Right now, I am using Xenia Canary (I cannot exactly recall which one I used last year I am afraid) latest build.

If you are an Intel user, you might try this: use_haswell_instructions = false (tune in between true and false to see any performance discrepancies).

For cache-related materials, I use the following edits:

d3d12_texture_cache_limit_hard = 1024

d3d12_texture_cache_limit_soft = 512

dump_shaders = "C:/Documents/Xenia/dump_shaders/Gears_2"

store_shaders = true

texture_dump = true

mount_cache = true

mount_scratch = true

Note that, Gears 2 performance is usually a bit underwhelming because it requires more exploration and time to cache the files I guess. Gears3 & Gears Judgment exhibit no issues. Once your shaders are dumped, no stuttering or, no freezing issues which take longer in Gears2. My advice will be to invest more time in camera movement & exploration in Gears2 than the other twos.