Nier: Automata PC performance thread

For what it's worth, they haven't added a patch listing to the SteamDB page.

GReeeeN said:
So I've installed SweetFX and turned on vibrance and clarity setting and it seems to have made my fps very unstable. Before it would be pretty much locked to 60fps with an aopccasional dip to 58fps (1440p windowed 4x AA) with FAR mod installed.

Now I'm getting drops into the 40s with SweetFX. I turned off AA all together in game, and still seem to be getting drops to around 52fps.

I thought SweetFX doesnt have a direct impact on performance?. I'm running both the FAR and SweetFX mod if that makes any difference
Click to expand...

Are you running AO through SweetFX? Injected AO is performance intensive.
 
Grief.exe said:
For what it's worth, they haven't added a patch listing to the SteamDB page.



Are you running AO through SweetFX? Injected AO is performance intensive.
Click to expand...

I don't think so, Is this turned on by default?, I just clicked the Clarity and Vibrancy options and left it at that.

By AO, are you referring to ambient occlusion?
 
Durante said:
Since we talked about stutter on the previous page, I just looked for it specifically. Even when traversing the main city area, mounted, at maximum speed, I think I dropped at most a frame or two going from one end of it to the other. And that's the most stutter-prone gameplay area. It actually seems even better now than it was before. (Might also be related to the layout changes of the area of course (story related).

I do have to say that even a 1080 is not sufficient to run a locked 60 FPS in that area at 1440p with any MSAA -- which isn't really too bad, since you can't have MSAA and smoother LOD transitions at the same time for now anyway.

Also, I still haven't had a single crash, or any kind of bug really, 25 hours in now.
Click to expand...

This has basically been my experience as well, apart from some of the pre-rendered cutscenes looking choppy. No crashes and great performance after 20 hours of play.
 
I'm getting 60FPS @ 1440p with 8xAA. But I feel like downsampling from 3328×1872 gives me better picture quality. Hitching is also minimized and prerendered playback was also smooth today.

Hopefully someone does something about global Illumination since DrDraxxy was able to get 4K@60fpa on a 980Ti
 
A couple of days after my initial impressions... I'm kinda not happy about the stuttering. Running from the android camp and following the river to the waterfall and then running back to camp highlights how predictable most of the stuttering is. I get minor framedrops (like 59.9fps, 90% of the time :^/) and/or stuttering in the same locations every single time. During the stuttering portions of the run, RTSS will read 60.0fps, 16.6ms, which makes no sense. 60fps capped, no vsync, MSAA Off.

This game also has an extremely aggressive level of detail and streaming system. You trip over the seams in the world like crazy in this game.

It gets kind of stupid:
Exhibit A, bad face
Exhibit B, a less bad face after turning the camera a little.

I think a patch is in order. Let us control how the game streams, culls, and how aggressive the LOD is.
 
DrDaxxy said:
Crossposting from the Steam thread because people here might find it interesting as well:
Click to expand...
Yeah, you could pretty much guess that the engine is doing something weird from the load profile the game produces on a Pascal card - 100% load in 1440p but the temperature rarely goes higher than 70C and the memory is downclocking as if the load if primarily on the shader core.

didamangi said:
Nvidia is asking those with crashes to submit their feedback though. Maybe it's a driver related. Anyone with crashes using a geforce 10 series?

I've had no crashes as well. GTX 1070.
Click to expand...

No crashes here but I've reported the memory downclocking issue - maybe they'll be able to fix it and improve performance a bit while doing this.

Edit: actually, scratch that - this issue is fixed already in 378.92. So nothing to report really.
 
Anyone know whether mouse acceleration can be turned off or not?

Never got to play MGR because of that and I somehow doubt things are different this time around.
 
Pixieking said:
Just to confirm, the re-encoding of videos isn't worth the time/effort, right?
Click to expand...

If you're asking about the fix for the sluggish cutscenes, then I tried it and it haven't noticed any choppy cutscenes since so yeah, it's with the time and effort (only took me about 20-30mins).
 
Infinite Xero said:
If you're asking about the fix for the sluggish cutscenes, then I tried it and it haven't noticed any choppy cutscenes since so yeah, it's with the time and effort (only took me about 20-30mins).
Click to expand...

Ahhhhhhh! There seems to be so much variability with fixes - 2 people say this doesn't work, and one says it does? That ain't right.

Thanks for the reply - if it's only about a half an hour of time wasted, I may as well do it, just on the off-chance it works for me. :)
 
DrDaxxy said:
Alright, I've managed to improve performance by 30-60% (in 4K, on a 980 Ti, a friend reports more than doubled performance on a low-end mobile GPU).

Here's the visual differences (and framerate impact). Warning: if you haven't completed Route A you may find this a bit of a spoiler.
http://diff.pics/VBmFSLj8bn95/1
http://diff.pics/VBmFSLj8bn95/2

Expect to see a fix incorporating this change soon.
Click to expand...

Why would you show the difference with spoilery screens? :(

edit: ah ok, it's not that bad.
 
DrDaxxy said:
Alright, I've managed to improve performance by 30-60% (in 4K, on a 980 Ti, a friend reports more than doubled performance on a low-end mobile GPU).

Here's the visual differences (and framerate impact). Warning: if you haven't completed Route A you may find this a bit of a spoiler.
http://diff.pics/VBmFSLj8bn95/1
http://diff.pics/VBmFSLj8bn95/2

Expect to see a fix incorporating this change soon.
Click to expand...

How'd you do it? Did you manage to somehow reduce the performance hit received from global illumination?

Edit: never mind, found your explanation here.
 
heringer said:
Why would you show the difference with spoilery screens? :/
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I currently don't have a save where I can take completely spoiler-free screenshots right now.

ltr said:
How'd you do it? Did you manage to somehow reduce the performance hit received from global illumination?
Click to expand...

I don't even know what global illumination is, beyond "relatively recent technique to do with lighting in computer graphics" (I'm not a graphics guy). I took a frame capture in a profiler, found that 40% of frame time is spent in one shader that loops over an array that always contains 128 elements, and just lowered the length of that array hoping it doesn't break anything. Fortunately, it didn't.
 
DrDaxxy said:
Unfortunately I currently don't have a save where I can take completely spoiler-free screenshots right now.



I don't even know what global illumination is, beyond "relatively recent technique to do with lighting in computer graphics" (I'm not a graphics guy). I took a frame capture in a profiler, found that 40% of frame time is spent in one shader that loops over an array that always contains 128 elements, and just lowered the length of that array hoping it doesn't break anything. Fortunately, it didn't.
Click to expand...

Ok, don't worry. It's not that bad.

Amazing improvement.
 
DrDaxxy said:
Alright, I've managed to improve performance by 30-60% (in 4K, on a 980 Ti, a friend reports more than doubled performance on a low-end mobile GPU).

Here's the visual differences (and framerate impact). Warning: if you haven't completed Route A you may find this a bit of a spoiler.
http://diff.pics/VBmFSLj8bn95/1
http://diff.pics/VBmFSLj8bn95/2

Expect to see a fix incorporating this change soon.
Click to expand...

wow, im using same gpu as yours. i know something is wrong with 4k. nice to know that it can be improved. cheers
 
DrDaxxy said:
Alright, I've managed to improve performance by 30-60% (in 4K, on a 980 Ti, a friend reports more than doubled performance on a low-end mobile GPU).

Here's the visual differences (and framerate impact). Warning: if you haven't completed Route A you may find this a bit of a spoiler.
http://diff.pics/VBmFSLj8bn95/1
http://diff.pics/VBmFSLj8bn95/2

Expect to see a fix incorporating this change soon.
Click to expand...
That's a bit of a console "optimization", given that it's different in output ;)
It looks a bit like it might reduce the propagation distance of GI effects, but that's just a guess based on two images so probably wrong. It would account for a significant performance impact though.

Anyway, improving scalability and configurability is a good thing in general. Great job!
I hope it doesn't break anything throughout the game.
 
I would be interested in testing it in e.g. the desert scene, something like this:
nierautomata_2017_03_stu00.jpg
Click to expand...

Is it possible to integrate it in a way that is easy to toggle during gameplay? That would be great to quickly ascertain that the impact is negligible in different situations.

(Edit: the "it" in this post of course referring to DrDaxxy's rather radical GI tweak)
 
Finished the game with one ending and it runs decently enough.

If only they'd patch the awful LOD distance. It's really distracting seeing a bunch of cardboard boxes until they're right up in your face. Otherwise the game can look quite nice.
 
Looks like in a two weeks I'm going to have a GTX1080, 7600K, 16GB gaming PC and this is really the only game that is making me do this.

Am I safe to assume that I won't have any issue getting a constant 60 at 1080p?

DrDaxxy said:
Alright, I've managed to improve performance by 30-60% (in 4K, on a 980 Ti, a friend reports more than doubled performance on a low-end mobile GPU).

Here's the visual differences (and framerate impact). Warning: if you haven't completed Route A you may find this a bit of a spoiler.
http://diff.pics/VBmFSLj8bn95/1
http://diff.pics/VBmFSLj8bn95/2

Expect to see a fix incorporating this change soon.
Click to expand...

waiiiit, this probably means the Surface Book would have been fine :O
 
Izuna said:
Looks like in a two weeks I'm going to have a GTX1080, 7600K, 16GB gaming PC and this is really the only game that is making me do this.

Am I safe to assume that I won't have any issue getting a constant 60 at 1080p?
Click to expand...

It should stay at 60 for the most part, but there will be some occasional stutter if it's similar to my experience in 1440p.
 
Izuna said:
Coming from being a console gamer for over a decade, that sounds lovely.

Excited. Thanks.
Click to expand...
I play it on a 1080 at 1440p (which is almost twice as many pixels as 1080p) and it's pretty much a locked 60 in gameplay.

You should install it to SSD if possible. And probably downsample a bit, otherwise that 1080 will get bored ;)
 
Sarcasm said:
How do I install this?
Click to expand...

Haven't released anything yet, as I'd prefer to have this integrated into Kaldaien's fix as I don't like the idea of having a dozen different, mutually incompatible fixes that have the same basic purpose for one game when all is said and done (it was fullscreen yesterday, it's GI performance today, maybe it'll be LOD tomorrow...)

And because...

Durante said:
I hope it doesn't break anything throughout the game.
Click to expand...

I'd prefer to do a little more testing than just walking around the world (all in regular thirdperson camera) for a couple minutes before releasing anything into the wild.

Durante said:
Is it possible to integrate it in a way that is easy to toggle during gameplay? That would be great to quickly ascertain that the impact is negligible in different situations.
Click to expand...

Couldn't be easier.
I've got stuff to do right now but I'll play around some more later. Thanks for suggesting the desert, forgot about that.

toastyToast said:
Finished the game with one ending and it runs decently enough.

If only they'd patch the awful LOD distance. It's really distracting seeing a bunch of cardboard boxes until they're right up in your face. Otherwise the game can look quite nice.
Click to expand...

Are you playing with both "Anti-aliasing" (i.e. MSAA) and "Ambient Occlusion" (i.e. AO + postprocess AA (likely SMAA)) turned on? As mentioned before, that combination makes LOD transitions a lot more abrupt.
 
DrDaxxy said:
Are you playing with both "Anti-aliasing" (i.e. MSAA) and "Ambient Occlusion" (i.e. AO + postprocess AA (likely SMAA)) turned on? As mentioned before, that combination makes LOD transitions a lot more abrupt.
Click to expand...

In my experience the LOD transitions are crap with just AO as well. Don't know if this is different with it off though.
I posted an example earlier in the thread.
There's a difference of just 1 or 2 steps between those pics.
 
DrDaxxy, that sounds great. I guess since it regenerates per frame if there is a more significant visual impact somewhere you could even make the parameter auto-adjust based on frametimes.

Ascheroth said:
In my experience the LOD transitions are crap with just AO as well. Don't know if this is different with it off though.
I posted an example earlier in the thread.
There's a difference of just 1 or 2 steps between those pics.
Click to expand...
The difference isn't when the transitions happen, or between which levels, it's how they happen.
If you only use either MSAA or AO(+ppAA), then the transitions are gradual (by dithering I think, didn't pay too much attention). Otherwise (with both) they just flip from one to the other, which is a bit more distracting.
 
So I finally bought a steam key, applied Kaldaien's FAR v.0.0.1 full screen fix and am disappointed by how the game is running on my 7700K, GTX 1080 rig.

Resolution: 1920x1080
V-Sync: On
Anti-Aliasing: Off
Texture Filter: 16x
Blur: On
Shadows: High
Effects: High
Ambient Occlusion: On

I had hoped for rock solid 60 fps, but according to the yellow on screen info the game is rarely running at 60 fps, mostly at about 59,5 - 59,8 fps and often enough slows down to 55 fps or below.

Played until the resistance camp and it's annoying that instead of just enjoying the game I'm constantly checking the framerate.
Will switch back to the window borderless gaming tool to see whether the gaming runs better that way. Should I get rid of Kaldaien's fix to do that?

Also doesn't help that the bluetooth connection from my bluetooth adapter to the PS4 controller seems to add a bit more lag compared to the PS4 console connection.

Any PS4 Pro/PC comparison video out yet? Maybe I should just give up and get the PS4 version. Can't get a refund for the steam version anymore, though.
 
Durante said:
DrDaxxy, that sounds great. I guess since it regenerates per frame if there is a more significant visual impact somewhere you could even make the parameter auto-adjust based on frametimes.

The difference isn't when the transitions happen, or between which levels, it's how they happen.
If you only use either MSAA or AO(+ppAA), then the transitions are gradual (by dithering I think, didn't pay too much attention). Otherwise (with both) they just flip from one to the other, which is a bit more distracting.
Click to expand...

Ok, the 'how' is definitely gradual for me.
But the 'when' is way too aggressive regardless :P
 
Yappadappadu said:
So I finally bought a steam key, applied Kaldaien's FAR v.0.0.1 full screen fix and am disappointed by how the game is running on my 7700K, GTX 1080 rig.

Resolution: 1920x1080
V-Sync: On
Anti-Aliasing: Off
Texture Filter: 16x
Blur: On
Shadows: High
Effects: High
Ambient Occlusion: On

I had hoped for rock solid 60 fps, but according to the yellow on screen info the game is rarely running at 60 fps, mostly at about 59,5 - 59,8 fps and often enough slows down to 55 fps or below.

Played until the resistance camp and it's annoying that instead of just enjoying the game I'm constantly checking the framerate.
Will switch back to the window borderless gaming tool to see whether the gaming runs better that way. Should I get rid of Kaldaien's fix to do that?

Also doesn't help that the bluetooth connection from my bluetooth adapter to the PS4 controller seems to add a bit more lag compared to the PS4 console connection.

Any PS4 Pro/PC comparison video out yet? Maybe I should just give up and get the PS4 version. Can't get a refund for the steam version anymore, though.
Click to expand...
I don't think getting a version that routinely drops into the 40s (and below) FPS wise while running at 900p is a solution for your dislike of it running at 59,8 FPS.

Anyway, try getting rid of anything external, run the game in borderless fullscreen, and use RTSS' frame limiter at 60. That's what I do, and it's perfectly smooth for me in gameplay at 2560x1440 on a 1080.
 
Yappadappadu said:
Any PS4 Pro/PC comparison video out yet? Maybe I should just give up and get the PS4 version. Can't get a refund for the steam version anymore, though.
Click to expand...

I kind of don't get this. DF did profile the game on the both the pro and regular ps4. You're likely to get even worse performance on those.
 
Durante said:
I play it on a 1080 at 1440p (which is almost twice as many pixels as 1080p) and it's pretty much a locked 60 in gameplay.

You should install it to SSD if possible. And probably downsample a bit, otherwise that 1080 will get bored ;)
Click to expand...

Yeah, will be getting an SSD for OS and currently played games.

I've never done it so I don't know if I should DSR or SGSSAA

Will be keeping this gaming 1080p TN panel, but if I'm actually using a desktop maybe it won't be as bad.
 
DrDaxxy said:
Are you playing with both "Anti-aliasing" (i.e. MSAA) and "Ambient Occlusion" (i.e. AO + postprocess AA (likely SMAA)) turned on? As mentioned before, that combination makes LOD transitions a lot more abrupt.
Click to expand...

Just AO. While it is an improvement, the proper level of detail phases in way too close. It's not like we're dealing with pristine textures here. They should be loading in from much further out.
 
Izuna said:
Yeah, will be getting an SSD for OS and currently played games.

I've never done it so I don't know if I should DSR or SGSSAA
Click to expand...
For this particular game, DSR. (And unless you use an external fullscreen fix, you'll need to switch your dektop resolution to the DSR resolution before starting the game.)

Generally, for games where SGSSAA works well (sadly a rarity these days) you should use that.
 
Durante said:
For this particular game, DSR. (And unless you use an external fullscreen fix, you'll need to witch your dektop resolution to the DSR resolution before starting the game.

Generally, for games where SGSSAA works well (sadly a rarity these days) you should use that.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'll stay subscribed to this thread. Will post impressions when I can.

Edit: And write a batch file to switch the resolution before launching the game ofc.
 
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