This summer season Sq. Enix launched an up to date model of Remaining Fantasy 7 Remake for the PlayStation 5 that Digital Foundry called a “beautiful improve”—it upgraded textures throughout the board, overhauled the lighting, and supplied a brand new 60 fps efficiency mode along with a 4K 30 fps choice. Each have been rock strong. Six months later, Sq. Enix has lastly introduced FF7R to PC, and one thing has gone very unsuitable. Not solely is the PC port lacking just about all the graphics choices we might count on from a high-end PC launch, nevertheless it’s exhibiting stuttering points on some techniques, too.
“The PC port is horrible,” tweeted Digital Foundry’s John Linneman.
Horrible could also be an exaggeration—in contrast to really terrible PC ports, FF7R is not crashing or exhibiting game-breaking bugs that we have seen. However for $70, stingy graphics choices in a recreation of this measurement and price range are an actual pink flag. Here is the whole thing of what you’ll be able to tweak:
There isn’t any variable framerate choice, no method to tweak anti-aliasing, toggle VSync, or management results like movement blur. The port additionally does not allow you to management decision scaling, which is now a standard choice for balancing picture high quality and efficiency.
On consoles, FF7 Remake makes use of dynamic decision scaling to keep up a clean framerate, that means that your decision would possibly drop from 1440p to one thing nearer to 1080p within the warmth of battle to keep up 60 fps. The PC port does this too based mostly on the framerate goal you set—and offers you no choice to disable it. It is a really weird choice to drive on performs, and looks as if it could be the supply of a few of FF7 Remake’s efficiency points, too. There’s already a mod to disable dynamic decision.
When Sq. Enix ported Remaining Fantasy 15 to PC a number of years in the past utilizing its personal in-house engine, it took time and care to ensure the PC port was as much as snuff. It had far more options. Certainly if Sq. Enix may pull that off with its personal engine in 2018, it may do as properly in 2021 with Unreal Engine 4, know-how that has been used throughout numerous PC video games.
Listed here are the PC graphics options in Kingdom Hearts 3, one other Sq. Enix recreation operating on Unreal Engine 4 that was launched simply this 12 months.
An unlocked framerate, separate element degree choices for characters and backgrounds, anti-aliasing and movement blur? The gang’s all right here! Kingdom Hearts 3’s choices aren’t as intensive as a showpiece Unreal Engine recreation like Gears 5‘s, however they’re nonetheless leagues forward of FF7 Remake’s.
Gamers have reported and recorded video just like the one above of stuttering points in FF7 Remake, which can be a problem with how Unreal Engine compiles shaders. A notice on the PCGamingWiki means that FF7R might run into VRAM points with textures set to Excessive on graphics playing cards with lower than 8GB of VRAM which smacks of an optimization downside, nevertheless it does not absolutely clarify the stuttering. Digital Foundry’s Alex Battaglia identified a stuttering concern within the opening scene on an RTX 3090, which has 24GB of VRAM.
I by no means actually do that, since I normally cowl this in a video, however @oliemack goes to be on this when I’m on vacation. However this is only one temporary second within the first 5 minutes of the sport. Spinning the digicam causes a sustained drop after which an enormous stutter. RTSS doesn’t see it https://t.co/pvTAML3dEX pic.twitter.com/UgDWzO9IavDecember 17, 2021
In our personal fast testing of the primary half-hour of Remaining Fantasy 7 on a number of techniques we did not run into any important stuttering, however the concern appears to be exacerbated in denser areas just like the Slums, in line with most gamers reporting issues. Streamer MaximilianDood spent part of a play session on Thursday making an attempt to diagnose the stuttering he skilled on an RTX 3090. Whereas FF7R can run at 120 fps due to the dynamic decision scaling, one thing is clearly unsuitable with its body pacing.
This might be disappointing for any recreation, however Sq. Enix has completely no excuse right here. It is promoting Remaining Fantasy 7 Remake for a premium $70 on PC, and that value is even steeper in different areas: €80 works out to virtually $90 USD, for instance. And Sq. Enix has had since April 2020, when Remaining Fantasy 7 Remake first launched on PS4, to work on the PC model and implement no less than the essential anticipated graphics choices. Six months after Dying Stranding hit consoles, it arrived on PC with a improbable implementation of Nvidia DLSS that helped it run properly at 4K. Remaining Fantasy 7 Remake does not even allow you to change your anti-aliasing settings.
If you are going to signal an exclusivity take care of the Epic Video games Retailer, the least you are able to do is figure with Epic to ensure your Unreal Engine 4 recreation gives the PC choices we have anticipated for many years.
