Optimized Graphics - DLSS Mod for ALL GPUs - Updated Upscalers - Performance Tips

Optimized Graphics for the best performance/quality trade-off. Settings to match the PS4 and PS5 versions of the game as well as some other tweaks for additional performance. -DLSS Enabler for all GPUs, FSR Frame Generation for Nvidia and updates to the latest upscalers: DLSS & DLSS-G v310.2.1, FSR3 1.0.1, XeSS 2.0.1.41.

Introduction

I loved the game when I finished it in 2020 on my PS4 Pro and now, even though I got a 2017 Radeon GPU, I wasn't exactly looking to settle for anything less than a PS4 experience in terms of graphics quality. People kept saying though that it makes the RTX 3060 sweat already. I technically got the AMD equivalent of what a GTX 1080 is and after some tweaking I'm running the game now in 1440p on DLSS Quality Preset without Frame Generation in 60fps. I'm very surprised this even works at all.

I compiled some settings and mods you can use to probably even get the oldest system possible to run this game at least in 1080p on frame gen with a playable framerate and visuals.

Modern systems can still profit off of other things I'm laying out here, like the upscaler updates, DLL upgrades and some other modifications.

Don't forget to leave a like/dislike when you're done with it.

Display Settings

	Display Settings
-Window Mode:	Exclusive Fullscreen or you might run into lower grade visuals and more performance problems. At least I did. The game by default seems to run in Borderless Fullscreen, which they just call Fullscreen. Exclusive Fullscreen is usually always the best for fps and stability. As far as I know the Windows V-Sync feature becomes active too if you only run on Borderless Fullscreen.
-Aspect Ratio:	You can leave it on Auto
-Resolution:	I'd go as high on the resolution as you can with the optimized settings to still achieve around 60FPS while DLSS (Quality or Balanced mode) is active.
-VSync:	Depends if you have screen tearing, like seeing a tear between frames when you're turning around sometimes. V-Sync fixes this and can have an impact on smoothness and remove stutters, but it increases your input latency by a lot, especially with frame generation on this usually becomes unplayable. Ideally you should keep this off and if you have screen tearing, enable Radeon Enhanced Sync or NVIDIA Fast Sync in your GPU driver. They have like 3 to 4 times less latency, making the game feel much more responsive.
-Refresh Rate:	Keep it at max
-Framerate Cap:	You should definitely cap your frames, because capping your frames to an average FPS value you can maintain generally results in the least amount of input lag possible. People often say that capping -1 to -3 below your refresh rate produces even better results for them in terms of smoothness than just capping to the same number as your refresh rate. On 60Hz I still had the best results with 60 though.
-Anti Aliasing Mode:	Preferably use DLAA from DLSS, because it just looks cleaner than TAA and FSR. If you're on AMD, do the DLSS Enabler mod to get that working. It's easy and worth it.
-NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency:	NOTE: If you got a card that is DLSS 4 or FSR 4 ready, you can discard anything I say about upscalers, Anti Lag and NVIDIA Reflex, because I'm arguging from the point of an AMD user with DLSS 3 / FSR 3 in mind. NVIDIA Reflex can cause problems if not configured right. In fact I'm seeing many people on the forums saying that it's causing problems for them, but there is no one size fits all answer for this. The best explanation of what it does and how to use it, you find here and here . The short story is that it reduces input latency and adjusts frame timing, but it only works right if you select the fitting option for your system. As I understand it On is selected when system load is primarily GPU heavy and On+Boost is for primarily CPU heavy load, but don't quote me on that. You can easily find that out with a monitoring software like MSI Afterburner and just read the percentage. Or you just go by what piece or hardware you know is newer/stronger. If you're completely clueless it should also become evident by just testing all 3 options which one works best for you.
-AMD Anti Lag 2:	It's meant to cut down on latency while running an uncapped framerate, but it's not as good as NVIDIA Reflex and it might even increase your latency under certain conditions. More on this here . As far as I understand it capping your framerate still provides the lowest latency possible and this feature allows you to get an input lag time closer to that, while runnning an uncapped framerate. I don't know in what way this might be beneficial or necessary to use for frame generation with FSR4 though and if it behaves the same way as Reflex does in that matter. So if you got hardware that supports FSR4, maybe don't take my advice here. If you don't have FSR4 support, just do the DLSS Enabler mod to get NVIDIA Reflex and cap your frames under your average frame rate to get the lowest latency.
-Frame Generation:	I now created an entire section down below just dedicated to how to get this working right.
-Upscale Method:	Nothing competes with DLSS, I guess. The visuals are the best. If you're on AMD and have no FSR4 support, do the DLSS Enabler mod. If you're using DLSS3 together with Frame Generation, ideally use FSR3 Frame Gen with it instead of DLSS-G. Same visuals, but more fps generated from it. The best of both worlds. More info down below
-Upscale Quality:	Again these recommendations only go for what I've observed with DLSS3. Quality mode is preferable for sharpness and least ghosting, while Balanced at first glance looks okay too. An ~8% performance gain is definitely something, but the ghosting especially in cutscenes around the hair and faces can be very apparent, where on Quality mode there's very little. Performance mode still looks suprisingly good. It usually never does in any game in my experience, but that's still playable if you're tight on FPS. I would expect the ghosting and glitches to progressively get worse though. If you're desperate for FPS I'd test it for yourself if you like the resolution higher with the upscale preset lower or dropping a bunch of other settings and/or the resolution down altogether to make it work in Quality mode. Everybody seems to have a different opinion on that.
-Upscale Sharpness:	This heavily depends on your resolution and your taste. After playing for a bit I have to say that even on 1440p with DLSS3 Quality mode I think I can't play anything less than a 5. If I turn around and look at my character's face, it just seems too blurry without going 5. So that's the sweet spot for me. Just don't oversharpen or it'll start to look comic like.
-Dynamic Resolution Scaling:	This can be useful if you pair it with the right settings. If your settings aren't too high, the visuals won't degrade too much when you're in motion. But if you run settings that your hardware can barely manage, it won't do much or may even make it worse. So if your settings are balanced it only degrades down by one preset when needed during motion and you won't even notice it. As far as I've tested it, it doesn't really seem to obey the set fps target and cycle through all presets accordingly to maintain the target smoothly. It can slightly stutter when a heavy transition is needed. This seems to also introduce a little bit more latency. After further testing this setting might cause DXGI crashes.

Optimized Graphics Settings

Update: BenchmarKing just came out with an incredible video on the topic

If you're unsure about your Texture settings and what your VRAM can handle, I suggest you give this a read:
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/the-last-of-us-part-2-proves-that-8-gb-of-vram-can-be-enough-even-at-4k-with-maximum-settings-so-why-arent-more-games-using-the-same-clever-asset-streaming-trick/
If you are tight on VRAM and unsure, see how the game runs for you with textures on Low and if everything seems fine, you turn textures to High or even Very High and see what happens. If it starts stuttering, you'll know what caused it. According to the article though there shouldn't be much of an issue with it, since most performance problems seem to stem from elsewhere.
Obvious things that might probably happen if you're massively overdoing it are that you'll see texture pop in from afar or if you're doing quick turns, that a certain texture appears blurry and will then quickly switch to high resolution.

I'd also completely turn down Film Grain and Chromatic Aberration Intensity both to 0. This can in some instances improve FPS, but I think it also just looks better across the board. It's like why would you wanna add distortion effects to your image, unless you're actually maxed out on quality settings and looking for a little bit more flavor.

PS4 & PS5 Equivalent Settings

Screenshots are taken from their video so it's easier to compare it on the fly. Watch their video and give them a like, because they did a tremendous job with this.

PS4 Pro Graphics Settings:

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PS5 Performance Graphics Settings:

Best Settings for Frame Generation

NOTE: If you got a card that is DLSS 4 or FSR 4 ready, you can probably discard anything I say about upscalers, Anti Lag and NVIDIA Reflex, because I'm arguging from the point of an AMD user and DLSS 3 / FSR 3 related.

If you are short on FPS or just want to max out on the highest quality possible, then frame generation can certainly help A LOT. It's a 100% FPS increase, trading in a little bit of latency. There's a lot of opportunity with this, but depending on how high your standards are you will only find this very useful and smooth beyond 60fps.

There's a ton that could be said here, about latency, ghosting and stuttering, but I'll just focus on a few basics.
So whatever frame cap you set ingame will basically get doubled by frame generation. So if you wanted like 60fps in total, you'd cap at 30fps. but the lower your base FPS is before frame generation, the less smooth, more stuttery and delayed the game will feel after enabling it. Ghosting also increases the lower your base fps is. You'll need at least like 30 base fps to even make that playable. The more "original" frames you have that the frame gen can use, the more responsive the game will ultimately feel. And you'll still feel this the higher you go, doesn't matter if you're vastly exceeding your 60hz refresh rate with the final fps. So for 60hz gameplay, personally I'm okay with having at least like 90 to 100 final fps. The best results are achieved though if you're hard capped and don't dip below it, because that will compound the latency issue periodically, making you feel more and less input lag every time it dips below your cap. So technically choosing a steady choppiness of like only 30 real frames will maybe feel better to you than capping higher, if your hardware can't maintain that fps target. So you'll have a constant delay to get used to instead of the game ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ itself when you start turning around a lot in a demanding area and the input lag time starts to flip flop around when it dips below your frame cap. So It still remains true that input lag in general is the lowest it can be when you cap your FPS slightly under what your highest average framerate is. And as long as your fps stay consistent above that cap, the input lag will be shorter than if it was uncapped or dipping below the cap.

With the help of NVIDIA Reflex (or Radeon Anti Lag, if you don't use the DLSS Enabler), you can get pretty damn close to minimal latency that you'd have with only using DLSS. I don't even think you can use frame gen without these, because the ghosting and latency will be terrible. Don't use Reflex and Radeon Anti Lag together. NVIDIA Reflex has priority in that circumstance.

You'd ideally set it to FSR Frame Generation to get the most amount of FPS. You can still use DLSS as the upscaler, but FSR for frame gen. Same picture, but more frames generated from it. The best of both worlds.
If you're on NVIDIA and in case you don't have the option to use DLSS3 with FSR3 Frame Gen together, look further down below for a mod that will unlock this for you.

Some people may have a problem after the latest patches that introduced new DLSS models and or versions, which may have made frame generation stuttery and unusable for people with certain NVIDIA cards. In that case you should revert to the earlier v3.7.10 with the DLSS Swapper to see if that fixes it.

Checklist:

• Could potentially cause problems or crashes together with RTSS
  
• Works better the higher your base fps are before FG
  
• Use frame cap
  
• NVIDIA Reflex enabled with On or On+Boost (depending on your system).
  
  Radeon Anti Lag2 should only be used if you got FSR4. Since the DLSS Enabler gives you better visuals with DLSS3 than FSR3, I don't know why you would still use Anti Lag 1 or 2,because you'll also get NVIDIA Reflex with the mod, so you can use that instead then. Antilag is completely obsolete in this context, so don't use it or you will most likely end up with a higher input lag.

My Own Settings

My PC Setup:
• CPU: Intel i9-9900K 8-Core -16 Threads - OC to 4.9 GHz all cores
• GPU: Sapphire Radeon RX Vega 64 Nitro+ 8GB (comparable to a GTX 1080)
• RAM: HyperX Predator 64 GB DDR4 3466 MHz
• Mainboard: Gigabyte Z390 Designare F9

DLSS Enabler

https://www.nexusmods.com/site/mods/757
This is the absolute game changer you wished for. Download the latest BETA version 3.03.

"This all-in-one package allows the users of any DX12 compatible GPUs (from NVIDIA / AMD / Intel) to enable DLSS upscaler and DLSSG Frame Generation in most of the games implementing NVIDIA DLSS 2 / DLSS 3 features."

CAUTION:

It should be noted that the Steam Overlay doesn't work anymore once you've applied this. I included a workaround for you to continue taking screenshots down below.

Depending on your system, the game can also react very allergic to being tabbed out of  while in Frame Generation now. It can be typical for the game to completely freeze and timeout after tabbing out.
Also changing scaling options in the game on the fly can cause the game to crash, like for example switching DLSS ingame or switching frame gen off and on. It might freeze up and you'll have to kill the process with windows task manager (CTRL + ALT + ESC). This might make your whole PC freeze for a few seconds, but recover shortly after and the process is closed.

It will however work perfectly fine if you adjust scaling options in the launcher before you start the game. So it can be finnicky like that, but it doesn't mean that it won't work. You just gotta get used to not tabbing out while in Frame Generation or don't use Frame Gen and you should not have issues.

Installation:
Make sure you locate the right folder for the installation
The path should look something like this:

D:\WINDOWS\Programs\Steam\steamapps\common\The Last of Us Part II

Have those things checked during the Installation if you have an NVIDIA GPU:


Have those things checked during the Installation if you have an AMD GPU:


If you have an AMD: After installation find the "DisableNvidiaSignatureChecks.reg" file in that folder and run it. This might be required for some Nvidia cards too.

That's it. You're done. Now it should work. You can modify it with the instructions from the readme file if you wish to. Usually it's not needed and works by default though.

Have NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency enabled ingame. You can also just test both On and On+Boost and keep the one on that gives you generally more FPS and feels more responsive.

PLEASE NOTE:

The lower your frame rate without frame generation, the higher your input lag and visual artifacting will be.

If you wanna cap your framerate, note that whatever you cap it to, frame generation will double it. So if you wanna have a locked 60fps, cap at 30fps in the game menu or cap at 60 to have it locked on 120 and so forth. Even if you just have a 60hz monitor and can't see the additional frames, it will still shorten and mitigate your input lag and ghosting considerably.

(hit "insert" key during the game to open Optiscaler menu)

If you run into more complicated problems, I suggest combing through the forum posts on the nexusmods page to find out how people are combating certain abnormalities in mod behavior. I never had to really do that though with any game I've tried this on to date. Usually just works.

If you wanna uninstall it, run the "unins000.exe" in the folder.

Optiscaler Frame Generation as an alternative

The latest DLSS Enabler Beta version includes Optiscaler with an interactive overlay, so in case you don't get the ingame frame generation option working for you properly, you can use the overlay instead to customize it to your needs.

NOTE: Using this together with the MSI Afterburner/Rivatuner Frame Cap can lead to problems or latency issues. I am not sure, but probably best to just stick to the Optiscaler options only. See for yourself.

(hit "insert" key during the game to open Optiscaler menu).

Now check the "Frame Generation" and "Hud Fix" boxes.

How well this works is entirely dependent on your system, but also if you've updated your DLSS to the latest version. You should update the upscalers with DLSS Swapper before trying this.

DLSS Swapper (Upscaler Upgrades)

"DLSS Swapper is a tool that allows you to conveniently download, manage, and swap DLSS, FSR and XeSS dlls allowing you to upgrade or downgrade DLSS, FSR and XeSS version in a game without the game needing an update."

https://github.com/beeradmoore/dlss-swapper?tab=readme-ov-file

If you use the DLSS Enabler, I recommend installating that first and then doing the swap.



This is an insanely great tool, I am so impressed with it. It could not be easier and reverting the changes is also an inbuilt function.

This game ships with upscalers 6 versions behind the latest DLSS and for 4 versions behind the latest FSR. I don't see any downside in upgrading, it will only make it perform and look better. If not, just reverse it with one click.

Update: After the latest game patches people have been reporting problems with their DLSS or Frame Generation, mainly concerning NVIDIA cards. In case you have run into problems with the newer versions you can revert both to earlier versions like v3.7.10 to see if that fixes your problem.

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The DLSS Swapper is like the automatic way, but you can also do it manually.

I highly recommend making a backup folder with the original files before you do this, in case it doesn't work

Latest DLSS files
https://www.techpowerup.com/download/nvidia-dlss-dll/
https://www.techpowerup.com/download/nvidia-dlss-3-frame-generation-dll/
https://www.techpowerup.com/download/nvidia-dlss-3-ray-reconstruction-dll/

Latest FSR files
https://gpuopen.com/fidelityfx-super-resolution-3/

DLSS Frame Generation swap for FSR Frame Gen (NVIDIA only)

I'm not sure if this is already integrated in the game for NVIDIA users or not, but if you can't use DLSS with FSR Frame Generation together, then this is how to get it and/or fix it.

NOTE: I'm unsure if this will be of use to DLSS 4 users, because I'm completely clueless if FSR3 frame gen will still be more beneficial than DLSS4 frame gen.

Swapping the DLSS frame generation for FSR frame gen, still providing the same picture as DLSS, but more frames are generated from it. So the best of both worlds. This mod only works for NVIDIA, as this is basically a separate feature that's already included with the DLSS Enabler.

Nukem's DLSS-G to FSR
https://www.nexusmods.com/site/mods/738?tab=description

NOTE: I recommend you make a backup folder to copy the original files into, in case it doesn't work for you and you can just copy and overwrite them back. If all goes wrong you just verify integrity of game files on Steam to reverse it.

Frame Generation Artifacting/Ghosting Mitigation

I can't remember for sure if it was before or after I had done the DLSS Swap, but when I was testing frame generation I had insane ghosting and artifacting on things like utility poles and their powerlines and things like that. It immediately got reduced massively, when I switched to Exclusive Fullscreen. The game by default seems to run in Borderless Fullscreen, which they just call Fullscreen. Exclusive Fullscreen is usually always the best for fps and stability.

You can easily test for ghosting in the intro right when you come out of the garage, looking towards heaven near the mast with powerlines and start moving your mouse around back and forth to look for trails and artifacts.

Ghosting is however a typical occurence for upscalers like DLSS and becomes even worse with frame generation. The higher your base FPS before upscaling and frame generation, the less ghosting and input lag you will experience and vice versa. Typically having less than 30 base FPS trying to generate your way up will not result in a pleasant experience, neither visually, nor input wise. So having at least 40-45 base fps before frame generation should mitigate that to a tolerable level.

NVIDIA Reflex can cut down on ghosting and is basically required to be used together with Frame Generation, because the latency will probably also be too long otherwise.

Improve DX12 Performance

He shows how at 1:35

Choose the tlou-ii.exe for this

It is a known thing that people do, more commonly known in multiplayer games where everybody's desperate for every fps they can get. Here another article explaining the same thing, so you don't have to take some random Youtuber's opinion at face value:
https://www.toolify.ai/hardware/unlock-the-full-potential-of-dx12-games-improve-performance-and-stability-2856272

It will depend on your system though how much this does for you. It's said to improve FPS and resolve stutters some systems might experience with DX12. You can do this for all games you know that run on DX12.

Rivatuner (RTSS) Frame Cap, stable frametime, lowest input lag

DISCLAIMER:
I don't recommend using MSI Afterburner and RTSS with this game anymore. It does considerably smooth the frametiming, but it adds another layer of complication to the performance side of things, where it can cause DXGI crashes and microstutters. I ultimately gave up on RTSS with this game and don't recommend running MSI Afterburner even in the background at all.

The short and sweet of it: Use Rivatuner (RTSS) to cap your framerate and stabilize your frametimings better than the ingame frame limiter in most games do. This will result in less stutters and more smoothness when the frame time graph is one flat line. An alternative is your GPU driver frame limiter, but also often doesn't work well enough and as far as the reputation goes, RTSS seems to be the best bet across the board.

What you want to look for is enabling the On Screen Display and displaying the frametime as text and graph, so you'll see the ms and fluctuation in a live graph. You want the graph to be completely flatlining, preferably at all times. Then the game will run perfectly smooth.

https://www.msi.com/Landing/afterburner/graphics-cards
https://www.guru3d.com/download/rtss-rivatuner-statistics-server-download/

Instructions, if needed: https://www.guru3d.com/page/how-to-use-rivatuner-to-limit-fps/

TL;DR:

If you cap to your refresh rate and under an average fps target you can maintain most of the time, you will have the lowest input latency with no screen tearing and (probably) no need for any additional features like Radeon Enhanced Sync / NVIDIA Fast Sync, Radeon Anti Lag.... etc.
A lot of those will in fact make it worse if combined unfavorably and cause more stutters or have higher input latency than just capping your Framerate with RTSS. It is hard to believe, since they all sound so good and you'd think everything's cross compatible, but no. There's no one size fits all answer, but I'd say turn everything else off to start off with, cap your FPS with RTSS and then go from there.

People often say that capping -1 to -3 below their refresh rate produces even better results for them in terms of smoothness than just capping to the same number as your refresh rate. Specifically -3 is very popular, but on 60Hz I've had the best results still with 60.

A word about V-Sync, Input Lag and how RTSS can or can't be used together with other functions:

• Turn off all V-Sync options, because with RTSS frame capping to your refresh rate alone should already stop the tearing.
  It can however happen that through switching certain scaling or graphics settings the frame timing or pacing becomes bad and tearing appears again. I've found that tabbing out, giving it a second and tabbing back in reset it to the right pacing when that happens and the tearing would be gone, at least in my experience when I had FreeSync enabled together with it.
  If you use Frame Gen and can't tab out because it might crash, you are kind of forced to use Fast Sync or Enhanced Sync then.
  
  
• Freesync / G-Sync: This removes input lag and tearing when your fps is below your monitors refresh rate. You should technically always keep this on, unless you run uncapped framerates way past your monitors refresh rate that never dip below your refresh rate.
  
  
• If you use Frame Generation the ingame frame cap determines how many "real" frames you have before the frame generation doubles it. Whatever you choose, set the RTSS cap so it undercuts your final frame count by at least 1.
  EDIT: In my experience this doesn't work very well together, so I suggest you try disabling RTSS when playing with Frame Generation. It seems to cause stutters and more input latency in that one case, rather than less. So work with the ingame frame cap in that case.
  
  
• NVIDIA Reflex is complicated. It definitely shortens latency, but it can also cause microstutters if not configured right. Reflex is necessary for Frame Generation. Test all 4 settings to find your best performance. OFF, OFF WITH MARKERS, ON and ON+BOOST to see which one runs best for you. Some people report performance problems when they have it enabled or that it may be a factor for the infamous DXGI ERROR crash. There is no clear cut answer.
  
  
• Don't use Radeon Boost, your quality will suffer and it's not gonna be smooth either.
  
  
• Radeon Anti Lag1 and NVIDIA Low Latency Mode (NULL) should generally only be used if you're maxed out on GPU load, like at least 97% and using no cap for your frames or they will actually cause an input lag INCREASE. Yes, you read that right. I think they're absolete. Here's a great video on input lag concerning these features.
  These features get undercut in latency by just capping your frame rate to your refresh rate, so they would only be useful and are meant for uncapped framerates, but ultimately still result in higher latency than capped. So keep them off and just use frame cap. Always.

Possible Stuttering Fixes

There is of course a million different reasons for why you could be experiencing stutters. It is literally impossible to narrow that down to a simple list here, we all know that. I've noticed however that this game is incredibly sensitive to a few additional features a lot of people have enabled by default these days...

These are the most obvious reasons for stuttering that I've found in my own testing:

• Running Fullscreen, instead of Exclusive Fullscreen (and beware that this can reset itself from time to time when the game crashes or you switch scaling options)
  
• V-Sync
  
• Radeon Enhanced Sync / NVIDIA Fast Sync
  
• FreeSync / G-Sync (if not configured right)
  
• Radeon Anti Lag / NVIDIA Low Latency (NULL)
  
• Radeon Chill
  
• NVIDIA Reflex (if not configured right or used with other frame cap methods)
  
• Using MSI Afterburner (RTSS), don't use it at all.
  
• According to Nixxes Community Support MalwareBytes Antivirus running in the background can cause problems
  
• Running settings that are too high for your hardware (I know it can be hard to accept)
  
• People say it all the time, but still people don't do it: Update all of your drivers and do all Windows Updates.
  
• cluttered Shader Cache. Try clearing it
  
• Volumetric Quality higher than medium can cause stuttering for some people

My frametime graph looked perfectly flat the whole time, but I was still experiencing really annoying microstutters when running and moving the camera a lot, I was losing my mind. After tedious testing back and forth, the highest smoothness and most lag free experience I could achieve was disabling basically every special feature mentioned up there and testing one by one what was actually helping or hurting. I found that RTSS, FreeSync, the Driver V-Sync and NVIDIA Reflex can definitely interfere. You should just be cautious about combining functions that adjust or limit the rate and timing of frames.

EDIT:
I know I've changed up this section a lot, so I apologize if someone's reading this again all confused now. I'm not an expert on this, so I wanna refrain from giving concrete advice on what features to combine or not, as I've in my own testing had very mixed results. You go with what you perceive to run best for your game.
I currently only run RTSS for frame cap at my monitor's refresh rate. Freesync on ON. NVIDIA Reflex on ON for now, because it does shorten the latency considerably for me.

This is really tough to give advice on, since everybody's setup is vastly different and the needs for certain features also change depending on what kind of graphics settings you use too.

There's no one single answer for these kinds of problems. I'm just trying to make you aware that enabling everything could also be working against you. At the end of the day you won't get around testing stuff for yourself.

possible "DX12 not supported" fix

Microsoft Visual C++Runtime packages all in one:
https://www.techpowerup.com/download/visual-c-redistributable-runtime-package-all-in-one/
run the install_all.bat

DX12 Download:
https://www.chip.de/downloads/c1_downloads_hs_getfile_v1_82683660.html?t=1744042445&v=3600&s=79d2385ec1e41763318dbbc12d0242fb

to find out what dx version you're currently on you can type in dxdiag in the windows task search bar and run it

check the folder: D:\WINDOWS\Programs\Steam\steamapps\common\The Last of Us Part II\d3d12, if you have two files in there: D3D12Core.dll and d3d12SDKLayers.dll.
It happened to me on another game in the past that dx files were missing from game folders and simply downloading and copying them there fixed the problem. And I've read that it can even work for systems that would technically not support that dx version.

Missing Steam Overlay Screenshots Workaround

You can't use the Steam Overlay anymore with the DLSS Enabler. At least on AMD that's been my experience.
It's a bit tragic, because I like to take screenshots and the best workaround I've found for now is to just take them through your GPU driver and later upload them manually to Steam.

For AMD Adrenaline:


Here you can set your save folder for the screenshots.

Then you press the cogwheel in the upper right, go to "Hotkeys" and here you can set your keybind for a screenshot. I put mine to ALT + F1.



For Nvidia:
This was the next best video I've found for it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-w7novAS_4

Activate HBCC for AMD Vega GPUs

In the unlikely case that you have an AMD graphics card like me that supports HBCC, which lets you allocate your RAM as VRAM, you can enable it in the driver and add as much as you have RAM to spare. I increased mine from 8Gb to 13Gb for this game. Textures all to Very High, let's go.

HBCC is a hardware feature that only AMD Vega cards have, like the Vega 56, 64, Frontier and Radeon VII.

You find it in the Driver under Gaming > Graphics > scroll down, click Advanced and you'll find HBCC at the bottom.

NOTE: HBCC can cause some pixel glitches every now and then, but since it is such a massive quality upgrade, I think it's worth it for the rare occurance of those glitches.

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While you're at it you might also want to enable above 4G Decoding and Smart Access Memory(Resizable Bar) in your BIOS. After that there's a registry edit you can do that will unlock the function in the driver.

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/performance-for-free-unlocking-resizable-bar-for-unsupported-amd-gpus-polaris-vega-radeon-vii.445141/page-13

The registry edit to get this unlocked is that you copy this section (yes, everything):

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
     
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0000]
    "KMD_EnableReBarForLegacyASIC"=dword:00000001
    "KMD_RebarControlMode"=dword:00000001
    "KMD_RebarControlSupport"=dword:00000001

create a .txt file on your desktop, paste that in there, save and close, rename the ending to a .reg file and run it. Reboot and you're done. It should appear in your driver now under Performance > Tuning settings. This should generally increase performance and fps for you slightly. These old cards don't have the full support, but it definitely does something.

If you found anything helpful in here, I'd appreciate a thumbs up and/or favorite, it all helps out. Steam Points Awards are also very much appreciated.
If you hated it, a thumbs down will help too btw, lol. The only thing that doesn't help is doing nothing. So if you really hated it, you should probably not do anything now xD


I'll keep adding fixes and performance tips once I tested them as I play through the game myself.

DLL updated files for better performance (highly recommended)

This is the most up to date version you can get your game to work on.

This should apparently help issues with DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, Frame Generation, stuttering and overall FPS. I can't say that I've taken the time to compare everything before and after, but I'm on a comparatively old system at this point, stuck with old drivers too and I'm still running the game fine, so there's that. The only thing that didn't work for me was swapping the d3d12 folder, but that might have to do with my older system. Make a backup folder before you try this, so you can copy them back if stuff goes wrong.

https://www.nexusmods.com/thelastofuspart2/mods/120

If you've already done the DLSS Swaper, you really only need to swap the remaining files, but it doesn' matter either way. You can also just copy and replace everything again.

It is highly likely that the game reverts those changes after installing patches and validating game files. So to be on the safe side you will have to check and reapply them every time.

Autosave feature bugged

EDIT: supposedly fixed with the latest patches

People regularly making posts like losing 7 hours of progress or something, because the autosave feature apparently didn't work properly and randomly bugged out.

In case anyone hasn't read what they posted in the latest patch notes:

Nguyên văn bởi Naughty Dog / Nixxes Support:

"We are aware of player reports of autosave issues and are actively working on a fix. Our investigation shows that issues can occur when OneDrive or similar cloud services block the save file from being written. As a workaround, we suggest that you pause OneDrive while playing the game: Right-click the OneDrive icon in the Windows taskbar, click the gear icon and Pause sync."

So pause OneDrive, DropBox or any other Clouds you might have permanently running while you're playing the game. I wouldn't necessarily rely only on this statement that it fixes it like they say and still do manual saves too. Just to be safe.

Intro Movies Skip

Intro Movies Mod that actually works and skips all of them without the push of a button. It's like a 4 second start up now.

Vortex Mod Manager:
https://www.nexusmods.com/about/vortex

Required Files to make it work:
https://www.nexusmods.com/thelastofuspart2/mods/32
https://www.nexusmods.com/thelastofuspart2/mods/31

Intro Skip Mod:
https://www.nexusmods.com/thelastofuspart2/mods/109

DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG

First off, this section will likely disappoint you, because the reasons for this error can be so numerous, I wouldn't even know where to begin. I'm just guessing at what might have helped me. After all these threads I've read of people having tried so much and nothing has helped them, I figured I might as well give my ideas on the topic. If anybody has further insight on it, pls comment it.

I've had a rough time with these completely random crashes and couldn't figure out what it was, until I've changed a few things and now had sessions of multiple hours without any crash at all, even though I'm now in the Seraphites chapter that everybody talks about is crashing so much. I'll first show my settings and list what I did and then other causes and ideas I've read about.

I don't really think this error is necessarily driver related and what leads me to believe that is that I see people with the latest drivers still having those issues. And just for reference, with my card I am still forced to play on AMD Adrenaline Driver 24.9.1 from August of last year. I'd imagine I probably have a few less FPS than the latest driver version in terms of performance, but stability-wise, it seems pretty solid and directly contradicts the notion that it's a driver only issue.

These are screenshots of the settings I'm using as of now, even though these are not necessarily my preferred settings to play the game in, but certainly better than it crashing every 15mins...


I think only the display settings seem to be the key here, but I've attached the graphics settings too just in case.

Things that I specifically changed and suspect could be the reason why it runs stable now:

• If you're on NVIDIA or are using the DLSS Enabler as an AMD user, put NVIDIA Reflex to On+Boost or OFF - This seems to be the key setting here.
  For me On+Boost did the trick as an AMD user, but I've heard other people with NVIDIA cards say that OFF was what fixed it for them if they still had persisting crashes.
  >>>Furthermore:
  It seems that AMD Anti-Lag 2.0 in the menu can also be causing these crashes. You can still have it enabled in the AMD Adrenaline Driver, but you should try disabling it in the game.
  
  
• Not using MSI Afterburner at all (I know, the game runs smoother with RTSS, but try it). Maybe this game reacts strongly to the injection of the overlay and frametime, as well as the interception of activities for monitoring statistics.
  
  
• Scaling options. Dynamic Resolution Scaling could be causing issues too, I am not 100% on it, needs more testing to find out.
  I also started using Frame Generation with a 30fps cap, not sure if that's connected, but if you're getting desperate with these crashes, might be worth a try.
  
  
• I reduced an EXTREME overclock to a conservative OC. I still run an OC close to the limit, but I just slightly reduced my GPU memory OC by like 50mHz. In retrospect I don't even know if that was really necessary. Everybody said that about TLOU1 too, to remove all your OCs, because the game was super sensitive to it, but even though I removed all of them for TLOU1, it literally only made the intervals between crashes longer rather than fixing them. And potentially having to reduce most of your settings and destroying your fidelity for it is not worth it. So if your OC otherwise runs fine in all other games and is tested for stability, I wouldn't worry about it. If people with 4080s on stock settings get this error, it's not them, it's the game.

Other reasons or suspicions I've heard of this far:

• Turn off Steam Overlay (idk if this is required, but mine's disabled by default because of the DLSS Enabler mod)
  
• Try the things they've mentioned in their thread: https://steamcommunity.com/app/2531310/discussions/0/591767892517801663/
  
• If you haven't done any of it yet, you should try doing the DLL Updates and DLSS Swap

This is a very difficult thing to diagnose and could be vastly different for every system, but I'll try updating and adding to this list whenever there's new answers and strong suspicions by people.

Patch v1.3.10430.0406

I've seen a lot of people comment that their game is now crashing on launch after this patch and so was mine, until I reapplied the DLL updated files and everything was back to normal.
With my built I again didn't swap the d3d12 folder from those files, but all the rest. That was about it. I redeployed the intro mod skip too just in case.

Clearing the Shader Cache is apparently supposed to help too.

[0p3r4t10n CHAOS]

The only things that I suspect could be causing problems for you are MSI Afterburner (RTSS), which I don't personally use anymore. I've mentioned it a bunch of times in different sections, but maybe I should just put a big disclaimer for people to stop using it altogether to avoid this discussion. It's complicated. It works well with every other game, but this game in particular really does not like using MSI Afterburner at all, not even in the background.

The rest of the methods should have good compatibility, but it would help to know your hardware components. If you keep having problems afterwards, you should go one by one. Remove the DLL file updates. If that doesn't do it, you know it wasn't the cause. Remove the DLSS mods. It may just come down to individual display and driver settings.

If you're coming at it from a DLSS4 / FSR 4 platform, you should not use any of the upscaler modifications, as they are probably a downgrade for you anyway, I suppose. I did warn you though.

[0p3r4t10n CHAOS]

I just outlined a bunch of tools which could and do greatly improve performance, but there's a lot of nuance to applying them and figuring out what your specific system runs best on. It's a bit ignorant to simplify such complicated matters down and putting the responsibility all on me to provide a one size fits all answer. I really don't wanna be arrogant about it, but if you don't have the patience to spend the time figuring this stuff out, maybe don't get into it in the first place and just play the vanilla game as it is. I've tried my best to provide options and explanations for troubleshooting in case they don't work. Maybe it wasn't enough. You be the judge of that.

[RyanGosling]

Before I did everything you’ve said my game was a bit better. After that I crashing and have many other problems like stuttering and flickering. Amazing guide.

[tt]

Nice detailed guide just to help others, nice

[Stu]

I've been using these settings - so I think you can set your level of detail higher:

https://deltiasgaming.com/best-graphics-settings-for-the-last-of-us-2-remastered-pc/

I've not had a single stutter so far & I'm on the "patrol" chapter

I'm using a RTX 2070 super with the 576.02 drivers made with "NVCleanstall" (using minimum settings + usb driver) - I also enabled "MSI" (message signal interrupts) - which are essential if you are running in a Windows VM with GPU passthrough under Linux (& probably also helps in normal Windows) - I give the vm 8 cores from a Ryzen 5950x

Nice optimization guide - many thanks for taking the time

[0p3r4t10n CHAOS]

Maybe better explain here? in case someone else gets the same problem, they'll have their solution already written out for them and don't need to ask again.

[savλtge]

im getting a problem, maybe you know something, can i send you a message?

[tiodeivis]

killing guide. congratz brother!!
ty.

[Raccoon_city_survivor-91]

thank you so much!!!