284 replies to this topic

[BladeXXL]

@mekabuser
Just unzipp the patch file and confirm e_Shadows = 0 is set in your low user.cfg
Nothing else to do!

[Duatam]

I have a problem in optimizing the user.cfg for my system.

Whenever I run on sys_specs on high (3 or 4), the game looks great but becomes unplayable during a big firefight. Outside of firefights, or when just fighting one or two enemies, FPS is playable 30-40. In a big firefight with 6-16 mechs, FPS can go as low as 12-13 and is unplayable.

Whenever I run on all sys_specs low, the game is playable even during the big firefights, but it doesn't look as good and I feel like my system has potential to deliver much better visual experience.

In both of these settings, the game does not utilize my computer in an optimized way. My graphics card runs around 50-60% most of the time, and all 4 CPU cores 50-70%. I am pretty sure that even though CPU cores are not running 100%, the CPU is bottlenecking it.

I would like to find a configuration where I can utilize the graphics card more, giving me a better visual experience, while trying to minimize/optimize the CPU usage. However, I don't really know much what settings need to be changed in the user.cfg to reduce the CPU usage, and which settings I could put higher to allow the game utilize my graphics card more (and make it look better).

If someone who knows more about the user.cfg settings could make a version of it where most of the settings are commented in a more detail, especially telling whether a particular variable will affect more more CPU or GPU, it would be very helpful.

Processor: AMD FX-4100 Quad Core (AM3+) @ 4GHz
Graphics Card: ASUS EAH6950 DirectCU II (AMD HD 6950) 2GB GDDR5
Motherboard: ASUS M5A97 AM3+ (AMD 970 Chipset)
Memory (RAM):G.Skill 8GB (2x4GB) Sniper DDR3 1866MHz

Edited by Osmobot, 11 December 2012 - 09:05 PM.

[Corvus Antaka]

try adding

e_TerrainTextureLodRatio=

5/10/20 (higher will give better performance)

[VoodooLou Kerensky]

Am Running a Intel Core2Extreme X9750 Quad Core @3.17GHZ, 8Gigs RAM , XP SP3, SoundBlaster Audigy and (here it comes) a Nvidia Gefore 8400GS (1GB). Know anyway to get the settings to just do wireframe view ? Seriously tho any help would be most appreciated.

[BladeXXL]

@Osmobot
Try the hi-end config in combination with the patch...

@Colonel Pada Vinson
Are you sure with that? Usualy a lower LOD gives better performance because it forces to use smaller textures and less detailed wireframes.
default for e_TerrainTextureLodRatio is 1

@voodoolou kerensky
seriously ... it's time for a new video card! ^^
For your system I'll recomend a Geforce GTX 470 with 1280MB ... buy it second hand for around 100$ ... You'll be fine wwith that.

[plaguebreath]

Blade & Colonel her is my actual rig:

Motherboard: Asus P5Q - PRO
CPU: Dual Core E8400 @3.6ghz
RAM: OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 GOLD 4gb

Do you have any possible suggestion for make game at least working with this set up, any user.cfg suggestion (already downloaded patched config, grain removal and some user.cfg but not helping up with audio trouble at all) ? I have impossible FPS with down frames on 10-8 when just turn my Mech, audio stuttering too. Any helpfull suggestion ?
Thank you all.

[JudgeDeathCZ]

Well there is no help with sound shuttering except hope that PGI will adress it in next patch(hell how I hate this bug..almost make me cry )

Edited by JudgeDeathCZ, 12 December 2012 - 02:22 AM.

[plaguebreath]

nice to know, thx for the information

[Duatam]

@Blade
Thanks! I gave it a try, (if patch means unpacking the Config folder under the Engine folder). With that high-end user.cfg the game looks good, and runs nicely (25-40FPS) until I get in firefight, where the FPS drops to about 15-20. In that cfg there are comments such as ";Shading (lowered from high setting of 16 to 12. lower more for FPS)", however when I look at the value below it, it is still 16. Do the comments mean that you have actually changed it from 16 to 12 for your own user.cfg, but left everything to original on this file?

I've noticed that the GPU usage is around 75-100% when just walking around (FPS 25-40), but when I get into the firefight and the FPS drops, the GPU usage also drops down to 50-75%, which suggests that something else (CPU?) is limiting the FPS during those situations. Do you have any suggestions of what settings I should lower in the user.cfg to improve the performance in the firefight situation?

Edit: I've done some more testing and it seems that it doesn't need to necessarily be a firefight. As long as there are many mechs in my view at the direction where I'm looking at, the FPS drops dramatically. Sometimes they don't even have to be in the view, just in that direction. Somehow it's the other mechs that are causing the FPS drops.

@Colonel Pada Vinson
Thanks for the suggestion. I tried e_TerrainTextureLodRatio 20, 10 and 1. I tested it in Forest Colony in each time. With e_TerrainTextureLodRatio=20 I got the worst performance, FPS being around 20 when just walking around in the beginning. e_TerrainTextureLodRatio=10 was slightly better with around 25FPS, and e_TerrainTextureLodRatio=1 was the best with 30+ FPS (when not in firefight).

Edited by Osmobot, 13 December 2012 - 10:23 PM.

[Duatam]

I took some screenshots of the performance:

Big number = FPS
GPU t = GPU temperature (irrelevant)
GPU % = GPU utilization
CpuL = CPU core utilizations (4 cores)















From this I can conclude that my graphics card could easily deliver around 35-45 FPS, but something else (CPU?) can't keep up whenever I look at direction where several mechs are in the view.

I lowered some of the physics settings in the user.cfg (as it says they are highgly CPU intensive), but it didn't make much difference to the performance. I didn't know which ones to lower, so I took the values from Colonel Panda Vinson's version of user.cfg and used those. Otherwise I'm using the high-end version user.cfg from BladeXXL.

Edit: One question, since the user.cfg sys_spec_x settings have no effect, is the only way to change those now to edit the sys_spec_x.cfg files under the CVarGroups_MWO folder? Or are these completely irrelevant now and all of those settings in user.cfg override the whole sys_spec_x settings?

Edited by Osmobot, 13 December 2012 - 11:23 PM.

[BladeXXL]

@Osmobot
You know your CPU (FX-4100) is NOT a Quad-Core!? It has 2 "modules".
It's more like a dual core with hyper threading (2 threads per core/module). Some better then dual core in many cases but far away from quad. Even AMD says: 1 module is like 1,8 cores ...it's a fake - it's just marketing!
Now you know your bottleneck! And if 1 thread is to slow it will slow down the whole game...
No cfg can cure your fps drops...

btw. googling around I found some threads that says a HD 6950 can be flashed with 6970 bios unleaching the deactivates Shaders and givin a ~20% boost. I can't recommend this, but if you are familiar with tweaking, you may have a look at... but again: your VGA is not the problem!

[Duatam]

@BladeXXL
Thanks for your reply. I thought it is a quad-core.. No wonder it was so cheap. I guess I should start looking for a new CPU, as it clearly is bottlenecking my system. Meanwhile, if anyone can give any tips of optimizing the user.cfg for my CPU, I would be very thankful.

Edited by Osmobot, 14 December 2012 - 12:49 AM.

[BladeXXL]

any try to lower CPU utilization will make the game look lie shi**...
using hi-end cfg and the script-patch is the best case for you a.t.m. ... let's see what the next game-patch can do for you!

I don't know you budget, but please have a look at the new AMD FX-83XX:
4 modules (cores) with 2 Integer-Cores each (persuades OS to be 8 cores - lol) ... try it without overclocking first!

[Zarash]

This is the user cfg that I am using currently..
I have a dual core e8400 GTX 560 4 gigs ram.

I am getting around 18 to 20 fps in heavy fights. I found this thread and loaded this when i seen it would make the cfg files work again.

I forgot I had it saved in my documents. It seems to be working good. Its working better then setting everything to low with default game settings. I set everything to low in options in the menu screen as well. Also I changed the ATI to GTX 560 in the description... I am not sure if that makes a difference or not.

I was having problems with sound so you will need to delete the sound files.

Spoiler

;=================================================================================
; low user.cfg - default settings Custom (with shadows, medium water / nice ;particles) (9) Stable, ;slight fps drop on load ;in and first 10 seconds caching. ;Motion Blur ghosting fixed.
;Extra options for tweaking included. ; infront of line to disable.
;System: E8400, ATI HD4870, 4GB RAM.
;=================================================================================
;core settings
sys_spec_ObjectDetail = 1
sys_spec_Shading = 1
sys_spec_VolumetricEffects = 1
sys_spec_Shadows = 1
sys_spec_Texture = 1
sys_spec_Physics = 1
sys_spec_PostProcessing = 1
sys_spec_Particles = 1
sys_spec_Quality = 1
sys_spec_Sound = 1
sys_spec_Water = 1
sys_spec_GameEffects = 1
;=================================================================================
;ObjectDetail
e_ObjQuality = 2
e_DecalsAllowGameDecals = 0
e_DecalsLifeTimeScale = 2
e_DecalsOverlapping = 0
e_Dissolve = 2
e_LodRatio = 20
e_Lods = 1
e_LodMin = 0
e_MaxViewDistSpecLerp = 1
e_OcclusionCullingViewDistRatio = 1
e_ProcVegetation = 1
e_streamCgf = 0
e_VegetationBending = 0
e_VegetationMinSize = 0
e_VegetationSpritesDistanceCustomRatioMin = 1
e_VegetationSpritesDistanceRatio = 1
e_ViewDistMin = 10
e_ViewDistRatio = 100
e_ViewDistRatioCustom = 100
e_ViewDistRatioDetail = 75
e_ViewDistRatioLights = 50
e_ViewDistRatioVegetation = 50
e_TerrainDetailMaterialsViewDistXY = 1024
e_TerrainDetailMaterialsViewDistZ = 128
e_TerrainOcclusionCullingMaxDist = 200
ca_AttachmentCullingRation = 200
ca_DrawFaceAttachments = 1
ca_useDecals = 0
es_DebrisLifetimeScale = 0
e_DecalsForceDeferred = 0
r_DrawNearZRange = 0.08
;=================================================================================
;Particles
e_ParticlesQuality = 1
e_ParticlesLights = 0
e_ParticlesMaxScreenFill = 64
e_ParticlesMinDrawPixels = 1
e_ParticlesMotionBlur = 0
e_ParticlesObjectCollisions = 1
r_UseParticlesHalfRes = 0
r_UseSoftParticles = 0
r_UseParticlesRefraction = 0
r_UseParticlesGlow = 0
r_UseParticlesMerging = 0
r_UseParticlesHalfResForce = 0
;e_particles_thread = 1
=====================================================================================
;Physics
g_breakage_particles_limit = 90
g_joint_breaking = 1
g_tree_cut_reuse_dist = 0
e_CullVegActivation = 50
e_FoliageWindActivationDist = 25
e_PhysFoliage = 1
e_PhysOceanCell = 0.5
p_gravity_z = -36.3
p_joint_damage_accum = 2
p_joint_damage_accum_threshold = 0.2
p_max_MC_iters = 4000
p_max_object_splashes = 3
p_max_substeps_large_group = 5
p_num_bodies_large_group = 100
p_splash_dist0 = 7
p_splash_dist1 = 30
p_splash_force0 = 10
p_splash_force1 = 100
p_splash_vel0 = 4.5
p_splash_vel1 = 10
v_vehicle_quality = 4
es_MaxPhysDist = 200
es_MaxPhysDistInvisible = 25
;=================================================================================
;Post-Processing
r_colorgrading = 0
r_DepthOfField = 0
r_EyeAdaptationBase = 0.1
r_EyeAdaptationFactor = 0.85
r_EyeAdaptationSpeed = 0.5
r_GlowAnamorphicFlares = 1
r_HDRBloomMul = 0.7
r_HDRBlueShift = 0.5
r_HDRBrightLevel = 0.65
r_HDRBrightOffset = 80
r_HDRBrightThreshold = 3
r_HDREyeAdaptionCache = 30
r_HDRGrainAmount = 0
r_HDRLevel = 4
r_HDROffset = 10
r_HDRRendering = 1
r_MotionBlurMaxViewDist = 0
r_PostProcessHUD3DCache = 30
r_RainMaxViewDist_Deferred = 40
r_sunshafts = 1
r_MotionBlur = 0
;r_MotionBlurShutterSpeed = 0.00001
;ca_MotionBlurMovementThreshold = 0.00001
;=================================================================================
;disable msaa settings for ATI cards or this causes motion ghosting
r_PostMSAA = 0
r_PostMSAAMode = 0
r_FSAA = 0
;=================================================================================
;type: int
;current: 3
;help: Toggles edge blurring/antialiasing
;Usage: r_UseEdgeAA [0/1/2/3]
;Default is 1 (edge blurring)
;1 = activate edge blurring mode
;2 = activate edge antialiasing mode (previous version)3 = activate Laplace edge ;antialiasing mode
r_UseEdgeAA = 0
;=================================================================================
;Quality // q_renderer = 3 is much better effects than q_renderer = 2, some fps loss though.
q_Renderer = 1
q_ShaderFX = 1
q_ShaderGeneral = 1
q_ShaderGlass = 1
q_ShaderHDR = 1
q_ShaderIce = 1
q_ShaderMetal = 1
q_ShaderPostProcess = 1
q_ShaderShadow = 0
q_ShaderSky = 1
q_ShaderTerrain = 1
q_ShaderVegetation = 1
q_ShaderWater = 1
;=================================================================================
;Shading
e_DynamicLightsMaxEntityLights = 8
e_GI = 1
e_GIAmount = 0.5
e_GIMaxDistance = 80
e_GINumCascades = 1
e_SkyType = 1
e_SkyUpdateRate = 0
e_TerrainAo = 1
e_TerrainNormalMap = 1
e_VegetationUseTerrainColor = 1
r_DetailNumLayers = 0
r_DetailDistance = 4
r_DetailTextures = 0
r_ssdo = 0
r_SSAO = 0
r_SSAOQuality = 0
r_SSAODownscale = 0
r_refraction = 0
r_ssreflections = 0
;=================================================================================
;Shadows
e_GsmCache = 0
e_GsmCastFromTerrain = 0
e_GsmLodsNum = 0
e_GsmRange = 0
e_ParticlesShadows = 0
e_Shadows = 0
e_ShadowsCastViewDistRatio = 0
e_ShadowsMaxTexRes = 0
e_ShadowsOnAlphaBlend = 0
e_ShadowsResScale = 0
e_ShadowsTessellateCascades = 0
r_ShadowBlur = 0
r_ShadowJittering = 0
r_ShadowsMaskResolution = 0
r_ShadowsPCFiltering = 0
r_ShadowsUseClipVolume = 0
e_ShadowsSlopeBias=0
;=================================================================================
;Textures
r_DynTexAtlasCloudsMaxSize = 32
r_DynTexAtlasSpritesMaxSize = 32
r_DynTexMaxSize = 80
r_EnvCMResolution = 1
r_EnvTexResolution = 1
r_EnvTexUpdateInterval = 0.001
r_ImposterRatio = 1
r_TexSkyResolution = 128
r_TexAtlasSize = 512
r_TexMinAnisotropy = 0
r_TexBumpResolution = 0
r_TexResolution = 0
r_TexturesFilteringQuality = 0
r_VegetationSpritesTexRes = 16
;=================================================================================
;Volumetric Effects
r_Beams = 3
r_BeamsDistFactor = 0.05
r_BeamsMaxSlices = 200
e_Clouds = 1
r_CloudsUpdateAlways = 0
;=================================================================================
;Water
e_WaterOceanFFT = 1
e_WaterTesselationAmount = 10
e_WaterTesselationAmountX = 10
e_WaterTesselationAmountY = 10
e_WaterTesselationSwathWidth = 10
r_WaterCaustics = 0
r_WaterReflections = 0
r_WaterReflectionsQuality = 0
r_WaterReflectionsMinVisiblePixelsUpdate = 0
r_WaterTessellationHW = 0
r_WaterUpdateDistance = 0
r_WaterUpdateFactor = 0
;=================================================================================
;Sound
s_FormatSampleRate = 48000
s_MPEGDecoders = 32
s_Obstruction = 1
s_ObstructionAccuracy = 1
s_ObstructionUpdate = 0.1
s_ReverbType = 1
s_SoundMoodsDSP = 1
s_VariationLimiter = 1
s_MaxChannels=64
s_PrecacheData = 1
s_PriorityThreshold = 1
;=================================================================================
;must be last
r_TexturesStreaming=0

Edited by Zarash, 15 December 2012 - 07:29 PM.

[Angelos Sanguinum]

Don't even try AMD CraPU . Its all about Intlel i5-i7 now. Only those have decent fps in modern games. Sad but true.

[GateKeeper York]

Just spend a good while going through this entire thread.

System Spec:
Intel Intel® Core™ i7 CPU @ 2.67GHz (Quad Core)
6GB of RAM
Nvidia GTX460 1GB using factory setting for clocks (Graphics: 725MHz / Memory: 1800MHz / Processor: 1451MHz)
Game Res 1920x1080x32

Using Game Menus to define performance:
Sliders on High or Very High
Motion Blur: No
No Engine Modification files
Get 25-50fps

Using Info from here define performance:
Engine Modification files from BladeXXL
High End User.cfg from BladeXXL first post
Get 35-50fps
BUT I get motion blur of the cockpit sides and frame - How can I turn that off?
Can't seem to find it, have been clearing Cache between changes.

[Angelos Sanguinum]

GateKeeper York, on 16 December 2012 - 10:15 AM, said:

BUT I get motion blur of the cockpit sides and frame - How can I turn that off?
Can't seem to find it, have been clearing Cache between changes.

MB can be turned off in options and .cfg . Commands are obvious.
r_MotionBlur = 0
r_MotionBlurMaxViewDist = 0

[GateKeeper York]

Angelos Sanguinum, on 16 December 2012 - 11:37 AM, said:

MB can be turned off in options and .cfg . Commands are obvious.
r_MotionBlur = 0
r_MotionBlurMaxViewDist = 0

Both of these were already set to zero.

Edited by GateKeeper York, 16 December 2012 - 02:40 PM.

[Scarborn]

Putting the Config folder in the Engine Folder makes my whole Mech Lab black. Ingame also completely black save for the HUD.
Anyone else experienced something like this?

System:
i3 2110
HD6850 @ latest driver
8G DDR3

[BladeXXL]

...in combination with which config?