Any fix for the stuttering/bad frame-pacing in cutscenes?

[Arthur]

And no, I'm talking about the fact that they're locked at 30 fps, I don't mind that. What I mean is that during cutscenes, sometimes I see these noticeable stutters, even though my fps counter never changes from 30, so its either a frame-pacing/frametime issue or the game's built in frame limiter for cutscenes is bad. Anyone knows how to fix this?

Running the game on an RTX 7800 XT, btw, which has 16 GBs of Vram, so I doubt its that. No CPU usage spike during cutscenes either (when I turn on AMD's benchmark thingy, I can't see anything out of the ordinary, its like the game itself just decides to stutter during scenes).

When it comes to actual gameplay, its running perfectly fine, maxed out settings, average of 75/80 fps in most areas (no frame-gen or upscaler). This problem is exclusive to cutscenes. Help!

[Grimm]

high-end PCs suffer in this game for some reason.. for the 30 fps lock try this!
https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy16/mods/6?tab=description

[Arthur]

Originally posted by Grimm:

high-end PCs suffer in this game for some reason.. for the 30 fps lock try this!
https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy16/mods/6?tab=description

Ahh, well, I actually wanted to keep the 30 fps lock :b. Its more cinematic, but it also helps to hide the transition between cutscenes and FMVs most of the time. If its an issue with high end pcs, I'm guessing it does have something to do with the frame limiter. I'll see if locking it to 60 fixes it (since it does have a 60fps mode on PS5, maybe it works).

Thanks though! I'll check that out regardless

[iameatingjam]

Originally posted by Grimm:

high-end PCs suffer in this game for some reason.. for the 30 fps lock try this!
https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy16/mods/6?tab=description

Not for me. The whole game has been buttery smooth. I know that some people have been having problems, but its not like its just people with high end pcs, some people with end pcs have had problems, but I don't think that IS the problem. I don't know what the problem is, I've heard too much contradictory information. All I know is, it runs well for me.

To OP, yeah I dunno. All I can think is, try the 60 fps fix, and then rtss to limit fps to 60. It does a good job of stabilizing the frametime graph. Alternatively, you could limit gameplay to 30fps and then use rtss to limit to 30... but I'm sure you probably wouldn't want to do that.

Me personally I haven't used the 60 fps fix because like you I don't mind 30 fps in cutscenes, but also, they have been smooth for me so, there's no problem to solve really.

EDIT: BTW, do you have the latest GPU drivers? What about windows? Up to date?

[Arthur]

Originally posted by iameatingjam:

Originally posted by Grimm:

high-end PCs suffer in this game for some reason.. for the 30 fps lock try this!
https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy16/mods/6?tab=description

Not for me. The whole game has been buttery smooth. I know that some people have been having problems, but its not like its just people with high end pcs, some people with end pcs have had problems, but I don't think that IS the problem. I don't know what the problem is, I've heard too much contradictory information. All I know is, it runs well for me.

To OP, yeah I dunno. All I can think is, try the 60 fps fix, and then rtss to limit fps to 60. It does a good job of stabilizing the frametime graph. Alternatively, you could limit gameplay to 30fps and then use rtss to limit to 30... but I'm sure you probably wouldn't want to do that.

Me personally I haven't used the 60 fps fix because like you I don't mind 30 fps in cutscenes, but also, they have been smooth for me so, there's no problem to solve really.

EDIT: BTW, do you have the latest GPU drivers? What about windows? Up to date?

Yeah, both Windows and AMD drivers are up to date. Its weird because like I said, gameplay is buttery smooth, but cutscenes stutter often. Its not all the time, but it seems to happen at random, its not related to what's going on in the screen at all, as far as I know.

For example, in one of the first cutscenes, with those people in a table discussing the ongoing conflict (Benedikta's first appearance), sometimes it would stutter in the middle of the conversation, but then during the scene of Shiva throwing a bunch of ice to the Titan, it was alright.

I'm not gonna try the fix because I would also like to keep the cutscenes at 30fps, hopefully it gets better or fixes itself somehow, maybe with a patch from Squenix.

[iameatingjam]

Hmm interesting. I always assumed those cutscenes were rendered due their high gpu use and were 30 fps because they used higher detail models or something. But I just found out they are indeed pre-rendered. And the 60 fps patch uses interpolation to get to 60. Which means, your pc is running the game fine but choking on nothing but a video file, weird.

I don't have an AMD graphics card, but with nvidia there's a way to set power profiles for certain games. Can you do that with AMD? If so, try increasing that.

Also, you could use task manager to set the game at a higher cpu priority. Though you'd have to do it every time. Process lasso can do it permanently. I believe there's also a mod that does that for specifically for this game but I haven't used it and don't know what its called. I would personally just use process lasso since its a good thing to have around anyway.

'above normal' is all you should need. You could try 'high,' just don't do 'realtime' that can cause issues like the game taking precedent over core system drivers and the like.

Hopefully that helps, or it works itself out, or something. I'd be pretty peeved if the cutscenes were stuttering on me.

EDIT: Whats about other processes? Are you closing other apps while you play? I've found that for example even leaving firefox open can cause the odd frametime spike.

[Arthur]

Originally posted by iameatingjam:

Hmm interesting. I always assumed those cutscenes were rendered due their high gpu use and were 30 fps because they used higher detail models or something. But I just found out they are indeed pre-rendered. And the 60 fps patch uses interpolation to get to 60. Which means, your pc is running the game fine but choking on nothing but a video file, weird.

I don't have an AMD graphics card, but with nvidia there's a way to set power profiles for certain games. Can you do that with AMD? If so, try increasing that.

Also, you could use task manager to set the game at a higher cpu priority. Though you'd have to do it every time. Process lasso can do it permanently. I believe there's also a mod that does that for specifically for this game but I haven't used it and don't know what its called. I would personally just use process lasso since its a good thing to have around anyway.

'above normal' is all you should need. You could try 'high,' just don't do 'realtime' that can cause issues like the game taking precedent over core system drivers and the like.

Hopefully that helps, or it works itself out, or something. I'd be pretty peeved if the cutscenes were stuttering on me.

EDIT: Whats about other processes? Are you closing other apps while you play? I've found that for example even leaving firefox open can cause the odd frametime spike.

Maybe you misread. The cutscenes aren't pre-rendered, they're in real-time, there is no interpolation going on whatsoever with that mod, it just removes the fps cap.

What I meant by FMVs is that in certain very specific and very brief moments, the game switches to a pre-rendered cutscene (that was still rendered using in-game graphics anyway). This is usually done to hide a loading screen or if the scene had too much going on for the PS5 to handle lol.

For example: In the intro, when you see the two eikons facing each other, that's in real time. However, once the phoenix takes flight, then its an FMV. It goes back to real-time graphics when they both crash through the ground. The FMV is simply there to hide the fact that the game is loading the next area, and it only lasts a few seconds. From my experience so far, I'd say 95% of the scenes are in real time graphics, FMVs are only present for these key moments.

I tested this when playing the demo, it was easy to notice through a benchmark tool (if the game was in real time, then it would lock the fps to 30 and have a somewhat average GPU usage. If its just playing an FMV, then the fps would be whatever the cap was for the gameplay and the GPU usage dropped like crazy, while the scene was still noticeably in 30 fps.). Scene of the soldiers fighting in the battlefield? Fmv. Shiva throwing ice at the Titan? Real time.

I think the decision to lock every important scene at 30 fps was simply to mask the transition between these little FMVs and real-time graphics. The FMV's bitrate is high enough that you almost never notice them (unless you're using a benchmark tool). And there's also the fact that the PS5 struggled with this game, an inconsistent fps during scenes would be distracting. I doubt models had anything to do with it because it seems this game isn't doing that old trick of having fancier models just for cutscenes, I zoomed in on Clive using photo mode during gameplay and he looks just as detailed as he does in scenes (including the "almost raytraced" shadows Squenix cooked up).

Anyway, sorry for the long explanation, but yeah, the stutters are from the real-time cutscenes (the few FMVs I've seen run fine, they are indeed just a video after all) and I have no idea what's causing them. No other apps in the background aside from Steam, and like I said, looking at my numbers with AMD's benchmark, everything is fine (low CPU usage, GPU at 99%, normal temps, etc). I guess my best hope is a patch. At least it doesn't happen all the time and with every cutscene, its just barely frequent enough for me to notice. Maybe it only happens with the early cutscenes or something, lets see when I progress further into the game.

[iameatingjam]

Originally posted by Arthur:

Originally posted by iameatingjam:

Hmm interesting. I always assumed those cutscenes were rendered due their high gpu use and were 30 fps because they used higher detail models or something. But I just found out they are indeed pre-rendered. And the 60 fps patch uses interpolation to get to 60. Which means, your pc is running the game fine but choking on nothing but a video file, weird.

I don't have an AMD graphics card, but with nvidia there's a way to set power profiles for certain games. Can you do that with AMD? If so, try increasing that.

Also, you could use task manager to set the game at a higher cpu priority. Though you'd have to do it every time. Process lasso can do it permanently. I believe there's also a mod that does that for specifically for this game but I haven't used it and don't know what its called. I would personally just use process lasso since its a good thing to have around anyway.

'above normal' is all you should need. You could try 'high,' just don't do 'realtime' that can cause issues like the game taking precedent over core system drivers and the like.

Hopefully that helps, or it works itself out, or something. I'd be pretty peeved if the cutscenes were stuttering on me.

EDIT: Whats about other processes? Are you closing other apps while you play? I've found that for example even leaving firefox open can cause the odd frametime spike.

Maybe you misread. The cutscenes aren't pre-rendered, they're in real-time, there is no interpolation going on whatsoever with that mod, it just removes the fps cap.

What I meant by FMVs is that in certain very specific and very brief moments, the game switches to a pre-rendered cutscene (that was still rendered using in-game graphics anyway). This is usually done to hide a loading screen or if the scene had too much going on for the PS5 to handle lol.

For example: In the intro, when you see the two eikons facing each other, that's in real time. However, once the phoenix takes flight, then its an FMV. It goes back to real-time graphics when they both crash through the ground. The FMV is simply there to hide the fact that the game is loading the next area, and it only lasts a few seconds. From my experience so far, I'd say 95% of the scenes are in real time graphics, FMVs are only present for these key moments.

I tested this when playing the demo, it was easy to notice through a benchmark tool (if the game was in real time, then it would lock the fps to 30 and have a somewhat average GPU usage. If its just playing an FMV, then the fps would be whatever the cap was for the gameplay and the GPU usage dropped like crazy, while the scene was still noticeably in 30 fps.). Scene of the soldiers fighting in the battlefield? Fmv. Shiva throwing ice at the Titan? Real time.

I think the decision to lock every important scene at 30 fps was simply to mask the transition between these little FMVs and real-time graphics. The FMV's bitrate is high enough that you almost never notice them (unless you're using a benchmark tool). And there's also the fact that the PS5 struggled with this game, an inconsistent fps during scenes would be distracting. I doubt models had anything to do with it because it seems this game isn't doing that old trick of having fancier models just for cutscenes, I zoomed in on Clive using photo mode during gameplay and he looks just as detailed as he does in scenes (including the "almost raytraced" shadows Squenix cooked up).

Anyway, sorry for the long explanation, but yeah, the stutters are from the real-time cutscenes (the few FMVs I've seen run fine, they are indeed just a video after all) and I have no idea what's causing them. No other apps in the background aside from Steam, and like I said, looking at my numbers with AMD's benchmark, everything is fine (low CPU usage, GPU at 99%, normal temps, etc). I guess my best hope is a patch. At least it doesn't happen all the time and with every cutscene, its just barely frequent enough for me to notice. Maybe it only happens with the early cutscenes or something, lets see when I progress further into the game.

Yeah thats what I thought before reading what this mod had to say:

https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy16/mods/84

but taking a closer look, I see it is to be used in conjunction with another, this one

https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy16/mods/6

Former uncaps (or interpolates) frames on the pre-rendered cutscenes, latter uncaps the rendered ones.

That makes sense.

[Arthur]

Originally posted by iameatingjam:

Yeah thats what I thought before reading what this mod had to say:

https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy16/mods/84

but taking a closer look, I see it is to be used in conjunction with another, this one

https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy16/mods/6

Former uncaps (or interpolates) frames on the pre-rendered cutscenes, latter uncaps the rendered ones.

That makes sense.

Yup, the mod you linked is specifically for the short FMVs I mentioned. The other one just ucaps it.