[Potentially Fixed] Soft lock, texture pop in and game error crashes after texture issues.

[Black Magix]

Fourth Edit:
The DirectStorage DLL (Dynamic Link Library) has been updated to the latest version.
This is the official patch notes of the latest patch! Please update!

Third Edit: WE MIGHT HAVE A FIX!
The game is using an extremely outdated version of Direct Storage (1.1.1) AlbertX in another thread discovered that by replacing the DLL's running direct storage with those of final fantasy 16 (version 1.2.2) seems to have worked to fix the texture pop and the soft locking issue!

Don't have ff16? Not to worry - you can download the files direct from microsoft.

1. Go to https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.Direct3D.DirectStorage/
2. Click "Download package" to download the .nupkg file.
3. Extract it. To do so, you can rename in to .zip or use 7zip or something like that.
4. Find the 2 DirectStorage DLL files in the extracted files. For most people it will be the x64 versions, so the 2 DLL files in native\bin\x64.
5. Go to your FF7 install directory and find the 2 DIrectStorage DLL files there, probably under End\Binaries\Win64,e .g C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH\.
6. Replace the DIrectStorage DLLs in your game directory (step 5) with the newer DLLs from Nuget (step 4).

This would also explain why users with nvme drivers were experiencing issues where those with SSD's or windows 10 were not.

ORIGINAL POST:
Had this happen twice now specifically around cutscenes or scripted scenes that just fail or freeze the game entirely.

The first was with sephiroth and cloud in the back of the truck. Cloud's outfit failed to load properly leading to smeared textures on him. Camera changed to outside the truck with the rain and....nothing. Game would not progress forward at all.

Second was in Nibelheim, door textures were glitched leading to being able ot see through doors like they were "shattered". Approaching one would attempt to trigger a scripted scene but ended up removing all control from the player for the duration of the scene. Loading the menu resulted in a black screen and soft lock.

Files have validated successfully
Rig specs are
CPU: 9800x3d
GPU: 4090
Ram: 96GB
Storage: Samsung 990 PRO 4tb NVME
OS: Windows 11 24H2

Temps are all green, memory usage is not an issue, so I'm not sure what is causing this. Anyone else seeing behavior like this?

Edit: Live video of it happening to me
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2361670597?t=00h43m09s

Second Edit: Open a case here - https://support.square-enix-games.com/s/se-login?language=en_US
Mine is - 00289466

[Serph]

Did you let the shader compilation step finish? On the latest Nvidia drivers?

Try doing a complete driver reinstallation and let the shader compilation finish again, maybe something went wrong during the compilation step on your system or the drivers are outdated/borked. You're way above listed specs and my system which is running the game fine.

[Toshiko]

Having the same issue. i7 9700k, 4070 Super, 32GB RAM, Samsung 970 Evo 1TB SSD. Runs beautifully until textures just either load at 1% resolution or not at all, and then the game soft locks.

[Black Magix]

Originally posted by Serph:

Did you let the shader compilation step finish? On the latest Nvidia drivers?

Try doing a complete driver reinstallation and let the shader compilation finish again, maybe something went wrong during the compilation step on your system or the drivers are outdated/borked. You're way above listed specs and my system which is running the game fine.

Yes I did. Shaders compiled on first boot.

[Black Magix]

Originally posted by Toshiko:

Having the same issue. i7 9700k, 4070 Super, 32GB RAM, Samsung 970 Evo 1TB SSD. Runs beautifully until textures just either load at 1% resolution or not at all, and then the game soft locks.

Nice to know I'm not the only one. I'm seeing lots of errors about DX12...I'm thinking something may be borked with the shader compilation leading to a un caught error of some kind.

[Anonymous]

I have. The game sometimes get infinite loading screen aka Black screen. Also sometimes, textures failed to load properly, leading to low res textures, game completely frozen in a cutscene, skipping cutscenes could lead to black screen and fast forward it could freeze the game. It's so annoying.

Here is my PC spec

Ryzen 9 5900X
RTX 3080
32GB/3600 RAM
Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe 2TB

My Nvidia Driver version is 566.36.

My PC is operating correctly. I can play every UE4 / UE5 game without any issue except this game. Either it's because i need a new driver by Nvidia or it's Square Enix.

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by Serph:

Did you let the shader compilation step finish? On the latest Nvidia drivers?

Try doing a complete driver reinstallation and let the shader compilation finish again, maybe something went wrong during the compilation step on your system or the drivers are outdated/borked. You're way above listed specs and my system which is running the game fine.

I did.

[Serph]

Try a driver reinstall or update them if you're on older drivers. Also what version of Windows are you on? 10 or 11? If on 11 are you on version 23H2, 24H2? To check right click your start menu or press win key + X and select "System" The version will be listed under "Windows Specifications".

On Windows 11 you can also try going into the settings and under Display > Graphics in the "Custom options for apps" section add the FF7 Rebirth main EXE to the app list and select "High Performance" mode. Also under the Graphics menu there is a section "Default settings" where it says "Change default graphics settings", check that "Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling" is enabled.

[Black Magix]

Originally posted by Serph:

Try a driver reinstall or update them if you're on older drivers. Also what version of Windows are you on? 10 or 11? If on 11 are you on version 23H2, 24H2? To check right click your start menu or press win key + X and select "System" The version will be listed under "Windows Specifications".

On Windows 11 you can also try going into the settings and under Display > Graphics in the "Custom options for apps" section add the FF7 Rebirth main EXE to the app list and select "High Performance" mode. Also under the Graphics menu there is a section "Default settings" where it says "Change default graphics settings", check that "Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling" is enabled.

Did a DDU on the drivers and reinstalled but....same problem.

I'm on 11 24H2 (which I'm aware has it's fair share of issues.)

[thieta]

same issue here.

[Serph]

24H2 is pretty dicey with some games outright having game breaking issues, but I also suspect this game was likely released with 24H2 in mind so I wouldn't entirely pin it on it. It's possible but I doubt it.

For the Nvidia drivers did you just do a base install or install with the Nvidia App? Maybe the Nvidia App is interfering if you have it installed, there were some performance issues with it.

Otherwise you could try checking the Nvidia control panel and check under "Manage 3D Settings" > "Program Settings" tab and add FF7 Rebirth's main EXE in there. Check what the driver sets for "Shader Cache Size" for the game, and try increasing it I default leave games at Unlimited as I had an issue with another title and that fixed shader problems I had with it.

With the Unlimited setting if you're just setting it for Rebirth it shouldn't cause any concerns with only this being the game using unlimited storage, it just gives assurance there is no issues with the drivers caching and disposing cache on the fly if it reaches limits.

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by Serph:

24H2 is pretty dicey with some games outright having game breaking issues, but I also suspect this game was likely released with 24H2 in mind so I wouldn't entirely pin it on it. It's possible but I doubt it.

For the Nvidia drivers did you just do a base install or install with the Nvidia App? Maybe the Nvidia App is interfering if you have it installed, there were some performance issues with it.

Otherwise you could try checking the Nvidia control panel and check under "Manage 3D Settings" > "Program Settings" tab and add FF7 Rebirth's main EXE in there. Check what the driver sets for "Shader Cache Size" for the game, and try increasing it I default leave games at Unlimited as I had an issue with another title and that fixed shader problems I had with it.

With the Unlimited setting if you're just setting it for Rebirth it shouldn't cause any concerns with the game using too much storage, it just gives assurance there is no issues with the drivers caching and disposing cache on the fly if it reaches limits.

Hey dude. Just wanna say increasing Shader Cache Size is improving my game significantly. I set it 1GB but i'm testing the game right now and so far, no problem. Might need to give it a few more hours just to be sure. But so far, it looks very promising.

[Serph]

Glad to hear some improvement, hopefully it's smooth sailing from here out

[Toshiko]

I don't even have a shader cache size option in my Nvidia Control Panel. It also didn't see the game and had to be added manually.

So far, I've tried verifying game data, wiping drivers with DDU and reinstalling, and running at all lowest settings (allows for further progress but only delays the inevitable). I'm still on W11 23H2 and plan to continue putting that one off.

[Serph]

Originally posted by Toshiko:

I don't even have a shader cache size option in my Nvidia Control Panel. It also didn't see the game and had to be added manually.

So far, I've tried verifying game data, wiping drivers with DDU and reinstalling, and running at all lowest settings (allows for further progress but only delays the inevitable). I'm still on W11 23H2 and plan to continue putting that one off.

It's not even in the global settings?

[Toshiko]

Should have thought to check there first, silly me! Trying that now.