PSA: This FF7 Rebirth performance mode trick is essential

Blocks be gone

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth performance mode might hit 60fps, but it certainly doesn’t look good doing it, with low resolution problems and blocky textures. However, the folks at Digital Foundry hit on a simple trick that has impressive results.

FF7 Rebirth play log for 100% completion

DF’s Oliver Mackenzie says the problem comes from how Rebirth handles upscaling and image processing. Mackenzie says Rebirth doesn’t use the more common bicubic or bilinear methods – both of which tinker with pixels on a grid in an image to sharpen and smooth out the final product. 

Instead, it uses a nearest neighbor method, which assumes the value and density of the closest nearby pixel, and applies it to the pixel in question. The result is the blocky, uneven imaging that gives Rebirth’s performance mode its slightly unpleasant look.

Left: Standard performance mode; Right: Performance mode at 1440p :: Square Enix/GLHF

If you change the PS5’s output to 1440p from the system settings menu, though, it should smooth out the blocky edges. GLHF tried Digital Foundry’s trick and found that it worked, most noticeably on character models, as you can see above. Where Tifa’s face looked jagged initially, the 1440p trick smoothed the edges out and made them appear more normal.

It doesn’t fix the low resolution issues and the fact that some textures just look stretched and ill-fitted to begin with, but it’s a nice step up nonetheless.

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