Final Fantasy XVI Resolution Drops as Low as 720P in Performance Mode, Uses AMD FSR 1

Final Fantasy XVI is launching tomorrow, but the press embargo has already expired. You can read Kai Powell’s full review (9/10) for Wccftech here:

Final Fantasy XVI heralds in a new standard for Japanese role-playing games and while the RPG components themselves are limited by Square-Enix standards, it’s the narrative and gameplay that exceed all expectations. What begins with kingdom-wide subterfuge and destruction ends with a world forever changed and the player, as Clive Rosfield and Ifrit together, are the driving force to see it all through until the end.

Digital Foundry also posted an interesting and lengthy technical analysis narrated by John Linneman. While most of it is filled with lavish praise for the game’s excellent art style and great rendering of cutscenes, characters, and particle effects, the presentation has a few downsides.

For example, the internal rendering resolution drops very low. The quality mode can range between 1440P and 1080p, but the performance mode goes all the way down to 720p. What’s even worse is that DF reckons Square Enix is using AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 1 for some reason instead of the much better FSR 2. This produces mediocre upscaling, resulting in artifacts and blurriness.

Performance mode also features much lower quality shadows than quality mode, and it also adds pop-in. On top of that, it doesn’t even deliver on the frame rate side, failing to improve upon the Final Fantasy XVI demo and staying consistently below the target 60 frames per second threshold during exploration. However, the 60 FPS target is indeed reached during combat, which is when the resolution drops to its lowest. Still, playing with quality mode is recommended due to the far superior image quality, even if it locks the frame rate to 30 FPS.

Digital Foundry’s analysis also mentions that the baked lighting scenes in indoor or dimly light scenes, whereas brighter outdoor areas are a step-down and almost look like a cross-generation title.

Hopefully, the PC version currently in development can bring forth major improvements in both graphics and frame rate. Final Fantasy XV launched with lots of improvements over the console version, including higher resolution textures, better lighting and shadows, NVIDIA GameWorks effects like HairWorks, VXAO, Turf Effects, and ShadowLibs, Dolby Atmos support, and Ultrawide support, just to name a few. On the other hand, the Final Fantasy VII Remake PC port was very barebones. Let’s hope Square Enix opts to create a fully realized version of Final Fantasy XVI.