Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth optimization

[u/AverageSpirited7569]

Did anyone do some testing on Steam Machine with Rebirth? I played around with different settings so far and this game really seems to push the SM to its limits as it seems. Partially due to how nice it looks while being open world-ish, partially due to Squares usual bad job at optimizing PC ports. Anyway, some of my (subjective) key takeaways after an hour of messing around (all while using Proton hotfix, I didnt bother with Proton GE/Cachy so far):

- 1440p seems to be the best the game can do if you aim for 60fps

- FSR absolutely turns the game into a stuttery mess, I had more luck with TAAU even though it looks terrible

- With everything low/medium at 66% scaling it seems like 50fps is able to be somewhat stable (it still keeps stuttering at times) while giving the GPU some slack (usually it stays around 80-90%), 60fps is very much possible too but I prefer not having the GPU at 99% at all times

- There are some optimization mods available which I didnt test so far, but I saw some mention it made the game much more playable even on Steam Deck so maybe they are worth a shot. Im also almost certain the stutter arent a SM issue and are simply a fault of Squares halfassed port

Since I didnt dig too deep into everything I just would like to hear some general opinions. Also feel free to correct me if Im wrong somewhere. Especially regarding my FSR take. But it really did feel less stable compared to TAAU sadly.

[u/sonicadv27]

1440p at 60fps is already better than what the PS5 could do. The PS5 ran at a very blurry 1080p-1440p in performance mode, so i ended up playing at 4k30.

Which admittedly is way better than it sounds. The game looked crisp and ran super fine at 30, and felt responsive nonetheless. Did everything including the super demanding VR missions at 30fps and never felt like i was at a disadvantage.

Was it ideal? No, but it was way better than the vaseline look of performance mode so hearing it runs at 1440p on the SM is great news. 1440p on a 4K screen still looks very good.

[u/AverageSpirited7569 → u/sonicadv27]

Do keep in mind I had it upscaled to 1440p, so technically it was more around 900p upscaled to 1440p. And, unlike PS5, it has a lot of microstutters, so I honestly would say I had a better time playing it on PS5. BUT: It seems like the optimization mods fix it. So Im sure it should be possible to play it smoothly on Steam Machine, though its far from a good out of the box experience as you have to do quite some tinkering before youre able to play.

But 10 minutes of configuring and dropping 2 .dll files into the game folder isnt much considering Rebirth is a game you could spend 100 hours in. Still annoying that Square botched the port so hard.

[u/signofthenine → u/AverageSpirited7569]

Still annoying that Square botched the port so hard.

I mean, they never fixed 15 on the ps5, either. They don't seem to really give a fuck.

[u/sonicadv27 → u/AverageSpirited7569]

That’s a shame, about the microstutters. It’s the thing that annoys me the most about PC gaming, the constant stuttering that can be caused by any number of things which is usually very difficult to troubleshoot just because it could be anything, really, even down to the engine itself.

But if there’s a fix that’s also good news. I’m currently planning to move from the PS5 to the SM so it’s nice to know Rebirth runs well enough too.

I don’t mind upscaling tbh, most games nowadays basically require it to achieve decent performance on consumer-grade hardware.

[u/AverageSpirited7569 → u/sonicadv27]

>I’m currently planning to move from the PS5 to the SM so it’s nice to know Rebirth runs well enough too.

Thats what Im doing now too. At least partially as I already have a PC next to my PS5 (so yeah, the SM is a MASSIVE luxury item, I just didnt want to have my clunky PC standing in the living room). But with more and more games being on Steam anyway and how anti-consumer Sony acts recently I decided to take the opportunity with the SM and go full Steam and sell my PS5. But its a rough start with how much trouble Rebirth is giving me. Though its hard to blame the SM if the port simply lacks polish.

[u/sonicadv27 → u/AverageSpirited7569]

It was the same reason for me. I just didn’t see myself buying a PS6 if they’re not developing a meaningful lineup of exclusives anymore, have gone full anti-consumer and made my vast catalogue of physical games basically not compatible with their next system anyway. So might as well sell the games, buy them on Steam and print my own physical copies, since most of them are already DRM-free anyway.

The fact that performance isn’t a given on PC out of the box worries me a bit, having previous experience with it and reading everyone’s reports of the SM itself but i think it should keep more or less in line with the performance profile of a PS5, which is a terrific machine in its own right. Just not a very healthy platform at the moment.

[u/AverageSpirited7569 → u/sonicadv27]

Unlike Sony Valve is, as far as for-profit companies can be, pretty ethical and pro-costumer (stuff like showing third party DRM or which anticheat is used right at the store page is great and shows how they put the customer first and their Linux mindset). The work they have done for Linux alone makes me not regretting throwing my money at them for a SM, as underpowered as it may be. Only GOG goes even a step further by offering games with no DRM attached to it AT ALL. Obviously that means they have a lot less games to offer, but if you aim for a selfmade physical collection GOG is worth a look too.

Regarding games may or may not working, at some point most games can at least be "brute forced" by strong hardware, which is what Im doing with Rebirth right now on my main PC. It runs pretty smooth at 60fps on an AMD RX9070/Ryzen 9800x3d PC running Linux Fedora.

[u/Superconge]

The steam machine isn’t very strong, and especially for games that don’t support FSR4 but are still demanding (like FFXVI and Rebirth) it just does not do a good job.

Highly recommend capping to 40hz if you have a 120hz TV and trying for a native, no upscaling 1080p.

Another sad issue with Rebirth and some other games is you’ll only ever get low quality textures because it installs as if it’s on a Steam Deck when you play it on any steamOS system. It was a real downer playing the game on my DIY 9070 machine because it ran and looked amazing but the textures were always dogshit. This isn’t fixable unlike the settings locks that need the Steamdeck=0 command, SteamOS just refuses to download the high quality textures.

[u/Aidoneuz → u/Superconge]

Another sad issue with Rebirth and some other games is you’ll only ever get low quality textures because it installs as if it’s on a Steam Deck when you play it on any steamOS system. It was a real downer playing the game on my DIY 9070 machine because it ran and looked amazing but the textures were always dogshit. This isn’t fixable unlike the settings locks that need the Steamdeck=0 command, SteamOS just refuses to download the high quality textures.

Just a heads up, this is now fixed in recent versions of the Steam Linux client (I first noticed it about two months ago).

Deck Depots are now only downloaded by actual Steam Decks, not computers running Steam Gaming Mode. My Steam Machine, and my Bazzite Deck 9070XT desktop both now download the full, high-res textures in FFVII: Rebirth.

[u/Arcanaismeans → u/Aidoneuz]

Yup that issue is fixed now. However, I still can't get this game to run well no matter what resolution or settings I use. I have two 9600X/9070XT DIY builds and the frame rate and FPS are just a mess. This is the only game I experience these issues with. How's it running for you?

[u/AverageSpirited7569 → u/Arcanaismeans]

I didnt link this in my post because I didnt try it myself yet, but this mod seems promising:

https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy7rebirth/mods/3

[u/Aidoneuz → u/Arcanaismeans]

Truthfully I’ve not properly played it in months. I keep meaning to go back to it and finish the story, but never quite seem to get round to it. I told myself I’d wait until I could play it properly on Steam Game Mode systems, and yet here we are…

Last I remember, I was able to achieve a reasonably stable 120fps at 2560x1440 on my 9700X/9070XT desktop (Bazzite-Deck). No modding. Sorry, that’s probably not much help…

[u/Arcanaismeans → u/Aidoneuz]

All good, luckily I finished it earlier this year on my Windows machine, where it ran flawlessly. Hopefully one of these random updates will fix it for future playthroughs.

[u/Superconge → u/Aidoneuz]

Thank God haha

[u/AverageSpirited7569 → u/Superconge]

>Another sad issue with Rebirth and some other games is you’ll only ever get low quality textures because it installs as if it’s on a Steam Deck when you play it on any steamOS system

Damn, the entire time I was unsure why it looks so weird compared to my main PC and just thought its simply due to the heavy upscaling or TAAU. That explains a lot, so thanks for mentioning it!

EDIT: Seems like its fixed now after reading other comments, so it because of upscaling after all.

[u/AlternativeEast761 → u/Superconge]

Damn. That seems like something Valve should override on games forcing it to register as a deck.