'Final Fantasy XII' Requires Powerful PC to Run at 60 FPS

By Edward Leano, Christian Post Contributor Tuesday, February 13, 2018

"Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age" is now available, and Square Enix has stocked it with features and optimizations just for the PC. The game, when it's running at 60 frames per second, is the best it has ever looked, but the hardware required to get to that point are not exactly cheap.

The game has come out for the PC since early February, and features-wise, the version does not disappoint. "Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age" features upscaled textures, more graphical switches, and has been redesigned to accommodate wide-screen displays while running at the coveted rate 60 frames per second.

This version of what started out as a PlayStation 2 title is surprisingly heavy on PC systems, though, as Eurogamer noted. Even with a PC setup that includes a Titan X Pascal or a GTX 1080 Ti, the game still suffers some framerate drops when running at 4K resolution.

Running the game with an RX Vega 64 causes it to drop even more frames, and the stutters will prompt players to tweak with the settings just to get a semi-consistent 60 frames per second for most scenes.

Unfortunately, the menu layout, which looks to have been carried over from the PlayStation 2 control scheme, often gets in the way. Getting it to open in the first place is a challenge in itself, with the menu for many of the graphical switches only accessible from the New Game option at the main screen.

Trying to get a sustainable 60 frames per second on 4K resolution, even with a GTX 1070 Ti or GTX 1080, usually means turning off the ambient occlusion setting. The feature seems to be unoptimized for PC, with full resolution ambient occlusion causing framerate drops.

Running the game at 1080p is a lot easier for mainstream PC setups, though, and 60 frames per second is easily sustainable with a GTX 1050 Ti or RX 580 with a few framerate dips in only some of the busiest scenes in the game.