Performance Guide and Troubleshooting Thread

[The Architect]

For reference my specs:

Gigabyte G1 GTX970
Intel i5 4670k @ 4.2Ghz
8GB RAM

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I'm getting 60FPS even on first area no matter where i look at, before it would lock on 30FPS when looking at specific locations.

I've managed to fix my game and i can run it at stable (almost, appart from microstutters just like DAI) 1080p, 60FPS, 16xAF (actually i didn't take screenshots with and without this settings, still should have no impact on performance), 16xMSAA

There are some microstutters here and there which cause FPS drops randomly (however like in Dragon Age: Inquisition i fixed most of stutters with a simple tweak that i'll explain bellow), but considering they have been there for some games on nVIDIA cards, i suppose i could jump into conclusions.

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Resolution and Stutter:

I can play at 60FPS without FPS locks, however nVIDIA drivers have been causing microstutters in a variety of games, including this one which means it will randomly stop for a second and back to gameplay, causing FPS drops, setting the game to play at 4k or 1440p using DSR (nVIDIA) resolution locks the game at 30FPS, using GeDoSaTo doesn't, however for some reason on this game GeDoSaTo makes the gme look blurry when compared to DSR, which is irony since has always been the other way around.

Disabling the Minimap while playing helps with exploration FPS reducing stutters.

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Random Crashes and Saves Crashing:

Random Crashes are caused by Downsampling, DSR and GeDoSaTo are some examples, using standard resolutions seems to solve the problem.

Saves Crashing are caused by Steam Cloud, if you want to disable Steam Cloud, your saves will be much faster and you should no longer Crash while saving the game.

Open the game properties and Disable Steam Cloud.

Now you need to copy the saves to the proper folder so the game loads them, the Steam Cloud saves can be found here:

Steam\userdata\NUMBERS\292140\remote

Now go to (make sure you can view hidden files and folders):

C:\Users\YOURACCOUNTNAME\AppData\Local\

or just Start > Run > %LOCALAPPDATA%

Now Create the following folders:

SquareEnix\FinalFantasyXIII-2\save

The last folder being "save", copy the game save files inside this folder, Restart Steam, Play the game.

Just a note that most of the time when you go to the Pause menu to save, you will NOT see the yellow save icon, because the save is super fast, you will however see it sometimes depending on where you are, just move to another place and save, go to main menu and load, yes the saving is that fast now.

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Performance and Settings impact (Please take note that i'm using my own system so specs will impact on how it performs, however i was having issues aswell before i did this):

- Resolution: 1080p (Little to no impact, i only see a difference at 4k)
- Shadow Resolution: 4096x4096 (THIS setting was causing the trouble on my system, if i set this to 8192, it LOCKS the FPS on 30 when looking at some places and randomly drops FPS like crazy)

EDIT -- Impact of Shadow Res on Performance:

8192 (Causes the 30FPS lock along huge FPS drops):
- http://i.imgur.com/XkcRYiY.jpg
4096 (Stable 60FPS):
- http://i.imgur.com/2wNsYIn.jpg

- Anti-Aliasing: 16xMSAA (I see no difference from 2x to 16x in terms of performance on my system)

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Don't expect to have a supercomputer with these Tweaks, however it should help with stability if you don't get an overall performance boost.

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Recommended Settings:

- Resolution: 1080p
- Shadow Resolution: 4096x4096 (Setting to 8192 causes FPS LOCKS to 30FPS when looking at some places which means it will drop FPS when looking at these places and back to normal when not, so will be a jump of FPS between 60FPS and 30FPS)
- Anti-Aliasing: 16xMSAA (Lower this depending on your GPU, but only if needed and after you test with both 2x and 16x)

Try disabling:

- Steam in-game
- Minimap (if using gamepad press Select (or Back button on X360 gamepad)); thanks bounce: http://steamcommunity.com/app/292140/discussions/0/619573787390705289/?tscn=1418472861#c619573787445698923

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nVIDIA:

This was already mentioned in FFXIII but people always seem to forget something important that helps with stutters, while this doesn't solve the problem by itself, i can play stable 60FPS (Appart from microstutters causing FPS drops here and there but quickly going to 60FPS again).

Open nVIDIA Control Panel - Manage 3D Settings - Program Settings - Add FFXIII-2 to the list, if when you click add it doesn't appear there you can find the executable here:

- SteamApps\common\FINAL FANTASY XIII-2\alba_data\prog\win\bin\ffxiii2img.exe

Change the following settings for the profile to this:

- Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
- Maximum pre-rendered frames: 1 (Very important, helps with overlall VSync performance and stutters, however don't expect it to eliminate all stutters)
- Triple Buffering: On
- Vertical Sync: On (Try adaptive VSync as it helps with stutters, but tearing might become noticeable)

If you wish you can set:

- Multi Display/Mixed GPU Acceleration to "Single Display Performance Mode" and
- Power Management Mode to "Maximum Performance"

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AMD:

This was already mentioned in FFXIII but people always seem to forget something important that helps with stutters, while this doesn't solve the problem by itself, i can play stable 60FPS (Appart from microstutters causing FPS drops here and there but quickly going to 60FPS again).

While i don't own and AMD card it sho0uldn't be that much different, you can use RadeonPro aswell.

Open Catalyst Control Panel if there's a way to add propfiles, add this (or try with RadeonPro which should have similar settings like nVIDIA CP):

- SteamApps\common\FINAL FANTASY XIII-2\alba_data\prog\win\bin\ffxiii2img.exe

Change the following settings for the profile to this (i don't know if for AMD they use the same names, again you can try with RadeonPro:

- Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
- Maximum pre-rendered frames: 1 (Very important, helps with overlall VSync performance and stutters, however don't expect it to eliminate all stutters)
- Triple Buffering: On
- Vertical Sync: On (Or "Always On" if there is anything like this or similar in there)

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TL;DR:

If you want to skip GPU optimizations, make sure you don't select Shadow Resolution to 8192 because:

If you set Shadow Res to 8192 the game causes a lock of 30FPS when facing certain places causing huge FPS drops in the transition from the place that's stable and the place that causes the 30FPS lock, set it to 4096 instead.

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Have fun and Merry Christmas. =)

[Eymico]

No luck on my end.
I had tried these aside from the pre-rendered frames setting. Tried that now and no real improvement. I have a similar setup, but I do have 16gb of ram and a i7 with same clocks.

[The Architect]

Originally posted by iluvOP:

No luck on my end.
I had tried these aside from the pre-rendered frames setting. Tried that now and no real improvement. I have a similar setup, but I do have 16gb of ram and a i7 with same clocks.

Did you set Shadow res to 4096? Like i've mentioend 8192 causes 30FPS locks and FPS drops due to that.

Also i have Steam In-game disabled.

Like mentioned above:

Impact of Shadow Res on Performance:

8192 (Causes the 30FPS lock along huge FPS drops):
- http://i.imgur.com/XkcRYiY.jpg
4096 (Stable 60FPS):
- http://i.imgur.com/2wNsYIn.jpg

[Azarino]

Mine is still locked at 30 FPS with 4096 shadows.

[NuhUh]

Just kill to have 30 fps locked. My current fps ranges between 10-15 in open world and 30+fps in battles.

My game runs perfectly fine in battles, it's outside if battles I have issues. I've spend the entire evening troubleshoot and fiddling with many different configurations (game settings and graphics settings).

[Bha]

Blurry and fps going up and down so much from 30 to 60. Looks like I'm waiting for a fix. I tryed ff13 from GeDoSaTo but it ain't working.

[Azarino]

Do not let the application decide in Nvidia Control Panel. From that setting it gives me 9 FPS! Do the middle setting with triple buffering and Vsync. (GTX Users)

[Seyiji]

Are you guys sure its locked to 720p and it isn't a case over way overused depth of field?
Here are some shots I took a bit ago. You tell me how this can be 720P upscaled to 2160p

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/26224536445132400/B9BC271BBE108A2F5193514E523BE765D9688255/

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/26224536445102485/B7D6E7DF35A7FB7DC80C2ABB2D3ED413CB194D9A/

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/26224536445113708/0016F956F3D7E7D842AC598059DD96E8546E6579/

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/26224536445125882/591EF6D1B6AFD9C06ED5D9DD5B31CC14A75025F0/

[The Architect]

It's not that simple

Originally posted by Seyiji:

Are you guys sure its locked to 720p and it isn't a case over way overused depth of field?
Here are some shots I took a bit ago. You tell me how this can be 720P upscaled to 2160p

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/26224536445102485/B7D6E7DF35A7FB7DC80C2ABB2D3ED413CB194D9A/

Take a look at the screenshots i took with the Shadow resolution difference above, that's how you see it.

They are very blurred at 1080p everywhere and your screnshot looks far from 4k, maybe it's because i use 16xMSAA.

Anyway take a look at GeDoSaTo 4k screenshots of FFXIII and you'll understand.

Actually this is interesting, using GeDoSaTo for this game is still blurred at 4k, for XII is not because has support for that game.

[Frocobo]

Mine's running really good on a dated set-up
Here's my Nvidia CP settings just in case they might help anyone.

Using the FFXIII-2 .exe in Program Settings:

Ambient Occlusion - Not Supported
Anisotropic Filter - 16x
FXAA - Off
Gamma Correction - On
Antialiasing Mode - Override Application
Antialiasing Setting 8x (CSAA)
Antialiasing Transparency - Off
CUDA GPU's - All
Max pre-rendered frames - 1
Single display Performance mode
Power Management - Prefer max performance
Shader Cache - On
Texture filtering Anisotropic sampling - Off
Texture filtering Nagative LOD - Clamp
Texture filtering Quality - Quality
Texture filtering Trilinear Optimization - On
Threaded Optimization - On
Triple Buffer - On
V-Sync - On
VR pre-render - Let application decide

I'm not sure of the framerate but the game is running great at 1080p, 8x CSAA and 4k shadows on an old Q6600 @3.3Ghz, 8GB DDR2 RAM and 2 GB GTX650 ti Boost II with barely a hiccup. (Just the very occassion stutter)
Hope this may help someone.

[AlucarD]

Thanks a lot Barhandelus your settings actually helped ^^ I will also post it !!! Thanks bro !! I am using a 660 GTX Ti and was kinda shocked to see this running at 20 FPS xD

[enemyghost]

I created a profile in GeDoSaTo for ffxiii2img and used settings from ffxiii and it helped alot. It disabled my afterburner overlay so I cant see fps at the moment. Going by feel it made the game completely playable for me anyway. Worth a try. Also, before trying this I found turning off the minimap helped it from dropping from 60 to 30fps while running around. Good luck.

[Seyiji]

Originally posted by EL1TE:

It's not that simple

Originally posted by Seyiji:

Are you guys sure its locked to 720p and it isn't a case over way overused depth of field?
Here are some shots I took a bit ago. You tell me how this can be 720P upscaled to 2160p

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/26224536445102485/B7D6E7DF35A7FB7DC80C2ABB2D3ED413CB194D9A/

Take a look at the screenshots i took with the Shadow resolution difference above, that's how you see it.

They are very blurred at 1080p everywhere and your screnshot looks far from 4k, maybe it's because i use 16xMSAA.

Anyway take a look at GeDoSaTo 4k screenshots of FFXIII and you'll understand.

Actually this is interesting, using GeDoSaTo for this game is still blurred at 4k, for XII is not because has support for that game.

Hmm maybe it is the jpg compression from uploading to steam. I have uncompressed PNG's taken at the same spots using MSI Afterburner but I don't know where i can upload them and not have the image site butcher the quality. I'm just pointing out that if it was 720p upscaled to 2160p there is no way in hell I would be able to see the bumps and stuff on characters clothes. I'm not saying Square cant do any better because they sure as hell can I'm just saying it can't be locked and upscaled and look like that. Even if it looks like poop with the crappy overused depth of field and weird lighting effects around characters. At any rate if I'm wrong I'm wrong it looks tons better in motion on my screen. BTW I took those shots with 2x AA and the shadow resolution was set to 4096. I have since also force 16x AF and set the quality of the filtering to high quality. That said I'll wait until Durante bails out this game as well because I am a sucker for pretty graphics and I hate the crap DOF and weird halo efect.

[Homyak]

I was playing at default settings with 1024x1024 SR and x4 AA and had about 5fps drops now and then. But I was litterally shocked when i set 8192x8192 shadows and x16 AA and all fps drops gone. The game runs smoothly at any point. I tottaly dont get this computer stuff.

[The Architect]

Originally posted by Seyiji:

BTW I took those shots with 2x AA

Then it's my 16xMSAA setting that blurs it.

Originally posted by AlucarD >:):

Thanks a lot Barhandelus your settings actually helped ^^ I will also post it !!! Thanks bro !! I am using a 660 GTX Ti and was kinda shocked to see this running at 20 FPS xD

He is using what i've mentioned aside from override AA and Threaded Optimization which does nothing, all other settings are default on driver, you're welcome anyway.

[enemyghost]

If someone else wants to try -
in Gedosato, user whitelist - add ffxiii2img || Final Fantasy XIII-2

Edit Settings, click + button, named it ffxiii2img.
copied text from my ffxiii file -
# Lines starting with "#" are ignored by GeDoSaTo and used to provide documentation

# This is a profile file for ffxiii2img

## Rendering Resolution
# can't select res in-game so write it here
clearRenderResolutions
renderResolution 1920x1080@60
renderResolution 3840x2160@60
#renderResolution 4480x2520@60

## Anti Aliasing
# MSAA sample count, default 4, other options: 2, 8
# higher = higher performance impact
MSAASampleCount 4
# Enable coverage sampling (CSAA on NV, EQAA on AMD) if HW supports it
# (improvement for small performance hit)
enableCoverageSampling false

## Shadow Resolution
# 1 = default
# sensible values: 2, 4, 8 (extreme)
# higher numbers = larger performance impact
shadowScale 2

## Required settings, don't change
injectPSHash 1329c9bf
maxScreenshotParallelism -1
forceRenderRes true
presentInterval 0

Save.

The game recongnises the Gedosato program and displays the selected res in game in top left corner as it did in ffxiii. Not sure how effective it is but worth a go.

Maybe someone can play around with it and have success.