want to give us data. This shouldn't take more than a minute or two in the worst case and Via will put up a warning message saying "Server waiting on Steam" to make this clear. Once our server has all the data, Steam is completely out of the picture.

Half the time add is spent on startup, other half on loading into a destination. The first time opening some menus can be slow, but afterwards it is fast. If you are on a low speed connection, you may also see a loading pause when traversing to a new part of the world. This doesn't last more than a few seconds, though.

tested on 2024-06-07

Besides the weirdly large videos playing on the menu, MCC runs great. These older games tend to be a bit more careful and predictable with loading due to the hard drives of their time, as well as not needing things like complex shader compliation steps.

tested on 2024-06-13

You'll spend more time compiling shaders and looking for a match than waiting for the load.

tested on 2024-05-31

The developers did an extremely good job on the loading code in this game. If you are on lower speeds, they'll let you load into game fast with the low level of detail assets. Within a few minutes of playing the higher resolution assets should be on screen.

tested on 2024-06-13

The main time add for Apex is at the startup screen when it is compiling shaders. If you aren't on a high speed connection, this can take a minute or so. Afterwards the game runs great. Most of the load time is done in the background while on the menu.

tested on 2024-06-01

About 70% of the time is spent on startup, remaining 30% is on the first map load. Subsequent map loads are faster and faster due to common data. Once in game, everything runs great even on low speed and high ping. Lowering the settings doesn't get you in game faster, sadly, since they appear to still load the full resolution assets even though they don't render them.

tested on 2024-06-14

Depending on your speed, the first pod landing will be pretty laggy. A few seconds after you land things seem to settle and performance looks good. They could avoid this by showing the load screen a bit longer, but oh well. There also seems to be an issue where the game crashes every time you close it. No need to send the report to them since it is almost certainly a Via issue.

tested on 2024-07-08

When you first drop into Warzone you may see (very) low resolution assets for a few seconds, depending on your speed. After this first time load, you should be fine for the rest of the game. If you aren't on high speed and don't care much for the best graphics, we recommend setting your graphics settings to "Basic". This has a huge impact on performance, you download less than half the data you otherwise would (7 GB instead of 15 GB by the end of a Warzone match). You can also turn off their on-demand texture downloading setting. They will download and store texture data on the Via Drive when this is enabled. While this can be fine if you have high speed and a big drive, this space (many gigs eventually) is not usable by other games anymore. The following test results were all ran on the "Basic" setting.

tested on 2024-06-21

They are very good about only loading just what they need, so their download sizes are small and times are fast. Plays great on all speed and ping combinations.

tested on 2024-06-14

tested on 2024-07-09

About half the time add is on getting to the main menu, the other half is loading your save. Once you are in game, it plays great even on low speed and high ping.

tested on 2024-06-13

Performs similarly to Valhalla (they are both on the same Anvil engine). The data sizes are a bit smaller so it runs a bit faster.

tested on 2024-06-19

It takes a little while before the window opens, so be patient. After you download ~1.3 gigs it should pop up. Besides this, the game runs great.

tested on 2024-07-07

tested on 2024-06-22

Runs great! You can try lowering texture settings if you want an even faster load.

tested on 2024-07-07

If you want a faster load you can lower the texture quality, this helps a lot since the bulk of the downloaded content appears to be textures. The difference between ultra and low is ~1 gig and ~2 minutes if you are on a low speed connection. The test results here are from runs with textures on medium.

tested on 2024-07-08

They are good about keeping their data sizes low, but fail at handling higher ping. There also seems to be an issue with dialogue and scripted scene loading that causes stutters. There is an especially bad one on the opening level, not sure how common this will be when playing throughout the rest of the game.

tested on 2024-07-08

Their loading code isn't the best so you end up waiting a while to get in, especially on high ping. Once you are in, though, there are no performance issues or hitching. You'll also see low resolution assets whenever you load into a new area for a minute or two.

tested on 2024-07-09

Our prefetchers are pretty aggressive on this game, but times are still okay. Runs great once in game.

tested on 2024-06-15

They scale badly with ping, but otherwise the times are okay. For workshop mods, you'll want to find and add them up front in Steam since the in game method doesn't work with Via. This is because they try to download and install them traditionally, which isn't integrated with Via. Seems like you can find the mod list for the server you play on and add them all manually.

tested on 2024-06-21

If you aren't on a high speed connection, you may want to consider setting your texture and model quality to low. In my testing it shaves 15-20% off the map load times, and when in game the background streaming is a lot less intensive. The quality difference from high to low isn't super noticeable so it seems like an obvious trade off to make.

tested on 2024-05-31

This game front loads something like ~4.3 GB. Afterwards it seems to run great. The devs weren't expecting the load to take as long as it does, so the menu slowly pieces together in front of you. Even though you can interact with it, you'll still have to wait for the ~4.3 GB, so I recommend waiting for Via to finish. Looks like once the two big models show up on the menu, things are ready to go.

tested on 2024-05-31

When you first go to the "Missions" tab, they weirdly download a bunch of stuff and you'll have to wait 5-30 seconds (depending on your speed). Besides this, the game seems to run well.

tested on 2024-06-16

You can expect to see low resolution assets the first time you load in. The time it takes to load higher resolution assets depends mostly on ping, not speed. Game seems to run fine otherwise.

tested on 2024-06-16

Runs great!

tested on 2024-07-08

Runs great, though you'll have to wait a bit longer if you are on high ping.

tested on 2024-07-08

Runs great!

tested on 2024-07-08

Runs great!

tested on 2024-07-08