Like its predecessor before it, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth finally makes its way to PC. We were all excited to see the game make its way over to a new platform, but that excitement was tempered by a healthy dose of skepticism as to whether Square Enix could deliver a solid port.
Consisting of the Unreal Engine, large open spaces, and a console first development along with Square Enix’s sorted history with PC ports, Rebirth feels like a passable port, not as bad as Remake before it, but still falling short in some key areas. Square Enix’s recent statements regarding a multi-platform focus rely on their games being well optimised and performant across all platforms. Rebirth, for me, would be a statement of intent moving forward.
In collaboration with Steve Esposito and Alejandro Segovia, I will be looking at the PC port across a few different hardware permutations as well as Valve’s Steam Deck. It will be very much a tech-focused review and not a game review; for this, click here to see Alejandro’s brilliant review of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. In addition to all of this, we will also be making some comparisons to the game on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro.
Initial PC Overview
Main Test PC Specs
AMD Ryzen 7 7800x3d
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
32GB DDR5 6000 MHz RAM
2Tb Samsung 990 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD
First Boot and Options
After the hefty 145GB install, booting the game for the first time presents you with a shader compilation screen. This is great to see, and, whilst you can skip this step, the game does advise that you don’t, and I strongly agree. This process only took around 15 seconds.
Starting with the option screen, you’ll immediately notice that the display mode options are Windowed and Borderless Windowed. So, no exclusive full screen for those who like it. Sadly, the resolution in the borderless window mode is tied to your desktop resolution, so if your desktop is set to 4K, your resolution in this mode will be stuck at 4K. This is disappointing as it means you need to quit the game and adjust desktop resolution to make these changes, which is far more convoluted than it needs to be.
Moving down the options list, we can see that there are a lot more toggleable graphics options here than the two found in Final Fantasy 7 Remake. A few of these are just “Low or High,” although there are a couple that do have three to four levels within them. Sadly, beyond the name, none of these options give a detailed description as to what they do or how they impact the game, including VRAM usage. I would have liked at least to have seen images to the side of these options giving a visual example of what the changes are as you toggle between them. A benchmark tool would also have been nice here to gauge performance.
When it comes to image reconstruction, we are, again, sadly lacking. You can choose between DLSS, TAA, or TAAU, but no FSR or XESS. We don’t have named scales here, such as Quality, Balanced, Performance, etc. Instead, you can choose what percentage of native resolution you want to render at. In NVIDIA parlance, you have 100% native/DLAA, 66% Quality, 50% Performance, and 33% Ultra Performance. You can set these targets as your “Min and Max” independently.
These Min and Max boundaries tie in to the games dynamic resolution and Frames Per Second (FPS) target. You can choose to target 30, 60, 90, or 120 FPS with no option to fully unlock. So, if your output is 4K, you set Max at 100%, Min at 66%, and your FPS target to 60, your resolution will range from 1440p up to full 4K, adjusting to keep you at 60 FPS. If you don’t want dynamic resolution, just set both percentages to the same value. So, for example, if you want DLSS quality, set the min and the max to 66% and you won’t get any dynamic resolution.
Moving into the game itself, before talking about the performance, it’s worth noting that, as of the time of writing, the game’s in-game V-sync toggle doesn’t seem to be working properly. Whilst character movement is smooth, camera panning exhibits a noticeable lack of smoothness despite the game running at a locked framerate. You can overcome this problem by setting the game to VRR (the options are v-sync or VRR), and then if you want a V-sync, you can use your GPUs control panel to do so.
My thoughts up to this point, before actually playing the game, are somewhat mixed. We have what I would describe as a functional but far less than ideal options menu that is somewhat lacking in all contexts. Compared to other titles that have been ported over, like God Of War Ragnarok, Square Enix seems to have short-changed their PC players when it comes to getting the game to fit on the screen properly. We also have a broken in-game V-sync (for those that use it).
In-Game Performance
Moving on to actual gameplay and spending five or ten minutes running around in the opening section, it appears that the shader compilation step has seemably done its job with no obvious shader compilation stutter (something that plagued the first game). Indeed, I had a very smooth experience playing through the entire opening, right up to Kalm and the Grasslands area, which is where I intended to carry out the majority of my analysis.
In regards to framerate, on my main test system and with everything max running at 4K, DLAA, I was always above 60 with lows of 70 and highs of 120 (the games limit). Most of the time spent traversing the grasslands saw me between 90-110 FPS, and I experienced much the same in Junon. Finding a demanding scene and moving down the options to medium saw an increase in performance of 34.7%, and going to low increased that to 51.4%. The only time I experienced a noticeable hiccup was when I moved at speed through the environment, which could invoke small frame-time spikes. My best judgement is that this is caused by either the loading of assets or possibly shader compilation as new effects enter the screen. Given how quick the shader pre-compilation step was, it is possible that some were missed. If these are indeed related to shader compilation, they are certainly less egregious than what I have experienced in other games suffering from shader compilation issues.
Keeping settings at max and moving the base resolution down saw a 26.4% increase in FPS at DLSS quality; DLSS Performance increased this to 41.6% whilst DLSS Ultra Perf increased this to 56.9%. The game does indeed seem quite scalable, which makes sense given it can run on the Steam Deck, but more on that later.
UPDATE – I’m coming back and adding this after the piece has been written and just before being published. After Nvidia released a new driver on the January 30, 2025, the game was forced to recompile shaders. Jumping back in, I experienced what was now obviously shader compilation stutter. What I believe is happening here is, as you play through the game from the beginning, missed shaders are being compiled here and there as you play. However, with a clean shader cache, loading into a later part of the game without the benefit of playing through previous sections, the game is forced to compile a lot of the missed shaders in very quick succession, thus causing noticeable stutter, even on my high end system.
High Preset
Medium Preset
Low Preset
Visuals
How does the game look on PC? With ~30 hours on the base PS5 version, I noticed quite quickly that some of my criticisms of that version have indeed made their way over to PC. You will still see some inconsistency in textures, and, in some cases, a low detail texture will be right next to a high detail one, which can be quite jarring. We also see the same insanely short shadow cascade distance from the screen, and, whilst the lighting does seem improved to my eye, it is still not great in certain areas with what seems like zero ambient occlusion in some places.
On the positive side, however, the game as a whole is very attractive with some scenes looking quite stunning, with character models being a particular highlight. Also of note is the setting “Background Model Detail” which, to my eye, offers the greatest improvement over the PS5 Pro, especially in those wide open spaces. Distant objects are noticeably higher detail, with a greater polygon count and level of detail being pushed further out.
Character Models are a particular highlight.
Portable Cloud
With the PC version covered, how does the Steam Deck fare? The game is verified through Valve’s verification system, giving it a green checkmark. Although, this doesn’t necessarily mean it performs well. Rebirth is indeed playable on the Steam Deck; however, this comes with a caveat. Do not expect anywhere close to 60 FPS, and expect to run at the low preset whilst being able to push textures to medium.
Running with these settings with a 30fps cap while also setting the min resolution bound to 66%, you will get a decent degree of consistency, though you will still see dips as you traverse the open-world sections or rapidly spin the camera (as mentioned before). Despite the “Low” settings label, on the Steam Deck screen, the game does still look quite nice, with the overall form factor making the compromises less noticeable.
Peter’s Final Thoughts
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is what I would describe as a “bare minimum” port. Whilst much better than the PC port of Remake, it is still missing a lot of features and introduces a lot of unnecessary attrition in tweaking its settings. On the plus side, the game is quite performant and can scale across a wide range of hardware. Getting to 60+ FPS should be quite doable for most low/mid range PC’s and up. Steam Deck is also surprisingly very playable here despite some visual compromise.
With a high-end system, you will arguably have the “best” version of this critically-acclaimed game, and I, for one, have thoroughly enjoyed my time with it and look forward to rolling the credits.
Alejandro’s Thoughts
When I reviewed Final Fantasy VII Rebirth last year, I noted how it continued the series’ tradition of being a feast for the eyes. From its scope and wide variety of locales to the high level of detail of the character models and its colorful particle effects, it was hard not to be impressed by the spectacle of it all. At the same time, I noted how it wasn’t an experience devoid of many compromises due to said scope, where you could see inconsistent texture detail sometimes next to each other, and plenty of pop-in. Its visual splendor was mostly relegated to the “Graphics Mode,” with the “Performance Mode” offering a solid 60fps at a severe cost in image quality.
Shortly after launch, Square Enix patched in two new versions of Performance Mode, deemed “Sharp” and “Smooth,” with the former supposedly being the newer option meant to make the game look better. From those two modes, “Smooth” looked better on my 4K set because the other mode made it seem like it disabled anti-aliasing without a proper image upscaler, so some areas looked better up close and worse far off. Regardless, the patch work still wasn’t enough to close the gap with how pretty the game could look in Graphics mode, and it was clear the only immediate solution would have to be better hardware.
When Sony announced the PlayStation 5 Pro last September, I took the plunge even after having platinumed the game. As a way to future proof my 60fps console experience, I wanted Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to be my initial example of a game too compromised originally to see if the better hardware gave me that fix. There are no two ways about it: in conjunction with Sony’s proprietary PSSR upscaling technology, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth offered a monumental leap in image quality on PlayStation 5 Pro compared to the base console, with a level of detail that rivaled the look of the game in Graphics Mode.
With that said, both “Graphics Mode” and PS5 Pro’s “Versatility Mode,” in my eyes, were interchangeable when it came to which one gave the better image quality. If what you care about is a better image while playing at 60fps, “Versatility” is the one and only real definitive option. But if what you care about is for your image quality to be flawless, “Versatility” still has issues on hand. Since its upscaling from the original low resolution of the old “Performance Mode,” other issues like excessive pop-in that were slightly masked by the blurry look are now fully exposed, and tiny issues like visual noise inherent to this early PSSR method can sometimes spoil the look.
“Graphics Mode” wasn’t free of these issues either, but they weren’t as prevalent. Graphics Mode will still give you sharp image quality despite the fact that its FAA anti-aliasing method, coupled with the employment of dynamic resolution, means it is a softer 4K image than I’d like. That’s not to mention that its 30 fps frame rate without camera motion blur makes your eyes take longer to adapt to the lower framerate. From that perspective, “Versatility” provides a sharper and closer-to-4K image than expected, and with the better framerate, it was no contest for me.
So the PS5 Pro definitely gave massive improvements over the base machine despite flaws still present. How does the Pro version stack up against the PC version? My colleague Peter gave details of his experience in what can be considered the current high end hardware prior to the launch of NVIDIA’s 50 series. In my case, I’ll provide my experience with what could be considered more mid-to-high range based on Square Enix’s Recommended Specs for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
Secondary PC Analysis and PS5 Pro Thoughts
Main Test PC specs
AMD Ryzen 7 5800x
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
16 GB DDR4 RAM
[1 TB] Samsung 990 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD
Based on the Recommended Specs, my computer met all the requirements. Immediately booting up the game, it auto-detected my specs and defaulted to Medium. I definitely found a game that looked sharper than the base PlayStation 5 experience I had. At the beginning I felt daring, running on the Window mode at a 1440p Resolution that could downscale to my 1080p monitor at 60fps on High. Through its initial prologue and early section of Chapter 1, I was plenty impressed how optimized the experience would be. But as soon as you started the trek up Mount Nibel, I started to see the dreaded stutters, which made me go back to the recommended Medium specs.
One of my points of curiosity was how this game would actually look on my 65-inch Samsung UC7000D LED TV, which is where I experienced most of my playtime with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro. Using the Borderless Fullscreen option that defaulted the game to my TV’s 4K resolution while still running the game on the Medium preset, I was pleasantly surprised how comparable the experience looked on PC to the PlayStation 5 Pro. My settings didn’t fully eliminate the pop-in that was prevalent on the Pro, but they were lessened. Using DLSS as the anti-aliasing method, I found that it stood toe-to-toe with the Pro’s PSSR method, eliminating some of the visual noise you could see in certain foggy areas of the Grasslands. Although, it was falling short when it came to reconstructing certain grassy areas.
Despite the better lightning and slightly less pop-in, where the problems do lie for me on the PC version is frame rate micro-stuttering. The game mostly handles 60fps pretty well while being a jittery mess on 90 fps and 120fps on my monitor which supports up to 240fps. But even at 60fps, I could feel enough micro-stutters that were noticeable to me as someone that found the performance on PlayStation 5 Pro close to perfect with just some tiny slowdowns. I wouldn’t say it came to ruin my experience, but given my machine and my available options, I definitely am in a position to choose better performance on the Pro than slightly better visuals on PC.
In short, my experience with the PC version compared to the PS5 Pro was mixed. It certainly was better in spots, but, with enough issues, I walked out more impressed at the PlayStation 5 Pro version overall. It’s punching above its weight against the specs of a machine that cost me around $2000 to build. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the PC version of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on a high end PC is the absolute best way to play this game, even if it’s still a “barebones port,” all things considered. If you are someone with cash to spare that would like to experience this game at a high fidelity, I say the version on the PlayStation 5 Pro is a good (while still slightly too expensive) middle ground alternative to getting there. But if you absolutely have the means for a high end PC, it will give you the most payoff, even if it’s not perfect.
Steve’s Thoughts
Okay, by now you have already heard a great breakdown of Rebirth operating on a high-end system and a system that falls in line with what a lot of gamers are currently using based on Valve’s hardware survey. As someone who is running with an AMD Ryzen 7 9700X, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and an NVIDIA RTX 4070, I found my experience to be quite adequate at a high setting. I won’t bog you down with details here. You’ve seen enough numbers, and I promise to keep it down to a minimum.
Yes, while I am not punching above my weight class when it comes to hardware here, I didn’t find too many issues that haven’t been discussed before. It runs quite fine, and it’s passable as long as you aren’t a stickler about your quality options. Where my qualms begin is with the screen presentation.
While the others have been using a standard 16:9 aspect ratio, I have been using an ultrawide 21:9 aspect ratio with a 3440 x 1440 resolution. I was able to handle the game at its native resolution at 60fps without issue; micro-stuttering be damned. Where I was really disappointed was the lack of support for anything outside the 16:9 aspect ratio range. I actually downloaded a patch off of github to open up the game a bit, but the issues still persisted to an extent. While bothersome, they actually gave me a bit of insight into the game production.
While the center 16:9 area of the screen would dim, the outer edges would still display other segments of the game. In some cases, I actually managed to see scenes that had to loop over itself so it could move onto the next bit. I am no director, but it seems that the darkened screens weren’t just narrative cuts but technical necessities to ensure the game ran smoothly. This was also an issue with Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XVI PC port, which seems to be the abandoned building of their library.
Without sounding too elitist or entitled, I found that all of Square Enix’s ports were extremely poor to the fullest extent. Not only do they seem to actively hate the PC audience with the lack of proper settings, but it seems like they just don’t care. I hate to use the term “lazy” here because, in my heart, I don’t think game developers are, but I can’t help but wonder what the bar is here for the company. Are their PC ports just ways to get angry PC gamers who don’t want to shell out $500 to $700 for a console (plus disc drives and what not)? It feels like a punishing experience here. I don’t feel like I am welcomed to the house of Squre Enix with these ports, and, honestly, I can’t see myself ever being excited to play another one of these games in the future on my PC. After everything Peter and Alejandro said, I think I’ll stick to the PS5 Pro like Sony intended.
Conclusion
We understand this was a long read, but it was a necessary one. We here at Seasoned Gaming take the “gaming” part of our name kind of seriously. We love to analyze the latest games and throw it into the grinder when it comes to how it operates. Whether you are looking at a 16-page analysis of a shooter or this right here, we take pride in what we do. PC gaming has become both an accessible platform and one that seems to be robbing players of quality with every growing year; if we continue to see more lackluster ports like this making their way to the platform, we’d rather see them stop. After all, it’s not like Sony is struggling with PC ports. Right?
