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Nier: Automata PC performance thread

MaLDo

Member
I don't get it, they seem so eager to make FFXV a good PC port (ofc, that remains to be seen, since they're still in sales-man mode), and then they don't even patch the most basic shit in Nier.
I'm sure it wouldn't take much, given how modders were able to fix many of the issues alone.

Maybe they are happy enough with the community fix and believe that it's not necessary to patch it? Looking at what is happening with Prey (they removed the pad support in the 1.05 patch and still have not solved it even though a user has made a mod that fixes it), it seems that users are doing the work now and they are ok with it.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Maybe they are happy enough with the community fix and believe that it's not necessary to patch it? Looking at what is happening with Prey (they removed the pad support in the 1.05 patch and still have not solved it even though a user has made a mod that fixes it), it seems that users are doing the work now and they are ok with it.

That's just a misunderstanding. There's still full controller support, but you need to reinitialise the game (or maybe just the input system by accessing the controls menu) while a controller is connected for it to enable itself again. No fix or client-level controller support required.
 

MaLDo

Member
That's just a misunderstanding. There's still full controller support, but you need to reinitialise the game (or maybe just the input system by accessing the controls menu) while a controller is connected for it to enable itself again. No fix or client-level controller support required.


¿?

Are you really sure? I did lots of tests before giving up. And restarting the game and messing with the controls were some of those tests.

Days later I copied the dll from the user fix and worked perfectly.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
¿?

Are you really sure? I did lots of tests before giving up. And restarting the game and messing with the controls were some of those tests.

Days later I copied the dll from the user fix and worked perfectly.

Like everyone else, my X1 controller wasn't being detected at first post-update, but after finding nothing in the controls menu and changing from windowed to fullscreen, it began working as it did before.

Edit: Another GAFer said much the same thing. I'm not sure if the game ever supported rumble, though, as I didn't try playing it with a controller until I'd read about the update.
 

MaLDo

Member
Like everyone else, my X1 controller wasn't being detected at first post-update, but after finding nothing in the controls menu and changing from windowed to fullscreen, it began working as it did before.

Edit: Another GAFer said much the same thing. I'm not sure if the game ever supported rumble, though, as I didn't try playing it with a controller until I'd read about the update.

What that poster said is he now is using the steam emulation function where the controller works like a mouse. So he has camera stuttering and lack of force feedback. That's the definition of no native support.

Thread in steam about this problem has 22 pages
https://steamcommunity.com/app/480490/discussions/0/1471967615840235656/

Lots of people are using the mod fix
https://steamcommunity.com/app/480490/discussions/0/1471967615872741709/

I can't see how they all missed something as simple as restarting the game.

Description of the mod:
While Prey offers good controller support, patch v1.05 introduced various issues. Instead of choosing either XInput or the Steam Controller API based on the user settings, the game always uses the latter. This results either in problems with the movement as well as certain controller settings or in the controller not working at all if the user has disabled the usage of the Steam Controller API in game's properties in Steam.

This fix re-enables XInput support and forces the game to use it, regardless of the settings.
 

dawid

Member
Can anyone tell me if the FAR-setting for borderless(upscaled) deliver the same resolution as the fullscreen one? Does the fullscreen-setting also upscale a bit?

Any other opinions on fullscreen vs borderless in this would be appreciated. Performance, crash expectancy etc :)
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
What that poster said is he now is using the steam emulation function where the controller works like a mouse. So he has camera stuttering and lack of force feedback. That's the definition of no native support.

He didn't have to enable Xbox controller support within Steam to get his controller working, though, and neither did I.
 

MaLDo

Member
He didn't have to enable Xbox controller support within Steam to get his controller working, though, and neither did I.


But i dont have rumble feedback, unless I check the Xbox configuration support option in steam. Not sure if this is normal or required.

The only thing I have noticed now is camera stutter which I think someone mentioned in the OT thread. When I circle round a fixed point the camera is not smooth like before and looks like micro stutters :/ something is broken for sure, before it was butter smooth


He is using steam API, knowing it or not. I'm pretty sure.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
He is using steam API, knowing it or not. I'm pretty sure.

You've chopped off a pretty important part of that paragraph:

Same here my XBOX ONE pad is working fine after the update. But i dont have rumble feedback, unless I check the Xbox configuration support option in steam. Not sure if this is normal or required.

The "but" is just in reference to rumble support, not general controller support.
 

MaLDo

Member
You've chopped off a pretty important part of that paragraph:



The "but" is just in reference to rumble support, not general controller support.


There is no camera stuttering with xinput native support as you can see if you download the fix.

We're walking circles. Please test both solutions as I did and the difference is massive. Xinput native support doesn't work in 1.05 version of the game.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
There is no camera stuttering with xinput native support as you can see if you download the fix.

We're walking circles. Please test both solutions as I did and the difference is massive. Xinput native support doesn't work in 1.05 version of the game.

I don't have the fix installed and none of Steam's own controller support options are enabled, yet I assure you my X1 controller works just fine -- stutter-free camera and all. I imagine ktroopa was experiencing camera stutter despite being able to play the game without Steam's in-built controller support enabled because he had enabled it for the sake of rumble support.

Edit: Rumble feedback is there, too; it most definitely makes its presence known when firing the GLOO gun. I think the problem is that, in some cases, the game mistakenly opts for the Steam Controller API instead of Xinput or otherwise just doesn't correctly initialise controller support, so there's this bizarre situation where one of three things will happen:

1) Controller support will work as intended (e.g. me)
2) Controller support will sort of work as intended (e.g. ktroopa), or
3) Controller support will just flat out not work without the fix (e.g. you)
 

MaLDo

Member
I don't have the fix installed and none of Steam's own controller support options are enabled, yet I assure you my X1 controller works just fine -- stutter-free camera and all. I imagine ktroopa was experiencing camera stutter despite being able to play the game without Steam's in-built controller support enabled because he had enabled it for the sake of rumble support.

Edit: Rumble feedback is there, too; it most definitely makes its presence known when firing the GLOO gun. I think the problem is that, in some cases, the game mistakenly opts for the Steam Controller API instead of Xinput or otherwise just doesn't correctly initialise controller support, so there's this bizarre situation where one of three things will happen:

1) Controller support will work as intended (e.g. me)
2) Controller support will sort of work as intended (e.g. ktroopa), or
3) Controller support will just flat out not work without the fix (e.g. you)


I don't know. All the cases of people who claimed not to have problems in the steam forums, ended up accepting that they had some problem after more testing.

I do not see what may be the reason that makes the game jump between those 3 options you listed. What I've seen is pretty inconsistent behaviour in how steam deals with different kinds of games enabling/disabling the controller steam API.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
I don't know. All the cases of people who claimed not to have problems in the steam forums, ended up accepting that they had some problem after more testing.

I have button icons, the buttons themselves function as expected, and the camera doesn't stutter whatsoever, even when rotating it as quickly as possible on the spot. If you can think of another problem I should have, then by all means, I'm all ears.
 

MaLDo

Member
I have button icons, the buttons themselves function as expected, and the camera doesn't stutter whatsoever, even when rotating it as quickly as possible on the spot. If you can think of another problem I should have, then by all means, I'm all ears.

Ok, 20 minutes doing more testing XD For a second, I've achieved the game doesn't work with the controller even with the mod :p

Please, I ask you to do some simple tests. It will take a minute.

Go to the control options -> controller, and make sure you have disabled the "Always show controller indicators" option (maybe the translation is different). Disabling it allows the UI to jump between mouse/keyboard and controller buttons whatever you touch them.

Then go to the options menu and click on the triggers to change the tab, notice if there is a flicker in the button indicators by jumping between keyboard keys and control buttons.

Another test is, in the controls tab, in the keyboard section, focus on one of the actions, walking forward for example. Press Enter on your keyboard to redefine that action, and then press the BACK button on your controller. Is any button / key assigned? In my case, in the scenario where the controller works without the mod, I can see the Tab key assigned even when xbox controller config is disabled in steam.

I want to note that browsing the profiles for controllers in Steam for Prey, the recommended is the Arkane official xbox 360 controller profile. If Prey has native xinput controller support (and this includes the 360 controller), why has Arkane created an official profile precisely for that controller?

To be sure Steam is not messing with the implementation of the controller in a game, you need to do more than enabling/disabling that function in the steam parameters menu. You have to:

Go to steam parameters and ENABLE xbox / ps4

01w4su3.jpg


Enter in Picture mode, go to Prey section, Manage Game and Controller configuration and then disable the Use steam configuration for non-steam controllers

039mjik.jpg



It seems that this option sometimes is enabled by default, it overrides the controller config you have in steam general parameters, and is not visible/changeable if you don't enable the general controller support in steam. That's the reason I can have controller controls in the game, with controller UI (because Prey has a "always show controller UI" option) but is not perfectly smooth, because is not native.
After that, disable the xbox/ps4 controller support in steam parameters.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Go to the control options -> controller, and make sure you have disabled the "Always show controller indicators" option (maybe the translation is different). Disabling it allows the UI to jump between mouse/keyboard and controller buttons whatever you touch them.

Then go to the options menu and click on the triggers to change the tab, notice if there is a flicker in the button indicators by jumping between keyboard keys and control buttons.

The game changes input methods on-the-fly, yes.

Another test is, in the controls tab, in the keyboard section, focus on one of the actions, walking forward for example. Press Enter on your keyboard to redefine that action, and then press the BACK button on your controller. Is any button / key assigned? In my case, in the scenario where the controller works without the mod, I can see the Tab key assigned even when xbox controller config is disabled in steam.

Nope. It just reverts back to the previous key.

To be sure Steam is not messing with the implementation of the controller in a game, you need to do more than enabling/disabling that function in the steam parameters menu. You have to:

<snip>

Okay, so, this is where it gets interesting. "Use Steam configuration ..." was indeed enabled and the game does indeed not detect the controller when it's disabled (i.e. there is in fact no Xinput support), but, to reiterate, there's no wonkiness in-game. The controller works perfectly provided it can communicate with the Steam Controller API.
 

MaLDo

Member
The game changes input methods on-the-fly, yes.



Nope. It just reverts back to the previous key.



Okay, so, this is where it gets interesting. "Use Steam configuration ..." was indeed enabled and the game does indeed not detect the controller when it's disabled (i.e. there is in fact no Xinput support), but, to reiterate, there's no wonkiness in-game. The controller works perfectly provided it can communicate with the Steam Controller API.


So, I was correct. Camera stuttering with the steam API emulator is not high enough to annoy you, but is there. Is impossible for me to play that way but I suppose everyone has a different threshold.

The end of this is Prey can not be played with a controller without Steam doing the work. And the steam implementation is not good enough for most of the people. Arkane fucked that in last patch and doesn't fix for a while.
 

Dremorak

Banned
So if I have the choice of buying this on the PC or on ps4 for essentially the same price (they are both on sale) which one should I choose? I have a really good PC which I can use to play with a controller on the tv, and also have a base ps4. Opinions?
 

MaLDo

Member
So if I have the choice of buying this on the PC or on ps4 for essentially the same price (they are both on sale) which one should I choose? I have a really good PC which I can use to play with a controller on the tv, and also have a base ps4. Opinions?

PC (is way better than consoles) + a simple dll file created by a user that fixes the problem.
 

Durante

Member
So if I have the choice of buying this on the PC or on ps4 for essentially the same price (they are both on sale) which one should I choose? I have a really good PC which I can use to play with a controller on the tv, and also have a base ps4. Opinions?
PS4 or PS4 Pro?
If the former, PC is a much better choice, easily.
If the latter, it comes down to whether you mind installing a third-party mod (which is really simple). With it, on a "really good" PC, you'll get a significantly higher quality experience.
 

MaLDo

Member
PS4 or PS4 Pro?
If the former, PC is a much better choice, easily.
If the latter, it comes down to whether you mind installing a third-party mod (which is really simple). With it, on a "really good" PC, you'll get a significantly higher quality experience.


30 fps with 130 ms of input lag on ps4 pro (I mean Prey)
 

Dremorak

Banned
PS4 or PS4 Pro?
If the former, PC is a much better choice, easily.
If the latter, it comes down to whether you mind installing a third-party mod (which is really simple). With it, on a "really good" PC, you'll get a significantly higher quality experience.

Okay, great. I've only got a base ps4, so will go for the Steam version then. Thanks!
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
So, I was correct.

Well, you went from "v1.05 removed controller support" to "v1.05 removed Xinput support", but, yes, I did acknowledge that the latter is accurate.

Camera stuttering with the steam API emulator is not high enough to annoy you, but is there. Is impossible for me to play that way but I suppose everyone has a different threshold.

I wasn't lying about there being no perceivable camera stutter. If I noticed any such thing, I would have mentioned it, regardless of whether it was persistent/severe enough to be annoying.

Edit: Here's a 1080p60 clip of me rotating the camera a few times.
 

MaLDo

Member
About the game now lacking Xinput support, yes, which I acknowledged.



I wasn't lying about there being no perceivable camera stutter. If I noticed any such thing, I would have mentioned it, regardless of whether it was persistent/severe enough to be annoying.

Edit: Here's a 1080p60 clip of me rotating the camera a few times.

¿?

You have to do it slowly. At that speed, the judder is lower than the gap between the video frames XD

I just recorded two videos with the slow motion recording of the iphone. Sending the videos by email is shitty because you lose the 60 fps and the high resolution, but whatever, the slow motion part is clear enough to show the difference. If someone knows how to send the videos full framerate and full resolution, please help me.

XInput. Perfectly smooth.
https://youtu.be/D0m2rF7z7eM

SteamAPI mouse emulation. Juddery mess.
https://youtu.be/dJr5mWReLKU
 

Jeremy

Member
I have a 780 Ti and a i5-4690k. Am I better off just picking up a PS4 (non-Pro) copy while it's on sale at BB?

Finally got around to do research and definitely just gonna jump on PS4 version, read there are a lot of problems with 700 series cards so ah well.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
¿?

You have to do it slowly. At that speed, the judder is lower than the gap between the video frames XD

I'll get back to you via PM. If we can agree on only one thing, it's that we've derailed this thread more than enough. ;)

Since when did this thread become about Prey?

A fair question. This has dragged on longer than I thought it would and did snowball into the predominant point of discussion. I do apologise.
 
So if I have the choice of buying this on the PC or on ps4 for essentially the same price (they are both on sale) which one should I choose? I have a really good PC which I can use to play with a controller on the tv, and also have a base ps4. Opinions?

PC is worth it if you have a really good PC. I'm a lifelong console player. The FAR mod was really simple to use, and I used a mod to add PlayStation button prompts.
 
Finally got around to do research and definitely just gonna jump on PS4 version, read there are a lot of problems with 700 series cards so ah well.


These issues has been fixed for 700 series iirc. You'll likely run into a lot more performance issues with non pro PS4.
 

MaLDo

Member
In order to apologize the Prey derail of the thread and celebrating that JaseC and me reached a friendly agreement by PM, cdkeys has put today a discount for Nier: Automata. 31€ (29€ if you click the "get 5% discount" in their facebook page)
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Speaking of the game being on sale, a reminder that, if you're thinking of buying it on Steam, time played in Offline Mode doesn't count against the two-hour window on refunds. Now, I'd advise against using that loophole to essentially play the game for free (which is a roundabout version of piracy, really), but I do think it has a legitimate use in that it allows you to do as much as testing as you need to without fear of accidentally running over two hours of playtime and potentially being denied a refund. Once you've got the game running at a level you consider acceptable, you can go back online and use the two hours to properly decide whether you want to keep it or refund it.
 

juicyb

Member
My friend just gifted this game to me on Steam the other day, and I downloaded the program that let's you put it in windowed mode, which for some reason makes fullscreen work properly. I'm playing on a controller and the mouse cursor is pretty much stuck in the middle of my screen, and everytime I move it out of the middle, it seems to sneak back after about a minute. Is there any fix for this? Should I just unplug my mouse for now? lol
 

Shifty1897

Member
I don't get it, they seem so eager to make FFXV a good PC port (ofc, that remains to be seen, since they're still in sales-man mode), and then they don't even patch the most basic shit in Nier.
I'm sure it wouldn't take much, given how modders were able to fix many of the issues alone.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/09/the-pc-issues-that-need-fixing-before-final-fantasy-xv-launches-on-windows/

It seems that the much touted Windows version of FFXV may also be a dumpster fire.
 
Damn it.

PC's too weak to handle the game so I was planning to double dip once I got a PS4. Sucks to hear that framerate issues are there too.
I don't get this post. If you care about performance so much why not upgrade your PC or buy a Pro?

If you don't care to upgrade or just can't why even care about performance since you know you won't be getting it any ways.
 

Paragon

Member
I'm glad that the article complains about poor keyboard and mouse support.
Too many people are willing to excuse terrible KB&M support in PC ports because they just treat their PC like a high-end console, with it hooked up to a TV and only ever using an Xbox controller to play games.
Nier is one of those games too. The camera control and aiming is absolutely broken using a mouse, yet no-one seems to care. I think it's a big contributor as to why I fell off the game pretty quickly and haven't returned to it. That, and it not running as well as I'd like on my GTX 1070 at 3440x1440.
 
I don't get this post. If you care about performance so much why not upgrade your PC or buy a Pro?

If you don't care to upgrade or just can't why even care about performance since you know you won't be getting it any ways.

I thought that the PS4 version was mostly 60fps.

My PC can't handle the game, as in I literally can't get a consistent 20FPS below sub-720p resolutions. (2012 laptop)

No money to upgrade PC or buy a Pro (high school senior here).

That's why I was disappointed to hear that a default PS4 has problems with the performance. (I am planning to get a PS4 in a few months.) This is just a game I have very high expectations for.
 

ezodagrom

Member
I thought that the PS4 version was mostly 60fps.

My PC can't handle the game, as in I literally can't get a consistent 20FPS below sub-720p resolutions. (2012 laptop)

No money to upgrade PC or buy a Pro (high school senior here).

That's why I was disappointed to hear that a default PS4 has problems with the performance. (I am planning to get a PS4 in a few months.) This is just a game I have very high expectations for.
From DigitalFoundry's video, PS4 version runs at 900p with little to no AA, little to no AF, no motion blur, while the PS4 Pro version runs at 1080p with AA, AF and motion blur.

Both versions have framerate drops, though the regular PS4 version tends to have worse performance overall (sometimes dropping to 40~ish fps). Both versions also have frametime spikes in the open world part.
 
From DigitalFoundry's video, PS4 version runs at 900p with little to no AA, little to no AF, no motion blur, while the PS4 Pro version runs at 1080p with AA, AF and motion blur.

Both versions have framerate drops, though the regular PS4 version tends to have worse performance overall (sometimes dropping to 40~ish fps). Both versions also have frametime spikes in the open world part.

Thank you for the information.
 

Shifty1897

Member
So, I caved and bought the PC version last night, after swearing not to until they patch it. I applied FAR and set shadows to medium and lighting from ultra to high and set the mouse cursor to hide and... it runs surprisingly okay. Practically zero dips from 60fps during gameplay at 1080p so far. I'm having a blast with it.
 
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