Final Fantasy XV struggles heavily on GTX 1060
Final Fantasy XV struggles heavily on GTX 1060
CPU: Ryzen 5 2600X
RAM: 16GB Viper Patriot 4 3200, running with XMP 2.0 at 3200 (2x8)
Motherboard: MSI B450M Mortar
GPU: GTX 1060 6GB
Storage: OS installed on Crucial MX500 250GB SSD, games on Sabrent 500GB NVME SSD
OS: Windows 10, all updates applied
I'm really struggling with this game and have no clue what to do anymore.
The issues I'm facing are severe stutters that occur while moving or during battles. I've noticed that certain monsters will specifically lower the FPS, turning the experience into a boring presentation. This causes the game to drop to 9-10 frames per second for extended periods. It mainly happens when fighting flanks or serpent monsters that can turn you into a frog.
Another problem is that occasionally the game freezes completely for 1-3 seconds as if loading something, drastically reducing GPU usage and FPS to near zero. I don't understand why this would happen even when my GPU or CPU aren't under heavy load or overheating.
My setup isn't the most powerful, but my temperatures are normal during gameplay and the CPU isn't being overworked, so I'm confused about what's really causing these big drops.
Has anyone managed to play this game smoothly with similar hardware? Is it just a bad port, and is there anything we can do?
I don't have any hard drives, and I don't know where FF is installed.
Kinda what I was suspecting...
Move the game to the OS drive - if you have enough space, see if that fixes it...
Some games are like that.
To be clear I played the demo - there is no way this game runs *stable* on a 1060 at medium settings ... but I didn't have any of those hardcore dips, game was almost running smoothly at 50-60fps.
Unfortunately, both the demo and the benchmark don't seem reliable. I've tested the demo before purchasing the game, and even in the same areas, the demo performed better. The benchmark was run with custom configurations (mix of high and medium settings, Nvidia features disabled) and I achieved 6500 points without any stuttering, which they claim is considered high performance.
The game isn't really struggling much either. I notice my GPU usage stays around 75% in certain zones like Hammerhead (desert area). I'm hoping to just lose frames and observe the slowdown, but since it's running so smoothly at 60 FPS, it suddenly drops to zero in an instant, causing the game to stop working for a few seconds. This is really frustrating.
The game was also using the same SSD as the operating system, and I experienced similar issues. I did purchase an NVMe SSD specifically for gaming this title, but I have to admit...
I realized that trying to run away from the OS or SSD probably wouldn't help much. The demo performed okay but wasn't excellent either... My CPU was weaker at the time, which might have played a role, but overall the game demands a lot of hardware power. I'm not sure if you've tried disabling the most demanding options—things like volumetric lighting or fog? Honestly, just keep an eye on it and notice what happens when stutters appear. You should see signs related to memory, GPU or CPU, and frequencies. I had a similar problem with Monster Hunter World too; using MSI Afterburner to monitor helped me identify the issue. It wasn't a simple fix—it involved updating my Kingston drive firmware, power cycling it twice, and now only Monster Hunter is running. I think writes might be the culprit, while reads seem fine. Also, I'm using a program to fix a known Windows 10 memory leak. Without it, I still face mysterious stutters because the system keeps running out of memory unnecessarily and swapping. Monitoring everything with MSI Afterburner really clarified what was going on.
I use afterburner during games so I could attempt that, but how do I share the outcomes here? Should I just take screenshots of the graphs?
The only noticeable effect appears to be a total drop in CPU and GPU usage to nearly zero whenever stutters occur in the game—nothing further.
I plan to play for a short time and wait for one stutter before posting the results, hoping I might catch something I’m missing.
These are all the screens from the game following a significant stutter. Are they helpful?
I was also able to capture the in-game behavior using Afterburner OSD as well:
Ryzen 5 2600X, GTX 1060 6GB, 16GB of 3200 DDR4 RAM, Windows 10 with the most recent updates applied, fresh Nvidia drivers installed after a DDU uninstall, and the game running on a brand new NVMe SSD.
I’m reaching out for help to troubleshoot this issue. Here’s what I observe on my system when I attempt to battle these challenges. Check my temperatures and GPU/CPU usage during stutters. I’ve adjusted nearly every setting, yet this keeps happening unpredictably—sometimes everything works perfectly, but other times the power point mode activates unexpectedly.
Video 1: https://youtu.be/rAZA2yYfQhI
Video 2: https://youtu.be/pN9C9PdOzCc