So I had these enabled and was seeing some GPU usage. I realize most suggest it for Episode 2 /3, but I had it on in 1 for the sake of having it, as I figured if it helped with the sequels, be good for the first as well.

So I was hitting 99% GPU usage, even if not much was on the screen. The thing is, be it native resolution, or 4xNative + 16x AA, the FPS and GPU usage was the same.

Turned out it was the 8-bit textures option. Disabled them and same scene is now 15% GPU usage. So what exactly did that option remove?

Also wish I could somehow get rid of this stutter. Is it Aero causing it? The game has micro-stutters that most people would ignore, but I can tell it, like a frame syncing and such. Oddly enough, other games like Persona 3 / 4 & Dragon Quest 8 don't have it...hrm.

The Xenosaga engine has a weird frame update interval and behaviour.
The game does like 2 updates with nearly no data and then one update with that huge load of vertices.
That could explain the choppiness a little.

didn't gabest explain what Xenosaga does?, like, it spams the gs with offscreen geometry or something

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Quote:So I had these enabled and was seeing some GPU usage. I realize most suggest it for Episode 2 /3, but I had it on in 1 for the sake of having it, as I figured if it helped with the sequels, be good for the first as well.

all you're doing is making the gpu work unnecessarily hard

VBA-M

Get a 3gb gpu and you wont see stuttering ever again. I no longer have the stutters issue in z.o.e. 2 boss fights.

More VRAM won't help. It's barely using 500MB at the most intense parts, and I have 1280MB. I have plenty to spare.

What program did you used to measure the vram? I had a gtx 570 w/ 1280MB and still get the stuttering effects in Z.O.E. 2 but after switching to a gtx 580 3gb the stuttering was gone Game like ZOE 2 can reached up to 2.5GB in certain scenes.

MSI Afterburner, HWInfo64bit, GPU-Z, a few. Maybe Z.O.E. 2 can, but Xenosaga was sitting around 500-600.