Bayonetta bad frame pacing

[GiladN]

First of all, I would like to thank Kaldaien for the amazing job you do with the mod, it's really useful in many games :)

Unfortunately, Although the Port of Bayonetta is considered great, there is one glaring issue with it (that many people maybe didn't even notice). and it's frame pacing (I even reported it to Sega two years ago but unfortunately it wasn't patched).

The problem is that while the game does run smooth for a short period of time after starting it, about after 30 minutes the framerate drops from a smooth 59.94 to a stuttery 59.7, with no option to get it back to 59.94 besides exiting and restarting the game. Unfortunately, the regular version of Special K doesn't help with that, even when I set a custom frame limit.

What I suggest is adding an option to unlock the framerate for gameplay only like in NieR: Automata (cutscenes are 30 fps). I know that the game logic is tied to framerate, The point is to unlock the frame rate in order to set a limit using an external program like special K and thus eliminating stutter.

TL;DR: Is there any way to uncap the framerate during gameplay sequences?

Edit: Adding a few screenshots to show the problem

https://i.imgur.com/RdExnwk.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/8sxdeGm.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/TxZkwEq.jpg

[SenMithrarin85]

use borderless windowed mode but leave vsync on. fullscreen is stuttery and turning vsync off (even in borderless) only makes it worse.

[GiladN]

Thanks for the advice, but unfortunately it doesn't help, in the first 30 minutes or so the game is smooth and stutter free, but afterwards, the frame limiter goes down from 59.94 to 59.7, which causes the stutter, and it doesn't matter if I'm using borderless or fullscreen.

In the screen shots you can see that the frametimes are ~16.75 MS per frame instead of ~16.683 (like it should be considering a 59.94 frame rate lock)

If anyone has a way to completely unlock the framerate (for gameplay only, I haven't noticed any frame time issues with the cutscenes) please let me know. Being able to unlock the framerate and setting my own cap will be the only solution to the stutter.

[Renatar]

I've tried to solve this problem but was unable to. So I just restarted the game after every chapter :( Borderless window caused me other stutter/G-Sync related issues.

You could try using the new Frametime (instead of framerate) limiter that Rivatuner included.

[GiladN]

Thank you for your reply, unfortunately that didn't help either :( Is there any way I can contact Kaldaien and ask him directly about it?

[SenMithrarin85]

the game on the last gen consoles lacked vsync of any kind and its likely thats the reason why the pacing is off. have you tried using specialk's limiter and overriding it from 60 to 59.94?

[GiladN]

The 360 version had adaptive Vsync actually (it's just that most of the time it didn't hit 60).
I tried using special k's limiter by setting both 60 and 59.94, but to no avail.
What happened was that the fps indeed went up to 59.94, but after a few seconds, dropped again to 59.7. That's why I'm hoping Kaldaien would be able to find a way to completely uncap the framerate like NieR:Automata (another locked 60 FPS game)

[BONKERS]

FWIW Metal Gear Rising seems to suffer the same issue. I could never get an accurate reading of what was going on. But after about 30 min - 1 hour the game would start having a lot of microstuttering. I played through the whole game and just restarted here and there when it would happen.

I tried modifying the refresh rate sent to the display but never thought to try 59.7.

[GiladN]

Originally posted by BONKERS:

FWIW Metal Gear Rising seems to suffer the same issue. I could never get an accurate reading of what was going on. But after about 30 min - 1 hour the game would start having a lot of microstuttering. I played through the whole game and just restarted here and there when it would happen.

I tried modifying the refresh rate sent to the display but never thought to try 59.7.

You are right, seems to be a problem in some of platinum's games (wonder if it's the same in Transformers: Devastation). I don't know if NieR is just using a newer version of the same engine or if it's a new engine, I just hope that if Kaldaien sees this, he might be able to help (NieR had an option to unlock framerate in addition to Special K's frame limiter).

I just don't want to have to exit and re launch the game every 30 minutes, and the only way to do so is by using an alternative frame limiter instead of the game's broken one.

[Ghaleon4]

Ugh, *THIS*. I have been fighting this exact same issue for YEARS. Every few months, I'll wake up on a Saturday morning and research to see if anyone has found a solution. Found this thread for the first time just now. No other game in my library has frustrated me as badly.

Bonkers: You are correct, Metal Gear Rising has almost the exact same issue -But at least you can trick it a couple of ways -

A) Use RadeonPro or SpecialK to force the game/display into a 50 hz refresh rate. I use RadeonPro for this (easiest, most stable, less hassle), and there is no perceived stutter after any amount of play time.

or

B) Unlike a lot of other games, this one does a check for available display modes and seems to do its own thing *except* for in situation A described above. Use CRU (Customer Resolution Utility) to delete every-single-damned display mode for your preferred resolution except for 59 hz. If you can get this to work, you'll get slightly better performance than option A, but it's a huge pain for nVidia Surround users because you're likely to have to reset Surround when the table that nVidia stores available display modes in gets corrupted (usually on reboot). So you have to disable/re-enable Surround each time in order to reestablish that table again.

The above tricks do *NOT* work for Bayonetta.

I have tried to create a custom display mode with CRU for exactly 59.94 and 59.7, but the micro stutter returns after 0.5 - 1 hours no matter what.

This whole situation blows my mind. Like, Bayonetta is heralded as one of the best action fighting games of all time, but if you think about it, there is not a single platform that we can play it on correctly:

Xbox 360? Adaptive VSync that hardly ever gets locked in.

PS3? We shall not speak of this again.

Nintendo Platforms? Right. Like I'm gonna walk away from my HD triple-monitor setup to play this at 720p -when these ports have their own issues with smoothness.

For the love of God and all that is holy, please help us Kaldaien!

[BONKERS]

Yeah really unfortunate. There are a lot of games i've run into where no matter the hardware there is always some kind of issue. Even for older games. Just gotta get used to work arounds or stutter of some kind haha. :(

[GiladN]

Originally posted by Ghaleon4:

Ugh, *THIS*. I have been fighting this exact same issue for YEARS. Every few months, I'll wake up on a Saturday morning and research to see if anyone has found a solution. Found this thread for the first time just now. No other game in my library has frustrated me as badly.

Bonkers: You are correct, Metal Gear Rising has almost the exact same issue -But at least you can trick it a couple of ways -

A) Use RadeonPro or SpecialK to force the game/display into a 50 hz refresh rate. I use RadeonPro for this (easiest, most stable, less hassle), and there is no perceived stutter after any amount of play time.

or

B) Unlike a lot of other games, this one does a check for available display modes and seems to do its own thing *except* for in situation A described above. Use CRU (Customer Resolution Utility) to delete every-single-damned display mode for your preferred resolution except for 59 hz. If you can get this to work, you'll get slightly better performance than option A, but it's a huge pain for nVidia Surround users because you're likely to have to reset Surround when the table that nVidia stores available display modes in gets corrupted (usually on reboot). So you have to disable/re-enable Surround each time in order to reestablish that table again.

The above tricks do *NOT* work for Bayonetta.

I have tried to create a custom display mode with CRU for exactly 59.94 and 59.7, but the micro stutter returns after 0.5 - 1 hours no matter what.

This whole situation blows my mind. Like, Bayonetta is heralded as one of the best action fighting games of all time, but if you think about it, there is not a single platform that we can play it on correctly:

Xbox 360? Adaptive VSync that hardly ever gets locked in.

PS3? We shall not speak of this again.

Nintendo Platforms? Right. Like I'm gonna walk away from my HD triple-monitor setup to play this at 720p -when these ports have their own issues with smoothness.

For the love of God and all that is holy, please help us Kaldaien!

Actually, Even though you are right - It's close to be playable in Cemu (I noticed some visual bugs but it ran at 60 fps for the entire duration and there weren't any audio issues), and funnily enough: in RPCS3, the PS3 version of Bayonetta can run in 60 FPS!

but yeah, No matter what custom refresh rate you will set with CRU, after ~ 30 minutes of play the frame limit will always go down and the stutter will start (and even cutscene frame rate will change from 29.97 fps to ~30.1 fps, which will introduce stutter in cutscenes in addition to regular gameplay)

MGR:R seems to be locked to 59.5 fps, using RTSS to cap it to 60 works for a few minutes but then in drops again to ~ 59.5.