We had been anticipating the discharge of Remaining Fantasy 7 Rebirth on PC with each anticipation and trepidation. On the one hand, it is a merely gorgeous sport – albeit one that might stand to profit from a wealth of enhancements the PC platform may present. Then again, this port follows within the wake of a really terrible PC rendition of Remaining Fantasy 7 Remake, which Sq.-Enix has primarily left to rot because the final window. So, what is the rating with Rebirth? Properly, it’s an improved port over Remake, for certain. One of many key issues with the PS5 model is addressed too, besides, there are issues of varied severity throughout the board. In the end, it needs to be a complete lot higher than it’s.
Let’s begin by speaking in regards to the consumer expertise from a settings and menu perspective. There’s big scope for enchancment right here, beginning with the presentation. This menu presents customers no indication in anyway of what the settings do or what the efficiency price for tweaking them could also be. Choices are inconsistent and cluttered, whereas primary PC capabilities are lacking. There is no ultra-wide help, there is no fullscreen performance (the very best you will get is borderless window mode) whereas unlocked frame-rates are additionally off the desk: 120fps is the restrict.
Sq.-Enix’s upscaler help can be barebones – so there’s DLSS solely, in tandem with UE4’s TAA and TAAU. Mounted share upscale choices are in place that are additionally restricted – mainly, there isn’t a equal possibility for DLSS balanced or extremely high quality modes. Which means zero help for FSR and XeSS and no body technology choices both. At this level, it might be remiss of me to not level you in direction of Nexus Mods as a result of – remarkably – modders have added many of those choices the place Sq.-Enix has not. Improved upscaler help, unlocked frame-rates and extra – modders have delivered the place Sq.-Enix has not.
Alex Battaglia and Oliver Mackenzie share their impressions of Remaining Fantasy 7 Rebirth on PC.Watch on YouTube
Transferring on to PlayStation 5 comparisons, we have got a blended bag of outcomes right here. There may be one essential enchancment to the sport that PC customers get – one of many key issues with the PS5 and PS5 Professional variations is the egregious pop-in of world element. The excellent news is that PC customers get the choice to boost stage of element, which pushes out element and level-of-detail transitions additional out to the purpose the place they turn into far much less noticeable. That is nice information. We additionally noticed some slight refinements to lighting, however general that is a lot the identical because the console construct.
Picture high quality can be a plus level for the PC model of the sport, merely right down to the brute power nature of DLAA – Nvidia’s native decision rendition of DLSS – which offers distinctive anti-aliasing. This permits highly effective PCs to enhance considerably over PS5 Professional’s high quality and PSSR-powered versatility modes. There are additionally indicators of some enchancment to texture high quality – a bugbear we’ve with the console model. Nonetheless, the frequency of improved artwork is minimal and lots of artwork property are left as is – which isn’t nice.
There’s the sense that Sq.-Enix may have pushed the boat out additional. Even when enhanced textures had been fully off the desk, the flexibility to enhance shadow map cascade high quality would have been welcome. The reality is that shadows do not look notably spectacular within the sport, which has led – you guessed it – modders to try to enhance the scenario. The present model of the sport additionally has some harsh lighting selections and a scarcity of occlusion and once more, it is disappointing that there is no enchancment for PC. There are oddities too – some element is excised from the PC model the place every little thing is current and proper on the PS5 model, whereas we additionally noticed issues with water rendering within the new model too. Throughout the board, we won’t assist however really feel that this port isn’t every little thing it ought to and will have been.
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Specializing in PC efficiency, there are others to deal with. Remaining Fantasy 7 Rebirth does have a shader compilation step on first boot – however the issue is that it is nowhere close to complete sufficient. The decrease the spec of your PC (CPU particularly), the extra noticeable shader compilation points are with some lurching stutters. We confirmed that it is undoubtedly a compilation challenge by instantly replaying the identical space of gameplay, discovering that the stutters had gone – as a result of the shaders had been cached. The upper-end your CPU, the much less noticeable the stutters can be – particularly for those who’re capping to 60 frames per second, besides, it is a disgrace to see this drawback manifest.
There may be some excellent news, nonetheless. Whether or not it is Unreal Engine 4 or Unreal Engine 5, we have misplaced rely of the quantity of video games that exhibit traversal stutter – hitching because the participant strikes by way of the sport world, particularly so at pace. On a higher-end processor, the excellent news is that frame-times are very, very constant, so on this space a minimum of, you’ll be able to energy by way of to smoother gameplay – offering you are not hitting shader compilation stutter, which is unavoidable. It isn’t such excellent news on lower-end processors nonetheless, the place we seen frame-times that might hit 25ms to 33ms – noticeable even with a 60fps frame-rate cap.
It is also price expressing that the quantity of VRAM your graphics card has might be problematic. We examined utilizing an RTX 4060 – an especially standard GPU that, sadly, Nvidia lumbered with simply 8GB of framebuffer reminiscence. Stuttering happens in Remaining Fantasy 7 Rebirth utilizing the prime quality texture setting and even the medium high quality different has points. Solely by dropping again to the low setting did these stutters disappear and that is problematic: whereas the distinction between excessive and medium high quality textures is not huge, there is a very clear downgrade for low textures – they appear to current virtually as in the event that they’re decimated right down to quarter decision. We won’t assist however really feel this example may have been dealt with higher.
There are omissions and bugs with the PC model up in opposition to PS5. On the highest there, noticeable areas of grass or foliage do not render in any respect. On backside, it is clear that in some areas, there are issues with water rendering on PC. | Picture credit score: Digital Foundry
We additionally spent a bit time operating Remaining Fantasy 7 Rebirth on Steam Deck as it’s Steam Deck Verified, which generally means (as we perceive it) that we must always be capable to play it at a constant 30 frames per second. So, there’s excellent news and dangerous information right here – once more. For essentially the most half, the sport might be performed at 30fps, however the in-built frame-rate cap is poor: you will get 30fps however the frames are inconsistently paced, which isn’t nice. Customers can overcome this by utilizing the Deck’s system stage cap for constant frame-pacing – however even right here, we famous points, with dropped frames spiking to 66ms once they backside out at 50ms.
This can be a difficult sport although – it was designed for PS5, in spite of everything – and it requires sacrifice to run. We selected to make use of the bottom settings with TAAU, then used DRS upscaling from a minimal 50 %. The sport is clearly pared again however it’s serviceable sufficient for handheld play for essentially the most half, particularly outside. Simply be ready for a considerably uneven expertise in cities.
In abstract then, it is a higher PC port than Remaining Fantasy 7 Remake and the flexibility to enhance picture high quality and particularly ease the egregious LOD transitions is definitely a superb factor. Nonetheless, Sq.-Enix should enhance in so many areas: the builders clearly recognise the necessity for shader pre-compilation and but the method is clearly not working appropriately, or would not pre-compile sufficient of them. The shortage of upscalers and the bizarre implementation of DLSS components can be weird. There might be CPU-based points with traversal, so we might be recommending one thing like a Ryzen 5000 or twelfth Gen Intel funds chip to higher guarantee a 60fps expertise.
We heard phrase of additional updates to come back, so our fingers are crossed that this OK-ish port is improved within the fullness of time.
