Release candidate is pushed and may have better frame stability when vsync is enabled in both fullscreen/windowed in DX9 and just fullscreen in DX8.

Yep, works better, not perfect, but better.
I'm still have fps drops\frame skipping on fullscreen, but now only with automatic frame limiter. With 60 fps limiter only some milliseconds freezings.
And on windowed/borderless mode works perfect with automatic frame limiter, but have some milliseconds freezings with 60 fps limiter (just like on fullscreen).

There is a slight delay(almost 1 second, roughly) every time I enter a new menu, like the memo, recipe, bestiary. Aside from that, it skips frame if you are not in borderless window screen regardless of the framecap/vsync settings.

Originally posted by Shiro Neko:

There is a slight delay(almost 1 second, roughly) every time I enter a new menu, like the memo, recipe, bestiary. Aside from that, it skips frame if you are not in borderless or windowed screen regardless of the framecap/vsync settings.

Please restart Steam to get the absolute latest version of the game (which was *just* posted) in hopes of fixing the former issue. As for frameskipping, the game's frame rate control is sadly pretty finnicky on some systems and admittedly still needs work, though it has improved very significantly, and I've added a new fix for this in exclusive fullscreen just today, although I'd still suggest borderless over it any day.

Originally posted by Sara:

Please restart Steam to get the absolute latest version of the game (which was *just* posted) in hopes of fixing the former issue. As for frameskipping, the game's frame rate control is sadly pretty finnicky on some systems and admittedly still needs work, though it has improved very significantly, and I've added a new fix for this in exclusive fullscreen just today, although I'd still suggest borderless over it any day.

That solves the delay problem, thank you!

Hi,
I'm having huge fps drops on all three games with DX9.
Installed all the updates including the latest ones, made sure the config settings were identical to preview versions (and confirmed by playing the DX8 versions, which all seem to be normal), and also made sure to set my dedicated GPU to the games. Restarted Steam, tried many times, but it's consistent: with DX8 I get from 60 to 120 fps, deppending on the map. With DX9 I'm getting 15~30 at most.

Originally posted by Toni:

Hi,
I'm having huge fps drops on all three games with DX9.
Installed all the updates including the latest ones, made sure the config settings were identical to preview versions (and confirmed by playing the DX8 versions, which all seem to be normal), and also made sure to set my dedicated GPU to the games. Restarted Steam, tried many times, but it's consistent: with DX8 I get from 60 to 120 fps, deppending on the map. With DX9 I'm getting 15~30 at most.

You've got Hardware Vertex Shader on? Messed with frame limit settings too?

Hardware Vertex Shader off and tried frame limit set to 60 and unlimited. Same problem on both cases.

I was concerned when I booted up the game normally and it was stuttering majorly. Even with the settings the same as DX8, DX9 just doesn't work smoothly. Sucks that I can't quickstart the DX8 version anymore, but oh well.

Originally posted by Toni:

Hardware Vertex Shader off and tried frame limit set to 60 and unlimited. Same problem on both cases.

Hardware Vertex Shader should always be on unless you're using Intel graphics, honestly.

I'm sorry that some of you are still having frame rate issues with DX9. I'll keep working on improving it, but for the time being there are always suggestions to make. Windowed usually performs better, even borderless. And fortunately DX8 is still there!

Apparently Hardware Vertex Shader did the trick. FC, SC and The 3rd running at 60fps now (frame limit set to automatic), on DX9. Which I find weird, since on DX8, as I said before, I was getting up to 120fps, without Hardware Vertex Shader.
I'm definitely not complaining, though (especially since my current set has a 60hz monitor so it wouldn't make any difference with anything above 60fps for me).
I still want to test on different maps of each game, but from what I saw right now, the fps seemed very stable even on some larger areas.

Thank you, Sara. Your efforts and continued improvements for these games are very much appreciated.
If I stumble upon any new issue, I'll be sure to report.

Originally posted by Sara:

Originally posted by Toni:

Hardware Vertex Shader off and tried frame limit set to 60 and unlimited. Same problem on both cases.

Hardware Vertex Shader should always be on unless you're using Intel graphics, honestly.

I'm sorry that some of you are still having frame rate issues with DX9. I'll keep working on improving it, but for the time being there are always suggestions to make. Windowed usually performs better, even borderless. And fortunately DX8 is still there!

This might actually be outdated advice with this advice; from what I tried when I didn't bother forcing the nVidia GPU to be used the Intel GPU would perform great with Hardware Vertex Shader on and terrible without, and so far hasn't crashed. It's an HD 530 for reference, but it may be that this update, ironically, may make going to the discrete nVidia GPU a moot point.

Probably also shows that some of the DX8 issues were as much on Intel support as it was on nVidia support, if not more so depending on who was in charge of shuffling the GPU tasks over. And without screen tearing when using the Intel GPU in borderless windowed it could well be the better option anyway.

Originally posted by Eusis:

This might actually be outdated advice with this advice; from what I tried when I didn't bother forcing the nVidia GPU to be used the Intel GPU would perform great with Hardware Vertex Shader on and terrible without, and so far hasn't crashed. It's an HD 530 for reference, but it may be that this update, ironically, may make going to the discrete nVidia GPU a moot point.

The problem is that -most- Intel graphics (and I personally have an Optimus laptop with similarly recent HD graphics) will occasionally glitch out really badly with Hardware Vertex Shader. Soft blue flats in place of textures, crazy vertex 'spikes', eventual crashes... It's not universal, but we've had so many reports over time that I eventually made the default setting off even though it was defaulting to on in the original version.

No update has fixed this problem, but it's true that some occasionally don't have it. (By the way, forcing the Nvidia GPU never would have worked back then; DX8 isn't supported by the dedicated part of Optimus at the driver level, in fact it's specifically disallowed from using the dedicated GPU in DX8 games no matter what the developer does. I tried pretty hard to find other ways around it short of using a wrapper!)

I'm glad that you've never had trouble with that, though. Importantly, though, I think it's good that we have -options- so everyone can find something that works for them.

Edit: Wait, my bad. Did you mean that you think the Intel problem may be gone in DX9 versions of the game? Because that absolutely is possible. I don't have much feedback on that at all, leaving the possibility there. Sorry, I've had a long night and one of my housemates left in an ambulance not that long ago (they're fine) so my mind wasn't all there in replying.

Originally posted by Sara:

Edit: Wait, my bad. Did you mean that you think the Intel problem may be gone in DX9 versions of the game? Because that absolutely is possible. I don't have much feedback on that at all, leaving the possibility there.

Yeah, this is what I meant. So far I'm not seeing any issues with Hardware Vertex Shader on for the DX9 version, whereas it was an inevitable death sentence in DX8. But I haven't played enough to know for sure, just testing to see how smooth it was when running around rooms and if it would do 3D spells and S-Crafts fine like Death Scream and Ries's Heavenly Strike. Which, with V-Sync off, never dipped below 60 (for a prolonged period anyway and not to a noticeable degree) and is regularly at 125 fps in the field.

Not having any FPS problems, but there seems to be a significant delay, atleast compared to DX8, in saving the game and screen transitions inside of areas (such as individual rooms in Jenis Academy). Latter might be related to former if it's being caused by the autosaving. Altogether, it probably only takes between 0.5-1 seconds to transition rooms, but it IS noticeable when on DX8 it was effectively instantaneous.