Dev Explains How He Boosted Game's FPS Count by More Than 200. He Reminded of a Forgotten Process Called Optimization

As a seasoned PC gamer with over two decades of experience under my belt, I can confidently say that the optimization work done on Ys X: Nordics by PH3 GmbH is nothing short of remarkable. Having witnessed numerous games struggle to run smoothly on my hardware, it’s refreshing to see a team that not only addresses performance issues but also manages to improve upon them significantly.


On October 25, the international market will launch the PC port version of Ys X: Nordics, which has been optimized by Studio PH3 GmbH. Peter “Durante” Thoman, the CTO and former modder, shared that they significantly boosted the game’s frames per second from 106 to an impressive 314.

In the initial scene itself, issues were evident with the game, yet techniques for enhancing visual quality, often deemed crucial, weren’t employed. Notably, even the head of Nvidia asserts that advanced graphics can’t be produced without AI nowadays. However, while developing the port of YS X: Nordics, it was achieved to boost engine performance without relying on such controversial methods (as reported by Tom’s Hardware).

Higher performance without upscaling

In a detailed post on Steam Community, Peter Thoman shared insights into the optimization journey for Ys X: Nordics. He mentioned that it spanned approximately 2.5 months, with version 0.1 launched towards the end of July and version 0.8 released mid-September. Throughout this period, significant improvements were made to enhance the game’s performance, an issue where frame rates dipped below 5 during the initial cutscene (a problem that arose even before the introduction of version 0.1).

Dev Explains How He Boosted Game's FPS Count by More Than 200. He Reminded of a Forgotten Process Called Optimization

Remarkably, issues arose solely on AMD hardware; no such problems were encountered with Nvidia. Developers have run into similar performance dips while working on ‘The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak’. The issue revolved around the functioning of DirectX 11 and necessitated a shift in the method of data transmission from the GPU.

One intriguing aspect of the game was that character, monster, and terrain status were updated sequentially, but PH3 GmbH’s team realized this needed improvement. They aimed to have the engine in Ys X: Nordics update everything concurrently rather than one action after another. Furthermore, it was discovered that the system only updated the animations of distant monsters and characters sporadically, every few frames. So, they decided to enhance the engine’s efficiency to ensure smoother and simultaneous updates for a better gaming experience.

The changes made by PH3 GmbH have caused the port to do more work than the original version and it does so much more efficiently. When implementing the simultaneous update, most of the time was spent debugging errors that appeared during the system implementation. The biggest surprise came during the final work on GPU optimization.

In an attempt to ensure the highest consistency in frames per second (fps), it was understood that a lower count might result. Surprisingly, when testing Ys X: Nordics, we found not only did it deliver more frames per second but also maintaining them at a consistent level was less challenging. Consequently, Peter Thoman opines that in terms of CPU efficiency, Ys X: Nordics stands out as the most optimized game developed by PH3 GmbH.

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2024-10-16 14:32