When news of Final Fantasy XV's recommended specs came out, it caused quite a bit of a stir. There were reports that you needed a GTX 1080Ti, an i7 7700, and 16GB of RAM. It was later clarified that those specs were for 4K gaming. And usually 4K gaming is pretty demanding, so there's no surprise there. But how will it perform on a more realistic build, on a display that 71% of all Steam users still use - 1920x1080? Check out the video here:
The computer specs used:
Intel i5 6600K, overclocked to 4.2Ghz
16GB RAM, 2400 Mhz
NVIDIA GTX 1080, overclocked to 2083Mhz
Issues
I encountered a number of problems during testing. It turns out, Final Fantasy XV doesn't play with a number of things.
Overclocking
Because the game is so demanding, once an overclock is unstable, it'll let you know right away. While the overclock worked perfectly during stress testing and Witcher 3, the same overclock resulted in a bunch of artifacts and screen flashing. So, you better make sure your overlock is tuned perfectly to avoid artifacts and flashing.
Ansel Technology
When using Ansel screenshot technology, the game gets confused and starts switching control schemes back and forth between your controller and your keyboard. This results in a massive framerate dips and stuttering, to the point of unplyability. If you're going to take screenshots, better use Steam screenshots instead or some other 3rd party software.
Massive RAM Usage
Normally, I tend to use about 8-9GB of my RAM, which is actually already quite a lot. But on occassion, you'll see that usage climb up to 13GB. When that happens, framerate takes a nosedive. You'd need to restart your game to bring the RAM usage back to normal.
Settings
NVIDIA Options
Using NVIDIA options takes off about 10 frames per second when they're all enabled. They're all gorgeous options, but after some time, you'll get used to not seeing them.
Graphical Settings
Set everything to high if you're on a GTX 1080. It'll stay at over 60 frames for the most part. Tweaking the graphics don't dramatically help framerates much save for a couple of settings. Here's what you'll wanna play with.
TRAM (texture RAM) - lower gives better framerate but it looks terrible when low. Average is fine, but high is way better.
Shadows - of course, it's shadows. Turn off Shadowlibs and keep the settings at high, and you'll be okay. But if you want to get more FPS, turn this setting down.
I wish we could change the draw distance. I bet that would improve framerate a lot, but I think the game doesn't allow us change it because doing so might make the experience quite different.
Recommendations
If you have artifacts and flickering, check your overclocks.
Turn off all the extra NVIDIA options for the extra 10-12 frames per second
Tweak shadows and TRAM if you want more FPS, but generally recommend to keep them on if you have a powerful enough video card.