TEKKEN 7 (389730) has inconsistent frametimes if it is not capped to 59 FPS

[AED-001]

Hi! I play a lot of TEKKEN 7. It seems like TEKKEN 7 has an issue with frame-pacing/frame-times out of the box.

However if you cap the game's FPS to 59 using either DXVK's frame-capper or MangoHUD's frame-capper, the frame pacing sorts itself out and the game behaves.

But if you do not cap the game to 59 FPS, the game's frame-time graph will has small inconsistencies of ~4ms (and strange intermittent small spikes, regardless of stage, characters, etc), which is really bad for a fighting game where triple-frame-perfect precise inputs like Bryan's Taunt Jet Upper exist.

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAwxrwvMnKA

Default functionality:

Locked to 59 FPS using external software:

I realized this after getting back into offline play on PS4 with my local friends, that my consistency with difficult inputs was much better on PS4 than it is at home on my Linux PC (openSUSE Tumbleweed, Proton Experimental, using gamemode & GPU is set to high performance power profile). Messed with stuff until I figured this out, and now everything is fine for me with the game capped to 59 FPS.

I am not sure if this is an issue with the game itself, or Proton, but I am hoping Valve can take a look to see if they can replicate it and fix it for others without them having to go out of their way to cap their FPS to 59. Thank you!

EDIT - my system info:

OS: openSUSE Tumbleweed
KERNEL: 5.18.9-2-default
CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K @ 3.60GHz
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6800 (sienna_cichlid, LLVM 14.0.5, DRM 3.46, 5.18.9-2-default)
GPU DRIVER: 4.6 Mesa 22.1.3
RAM: 32 GB

[AED-001]

Found a more elegant solution: you can cap to 59.9 FPS using the DXVK_FRAME_RATE environment variable.

My launch options:
DXVK_FRAME_RATE=59.9 gamemoderun %command%

(you can remove gamemoderun if you don't use gamemoderun)

Happy frame times!

Oddly enough, neither the game's built-in frame cap nor the game's implementation of vertical sync seems to properly cap the frame-rate with a constant frame-time. Enabling/disabling vertical sync in the game's graphics options menu seems to have no noticeable effect on frame-times, but setting the 59.9 FPS cap in-place does.

[nikpikjoe]

On Steam Deck specifically, this exact issue manifests regardless of the DXVK_FRAME_RATE launch command. (As of the latest Stable, Beta and Preview builds of SteamOS).

A temporary fix is using the quick access menu to change FPS cap to 30FPS and then switching back to 60FPS - this fixes the issue and ensures a consistent frametime - but eventually resets in a couple of minutes. Any idea what else one could try or if there's a Steam Deck-specific solution to this problem?

[xzyxzy]

Happens to me too on Steam Deck. DXVK_FRAME_RATE=59.9 didn't helped much/

[AED-001]

On Steam Deck specifically, this exact issue manifests regardless of the DXVK_FRAME_RATE launch command. (As of the latest Stable, Beta and Preview builds of SteamOS).

A temporary fix is using the quick access menu to change FPS cap to 30FPS and then switching back to 60FPS - this fixes the issue and ensures a consistent frametime - but eventually resets in a couple of minutes. Any idea what else one could try or if there's a Steam Deck-specific solution to this problem?

Happens to me too on Steam Deck. DXVK_FRAME_RATE=59.9 didn't helped much/

Quick question to both of you, have you noticed any improvements since today's 3AM patch to TEKKEN 7? The timing feels spot on with PS4 ever since the most recent patch, combined with the DXVK_FRAME_RATE=59.9 in the launch options. Game feels very playable online now!

I'm curious if it helped at all for Steam Deck users. A lot of players in the TEKKEN community are saying online feels a lot better now on PC.

[nikpikjoe]

Quick question to both of you, have you noticed any improvements since today's 3AM patch to TEKKEN 7? The timing feels spot on with PS4 ever since the most recent patch, combined with the DXVK_FRAME_RATE=59.9 in the launch options. Game feels very playable online now!

I've been testing this all day with different options, but no matter what I try, the issue persists for Steam Deck.

The latest patch did help the native Windows client with regards to online ping management, but this is a separate issue related to game performance alas.

[xzyxzy]

Tried new patch, no change on SD. Still shaky frametimes with some frames up to 20 ms.

[AED-001]

Replying to #5992 (comment) #5992 (comment)

Ah, sorry to hear. It seems like the frame-time issue persists for me too, it's just lessened by DXVK_FRAME_RATE=59.9 in launch options on a Linux machine running Proton. I guess my positive experience is just that the new online networking compensates well for the instability in frame-times.

Hopefully Valve or Bandai Namco do something to improve the game on Proton/Deck!

[xzyxzy]

Issue still exist in SteamOS3.4 with: allow tearing, v-sync off, locked gpu clock, windowed mode and combination of these options.

[nikpikjoe]

So... I think we have some good news here with SteamOS 3.4.2 (also updated Mesa in desktop mode).
I disabled system-level v-sync from the quick access menu by allowing tearing, then enabled in-game v-sync. I also set my framelimit to "Off".

Using fullscreen mode, 720p resolution, no launch commands, and my frame times are noticeably better, usually settling down to between 16.0ms and 17.3ms. I don't think this issue is fully resolved, since there are still moments of prolonged inconsistency when the range goes from 14.5ms to 19ms but it looks less juddery than it used to, noticeably so and closer to the Windows behaviour of the game.

EDIT: Have been playing all day, I think swapping the system-level v-sync for the in-game one is definitely much better in terms of input latency and marginally improves frame-times but in the end this issue still manifests after a minute or two.

[xzyxzy]

Its better now, but still not perfect.