PC requirements & performance
Processor instruction requirements (FMA3 vs SSE4.2 compatibility build), Vulkan 1.3 VRAM scaling, and v0.1.7 crowd and battle performance.
- CPU: SSE4.2 + POPCNT (FMA3 fast)
- GPU: Vulkan 1.3
- RAM: 16 GB
- Disk: ~30 GB free
Minimum & recommended specs
Every hardware requirement below comes directly from the Goldoire/fefw-recomp README and release engineering notes:
- Operating system
- Windows 10 or Windows 11 (64-bit), or Linux x86_64 via
fefw-launcher.AppImage+ Steam Proton /umu-run/ Wine. - CPU (fast FMA3 path)
- 64-bit processor with FMA3 & AVX: Intel Haswell (4th Gen, 2013) or newer; AMD Piledriver (2012) / any Ryzen CPU.
- CPU (compatibility path)
- 64-bit processor with SSE4.2 & POPCNT: Intel Core i3/i5/i7 (2008+, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Xeon E5 v1/v2) or AMD FX (2011+). Set up detects missing FMA3 and builds a compatible binary (#33). Core 2 and Phenom are unsupported.
- Graphics API
- Vulkan 1.3 GPU with an up-to-date driver (NVIDIA GeForce, AMD Radeon, Intel Arc).
- System memory
- 16 GB RAM (if memory is low during Set up, pause and resume after closing background apps so parallel Zig workers can spawn, #106).
- Storage space
- About 30 GB of free disk space alongside your decrypted game dump.
FMA3 vs SSE4.2 CPU builds
During Set up, the launcher inspects your processor’s instruction flags before invoking Zig:
- Haswell (2013) / Piledriver (2012) and newer receive the FMA3-accelerated build for maximum throughput.
- Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge and Xeon E5 v1/v2 (2008–2012) receive a dedicated SSE4.2 + POPCNT build restored in v0.1.7 (#33) that computes identical results without FMA3 (upstream warns against manually passing
-mcpu=ivybridge, which miscomputed values). - Pre-SSE4.2 CPUs (Core 2 Duo/Quad, AMD Phenom) are not supported; both Set up and
fefw.exedisplay a clear message instead of crashing (#82, #39).
VRAM & Texture Detail
Desktop GPUs do not decode mobile ASTC textures natively, so FEFW Recomp transcodes textures using astc-encoder and bc7enc_rdo. To keep 4 GB, 6 GB and 8 GB graphics cards running smoothly:
| GPU VRAM Tier | Texture Detail Setting | Memory Behavior in v0.1.6 – v0.1.7 |
|---|---|---|
| 4 GB – 8 GB VRAM GPUs | Automatic (Half size) | Saves ~2 GB of video memory (added in v0.1.6); v0.1.7 also retries allocations automatically if VRAM temporarily fills up (#73, #81, #83). |
| 9 GB+ VRAM GPUs | Automatic (Full size) | Keeps full-resolution ASTC->BC7 transcoded textures; allows 4096 or 8192 shadow maps (+1.3 GB VRAM at 8192, #2). |
Performance gains in v0.1.7
| Scenario / Benchmark | Measured Upstream Result |
|---|---|
| Crowded towns & capital (v0.1.7) | Shadow maps no longer split frames into hundreds of passes (#79, #70, #83), boosting crowded city scenes from 41–45 fps to 60 fps in upstream testing, while direct uniform buffer pushes cut render-thread work by ~10%. |
| First visit to Dagsion (v0.1.7) | Asynchronous texture preparation reduces first-visit area loading stalls from 14–30 seconds down to under 4 seconds. |
| Extended battle maps (v0.1.7) | Fixes a per-frame runtime list growth bug (#69, #85) so long tactical battles hold a steady frame rate instead of degrading over time. |
| Ryzen 5 5600X + RX 6800 XT (1620p) | Measured in Weile10000/FEFW-60FPS benchmarks: 16.7 ms (60 fps) in light scenes and 28–37 ms in heavy UI scenes with VRR active. |
Controllers for FEFW Recomp
FEFW Recomp uses SDL3 for native gamepad input, dynamic button prompts, face-button layout switching, and wired DualSense / Switch Pro HD Rumble haptics (via RenHDrum in v0.1.7). These controllers pair cleanly on Windows 10/11 and Linux:
| Controller | Best For in FEFW Recomp | Hardware Advantage | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sony DualSense | Wired HD Rumble haptics (v0.1.7) | Supported by F1 > Controls > Haptics (RenHDrum) over USB + crisp D-pad | View on Amazon |
| GameSir Cyclone 2 | Fast tactical grid cursor & bases | TMR sticks, Hall/microswitch triggers, 1000 Hz wireless dongle | View on Amazon |
| 8BitDo Ultimate 2 Wireless | Desktop Windows & SteamOS dock | TMR drift-free sticks, 2.4 GHz charging dock, Switch/XInput toggle | View on Amazon |
| Xbox Wireless Controller | Plug-and-play Windows 10/11 | Native XInput prompts & throttled Bluetooth battle vibration (#26) | View on Amazon |
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Common questions
Why does DLSS Frame Generation require Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling?
NVIDIA Streamline’s DLSS-G optical flow pipeline requires an RTX 40 series (or newer) GPU with Windows Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling turned on (#6). If you have an RTX 20/30 card or AMD/Intel GPU, use AMD FSR 3 frame generation instead (#105).
How much extra VRAM do 8192 shadows use?
Setting shadow resolution to 8192 allocates dedicated render-target memory outside the console heap (#2) and consumes roughly 1.3 GB of additional VRAM.
Why is CPU usage high when entering new towns?
First-time visits transcode ASTC textures and compile Vulkan pipelines in the background. Once cached, subsequent visits load immediately.