GameWorks & Hidden Graphics Settings in Final Fantasy XV Benchmark

We’ve been working on our Final Fantasy XV benchmarking and already have multiple machines going, including both CPU and GPU testing. This process included discovery of run-to-run variance, pursuant to slow initialization of game resources during the first test pass. We can solve for this with additional test passes and by eliminating the first test pass from the data pool.

One of the downsides to Final Fantasy XV’s benchmark is that there is no customization for graphics settings: You’ve got High, “Middle,” and “Lite.” Critically, the medium settings seem to disable most of the nVidia GameWorks graphics options, which will impact performance between nVidia and AMD cards. We spoke with AMD about a driver update for the game, and have been informed that updated drivers will ship closer to the game’s launch. In the meantime, we’ll be testing High and Medium settings alike, building a database for relative performance scaling between AMD and nVidia. That content is due out soon.

While we’ve been working on programming our benchmark, reddit user “randomstranger454” grabbed Final Fantasy XV’s quality settings that create the presets. We will bold the settings we believe to be most interesting:

High Quality Settings for FFXV

[BasicSettings]

• DisplayResolutionWH=1920x1080
• MaxFramerate=240
• RenderingResolutionWH=1920x1080
• GraphicsPreset=2
• ShowConfig=0
• ShowFPS=0

[DisplaySettings]

• DisplayScalingMode=0
• FP16BackBuffer=1
• FullScreenModeOnStartup=0
• HardwareFullScreenMode=0
• HDRGammaScale=1.3
• HDRLuminanceScale=1000
• HighPrecisionRenderTarget=0
• VSync=0

[NVIDIAGameWorksSettings]

• NvidiaFlow=1
• NvidiaHairWorks=1
• NvidiaShadowLibs=0
• NvidiaTerrainTesselation=1
• NvidiaTurf=1
• NvidiaVXAO=0

[RenderingSettings]

• Antialias=2
• HighSpecAsset=1
• LightingQuality=1
• ModelLODScaling=200
• ScreenFilterDetail=3
• ShadowDistanceScaling=300
• ShadowResolution=200
• TextureAnisotropicFilter=8
• TextureStreamingMemory=2000

Let’s compare the entire NVIDIAGameWorksSettings section with the “Middle” quality preset:

We previously detailed some of these settings, like Frustum-Tracing, Flow, and Voxel-Accelerated Ambient Occlusion, at GDC 2016.

AMD has traditionally struggled with early releases that enable GameWorks options by default, which makes sense – it’s not like AMD has incentive, or necessarily even visibility, to optimize for its competitor’s libraries. For early testing, we recommend that viewers and readers pay close attention to relative performance scaling between AMD and nVidia when tested on both “High” and “Middle,” as the results will theoretically draw AMD closer to nVidia when at “Middle.” That said, we’re testing this theory right now, so we’ll find out soon.

In the meantime, here are the other Final Fantasy XV benchmark graphics quality settings of note:

ModelLODScaling: The level of detail quality setting for models – we’d presume character models, though it could be an overall mesh or 3D model LOD option. This should significantly impact performance of anything which struggles with geometric detail. Low-end CPUs would be an example.

FP16BackBuffer: An HDR setting that preserves color channel accuracy by using 16 bits of floating point precision (“half precision”).

RenderingResolution: As the name suggests, this is the resolution at which the assets will be rendered, as opposed to Display or Screen resolution. This setting can be tuned to configure for 1440p or UltraWide resolutions.

MaxFramerate: Bumping against a 240FPS framerate would indicate a game engine-level bottleneck, limiting the usefulness of benchmarking beyond 200-240FPS.

Other quality settings below:

Standard (“Middle”) Quality Settings for FFXV

[BasicSettings]

• DisplayResolutionWH=1920x1080
• MaxFramerate=240
• RenderingResolutionWH=1920x1080
• GraphicsPreset=1
• ShowConfig=0
• ShowFPS=0

[DisplaySettings]

• DisplayScalingMode=0
• FP16BackBuffer=1
• FullScreenModeOnStartup=0
• HardwareFullScreenMode=0
• HDRGammaScale=1.3
• HDRLuminanceScale=1000
• HighPrecisionRenderTarget=0
• VSync=0

[NVIDIAGameWorksSettings]

• NvidiaFlow=0
• NvidiaHairWorks=0
• NvidiaShadowLibs=0
• NvidiaTerrainTesselation=0
• NvidiaTurf=0
• NvidiaVXAO=0

[RenderingSettings]

• Antialias=2
• HighSpecAsset=0
• LightingQuality=1
• ModelLODScaling=100
• ScreenFilterDetail=2
• ShadowDistanceScaling=100
• ShadowResolution=100
• TextureAnisotropicFilter=4
• TextureStreamingMemory=800

Low (“Lite”) Quality Options for FFXV Benchmark

[BasicSettings]

• DisplayResolutionWH=1280x720
• MaxFramerate=240
• RenderingResolutionWH=1280x720
• GraphicsPreset=0
• ShowConfig=0
• ShowFPS=0

[DisplaySettings]

• DisplayScalingMode=0
• FP16BackBuffer=1
• FullScreenModeOnStartup=0
• HardwareFullScreenMode=0
• HDRGammaScale=1.3
• HDRLuminanceScale=1000
• HighPrecisionRenderTarget=0
• VSync=0

[NVIDIAGameWorksSettings]

• NvidiaFlow=0
• NvidiaHairWorks=0
• NvidiaShadowLibs=0
• NvidiaTerrainTesselation=0
• NvidiaTurf=0
• NvidiaVXAO=0

[RenderingSettings]

• Antialias=0
• AmbientOcclusion=0
• HighSpecAsset=0
• LightingQuality=0
• ModelLODScaling=75
• ScreenFilterDetail=1
• ShadowDistanceScaling=75
• ShadowResolution=50
• TextureAnisotropicFilter=0
• TextureStreamingMemory=0

Keep an eye on our twitter feed and YouTube channel. We are working diligently to produce more content surrounding this benchmark application.

Editorial: Steve Burke