NieR:Automata High FPS Fix

Removes NieR:Automata's 60 FPS cap and fixes the game logic that breaks above 60 FPS, so the game plays exactly as it does at 60 FPS at any frame rate.

Supports the current Steam release (2021 "Become as Gods" build): both NieRAutomata.exe and NieRAutomataCompat.exe. Everything is located by byte-signature at runtime; if the game is updated and a signature stops matching, that fix is skipped and logged instead of patching the wrong code.

Install

1. Run build.bat (needs Visual Studio 2022 with the C++ workload), or use the prebuilt build\dinput8.dll.
2. Run install.bat. It copies dinput8.dll and AutomataHighFPS.ini into the game folder.
3. Start the game normally from Steam.

install.bat also works while the game is running; the new version is used from the next launch. uninstall.bat removes it again. Check AutomataHighFPS.log in the game folder to see which patches were applied.

The DLL loads as dinput8.dll, so it doesn't conflict with ReShade or Special K (those use dxgi.dll/d3d11.dll). Don't combine it with Special K's FAR "Remove 60 FPS Cap" option, which patches the same code.

Settings (AutomataHighFPS.ini)

Setting	Default	Meaning
TargetFPS	0	Frame rate limit. 0 = no limit (with V-Sync on, the monitor refresh rate is the limit), -1 = monitor refresh rate, or a number such as 141.
ToggleCapKey	0x7A (F11)	Toggles a temporary 60 FPS cap. A beep confirms the toggle.
FixFrameCounters	1	Per-frame counters (hit-stop, transition cooldowns, …) tick at 60 Hz.
FixMsTimers	1	Quest/script millisecond timers stay accurate at any frame rate.
FixSubsystems	1	Fixes for individual game systems: movement, enemies, bullets, camera, NPCs, world objects, menus, flight unit, hacking, fishing.
FixCloth	1	Cloth and hair physics in 60 Hz steps with smooth in-between frames.
MenuFPS	0	Optional frame rate cap while a menu is open (0 = no cap).
UnlimitedLoading	1	Removes the frame limit on loading screens, which shortens loads.
ForceMaxRefreshRate	1	Exclusive fullscreen uses the monitor's highest refresh rate instead of 60 Hz.
JumpLog ([Debug])	0	Logs the player's jump/fall state, phase and height every frame to AutomataHighFPS.log. Takes effect while the game runs.

With V-Sync on in the game's options, the frame rate is also capped by the monitor's refresh rate.

How it works

The engine measures each frame in "60 Hz frames": the time step is 1.0 at 60 FPS and 2.0 at 30 FPS, clamped to [1.0, 2.0]. That clamp is why simply removing the frame limiter makes the game run too fast. Code that scales by this step is correct at any frame rate once the clamp is lowered. Code that assumes "one frame = 1/60 s" (integer counters, fixed per-frame movement, truncated millisecond timers) is what breaks above 60 FPS.

The mod:

• Replaces the frame limiter's 60 FPS target with the configured one, while still honouring the game's own 30 FPS mode.
• Removes the 1.0 lower clamp of the time step, so the game runs in real time.
• Re-points every frame-dependent routine it knows about to one of these per-frame values (e = this frame's share of a 60 Hz frame, 1.0 at 60 FPS):
  • 60 Hz ticks for integer frame counters (1 at ≤ 60 FPS, otherwise 0 or 1 from an accumulator), so a 20-frame window lasts 1/3 s at any frame rate;
  • c·e for amounts added once per frame (movement steps, ramps, spins);
  • k^e for per-frame decay (v *= k);
  • 1−(1−k)^e for per-frame smoothing (v += (target − v) · k), including smoothing factors stored per object, rescaled at runtime;
  • an exact gravity step that reproduces the 60 FPS jump/fall/glide arcs;
  • exact pairs for a decay and the movement it drives (knock-back, drift, hover pulls, bullet speed and spin), so both the timing and the distance travelled match 60 FPS.

At 60 FPS or below every replacement value equals the original constant, and with a 60 FPS limit the time step is clamped exactly as in vanilla, so the mod changes nothing there. All values are recomputed once per frame.

Fixes

About 1,180 patches, located by signature in both executables:

Area	What was frame-dependent	Fix
Game speed	Time step clamped to ≥ 1 frame, so the whole game sped up	Clamp removed; frame limiter target configurable
Hit-stop	Hit-stop delay and duration counted in frames (global time nodes and the player's own)	60 Hz ticks
Quest scripts	TimeCountAction and other millisecond timers truncated each frame and stopped advancing above ~1000 FPS	Exact per-frame milliseconds; 60 FPS timing kept
Events and dialogue	Cutscene fade and caption lead-ins, caption auto-close, Yes/No input lock, forced-walk, fast-travel hold, elevator, timed HUD gauge (fixed 1/60 s per frame); NPC talk release; bunker waits; object-load wait; placed-item countdown; transition cooldowns; a caption ending on its own left the letterbox and the control lock on after a cutscene	Scaled per frame / 60 Hz ticks
Slow motion	Finisher slow-mo, BGM slow and delayed slow-mo requests counted in frames	60 Hz ticks
Menus and UI	Menu key-repeat (pad, keyboard, mouse), HUD fades, option-text marquee, rumble length	60 Hz ticks / scaled smoothing
Player movement	Glide spin-kick drift, air control, attack damping and plunge, jump/attack and button press buffers, jump and glide arcs, vertical free-move mode, scripted lift, slope landing check, A2 evade turn, animation-blend and animation-speed smoothing, scripted states (dive, flight-unit attach, push, hover sway, fall return, stage laser), beam length, 2D-section drift, knock-back slide, carried objects, assorted per-frame player counters	Scaled / exact gravity / 60 Hz ticks
Pod	Follow smoothing, orbit angle, follow-factor ramp and target smoothing, bone and arm aim, sonar ping interval and smoothing, scripted pod timers, bob ramp, program spins and beam growth, Pod B laser burst and hit rate, keep-alive and beam lengths, skill model lifetimes	Scaled / 60 Hz ticks
Enemies	Common movement smoothing (yaw, angle, speed), strafing, keep-distance and approach steps, drift, navmesh pull-back, hit pull-in, RunState steps, hacked-robot stick decay, fall smoothing, gravity, boss part spins and smoothing, hit windows, attack cooldowns, waits, slow-motion override and time-scale request counters, hacked-robot attack damping; across every enemy, animal and mount class: hover and flying pulls (their top speed scaled with the frame rate), speed decays and slides, turn-rate and speed ramps, oscillators, path progress, beam growth and sweeps, part gravity and orbits, HP regeneration, camera-proximity fades, state and contact frame counters	Scaled / exact gravity and decay pairs / 60 Hz ticks
Bullets	Arc-shot gravity (applied before the move, so arcs are integrated exactly) and speed-up, falling move modes, spin and its decay, homing and frame-follow turn rate and fraction in every move mode, speed decay, wobble, guided-line counter and snap, gravity wells, ring bombs, beams, attached-part scale, and bullet types that moved a fixed distance per frame	Scaled / exact arcs and decay pairs
Camera	Every third-person camera mode's follow-factor ramps, angle, distance and offset smoothing, approach fractions and step limits, angular impulses (fade and swing), gains combined with the follow speed or the transition blend, target lag, aim offsets, recentre, snap and skip-update frame counters, the mode-transition blend, event and scripted cameras (path camera, moveOffset, side-view path mode), camera shake (integrator steps, random sign changes on 60 Hz ticks); fractions the camera already scaled by the frame time use the exact 60 FPS equivalent	Scaled / 60 Hz ticks
NPCs and companions	9S/A2 yaw, animation blend, step and follow smoothing, scripted entrances, anchor and navmesh pulls, creature NPC turning, leaning, speed ramps and path movement, foot IK, the 9S thrown weapon, fish	Scaled
World	Map gimmick timers (doors, elevators, steam pipes), item and corpse lifetimes, item magnet, drop timers, environment and light transitions, phase-flow and manager timers, scrolling sections, see-through fades, ambient audio smoothing and ray sampling, combat hit and phase windows, particle emit counters, effect collision intervals, pushable blocks (falling off a ledge, pull back into their area), interaction cooldowns	Scaled / 60 Hz ticks
HUD and menus	Boss HP gauge, operating-ratio and pollution gauges, popups and slides, core-menu waits, weapon list and item-shortcut counters	Scaled / 60 Hz ticks
Flight unit	Rail movement and smoothing, ship movement, tilt and turn rates, behind-view battles, curve-following enemies, wingmen, shooter bullets and homing, lasers, scroll speed changes	Scaled (no frame cap)
Hacking (and Ending E credits)	Ship and enemy speed smoothing and movement, respawn waits, spins, wave patterns, gun sweeps, hit cooldowns, items, bombs, knock-back	Scaled / 60 Hz ticks (no frame cap)
Animation inputs	Playback runs on the frame time, but some states smoothed or ramped the playback speed, blend parameters and root-motion scale once per update (player run and turn states, an escort blend ramp, the Baa000 mount speed, shared enemy turn states)	Scaled
Fishing	Bobber settle and jitter	Scaled / 60 Hz ticks
9S hack gauge	Decay per frame	Scaled
Frame-time-scaled smoothing	Turn and approach fractions the game multiplies by the frame time (shared enemy and NPC turn helpers, turn-to-point, pod follow and orbit, animals, player flight and states, camera modes) scale only linearly, so they still settled faster above 60 FPS	Exact 60 FPS equivalent, identical at 60 FPS, slow motion kept
Cloth and hair	The solver steps once per frame with per-step damping and constraint passes, so cloth turned stiffer and slower	Simulated in real 60 Hz steps; frames in between show a partial-step preview that is rolled back before the next step

If something misbehaves, press F11 to drop to 60 FPS while you get past it, and please report where it happened.

Building and testing

• build.bat builds build\dinput8.dll (static CRT, no runtime needed).
• The large patch sets live in analysis\*.tsv (one row per site: signature, offset, primitive, formula). tools\gen_patch_tables.py re-verifies every signature against both decrypted executables and generates src\generated\*.inc, embedding the original bytes so the DLL refuses to patch anything unexpected.
• tests\build_tests.bat builds tests\build\harness.exe, an offline test that maps a SteamStub-decrypted copy of your own game executable (not included; the game's .text section is encrypted on disk) without running it, applies every patch, and calls the patched game functions with simulated frame times (for example: the time step at 144 FPS, hit-stop counters, quest timers at 2000 FPS). tests\disasm_patches.py disassembles every patch site and code cave from the harness output for review.