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Nier: Automata PC performance thread

Any fixes for the awful cutscene framerates? Someone on reddit suggested setting max pre-rendered frames to 4 with Nvidia GPUs and turning off vsync, but it didn't help me at all.

I want to play the game so much, but the scenes are so goddamn awful at times I don't know what to do lol

I tried this "setting max pre-rendered frames to 4" thing and I think it actually worked. I played through about half of the tutorial and cutscenes seem smoother.
 
I might have to give up on this game for a while. I get random Nvidia driver crashes, could happen after 20 minutes or 2 hours. Screen freezes but audio still plays and controller functions still work, looks like I'm not alone (780 / 780Ti issue) :
http://steamcommunity.com/app/524220/discussions/0/135511913382921167/

Apart from the stuttery cutscenes, the game runs at 60FPS although every 3 or 4 seconds it drops 1 or 2 frames causing a bit of judder, even if I'm standing still. Can get RTSS overlay working but not framerate cap, this game with V-Sync off looks awful as well.

Settings:
AO and AA: Off
AF: x16
Shadows: Medium
Effects: High
Res: 1080p

Spec:
CPU: i7 4930K
GTX 780 Ti
16 GB RAM
 

Coreda

Member
Saw this earlier and thought I'd quote it in case it's of use to anyone. Haven't tried it myself.

The game seems to be skipping a frame or 2 every other second, causing stutter. Not all the time, but consistenly every 2 seconds or so. Seems like a timing issue.

With MGR:R and DS3 I had to run the game in windowed mode and set my display to 59Hz since FSE automatically selects 60Hz. Then it would sync at ~59 FPS and run smoothly.

Thanks a lot, this fixed it!

Windowed mode + Borderless Gaming + 59hz refresh rate = Butter mode engaged!
 

Flandy

Member
My friend was getting really frustrated with performance, since she is playing at 4K. She tried tweaking everything and was getting really bad fps (like not even 30 fps was consistent. So she tried all the tips you guys had, the borderless gaming app.

But then it dawned on her. Mass Effect had not yet supported SLI, so people were adding the game to Battlefield 1 profile using nvidia Inspector. So she added Nier to the Battlefield 1 profile and hit apply changes. And bam, now she gets 60 fps with no dips so far (she's still at the beginning ground parts). She does have AA turned off and AO on, and is using the Reshade profile. But everything else is 4K ultra.

Her GTX 1080s are both at 99% usage and she's now getting 60 fps locked. So to those with sli, try using nvidia inspector and adding Nier exe to the Battlefield 1 profile (make sure to apply changes). Massive difference.
 

~Kinggi~

Banned
Not buying this until they patch the \real issues with the game, which im most definitely willing to bet they wont. 60$ is way overpriced for this type of port.
 
Guys, how do I set a res lower than the monitor's resolution in Borderless Gaming (so that it scales to my monitor's resolution)? Had to set the game to full-screen ingame (getting sub-30 fps in even 480p lmao)

I guess I'll have to wait for performance improvement patches before I can even play the game
 
I wonder if I can downsample to 1080p from 1440p with my good old 280X at stable 60fps

So anyone with 280x/380x??

Looks like the game run badly on Nvidia card from what I've seen. My 280x seems able to run it pretty smoothly with 4x AA, 16x Texture Filtering @1080p. While someone with the equivalent of the Nvidia seems barely able to run it. eDIT: Oh crap, it's actually only 2xAA. Higher than that and my FPS tanked like titanic.

...I'm on a 280X and at 1080p with AA off and medium shadow quality I'm getting mostly 60fps during gameplay...

Running a 7970 GE 3GB (same card as the 280X) at stock clocks (1000core/1450mem), I was getting the same results as Dragon1893 (mostly 60 fps), up until I got to the City Ruins: the grass-intensive wide-open area caused the frame rate to fluctuate more widely, ranging from 48 to 60 fps. In some cases the frame rate hitches were seemingly due to streaming issues, but I was also able to find an area where I could stand still (with lot of grass, enemies and boars in the frame) and the frame rate was steady at 49 fps.

In-game settings: 1920x1080, Windowed Mode + Borderless Gaming, V-Sync on, AA off, Texture Filter 16x, Blur Off, Shadows Medium, Effects High, AO off. VRAM usage peak was around 2200MB. CPU is 3770K @ 4.53, game is installed on an SSD.

Incidentally, I’m running the 7970 GE at stock clocks since this is the first game I’ve come across that doesn’t agree with my 1171core/1650mem overclock (some graphical glitches occurred that disappeared when I return the card to stock clocks). Game has never crashed though, and these particular glitches that I encountered (which were unrelated to the noticeable/aggressive texture LOD management) went away after returning the GPU to stock clocks.

Really neat game so far! Though I’m often able to overlook these types of performance issues. And I'd still probably be interested in tweaks that circumvent the over-aggressive texture LOD.
 
So undecided.
Guess I'll download the steam version and play for abt. 2 hrs (7700K CPU with GTX 1080) before I decide whether I keep it or ask for a refund.
Still eyeing that PS4 steelbook edition that I could play on my PS4 Pro.
 
Is your GPU overclocked?

No GPU/CPU OC at all. I can see the driver has crashed by looking in the Windows Event Viewer. Probably an issue with Kepler cards from what I've seen on the Steam forums.

I wouldn't mind so much but I just spent 40 minutes or so in the Desert section with no save point in site and it crashed at the end of a boss fight and I lost all that progress. If I could save more regularly I'd still be playing it now :-(
 
The thing that prevents me from buying this port now is the pop in issues I saw in the videos. Has to be a bug. I don't know if I could deal with that distractions the whole time.
 
Guys, how do I set a res lower than the monitor's resolution in Borderless Gaming? Had to set the game to full-screen ingame (getting sub-30 fps in even 480p lmao)
Lol, set it to sub-400p full-screen (ingame) and I think at one point it started to cause slowdown due to scaling the low-res image.
 

Momentary

Banned
Hey, I tried your ReShade preset but for some reason everything but MXAO works for me. Any ideas why that may be?

You've got to completely turn off AA for the game and might as well turn off AO for the game as well if you have that on. It should work after that.
 

concept_612TX

Neo Member
I might have to give up on this game for a while. I get random Nvidia driver crashes, could happen after 20 minutes or 2 hours. Screen freezes but audio still plays and controller functions still work, looks like I'm not alone (780 / 780Ti issue) :
http://steamcommunity.com/app/524220/discussions/0/135511913382921167/

Apart from the stuttery cutscenes, the game runs at 60FPS although every 3 or 4 seconds it drops 1 or 2 frames causing a bit of judder, even if I'm standing still. Can get RTSS overlay working but not framerate cap, this game with V-Sync off looks awful as well.


I got this same problem but with a gtx970. I'm playing window borderless, disabled AO, AA, and vsync from game settings and nvidia CP. Then I also disabled the Windows driver update manager.

After these changes I was able to play without problems for two hours or so and I though it was fixed, but playing today it froze again.

I decided to move the game to my SSD and I,ve been playing for about 4 hours without problems. I'll keep playing and update if it freezes again.

Borderless Window at 1080p
AF 16x
Shadows medium
Effects high
Everything else if it can be turned off, off

Cpu: i5 4590
GTX 970 OC
8 GB RAM
Nvidia 378.78

Update:
Been playing for two days without a freeze since I moved the game to the ssd. Runs very nice at 60fps most of the time just some small drops to 49-55fps while traveling. Enjoying the game a lot.
 
Rather surprised by the steady performance from my 290. Mainly 55-60FPS, with random dips to low 50s. This is with 1080P and High Present except for 2x AA.

Other PC Specs:
i7-3960X @ 4.25
16GB RAM
WD Raptor 1TB

But yeah, the LOD pop-in is way more apparent in the PC version I feel. The FPS issues with the cutscenes is something I can live personally, but I can see it being an issue for some. I also got a random hard crash when getting to the
flying unit hanger bay in the bunker
.

As a person who played on both the PS4 Pro and PC versions I would probably lean towards the Pro version for the LOD pop-in issues alone, but I guess that will depend on you. EDIT ADDED: Just like what other people pointed out, turning off AO has helped with my pop-in gripes.

I won't say it's a "good" port, but for the most part it's been a "serviceable" experience for me outside of that random crash I explained earlier. That being said, it could be a lot worse. :: points at K-T's offerings ::
 

Copper

Member
Using RTSS makes the game locked at 60. Now I only get a few drops when I transition to new areas for a second. Game is glorious in 21:9.
 

Crevox

Member
My friend was getting really frustrated with performance, since she is playing at 4K. She tried tweaking everything and was getting really bad fps (like not even 30 fps was consistent. So she tried all the tips you guys had, the borderless gaming app.

But then it dawned on her. Mass Effect had not yet supported SLI, so people were adding the game to Battlefield 1 profile using nvidia Inspector. So she added Nier to the Battlefield 1 profile and hit apply changes. And bam, now she gets 60 fps with no dips so far (she's still at the beginning ground parts). She does have AA turned off and AO on, and is using the Reshade profile. But everything else is 4K ultra.

Her GTX 1080s are both at 99% usage and she's now getting 60 fps locked. So to those with sli, try using nvidia inspector and adding Nier exe to the Battlefield 1 profile (make sure to apply changes). Massive difference.

Wish this worked for me, but it doesn't. It causes lighting artifacts and still doesn't hold 60 FPS.

Right now, my best experience with the game (SLI 1080) is just 1080p. Anything higher causes me to drop frames sometimes, especially once you get past the prologue.
 

Seik

Banned
Can I get a refund if I find out that the game runs like shit on my setup?

I'm really tempted to buy it but all these issues are getting me on the fence.

I have a GTX1060 3GB and my CPU i5 2500K @ 4.5ghz
 
Guys, how do I set a res lower than the monitor's resolution in Borderless Gaming (so that it scales to my monitor's resolution)? Had to set the game to full-screen ingame (getting sub-30 fps in even 480p lmao)

I guess I'll have to wait for performance improvement patches before I can even play the game

So like for example, how can I force Borderless Gaming to render the game in 720p and then scale that to fullscreen?
 

Crevox

Member
So like for example, how can I force Borderless Gaming to render the game in 720p and then scale that to fullscreen?

I was able to set the game to any resolution in windowed mode, and then scale it to full screen from there with Borderless Gaming (just hitting make borderless). The game would render at the desired resolution.

Can I get a refund if I find out that the game runs like shit on my setup?

As long as your playtime on Steam for the game is under 2 hours, then yeah, you can get a refund with minimal effort.
 

Ascheroth

Member
Rather surprised by the steady performance from my 290. Mainly 55-60FPS, with random dips to low 50s. This is with 1080P and High Present except for 2x AA.

Other PC Specs:
i7-3960X @ 4.25
16GB RAM
WD Raptor 1TB

But yeah, the LOD pop-in is way more apparent in the PC version I feel. The FPS issues with the cutscenes is something I can live personally, but I can see it being an issue for some. I also got a random hard crash when getting to the
flying unit hanger bay in the bunker
.

As a person who played on both the PS4 Pro and PC versions I would probably lean towards the Pro version for the LOD pop-in issues alone, but I guess that will depend on you. EDIT ADDED: Just like what other people pointed out, turning off AO has helped with my pop-in gripes.

I won't say it's a "good" port, but for the most part it's been a "serviceable" experience for me outside of that random crash I explained earlier. That being said, it could be a lot worse. :: points at K-T's offerings ::
There's definitely something wrong with the LOD, because I refuse to believe this is intended:

There's definitely something wonky going on with the LOD though.
It's WAAAAAAYYY too aggressive: Example.
Game looks actually pretty good with some minor ReShade tweaks (the screenshots are without those), it's the LOD that makes everything look like shit.
Don't want to disable AO though because the game looks like crap without it.

Here's a comparison shot of the PS4 Pro and the PC after using ReShade.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/203807

Not a very good screenshot, but it's the only one I could find that I could compare easily. In grassy areas that game looks even better.
Damn, that looks great.
What's the config? (Sorry if you've posted it already)
 

Paragon

Member
The thing that prevents me from buying this port now is the pop in issues I saw in the videos. Has to be a bug. I don't know if I could deal with that distractions the whole time.
It's a bug when Anti-Aliasing and Ambient Occlusion are enabled together.
You can use one or the other and the grass will fade in smoothly instead of popping in.
The draw distance is still quite short though.

Here's a comparison shot of the PS4 Pro and the PC after using ReShade.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/203807
Not a very good screenshot, but it's the only one I could find that I could compare easily. In grassy areas that game looks even better.
Hmm, it doesn't look like shadows are being properly filtered on PC.
I did notice that they seemed quite low resolution/blocky at times, but I just assumed that was the game and not the PC version.
 
Is it just me or does the game have weird frame drops but it doesn't show in rivatuner. Like it looks and feels like the fps dips but im watching my fps meter and it never went below 60.
 

Zanzura

Member
I was able to set the game to any resolution in windowed mode, and then scale it to full screen from there with Borderless Gaming (just hitting make borderless). The game would render at the desired resolution.

Doing that results in very poor scaling and a more pixelated image than switching to the desired resolution on the desktop. At least it does on my 1440p monitor. Forcing 1080p via Borderless Gaming when using 1440p on desktop results in poorer image quality than changing the resolution on the desktop and then forcing Borderless. This is extremely obvious when opening the Steam Overlay, the text loses a lot of clarity.
 

Ragnaroz

Member
Moving the game to my SSD helped with the random FPS drops to below 30.

AA 2x, no AO, blur and vsync and everything else on max and I have a steady 60 fps.

i5-6600
RX470 4gb
16gb DDR4 2400MHz
 

Flandy

Member
Wish this worked for me, but it doesn't. It causes lighting artifacts and still doesn't hold 60 FPS.

Right now, my best experience with the game (SLI 1080) is just 1080p. Anything higher causes me to drop frames sometimes, especially once you get past the prologue.

Strange. I wonder how it can work for her perfectly, but not you. You have the same card.

She is also using borderless Windows app. Has AA turned off and AO on. She is in window mode (but borderless app makes it full).

If you've tried all of that and it doesn't work, then she's baffled. She is getting 90-99% on both GPUs and is 60 locked at 4K everything MAX. Even an hour in now. Was a massive performance increase. I wonder why it's so drastically different. Would CPU difference have an impact in that regard?
 
Can I get a refund if I find out that the game runs like shit on my setup?

I'm really tempted to buy it but all these issues are getting me on the fence.

I have a GTX1060 3GB and my CPU i5 2500K @ 4.5ghz
Of course. You should be fine, though. I have the same setup p much (except swap the 2500K w an i7 2600), and the game runs fine for me. Just some drops to the 50s when traveling the open world, but that's it.

EDIT: actually I just realized, I have the 6GB version. not sure how much that would change things.
 
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