Has anyone been able to play this game stutter free in 2019?

[Thyhel]

I've literally tried every possible thing in the world, every system configuration, special k, Nvidia control panel setting, I even went from a GTX 770, i5 4670, 8GB of RAM and HDD to GTX 1060, Ryzen 5 2600X, 16 GB @ 3200 RAM and nvme SSD and I STILL cannot play this game without stuttering all over the place.

Worst things are battling and right out freezing randomly either when it's starting to rain, or during battles or while walking around.

I'm curious as I've tried every possible thing a human being can, how is the game performing for you guys at the moment with the latest patch?

Some claim the game works fine for them, others claim only Windows store and origin versions are playable so I have no idea what to believe anymore, this is becoming a nightmare.

I have 370 hours on this game and something like 250 of them were plain troubleshooting.

If any of you are having same issues as me, please report the game as broken in the store page. There is a little flag you can click on and report the game as broken. Maybe if we keep doing that we might get Square to patch this mess?

[Warm Machine]

Maybe if you happen to get a pirated version of the broken Steam version. I got fitgirl's repackage of CODEX's cracked version. I can check the exact version once I get home, but it's older than the Steam version cause my saves would bring up a message saying that if I tried to load them.

[[SK] Kaldaien]

Originally posted by JackTheStripper:

Maybe if you happen to get a pirated version of the broken Steam version. I got fitgirl's repackage of CODEX's cracked version. I can check the exact version once I get home, but it's older than the Steam version cause my saves would bring up a message saying that if I tried to load them.

This is a weird thing to hear a non-level-0 Steam account say :)

Very likely that version would run better though. SK is not compatible with most of the unofficial SteamAPI implementations, so I cannot do any performance measurement on them, but it's generally assumed they perform better. 99% of what they do is return fake status codes and the remaining 1% is crash because I'm using some obscure SteamAPI feature that games don't use.

[Thyhel]

Originally posted by SK Kaldaien:

Originally posted by JackTheStripper:

Maybe if you happen to get a pirated version of the broken Steam version. I got fitgirl's repackage of CODEX's cracked version. I can check the exact version once I get home, but it's older than the Steam version cause my saves would bring up a message saying that if I tried to load them.

This is a weird thing to hear a non-level-0 Steam account say :)

Very likely that version would run better though. SK is not compatible with most of the unofficial SteamAPI implementations, so I cannot do any performance measurement on them, but it's generally assumed they perform better. 99% of what they do is return fake status codes and the remaining 1% is crash because I'm using some obscure SteamAPI feature that games don't use.

I just wish we didn't have to use such weird methods to have a game that doesn't stutter every 3 steps.

Why is it so hard to troubleshoot too? Can't Special K track down what's causing the issue and solve it?

[[SK] Kaldaien]

In this game, no. There's a ton of unnecessary anti-debug code breaking things.

The anti-debug measures are _on top_ of Denuvo, and even in the benchmark and demo version of the game. The tools I use to analyze performance do not work correctly here, and Denuvo's only contributing a small part of that.

[yosukearuka]

playin on the 4k pack with no stutters what-so-ever all settings are maxed out and I also use the swag stuff like turf and hair-whatevs.
was just testing graphic quality tho... could be a lil bit better still.
RTX2070 isn't really working to hard, and the i7-8700 is also kinda bored...

[Thyhel]

Originally posted by yosukearuka:

playin on the 4k pack with no stutters what-so-ever all settings are maxed out and I also use the swag stuff like turf and hair-whatevs.
was just testing graphic quality tho... could be a lil bit better still.
RTX2070 isn't really working to hard, and the i7-8700 is also kinda bored...

This is so weird. People with 2080s were complaining but you have no issues at all. Your GPU is 10 times better than my 1060 but still... Maybe with powerful enough hardware you can just power through the stuttering and it won't happen, that's the only thing I can think of.
Or maybe the 4k pack somehow stops the game from stuttering for whatever reason...

[CatPerson]

Yeah, I do use the 4k as well, since day1. Texture wise this game is all over the place even with the 4k pack (much of that pack is for higher res movies). Some things are great with fine detail. Some things you get up close and go "ugh." heh.

I can run this game with all max including all nvidia works but I don't really notice a huge difference at 4k resolution so I'd rather have the extra fps for cushioning @ 4k. I hate the bloom look that Filtering does so that's at Low. My thing is resolution, AF and detail-distance. I love ambient occlusion in this game. Many of the outfit mods look better without it but I can't stand the games look without AO. (my main rig's base stats are in my profile btw)

I don't know about SE's anti-debug measures but from the way their mod tool kit works (forcing online server mod compiling) I decided they are really protective of this games stuff and even before they canceled it, was dubious about the extent of the once-promised level editor.

[[SK] Kaldaien]

I decided to re-examine performance in this game using some of the new tools in Special K.

There is a little bit of filesystem-related stutter remaining with these settings, but I would consider them an optimal baseline for smooth rendering:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1940847952

1. Model LOD Average -> High doubles the amount of geometry drawn every frame
   
   • Has the biggest unpredictable impact on performance of any setting.
2. -- Avoid TRAM set to Lowest, it's too much of a quality loss.
   
3. Lighting set to Highest causes framerate instability
   
4. Shadows set to Highest causes periodic hitches
   
5. -- Geomapping is barely visible
   
6. ShadowLibs is compute heavy, but produces a stable workload and won't cause stuttering (just a constant FPS drop on lower-end hardware)
   
7. SSAO quality sucks
   • You may want to turn the normal SSAO off and use VXAO

The tools shown in the screenshot (GPU Widget, Pipeline Stats Widget, Framepacing Widget) are available in Special K v 0.11.x, the only major difference between the version in these forums and Beta v 0.11.x is the new frametime percentile readouts on the framepacing widget (that was added in 0.10.3).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1157970/Special_K/

[Mauve08]

I also read somewhere that the game will not stutter in old version that's why the pirated version is not stuttering.

[Superscooter]

it's so weird, the game runs fine but randomly and spaced out a lot I'll get a hitch for a second, and this is on an ssd

[[SK] Kaldaien]

Originally posted by Superscooter:

it's so weird, the game runs fine but randomly and spaced out a lot I'll get a hitch for a second, and this is on an ssd

It's because Prompto is taking screenshots constantly in the middle of combat. Its performance impact is related to your resolution, not disk speed. Each time he takes a screenshot it causes your CPU and GPU to synchronize and that takes 100+ ms.

[CatPerson]

Interesting info, thanks Kaldaien.

Re: Prompto's photo-taking, I'm still not sure if those occasional single stutter/hitch I can get are from that, for me. I've looked at his snapshots in that doc. folder and from the time stamps they're taken regularly (even if you don't see them all when you camp) but the intervals vary quite a bit - from 1-8 minutes or something. I'm assuming more frequently during combat. At any rate they're taken much more frequently than any stutters I do get. So it's odd. They are 4k resolution since that's what I play in.

Edit: they are even less noticeable on the higher end hardware I have now than in the past so in that sense the hardware made a tiny difference. Like that first car breakdown scene where I think Prompto takes that pic of Noct during the flyby, and there's that infamous hitch. Barely there now.

[Thyhel]

Originally posted by CatPerson:

Interesting info, thanks Kaldaien.

Re: Prompto's photo-taking, I'm still not sure if those occasional single stutter/hitch I can get are from that, for me. I've looked at his snapshots in that doc. folder and from the time stamps they're taken regularly (even if you don't see them all when you camp) but the intervals vary quite a bit - from 1-8 minutes or something. I'm assuming more frequently during combat. At any rate they're taken much more frequently than any stutters I do get. So it's odd. They are 4k resolution since that's what I play in.

Edit: they are even less noticeable on the higher end hardware I have now than in the past so in that sense the hardware made a tiny difference. Like that first car breakdown scene where I think Prompto takes that pic of Noct during the flyby, and there's that infamous hitch. Barely there now.

Point is I don't get ANY of them by downgrading to version 1.25 of the game, like 0 at all. Yes, frame times are still horrible but at least there are no heavy stutters for 2-3 seconds randomly. They did something that broke the game with recent patches...

[Thyhel]

Originally posted by SK Kaldaien:

I decided to re-examine performance in this game using some of the new tools in Special K.

There is a little bit of filesystem-related stutter remaining with these settings, but I would consider them an optimal baseline for smooth rendering:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1940847952

1. Model LOD Average -> High doubles the amount of geometry drawn every frame
   
   • Has the biggest unpredictable impact on performance of any setting.
2. -- Avoid TRAM set to Lowest, it's too much of a quality loss.
   
3. Lighting set to Highest causes framerate instability
   
4. Shadows set to Highest causes periodic hitches
   
5. -- Geomapping is barely visible
   
6. ShadowLibs is compute heavy, but produces a stable workload and won't cause stuttering (just a constant FPS drop on lower-end hardware)
   
7. SSAO quality sucks
   • You may want to turn the normal SSAO off and use VXAO

The tools shown in the screenshot (GPU Widget, Pipeline Stats Widget, Framepacing Widget) are available in Special K v 0.11.x, the only major difference between the version in these forums and Beta v 0.11.x is the new frametime percentile readouts on the framepacing widget (that was added in 0.10.3).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1157970/Special_K/

Sorry but wasn't VXAO only meant for interiors while normal AO was applied to everything?

[[SK] Kaldaien]

No, VXAO works everywhere. It is very subtle in outdoor scenes, but compared to the unblurred noise that the game's normal AO draws it's a million times nicer. I cannot unsee the AO artifacts, somehow I never noticed them before :(