Hello and welcome to my guide (My first guide on steam actually). So I just spent the past several days to almost a week trying to fix this game. Basically going back and forth with Square Enix Support and reading through the steam forums trying to get this game to a point of playability. Unfortunately, no matter what I seemed to do I couldn't figure out or remember how to do that. After all the back and forth and reading and searching, I finally got it to that point. Luckily for you who are also having problems, this guide is intended to also help you and save time doing it so you don't have to go through what I just did.


So first things first, I think it goes without saying but if you don't know, we're going to go through and make sure our system has everything it needs to run the game properly.

• Open Steam

• Go to your steam library

• Right click FFXIII-2

• Click on properties

• Go to Updates tab

• Uncheck Steam Cloud Sync

Basically, after reading through all the forums and after several tests of my own before and after fixing the game, I found that steam cloud is both the source of this issue and is therefore completely broken as of writing this guide. I have reported this to the support ticket and will update here with the response when and if any information provided is worth posting.

UPDATE: 10/12/2017 in the closing thoughts section

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 760K @4.0GHz
Cooler: ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2
GPU: Gigabyte Windforce AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB
MotherBoard: ASRock FM2A88M Extreme4+ FM2+/FM2 AMD A88X
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 8GB DDR3
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bits

AMD Crimson ReLive Edition Driver 17.10.1 Optional

• Download drivers for AMD[support.amd.com]

• Download drivers for NVIDIA[www.nvidia.com]

• Uninstall old drivers with Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU)[www.wagnardsoft.com]

• To install DDU, create a new folder. Move DDU .exe to new folder and extract. Run Display Driver Uninstaller .exe and use click and restart. You don't need safe mode. After that run CCleaner.

• Download and run CCleaner[www.piriform.com] registry cleaner.

• Restart the system, then install new drivers.

This didn't actually fix any of the three problems for me but it's always a good idea to do this anyway in the event you're having graphical issues at any time. For me when I was using 17.9.3 I was having problems with flashing areas in battle, flashing monsters, and also disappearing monster. After updating, that all stopped and haven't had issues since. If the latest drivers still cause you problems then also be sure to try the most current WHQL drivers or even rolling back to older if possible.

• Open file explorer and locate the folder Local Disk (C:)/ProgramsFiles(x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/FinalFantasyXIII-2/_CommonRedist. This could be different if you happen to have more than one hard drive (D:) or (E:) for example.

• Go into DirectX/Jun2010/DXSETUP.exe and run the setup. This installs and/or replaces any and all DirectX 9 components you'll need

• Go into DotNet and run the setup for dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe. Windows 10 users don't need this as it's already built into the operating system. You may need 3.5 but not sure (Vista/7/8/8.1 Users).

• Finally, before going into the vcredist folders I'd recommend going online and installing all the latest packs if you haven't already which can be found here[support.microsoft.com]. If you don't want to, then just go into both 2010 and 2012 folders and run the installer for both x86 and x64 installers.

After you've done everything here, we can move onto the next thing.

This is a quick add-in for people looking for the 4GB patch or other information in regards to crashing for FFXIII-2.

• Download the 4GB Patch[ntcore.com]

• Locate Steam\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY XIII-2\alba_data\prog\win\bin\ffxiii2img.exe

• Apply the patch to the ffxiii2img.exe file

• What it does in the creator's own words is:
  "This very little tool patches x86 executables in order to let them have 4GB (instead of only 2) of virtual memory on x64 platforms."

• There's no installation and is just a file that will apply what you need to your games executable.

Source: https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1221218362The majority of people who use this have reported that it's fixed all problems with crashing. But if you for some reason find yourself still having problems, then continue on.

General things you can do that can benefit all your games in Windows 10

• Right-click Start and click run

• Type in temp then hit enter. This will open your temp folder. Press Ctrl+A to select all files and press the Delete key.

• Repeat this process for both the %temp% and prefetch folders. This process actually sends everything to your Recycle Bin.

• Next open file explorer, select This PC and right-click your Windows install drive (C:) and click Properties, then click Disk Cleanup. Click clean up system files and checkmark all that apply. Make sure to checkmark Recycle Bin so you can empty out all the temp files you deleted earlier.

• Restart your computer.

This process should have a noticeable impact on all your games that have performance issues. You shouldn't have to do this more than once every 2 to 4 weeks.
Other Guides
The Meagethread that can be found pinned at the top of the Discussions TAB.https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=593546871A Performance & Framerate Guide for both Nvidia & AMD GPU users should you need it.https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=359755419

I'm sure this isn't a surprise or at least isn't going to be, but this game technically is not playable with a keyboard.

• That's It.

Basically, if you google stutter fix or in the steam forums, you'll find posts saying that it fixes the problem. Why? Because apparently, the game is hardcoded to check to see if there's a controller every 5 or 10 seconds, which is what causes the stutter in the first place.

• Unfortunately, there isn't really a whole lot you can do about that. Just make sure your system meets the system requirements to play the game located on the store page.

• Try going into your gpu control panel and set everything to default settings (that's what I did.)

• Look at other guides. Disable Framerate Pacer might be something worth looking into.

• Refer to the FFXIII-2 PCGamingWiki page[pcgamingwiki.com] and search through the issues fixed section.

Overall, there isn't much else to add here other than to check the game's forums and look at other guides to see if you can find what you're looking for. Because the game is a poor port, the best you can do is tweak the game settings and gpu settings or just upgrade your computer.

• Screen Settings: Windowed Display Mode
  Also, download and install Borderless Gaming[github.com]. When the game is launched just open BG and select the game and move it over to the favorites list. Then just go into options and check run on startup, check for updates and start minimized to tray. After you've done that everything will be done automatically.

• Resolution: 1920 x 1080

• Shadow Resolution: 2048 x 2048

• Anti-aliasing (MSAA): x8

There's nothing special about these settings. It's Just what I'm using. Though I've read that using either 1024 or 2048 shadows are the best to use for performance reasons.

Now for the finale.

Finally, onto the problem that drove me to contact SE Support in the first place. I was seriously stuck on this for several days as I couldn't figure out what or why my game was freezing repeatedly. Lucky for you I found 2 things that mitigate and also even fixes it entirely.

Before that, in the event your game does freeze (not responding), you can actually get out of it by doing Ctrl+Alt+Delete and open task manager and it will come out of it.

• Open file explorer and locate the folder Local Disk (C:)/ProgramsFiles(x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/FinalFantasyXIII-2/alba_data/prog/win/bin. This could be different if you happen to have more than one hard drive (D:) or (E:) for example.

• Right Click ffxiii2img.exe, select the compatibility tab, then checkmark compatibility Windows 8. Then also checkmark run as administrator and click apply. Optionally you can also do this with the FFXiii2Launcher.exe but that's up to you.

This is one thing I did that finally made the difference and stopped the game from freezing. I also read somewhere that the most recent patch was optimized for Windows 8/8.1. The only problem was it still had a really annoying stutter that I couldn't stand. So I tried one more solution that was recommended to me by SE Support.

• Completely uninstall FFXIII2 from your system.

• Read this (SteamKB) before uninstalling steam. Necessary if you want to maintain your saves and more importantly your installed games.

• Run CCleaner[www.piriform.com] registry cleaner. Then restart your computer.

• Then just download and install the latest version of steam and then reinstall FFXIII2.

After doing this my game was finally playable. No stutters, freezes or crashes since doing it other than not being able to use steam cloud sync. I also did not have to re-enable compatibility settings though I may have to later on.


If after all that you're still having problems then let me relay to you what was sent to me via SE Support[support.na.square-enix.com] Ticket (after sending in a DxDiag).

• The problem you are having here has something to do with your overall PC configuration. This game utilizes steam for authentication and installation. Steam will install to default locations (usually on the C:/ drive) and if you are coming up with this kind of error, that means there's a snag or inconsistency with the configuration of your HDD and/or file library. In no way are we passing blame to you or your machine, but we need to clarify that these types of problems do not occur with the large majority of Steam users. It's pretty much "install and go".

• If you are running into this problem, you should completely remove the game and steam from your machine, and allow it to download and install everything over again to its default locations and making sure you have admin rights to the machine. To do this we recommend to first Delete the game from steams library, then remove steam via add/remove programs. (You've Already Done All This If You've Been Following Along To Now).

• If this does not work for you, you may want to consult Steam's KB regarding it's installing methods. We apologize for the trouble you are having. Steam Knowledge Base, Steam Support

That last part made me lol. When all else fails they lay the blame on steam and I basically have to go to them to resolve my issues because I guess at that point it's steams fault. Anyway, that last part was the most noteworthy portion of it. If your still having issues I guess take it to steam and see if they can help you. Otherwise, everything I just wrote out is basically what you're probably going to get from sending in a support ticket. I just saved you a couple days worth of interaction with SE Support, your welcome.

That's it. I hope this was helpful in getting the game working for you. Whether your a returning player or someone who just bought the game, hopefully, this guide was enough in getting everything working. Also, be sure to rate the guide up if it did.

If you have any questions, just comment below and I'll try my best to answer.
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As expected I received a response back that basically says; "We've done our part, it's up to steam fix on there end now". Which sounds reasonable enough considering I personally had to reinstall steam just to get the game to work properly. One Possible reason for this was because I guess I could have possibly exceeded the cloud save limit of 1 GB. But upon checking, I had only used 1/4th the limit with 222MB. At this point though, if you're looking to get the steam cloud sync fixed for this game, your going to have to contact steam support to do it. You can get their full response from my ticket on this below.

"Thank you for contacting SQUARE ENIX support. We apologize for the delay in our response. Unfortunately, users are restricted to a 1 GB limit for game saves. If for some reason this limit is reached, the user will not be allowed to save any further games. We recommend to either delete some game saves and/or disable Steam Cloud Saves.

If the suggestions provided above do not resolve the issue, please contact Steam Support for further assistance: Steam Support

Thank you for contacting the SQUARE ENIX Support Center."
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