[Final Fantasy XIV] - Visuals stutter when initiating mouse-based camera control while using "Hardware Cursor" game settings (updated)

[Qmzn]

ISSUE

Game visuals stutter when clicking to trigger mouse camera functionality while either "Hardware Cursor" mode is enabled in the game's Mouse settings.

OS VERSION

SteamOS 3.5.5 Stable through SteamOS 3.5.12 Preview

HANDHELD OR DOCKED

Handheld

GAME OR DESKTOP MODE

Game

GAME NAME

Final Fantasy XIV Online

STEPS

• In the Controller Settings for Final Fantasy XIV Online, select the "Mouse Only" Template as a new Layout
  
• Start Final Fantasy XIV Online from the Game Library
  
• Log into the game servers using the FFXIV launcher and start the game client
  
• Wait for the main title screen options to appear
  
• Select "Configuration" from the menu options
  
• Navigate to the mouse settings using the icons on the left (fourth from the top)
  
• Under "Expanded Mouse Functionality Settings", enable either "Hardware Cursor: FFXIV Custom" or "Hardware Cursor: OS Standard"
  
• In the lower right corner of the settings window, select "Apply" (if a change was made), then "Close"
  
• Using the right trackpad, move the mouse cursor to a non-interactable part of the title screen
  
• Click the right trackpad to register a left mouse click

RESULTS

The game visuals will stutter.

NOTES

• "Hardware Cursor: FFXIV Custom" is the default setting.
  
• The stutter can easily be seen in the graph portion of the level 4 performance overlay.
  
• The issue occurs even in situations where camera control isn't present, such as at the title screen or during a prerendered video cutscene.
  
• The issue does not occur during any targeted interaction with UI elements, such as when dragging an in-game window, clicking a confirmation button, advancing dialogue during a cutscene, et cetera.
  
• The stuttering is mostly mitigated when running the game in Desktop Mode, but the performance there is so poor it doesn't really matter.
  
• Here's a link to an image of the relevant mouse settings page: https://www.akhmorning.com/assets/media/system-configuration-pc-mouse-settings.png

[Tycho]

That’s interesting. I actually have a similar issue in a totally unrelated game oj steam deck (Dragon Age Origins). When you click (you have to click/hold and drag to move the camera) the framerate stutters pretty badly. I was able to mitigate it by lowering the framerate to 30. Have you tried that? No telling if it will actually help because its a completely different game.

[Qmzn]

The issue is still present in the 3.5.9 Preview build...

I tried adjusting the framerate cap to 30, but unfortunately, this particular issue actually gets worse at lower framerates. The stutter seems to take place across a fixed number of rendered frames, so a 3 frame stutter at 60fps is twice as bad at 30fps.

I tried playing around the stutter, but it was just too frustrating, because I had to avoid camera moves as often as possible.

I'm still glad I took the time to tune a personal mouse/gyro controller preset - it has brought me a lot of joy up to this point - but it's a real drag for it to get caught in the web of such a strange performance issue. It ends up feeling like a sort of punishment for leveraging advanced knowledge of Steam controller configuration and not playing the "default" way.

I really wanted to try FFXIV on my OLED deck, too.

[Qmzn]

After taking the 3.5.12 Preview and seeing no change (not that there would be, based on patch notes), I poked around the game and Steam settings in hope of a finding a temporary fix.

And I did. Well, sort of.

While trying various settings changes, I enabled the dreaded framerate-dependent "Software Mouse" in FFXIV, and the stutter disappeared.

So it seems there's some incompatibility between FFXIV's mouse input processing and the hardware mouse signals coming from the trackpad in SteamOS 3.5.5+. I'm going to update the original post with this new information.

But hey, at least I can play the game again, at the cost of framerate-dependent mouse input latency...

EDIT: After some additional searching on the internet, it seems this might be part of a history of Wayland + Gamescope hardware mouse input issues. It is strange how the camera movement functionality is the only thing that's malfunctioning, though. It feels like FFXIV is capturing the mouse cursor in some antiquated way that's going to require a fresh workaround, and I hate to say it, but I doubt fixing such a thing will be a priority for anyone except this one goofball with the hybrid controller config. So, for the foreseeable future... software mouse mode it is.

[BeppisMAX]

Been looking into this for a while now. It definitely seems like an issue with how the mouse/trackpad hardware is communicating with the game, because using a Software-based mouse in-game will prevent the issue from being produced.

I've been looking around online and found that a similar bug has been discussed regarding FFXIV and other games where a high polling rate for the mouse (1000Hz) can cause a similar issue when running the game via Wine/Proton, but the description of the bug varies over discussions, so I'm not sure if the issue other communities are discussing is identical.

Really don't want to resort to a software-based mouse. The difference is latency is awful.

EDIT: I've found a temporary workaround for FFXIV to prevent the FPS drop on a per-session basis, at least if you launch the game via the official launcher.

BEFORE you log in via the launcher and press Play, press the (...) button to go to Quick Settings > Performance > Advanced view > Display filters, and toggle between anything, and then go back to Linear. close the Quick Settings bar and then launch the game.

For some reason (I'd assume gamescope-related) this seems to prevent the issue occurring up until you quit the game. Mouse clicks, and the mouse auto-hiding would no longer produce the issue for me.

Hopefully we get a proper fix soon enough.

[BeppisMAX]

Update: I've found a temporary workaround for FFXIV to prevent the FPS drop on a per-session basis, at least if you launch the game via the official launcher.

BEFORE you log in via the launcher and press Play, press the (...) button to go to Quick Settings > Performance > Advanced view > Display filters, and toggle between anything, and then go back to Linear. close the Quick Settings bar and then launch the game.

For some reason (I'd assume gamescope-related) this seems to prevent the issue occurring up until you quit the game. Mouse clicks, and the mouse auto-hiding would no longer produce the issue for me.

Hopefully we get a proper fix soon enough.

[Qmzn]

Well, the hardware mouse was completely stutter-free again after one of the late-February updates...

...and then the 3.5.17 update put the stutter right back. It had a bunch of compositor changes, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

But I am disappointed. I was really enjoying the responsiveness of the functional hardware mouse. It's starting to feel like GameScope compositor stability fixes for other games aren't working well with the FFXIV hardware mouse settings and the Deck trackpads.

I tried the fix above, but it doesn't seem to work once my Steam Input Configuration kicks in. There's no stutter when I move or click initially with a trackpad, but that's because I'm not actually sending the virtual mouse input to the game window. Opening the overlay with the three dots ties input into the window, at which point the stutter appears.

I'm tempted to roll back to the version I had before, but I'd rather see this fixed. That, and rollbacks don't stick without root commands, and it's been kind of nice to keep my Deck OLED free of OS workaround solutions...

[Qmzn]

Good news, everyone! It appears that the May 16th stable branch patch has fixed this issue! Hardware mouse modes are working properly again in FFXIV on Steam Deck!

Many thanks to the Valve employees and anyone else working on SteamOS, gamescope, and Steam Input, for their dedication to making these systems work in concert with all games new and old, and for giving us the tools to play the games we want to play how we want to play them.

... and whatever you did that fixed this, please try not to undo it in a future patch.

EDIT: And then I received an update to Proton Experimental and rebooted and the stutter returned. Trying to figure out what switch keeps getting flipped to cause this error...

EDIT 2: Okay, I've finally found the gamescope report on it, and all the other posts about it. I wish they hadn't eluded me for so long.

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/gamescope/issues/1056
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1675200/discussions/1/6329310359230096771/

It seems like there are some potential workarounds, like what BeppisMAX talks about above, by engaging the overlay and changing the scaling before launching the game. I'll give this a try.