Final Fantasy fans are having a rough experience with FF16, thanks to major frame rate issues that appear in several areas of the game.

If choppy frames are something you can’t deal with, it might be worth staying away from Final Fantasy 16 for a little while.

Despite the new title being a PS5-exclusive release, it seems that Square Enix wasn’t able to get FF16 running smoothly 100% of the time.

Frame Rate Issues & Drops in FF16

Although Final Fantasy 16’s performance (ironically called ‘Frame Rate’) mode attempts to offer 60 FPS as a trade-off for lower fidelity visuals, the game isn’t as smooth as players would like.

Generally FF16 targets 60 FPS and often manages to come close, but in open-world areas and some explorable towns, the title drops to 40 FPS or lower.

FF16's Open World

When entering combat, FF16 is able to achieve what feels like a smooth 60 FPS. But, as many players are noting, the game appears to drop its resolution all the way to 720p at times in order to hit that frame rate.

Most likely, FF16’s use of ray tracing is responsible for its major performance issues. And without the options to tweak graphical settings that PC players tend to enjoy, there’s no way to turn the feature off.

“I’ve been playing this game for about 3 hours and its really great so far! But the performance of the game is genuinely terrible,” a recent post on the FFXVI subreddit reads.

Other commenters were quick to agree with user Perfect_Photo29’s assessment.

“I’ve basically given up on Performance mode, with constant drops below 48fps and 720p (!) it just looks awful on my VRR 4K OLED,” ShadowReplicant confirms.

Final Fantasy 16 Box Art

What About Graphics Mode?

On the other hand, using Graphics mode will allow Final Fantasy 16 to look its best, and keep the title at a steady 30 FPS. However, it didn’t take gamers long to notice that focusing on graphical fidelity causes the new release to suffer from major motion blur.

There’s no way to turn off motion blur in FF16 either, and the only recommendation we can make is to alleviate the issue by playing in Frame Rate mode. But for those who can’t deal with frame drops, this may not be a viable solution.

To switch between Frame Rate and Graphics mode, follow these steps:

  • Press Start to bring up the main menu.
  • Keep pressing R2 until you reach System.
  • Press R1 to move to Graphics Settings.
  • Hover over the Game Performance option with the left joystick.
  • Press left or right on the D-Pad to switch modes.
  • Press Circle to leave the settings menu.
The Frame Rate visual mode in FF16

How to Fix Frame Rate Issues in Final Fantasy 16

Currently, the only way to fix frame drops and other issues in FF16 is to play on Graphics mode over Frame Rate mode. This will at least keep the game at a steady frame rate, even if it’s lower than you’d like.

Unfortunately, this does mean that you’ll have to deal with heavy motion blur, which isn’t able to be turned off.

Since FF16 features extremely limited visual settings, there’s no real way to improve the issue on the user’s end. However, Producer Naoki Yoshida states that updates are coming post-launch for the game that aim to alleviate the frame rate problem.

Sadly, there’s no timeline as to when we might expect these fixes to arrive.

And in the meantime, gamers have to make the choice between waiting for improvements – or dealing with the frame drops and playing FF16 anyway.