Try this mod to calm Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s stuttering on PC

rockpapershotgun.com:

Nic says that RPG remake sequel Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is "uneven, unfocused, and unmissable". You also can’t miss its regular performance hiccups, which most often manifest as little but frequent stutters that occur as you’re moseying around its poorly planet.

Or can you? News comes via Nic himself that modder FrancisLouis, whose previous works include performance-enhancing rejigs of various games (and one that turns the Silent Hill 2 remake’s pipe weapon into a rigid, A-posing wife), has produced Fantasy Optimizer: an overhaul of how FF7 Rebirth handles shaders and streamed visuals. Both Nic and myself have tried it out on our respective rigs, and it works! Mostly.

In my case I still get the occasional hitch when traversing new areas, but otherwise, it does run noticeably smoother. Especially during the fighty bits, which pre-mod could suffer from microstutter every time I pulled out my fancier moves. Nic sounds like he’s had even more luck, with less visible object pop-in on top of the smoothness enhancements.

The NexusMods description does, to be fair, warn that Fantasy Optimizer can work better on some PCs than others. To quote: "While these changes are designed to improve performance for most players, results can vary depending on your system’s hardware, software setup, and specific in-game situations.

"Some players may see noticeable improvements, while others might not experience significant changes."

Still, it’s worth giving it a go if you’re getting a bit bored of all those minipauses. Installation is easy too: first, head to Program Files (x86) > Steam > steamapps > common > Final Fantasy VII Rebirth > End > Content > Paks, then create a new folder named “~mods” (without the quote marks). Then download the mod pak from NexusMods (I recommend Version 2), extract it from the download folder, and paste it into that ~mods folder.

Mere days ago, FF7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi was bigging up the game-sustaining power of a free and open modding