• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

NeoGAF PC Gaming General Performance Tweaking Thread

Hi, my name is BP101 and I like to tweak games for performance. I've gone into a lot of threads and done my best to help people, but I thought it'd be a good idea to start a general discussion thread where people can ask about configs, post their tweaking results, and work together as a community to pool game tweaking knowledge. PC gaming thrives on the ability to custom tune the performance/image quality of the games, so let's get started, shall we?


LATEST UPDATE 03-15-2012: SMAA Injection guide! Want AA without the blur of FXAA or the performance hit of MSAA? Here it is.

RAGE High-End Config (gorgeous graphics + almost complete elimination of texture pop-in/streaming)
Warhammer 40k Space Marine Nvidia Inspector Antialiasing Settings
Rochard SGSSAA compatibility + Witcher 2 config tweaks! (below)

SGSSAA Proper Usage Guide, written by me
NEW! Rochard AA bit for SGSSAA: 0x004000C1 <--- Insert this into the AA compatibility line in Nvidia Inspector
NEW! (old?) My Guide to The Witcher 2 Ini Tweaks for Low/Medium/High/Ultra configs

Batman: Arkham City performance tweaks
batman_arkham_city_4_by_narcizze-d4izcqc.png


BEFORE WE START: Make sure to right click any INI you modify, go to Properties, and set to READ ONLY after you've saved it! The game WILL overwrite your settings without warning.

For max quality Arkham City (DX9), change the following settings in bmengine.ini in My Documents/WBGames

Code:
MaxShadowResolution=4096 ;(try 2048 if you encounter shadow glitches, ALSO change this in Userengine.ini!!)
MinShadowResolution=32
MaxAnisotropy=16
bEnableBranchingPCFShadows=False
bAllowBetterModulatedShadows=False
bEnableForegroundShadowsOnWorld=True
bEnableForegroundSelfShadowing=True
bAllowWholeSceneDominantShadows=True
SizeOfPermanentObjectPool=19600000 ;(optional, may allow more RAM usage)
HysteresisLimit=20
DropMipLevelsLimit=16
StopIncreasingLimit=12
StopStreamingLimit=10

Battlefield 3 optimal input lag reduction + performance tweaks
battlefield_3_by_harrybana-d391d1y.png

Note: This will minimize input lag on most systems and also provide a smoother gameplay experience. YMMV, and if you're not sure if these tweaks will work for your system, just ask in this thread. The ";comments" are just comments/suggestions, delete them when you paste the lines into your ini!

Go to My Documents/Battlefield 3/settings, open PROF_Save_Profile with Wordpad or a decent editor like Notepad++.

Add these lines to it if they don't already exist:

Code:
GstRender.GameTime.MaxVariableFps 59 ;for 60 hz monitors, 119 if 120 hz...
GstRender.TripleBufferingEnable 0
GstRender.VSync 0
GstRenderDevice.ForceRenderAheadLimit 0
GstAudio.AudioQuality 4 ;(experiment with this depending on your sound system, 1 may work best if you don't have good speakers/headphones)

Bulletstorm INI Tweaking Guide of Massive Dicktits Performance Increases
bulletstorm_game_icon_by_wolfangraul-d3a9xlv.png

First, download this. You'll need it to open the INI files.
http://games.softpedia.com/get/Tools/Bulletstorm-INI-Editor.shtml
Config files are located here: Bulletstorm/StormGame/Config

BEFORE WE START: Make sure to right click any INI you modify, go to Properties, and set to READ ONLY after you've saved it! The game WILL overwrite your settings without warning.

First, let's change the FOV. Go to StormCamera.ini. Change the FOV to whatever you feel is appropriate (I use 90).

Next, let's turn off the horrible mouse smoothing. Go to StormInput.ini. Change this next line, make it just like this:
Code:
bEnableMouseSmoothing=false

Finally, time for performance. We're going to force the game to stop streaming the levels and load everything entirely into RAM, which speeds up things. Also doing general speed-ups/better graphics etc.

In StormEngine.ini, make all of these lines look like this:

Code:
bUseBackgroundLevelStreaming=False
SizeOfPermanentObjectPool=22600000
[TextureStreaming]
PoolSize=512 ;or 50-75% of your VRAM
MaxAnisotropy=16
MaxShadowResolution=1024 ;2048 or 4096 if you have beefy hardware
bAllowBetterModulatedShadows=True
OneFrameThreadLag=False

Audio tweaks: these are also in StormEngine.ini:

Code:
[XAudio2.XAudio2Device]
MaxChannels=64


[ALAudio.ALAudioDevice]
MaxChannels=64
Or set to 128 if you have a nice sound card.

TES V: Skyrim Tweaking/Modding Thread, brought to you by the community of NeoGAF and maintained by Liquidmetal14
skyrim_icon_c_by_gimilkhor-d3co4ob.png

I helped write some of the OP tweaks/guides for the above thread and I can wholeheartedly say that there is some awesome performance gains to be seen just by visiting that thread and trying out some of the tweaks for yourself. Hats off to the GAF Skyrim tweaking/modding community!


Durante's Guide to Nvidia 'Downsampling Supersampling'
DS SS (for short) means that you render at a higher resolution (say, 1600p) and downsample it to whatever resolution you use (1080p, for example). Why would you do this? Well, it's basically a form of supersampling, which means that it gives better image quality/great antialiasing effects.


I only know how to do it on Nvidia, but I can write something up for that. It's pretty straight forward.

First, enable GPU scaling and override of game settings for that:
19yrmg.png


Then, navigate to the custom resolution creation interface:
2qrohc.png

3dyo6a.png


Now, here's where some experimentation comes in. Depending on your base resolution, you should try some multiples of that, like *4/3 or *3/2. If a resolution doesn't work at first, it may help to play with the timing parameters. Generally I've found "CVT reduced blank" to work best for my display, but YMMV.
4q3owf.png


Once you find some resolution(s) that work, it's just a matter of selecting them in-game. Good luck!

(If you can't get your system to accept any higher resolutions, there is some -- potentially dangerous -- EDID trickery you can try, but I don't have any experience with that)

BP101's Simplified Guide to Proper Sparse Grid Super Sampling AntiAliasing (SGSSAA) Usage... 101
Note about this guide: I do my absolute best to clear up confusion about certain aspects of using SGSSAA. I hate reading explanations about something and thinking 'hm, but where's the rest of the info? Why does this guy say 'just do this' but never gives an underlying reason or how he came to that conclusion?' Basically, if you hate reading and just want to do things willy-nilly, this guide isn't for you. But if you enjoy reading a clear, detailed guide, I hope this is right up your alley.

What is SGSSAA? See NaturalViolence's awesome, detailed guide to the forms of antialiasing here: http://naturalviolence.webs.com/nvidia.htm. He does a great job demonstrating and explaining the various types of AA available. For the purpose of this guide, I will be demonstrating how to effectively use SGSSAA for your favorite games.

Why SGSSAA? SGSSAA is an Nvidia-only form of transparency antialiasing that when combined with MSAA, gives stellar picture quality and squashes jaggies in trees, fences, edges, shaders, and much more. It is not nearly as performance-draining as Super Sampling AA, but gives very similar image quality/jaggie reduction. The downside is that it causes blur, but thanks to LOD bias, that can effectively be eliminated. Also, SGSSAA works on Direct X 9/10/11 games if you've got a GTX 4xx/5xx series card (GTX 480 or GTX 560 Ti, for example), and DirectX 9 if you've got a 2xx series card (GTX 280, for example).

Let's get down to it:
Open up Nvidia Inspector. Go to your games profile manager. Pull up a game from the list that you want to try SGSSAA on. For simplification purposes, I have made an image of a properly setup NV Inspector profile with SGSSAA applied. I will be using the highlighed areas (marked with red boxes) to explain what each one does/why it's important. The game in question we'll be using is Hot Pursuit 2010, a game that benefits greatly from SGSSAA and also stays locked at 60 FPS during gameplay, even with 4x MSAA + 4x SGSSAA at 1920x1080.
nvidia%252520sgssaa%252520guide%252520highlighted.jpg


First, let's look at the top highlighted items, called 'antialiasing compatibility.' These are 'special bits' that the drivers use to determine how to apply AA to a game. Why are these important? Well, because every game (and even some on the same rendering engine) uses AA differently, so your drivers need this specified. Another issue: not all compatibility bits work with SGSSAA! While Game A might work with regular MSAA with Compatibility Bit A, but not SGSsAA. However, Game A may work with SGSSAA if Compatibility Bit B is used. This explains why I'm not using the normal Hot Pursuit 2010 antialiasing compatibility bit that Nvidia automatically applies: it works for forcing MSAA in Hot Pursuit 2010, but the custom bit I used (0x004010C5) gives even better image quality when using SGSSAA.
Some games come with special bits already built into their profile, thanks to Nvidia, and others need you to apply them. How do you find them? The absolute two best resources for this are at these two links (warning: one is in German, so don't be alarmed. It's pretty easy to understand):
http://www.forum-3dcenter.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=490867 (Absolute best resource on the web for AA and SGSSAA compatibility, go here first. They have links to the post where each bit was discovered/proven, and even have pictures!)
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=336854 (You'll have to search the topic for specific bits, the OP isn't updated anymore and therefore is extremely outdated)

Also, I'm sure you've noticed there are both a regular 'aa compatibility' section and a 'DX1x' section. DX1x section is for DirectX 10/11 games. This section isn't as widely used because so many games are still DX9, so don't worry too much about it right now.
Now that we've talked about compatibility bits, let's move on to the next section of the picture: Antialiasing Mode/Setting/AA - Transparency Supersampling. The first section, AA - Mode, determines how to use the AA in combination with the engine. The two modes you need to concern yourself with are "Enhance This Application Setting" and "Override Any Application Setting". Note: To ensure these are used properly, take a quick look above them and make sure 'Antialiasing Behavior Flags' is set to None, this is ideal for most games.

What are the differences/usage scenarios? In general, you want to 'enhance' if the game has built in antialiasing. So for example, if you want to use 4x MSAA + 4x SGSSAA, you'd go into the game's menu first, set the Antialiasing to 4x MSAA, then exit out and set up everything in Nvidia Inspector including Enhance, so that the driver antialiasing works together with the game's built in AA.

However, in some cases, the game's built in AA sucks or you just need to force your own AA (or the game doesn't have built in AA). In this case, use Override Any Application Setting. This forces your driver AA to take over everything. This has its downsides, as it can conflict with built in AA and/or cause performance losses, so I recommend turning built in AA to off if you're going to force driver AA. For Hot Pursuit 2010, I use Override because the game has no built in AA and so I need to ensure the driver applies my settings.
Underneath that, I've got my AA Setting. I chose 4x MSAA because that's what you want to match to 4x SGSSAA, always. There are other settings available, but that's what we want for SGSSAA. You'll also note that I chose 4x SGSSAA beneath that in Antialiasing Transparency Supersampling. The reason you want them to match is because SGSSAA is most effective when it's used with the corresponding multisample amounts. Here's the detailed reason why from Natural Violence's page:
Please keep in mind that whenever you use SGSSAA you should always match the number of MSAA samples used to the number of SGSSAA samples used. 8xMSAA + 4xSGSSAA will usually have lower quality than 4xMSAA + 4xSGSSAA. This is because SGSSAA gets it's sample coordinates from the MSAA samples. So if you have more MSAA samples than SGSSAA samples the SGSSAA samples will not be placed in the ideal locations. Also you cannot have more SGSSAA samples than MSAA samples for the same reason as I'm sure you've guessed. Even though it uses MSAA sample coordinates using additional coverage samples will reduce the effectiveness of SGSSAA by changing the grid pattern so that the MSAA samples are placed closer to the center of the pixel (which is a less ideal location). This is why I advised 4xMSAA + 4xSGSSAA not 16xAA (4xMSAA + 12xCSAA) + 4xSGSSAA.

Finally, underneath all of that, we've got Texture Filtering - LOD Bias (DX9) and TF - Negative LOD Bias. These are very important to counter the potential blur that SGSSAA can cause. Note: In some games blur may occur anyways due to post-processing, it's on a case-by-case basis however.
The rule of thumb for LOD bias is thus: For every doubling of MSAA + SGSSAA, subtract another -0.500 from your LOD Bias. Here's what you'd set for each level:
2x MSAA + 2x SGSSAA: -0.500
4x MSAA + 4x SGSSAA: -1.000
8x MSAA + 8x SGSSAA: -1.500

Last, we've got Negative LOD Bias set to 'Allow.' If this is set to Clamp, your LOD Bias won't work and you may get blur, so make sure this is set to allow (if not using SGSSAA or other supersampling methods, set this to Clamp).

And that's it. Those are the basics for setting up SGSSAA properly. You may need to do some googling to get the right compatibility bits/settings for each game, but the linked resources above should be a great start. As always, feel free to ask any questions.

As a bonus, let's see what SGSSAA does for image quality using Hot Pursuit 2010 as an example (pictures taken from the 3D Center forum SGSSAA HP2010 post):
No Antialiasing:
noaakft3.png

8x MSAA + 8x SGSSAA:
8xqaa8xsgssaa_0x004010cg5f.png



What can I (and others) help you with?
I've got way too much experience with stuff like Nvidia drivers, Nvidia Inspector, AMD drivers, RadeonPro, INI/config tweaking, Unreal Engine... you name it, I've probably tweaked it. Want better antialiasing/supersampling AA? I've got you covered. Want better performance? I can probably help. Having trouble with a game? I'll do my best.

And best of all, there's tons of people on NeoGAF with experience tweaking/fixing/playing any PC game you can imagine. If there's an answer, most likely someone in this thread can help you. So don't be afraid to ask!
 

Reuenthal

Banned
Is it generally better to play at 1080P yet with say medium settings or at lower resolutions but with high graphical settings? Or it depends on the game?
 
Best tweaks for Deus Ex GOTY Edition?

That should be a must-have in this list, even for an 11 year old game.

Just download graphics mods for it. That game runs at like 500 FPS on any modern system. Although you could definitely run some crazy supersampling on it. I can give you an Nvidia Inspector profile if you'd like to try it.

Is it generally better to play at 1080P yet with say medium settings or at lower resolutions but with high graphical settings? Or it depends on the game?

Depends on your desired performance level and what balance of image quality (IQ) and performance you want.

In most games, 1366x768 or 1680x1050 @ High will look better than Medium @ 1080p. Yes, 1080p looks crisper, but the textures/effects/shaders will look better, even at lower resolutions.
 

Jibbed

Member
TESV: Skyrim [huge performance gain for ATI/AMD Radeon users ONLY]

This is likely to give most ATI/AMD users a 20-30% boost in FPS. I'm not about to go in to .ini tweaks etc, there's a whole thread dedicated to Skyrim modding/tweaking here.

Launch the game using Radeon Pro with the following settings:


rp1c48k4.png

5870orlowervy8tm.png



Also, as a quick tip, DO NOT USE THE NEW 'TESVAL' MOD (the one that now has it's own thread, basically gives you up to 40% more FPS). It seriously fucks with your game's scripting, and can completely ruin your save file. Just wait 'til the bugs have been ironed out, or Bethesda issue a similar fix themselves.
 
TESV: Skyrim [huge performance gain for ATI/AMD Radeon users ONLY]

- launch the game using Radeon Pro with the following settings:


rp1c48k4.png

5870orlowervy8tm.png



This is likely to give most ATI/AMD users a 20-30% boost in FPS. I'm not about to go in to .ini tweaks etc, there's a whole thread dedicated to Skyrim modding/tweaking here.

You do know that I'm the one that came up with those pictured tweaks, right? :p

But yeah, I'll definitely link the Skyrim tweak guide, I collaborated on that and it's full of awesome performance boostin' goodness.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
To a couple posts up, make sure you post the 2nd page with the specific tweaks there. And I've since enabled triple buffering too. Between that sweet spot in settings, new drivers, patches, and mod fixes, the game is as good as vanilla was but with added mods plus ini tweaks. Good deal on this thread. I will link it to my own OP as well. In conversion mode in prep for the CK coming.
 

Sethos

Banned
Can I butt in with something fairly experimental?

I will admit, I haven't tried it out yet but it is on my to-do list. I found it over on the ArmA forums where it was mentioned. In ArmA II, it's pretty much impossible to crank up the view distance to the max ( 10k ) without it killing your system, because it can't fetch all the assets on the map from the HDD, I believe an SSD is even struggling at times. So someone mentioned FancyCache http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/fancy-cache/


FancyCache is a supplementary software caching scheme that cooperates with system memory to provide data caching for volumes/disks. It improves system performance by transparently storing data into memory such that future requests for that data can be served faster. FancyCache caches data on a logical block basis (offsets within a volume/disk) while windows cache manager caches on a virtual block basis (offsets within a file).
FancyCache can also utilize the OS Invisible Memory which is wasted on 32-bit Windows when 4GB memory or more is installed.


FancyCache-principle-1.png


Apparently this can turn a set amount of RAM into a fast SSD basically. After the guy used it, the game was running perfectly smooth at maximum view distance. So there's obviously tons of potential for other games. It even works under 32Bit Windows to use any RAM over the 4GB limit.

Right now it's Beta software with a 90 Day 'trial period', however that trial period resets every time you update. It's just to make people update.

So there's possibly a great performance tweak if anyone wants to do some extensive tests. I'll definitely test out the ArmA II claim later.
 

Dennis

Banned
So basically, a RAMdisk.

I use SuperSpeed Ramdisk Plus for this purpose.

Basically, an insanely fast 12GB SSD.
 
How does this RAMdisk stuff work? Because it sounds amazing.

You know how RAM is used to hold current applications in memory? Basically a RAMdisk uses a portion of your RAM to store the whole applicqation, like you would on an HDD or SSD. This works wonders because RAM is around 40x faster than the fastest SSD.

Problem is, RAM is volatile and so it erases any data when powered off. Still, there's workarounds.
 

Sethos

Banned
Problem is, RAM is volatile and so it erases any data when powered off. Still, there's workarounds.

Why is that a problem? It's not like you'd use it as a storage media but a major performance boost when gaming. Just need to temporary load those assets in :) Unless you
obviously can't get the game to load up the assets elsewhere and you need to install it on the RAMdisk, then you are right. I was under the impression FancyCache allowed games
to dynamically load in assets from another drive.

It's the first I hear of Ramdisks as well, so it's all very intriguing to me.
 
Can I butt in with something fairly experimental?

I will admit, I haven't tried it out yet but it is on my to-do list. I found it over on the ArmA forums where it was mentioned. In ArmA II, it's pretty much impossible to crank up the view distance to the max ( 10k ) without it killing your system, because it can't fetch all the assets on the map from the HDD, I believe an SSD is even struggling at times. So someone mentioned FancyCache http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/fancy-cache/





Apparently this can turn a set amount of RAM into a fast SSD basically. After the guy used it, the game was running perfectly smooth at maximum view distance. So there's obviously tons of potential for other games. It even works under 32Bit Windows to use any RAM over the 4GB limit.

Right now it's Beta software with a 90 Day 'trial period', however that trial period resets every time you update. It's just to make people update.

So there's possibly a great performance tweak if anyone wants to do some extensive tests. I'll definitely test out the ArmA II claim later.

Awesome find, looks like a great dynamic RAMdisk. I will test this out as well with other 'streaming' games like Skyrim.

If it works well, I may have to buy 2 more sticks of RAM and go 16 GB to have 12GB free for RAMdisk caching
 

Dennis

Banned
The program I mentioned automatically saves to a place on another HDD/SSD of your choice so that you can save whatever program/game you were using - before it wipes the RAM.

So it really does work like a regular drive.


You know how RAM is used to hold current applications in memory? Basically a RAMdisk uses a portion of your RAM to store the whole applicqation, like you would on an HDD or SSD. This works wonders because RAM is around 40x faster than the fastest SSD.

Problem is, RAM is volatile and so it erases any data when powered off. Still, there's workarounds.


Please elaborate if you're going to mention it.


See above
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Once you reboot, the cache is cleared then? Or do you have to basically enable it for something every boot up?

Please provide me of some examples on how to use it. I have 8GB RAM so this alone may be worth buying another 8 with my income tax.
 
Why is that a problem? It's not like you'd use it as a storage media but a major performance boost when gaming. Just need to temporary load those assets in :)

I meant a problem when viewed as storage, not just as performance caching.

If something like FancyDisk can make the storage of tenporary assets more automatic, it'd work wonders. Forcing the whole game to load essentially in RAM is awesome, especially when 16 GB and soon 32GB of RAM is so dirt cheap.
 
Once you reboot, the cache is cleared then? Or do you have to basically enable it for something every boot up?

Please provide me of some examples on how to use it. I have 8GB RAM so this alone may be worth buying another 8 with my income tax.

Example: Skyrim. Instead of loading cells in RAM, you'd store the whole game on the RAMdisk. Loading would be instant anywhere, and uGrids performance may increase due to faster streaming.
 
For Battlefield 3, you can create a text file named user.cfg in the same directory as bf3.exe with a list of console commands to run at startup instead of going through that whole save profile thing. In particular,

WorldRender.DxDeferredCsPathEnable 0

uses wizard magic to increase FPS and apparently improves game stability too?

RenderDevice.Dx11Enable 0

Forces the game to run in DX10.
 

Dennis

Banned
Once you reboot, the cache is cleared then? Or do you have to basically enable it for something every boot up?

Please provide me of some examples on how to use it. I have 8GB RAM so this alone may be worth buying another 8 with my income tax.

1) Boot up PC, game loads automatically into RAMdisk

2) Play game, save game as usual. Everything that needs to normally load from the HDD/SSD during gameplay will instead load from insanely fast RAMdisk

3) Close game, save file is preserved on regular disk

4) Turn off PC

5) Goto 1)

etc.
 

spirity

Member
Nvidia Inspector or Nvidia's Control Panel? Just wondering which one I should really be using, I used to use Nhancer back in the day but I think they've stopped updating that.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Example: Skyrim. Instead of loading cells in RAM, you'd store the whole game on the RAMdisk. Loading would be instant anywhere, and uGrids performance may increase due to faster streaming.

Sounds like upgrading RAM may be an option for me. It's probably not wise to change speeds but I'm sure I will be able to find 8GB for under 50.

And to Dennis, for something like Skyrim, you would transfer the file structure over to the RamDisk?
 

Dennis

Banned
Sounds like upgrading RAM may be an option for me. It's probably not wise to change speeds but I'm sure I will be able to find 8GB for under 50.

And to Dennis, for something like Skyrim, you would transfer the file structure over to the RamDisk?

Everything, including mods, the whole Skyrim game folder, would have to be loaded into RAM.

So for huge games even a 12-14 GB RAMdisk might not be enough.

Well, soon 32GB RAM will be possible on common high-end motherboards.
 
Nvidia Inspector or Nvidia's Control Panel? Just wondering which one I should really be using, I used to use Nhancer back in the day but I think they've stopped updating that.

Nvidia Inspector for sure. Thanks to that, I'm already using the Frame Rate limiter hidden in 290.53 beta drivers.
 
For Battlefield 3, you can create a text file named user.cfg in the same directory as bf3.exe with a list of console commands to run at startup instead of going through that whole save profile thing. In particular,

WorldRender.DxDeferredCsPathEnable 0

uses wizard magic to increase FPS and apparently improves game stability too?

RenderDevice.Dx11Enable 0

Forces the game to run in DX10.

2nd one is not advisable. Game runs/looks worse in DX10 vs DX11.
 

rac

Banned
I just got a new hard drive and the bios recognized it, but whatever I do it still sets up as the master drive and the start up time is extremely slow because of it. The new drive is a seagate barracuda 1 tb 7200 and my motherboard is an asus m489gtd pro. Any help would be awesome.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Crysis 2 and RAGE (HD6850, i5 2500K, 8GB RAM).

Thanks.

I've only played Crisis 2 but I think both should be able to do 60fps maxed. I'm not sure if you wanted settings but they are both pretty straight forward.

Someone else can chime in with ini or other tweaks/mods for them particular games.
 

fresquito

Member
I've only played Crisis 2 but I think both should be able to do 60fps maxed. I'm not sure if you wanted settings but they are both pretty straight forward.

Someone else can chime in with ini or other tweaks/mods for them particular games.
Crysis 2 is not 60fps. dx11, hi-res textures and Ultra settings makes it 30ish. I'm playing it in Extreme settings, dx11 and with hi-res textures, it's 45ish with spome drops. Not the best performance.

As for RAGE, I still haven't tried it, but I don't think I will have a performance problem, but maybe I can max the textures somehow to make them look better.
 

Sober

Member
TESV: Skyrim [huge performance gain for ATI/AMD Radeon users ONLY]

This is likely to give most ATI/AMD users a 20-30% boost in FPS. I'm not about to go in to .ini tweaks etc, there's a whole thread dedicated to Skyrim modding/tweaking here.

Launch the game using Radeon Pro with the following settings:


rp1c48k4.png

5870orlowervy8tm.png



Also, as a quick tip, DO NOT USE THE NEW 'TESVAL' MOD (the one that now has it's own thread, basically gives you up to 40% more FPS). It seriously fucks with your game's scripting, and can completely ruin your save file. Just wait 'til the bugs have been ironed out, or Bethesda issue a similar fix themselves.
Wait, you want me to switch to Adaptive or stick with regular MSAA? That picture is confusing me now.
 

Jibbed

Member
Wait, you want me to switch to Adaptive or stick with regular MSAA? That picture is confusing me now.

I wasn't the original poster of this config, so I'm not the one to ask. I personally just use MSAA 'box'.

Also, the TESVAL mod is now safe to use, v1.1 is now out.
 
Here's one:

Does anyone have any good ideas for AA on Crysis 2 DX11 mode?

And by that I mean not some shitty blurr-o-vision.

I'm considering using the SMAA injector.
 
Here's one:

Does anyone have any good ideas for AA on Crysis 2 DX11 mode?

And by that I mean not some shitty blurr-o-vision.

I'm considering using the SMAA injector.

If you can get the SMAA Injector to work, it'll look FAR better than stock AA. I noticed that it eats into my performance on BF3 though, so it might be the same for Crysis 2. Also, there's a way to force MSAA in Crysis 2 but it's a performance eater IIRC. I can find the exact commands for you.


What's the range of the audio command for BF3 from the OP?

Supposedly it goes up to 5 and it can fix the 'inaudible footsteps.' I haven't noticed a huge difference from 1. Even if it doesn't work past 1, setting it to 3, 4, or 5 will just default to 1 as the game sees it. It's worth a shot if you have a really nice sound system. I should see if I can do a definitive test on it.


Wait, you want me to switch to Adaptive or stick with regular MSAA? That picture is confusing me now.

Use regular MSAA. When Liquid made those pics for my guide, he accidentally put it on Adaptive.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Crysis 2 is not 60fps. dx11, hi-res textures and Ultra settings makes it 30ish. I'm playing it in Extreme settings, dx11 and with hi-res textures, it's 45ish with spome drops. Not the best performance.

As for RAGE, I still haven't tried it, but I don't think I will have a performance problem, but maybe I can max the textures somehow to make them look better.

I just re-read your post, I thought I read 6950. Maybe make a few compromises there but at last it plays as well as it does considering the added textures and such.

Wait, you want me to switch to Adaptive or stick with regular MSAA? That picture is confusing me now.

Stick with 8xEQ MSAA. Adaptive isn't worth the glitches even though the nuts and bolts results are way better than MSAA in my eyes but aren't worth the texture layers issues and glitches it invites. If you can stroke it, try 2xSSAA. I'm thinking about trying it after this new CPU mod. I was running 4xSSAA too but stopped because we hadn't had the patches, drivers, and mods to improve things. Now we do thankfully.
 
I just re-read your post, I thought I read 6950. Maybe make a few compromises there but at last it plays as well as it does considering the added textures and such.

I have some config tweaks for Crysis 2 but they're a bitch to implement and Crytek completely fucked up the way that the game handles autoconfigs. Idiots.
 
If you can get the SMAA Injector to work, it'll look FAR better than stock AA. I noticed that it eats into my performance on BF3 though, so it might be the same for Crysis 2. Also, there's a way to force MSAA in Crysis 2 but it's a performance eater IIRC. I can find the exact commands for you.




Supposedly it goes up to 5 and it can fix the 'inaudible footsteps.' I haven't noticed a huge difference from 1. Even if it doesn't work past 1, setting it to 3, 4, or 5 will just default to 1 as the game sees it. It's worth a shot if you have a really nice sound system. I should see if I can do a definitive test on it.




Use regular MSAA. When Liquid made those pics for my guide, he accidentally put it on Adaptive.

Could be useful. I wasn't aware you could in DX11 mode.
 

Durante

Member
I've found that the most reliable way to force good image quality / "AA" in all games is to set up a custom resolution that is higher than your monitor's native res. For example, on my 1920*1200 monitor I use 2560*1600 or 2880*1800, while on a 720p projector I can at least use 1080p. The drawbacks of this method are that it eats a lot of performance and that its IQ/perf ratio is not as good as SGSSAA, but the advantage is that it works in pretty much every single game out there, and without introducing any rendering problems. Of course, you can also combine it with eg. MSAA for even better quality.
 
I've found that the most reliable way to force good image quality / "AA" in all games is to set up a custom resolution that is higher than your monitor's native res. For example, on my 1920*1200 monitor I use 2560*1600 or 2880*1800, while on a 720p projector I can at least use 1080p. The drawbacks of this method are that it eats a lot of performance and that its IQ/perf ratio is not as good as SGSSAA, but the advantage is that it works in pretty much every single game out there, and without introducing any rendering problems. Of course, you can also combine it with eg. MSAA for even better quality.

Would you like to write a guide and I'll put it in the OP? Or would you rather link to one? I'll probably try this 'downsampling supersampling' for myself, as there are some games that I'd like to supersample to get the jaggies out of.
 

Durante

Member
Would you like to write a guide and I'll put it in the OP? Or would you rather link to one? I'll probably try this 'downsampling supersampling' for myself, as there are some games that I'd like to supersample to get the jaggies out of.
I only know how to do it on Nvidia, but I can write something up for that. It's pretty straight forward.

First, enable GPU scaling and override of game settings for that:
19yrmg.png


Then, navigate to the custom resolution creation interface:
2qrohc.png

3dyo6a.png


Now, here's where some experimentation comes in. Depending on your base resolution, you should try some multiples of that, like *4/3 or *3/2. If a resolution doesn't work at first, it may help to play with the timing parameters. Generally I've found "CVT reduced blank" to work best for my display, but YMMV.
4q3owf.png


Once you find some resolution(s) that work, it's just a matter of selecting them in-game. Good luck!

(If you can't get your system to accept any higher resolutions, there is some -- potentially dangerous -- EDID trickery you can try, but I don't have any experience with that)
 
Added to the OP, thanks Durante! I'm going to try it out on some games where I have plenty of spare performance but need AA badly yet MSAA isn't cutting it. For example: Deus Ex: HR The Missing Link DLC.
 

Sober

Member
Stick with 8xEQ MSAA. Adaptive isn't worth the glitches even though the nuts and bolts results are way better than MSAA in my eyes but aren't worth the texture layers issues and glitches it invites. If you can stroke it, try 2xSSAA. I'm thinking about trying it after this new CPU mod. I was running 4xSSAA too but stopped because we hadn't had the patches, drivers, and mods to improve things. Now we do thankfully.
Just started skyrim yesterday with 2xMSAA which is what I usually use but around trees it still looked pretty jaggy (obviously). I turned on FXAA from the launcher advanced options it seemed to come out looking much better.
 
Top Bottom