My massive DX9/10 graphics and tweaking analysis of Crysis demo

[FastRedPonyCar]

yeah I ran the benchmark 4 loops with the settings in my post #18 and then when I used the ones in #19, the benchmark was 36~37 fps avg through 4 loops.

Post #18 is my entire game.cfg file.

I think one of the issues with all this tweaking is that some of these optinons are the ones that make you say "I woudln't have known it could look better unless I saw for myself". I thought the game looked spectacular on high settings and then turning on sun rays, pom, battle dust and tweaking the water a bit does make you say that. At least I did.

I think I've decided to keep motion blur on but right now, only on look rather than all objects. I think it's one of the reasons that crysis appears to run quicker than it really is becuase with motion blur turned off, @ 24 fps, I can tell that it's choppy and has those fraction of a second stutters when you look around quickly. With motion blur on, it's more pleasing to my eyes to have it blurred rather than to see the machine try to render precision faster than it's capable of doing.

I didn't mess with the HDR level yet though. That's one thing I still want to play around with.

I'm using the beta 169.04 drivers if that makes any differnce but I really haven't seen any noticable gain or loss in FPS.

[agentkay]

Originally Posted by Gaco

I agree with the guy that it's pure marketing BS from Crytek and though I have GREAT admiration for what Crytek have achieved, I think it's a bit low. I know that they're in a business to, it's just a tiny bit on the wrong side of the fence imo.

IMO, they could have easily hardcoded the configs like other devs (WiC, LP, Bioshock) made DX10 "bonus effects", which couldn't be enabled in DX10 in any way and then we had nothing to play around with.

Of course it's still some marketing BS but money talks, we all know that but thankfully it didn't talk too much.

[Gaco]

Originally Posted by FastRedPonyCar

yeah I ran the benchmark 4 loops with the settings in my post #18 and then when I used the ones in #19, the benchmark was 36~37 fps avg through 4 loops.

Post #18 is my entire game.cfg file.

I think one of the issues with all this tweaking is that some of these optinons are the ones that make you say "I woudln't have known it could look better unless I saw for myself". I thought the game looked spectacular on high settings and then turning on sun rays, pom, battle dust and tweaking the water a bit does make you say that. At least I did.

I think I've decided to keep motion blur on but right now, only on look rather than all objects. I think it's one of the reasons that crysis appears to run quicker than it really is becuase with motion blur turned off, @ 24 fps, I can tell that it's choppy and has those fraction of a second stutters when you look around quickly. With motion blur on, it's more pleasing to my eyes to have it blurred rather than to see the machine try to render precision faster than it's capable of doing.

I didn't mess with the HDR level yet though. That's one thing I still want to play around with.

I'm using the beta 169.04 drivers if that makes any differnce but I really haven't seen any noticable gain or loss in FPS.

Well what can I say, I simply get lower performance when running with an autoexec with the whole lot of commands that you wrote in #19. I have not tried just #18 since it was my impression that you liked the longer one the most.

[FastRedPonyCar]

Have you tried not using the autoexe and just chaning the game.cfg file with the info?

I'll have to wait until I get home but I want to try changing what I've got to these following values and the ones I don't have in the config file, adding them with the values listed below.

r_DetailDistance = 12 (can go from 1 to 20, higher is better)

r_WaterReflectionsQuality = 3 (Apparently the value of 4 doesn't jive with XP)

r_WaterUpdateFactor = 0.01 (can go all the way down to zero indicating water texture reflections get updated every frame. I may try this at zero also to see if it drops FPS).

r_useedgeaa = 2 <- still not sure about this one. I know 16XAA looks the best by far, but edgeAA helps it look better than no AA with zero impact on performance. A value of 1 blurs the edges Supposedly a value of 2 steps it to true anti aliasing. I've seen the screen shot gif that goes from no aa to 16Xaa to level 1 edgeAA and then level 2 edgeAA and judging from the gif, I don't konw if I like the added thickness of surface edges that level 2 creates but it's one of those things I want to see for myself before making a final judgement.

sys_flash_curve_tess_error=1 (creates a more precise per pixel - when set to 1 - wave)

e_lod_max = 1 (not used in previous config but can potentially increase the LOD of distant objects when I'm further away from them... sort of how the distant mountain side texture gets better as you get closer. this one is the one I think that could potentially crush the FPS). XL spreadsheet says the lower the number, the better the quality.

e_lod_ratio = 8 (Not sure about this one. 6 is default for high and very high, 8 is supposed to be ultra high)

e_terrain_lod_ratio =0.2 (another one not used yet but I think I've tried it before and noticed no difference in FPS.)


I've scoured the cvars settings spread sheet and compared what I'm using currently (settings in post 19) to what the excel spreadsheet says very high values and ultra high values are and from what I can tell, the options listed above are the only noticeable changes that could be made aside from the sun beam slice variables that I know are different.

Some of the commands above though could be real deal breakers though.. especially those LOD settings.

I'll definately post an update when I get home and get a chance to play around with it and run some benchmarks. As I see it now, if I'm benching mid 30's, I have about 5 fps I'm willing to sacrifice if my eyes can see a real tangible difference in the graphics. If not though, and I do lose 5 fps, there's no point in having them at more demanding values if my eyes get nothing in return...which is the whole point to all of this.

[sammy sung]

Nice work Gaco,have a tuborg/carlsberg on me

[Gaco]

I will sammy sung - the tuborg chrismas brew just premiered yesterday

Good work FastRedPonyCar I look foward to your results!

[CaptNKILL]

Ok, I feel kind of dumb asking this, but are there any screenshots in this rar file that show the standard DX9 64bit "high" settings with framerates?

I'm looking through and it seems like they are all screenshots of various tweaks. I'm curious as to how the performance and image quality compares to the standard high settings.

EDIT: Another dumb question.

What do I do with this autoexec.cfg file?

Nevermind. I figured it out. They go right in the main Crysis SP Demo folder.

You might want to put that somewhere in your .rar file.

[Nanosuitguy]

Can someone please explain to me, wther to create an autoexec.cfg file or to change the settings in the CVar group files? Also, where do i put the autoexec.cfg if i want to use it? In the Crysis SP demo folder? or in Game/Config?

According to your "ultra tweaks" are those for Xp only? or for Vista with dx10 too?

I would like to have this "new tweak" from this post: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/show...0&postcount=24


All help is highly appreciated!


I messed around alot and now i cant seem to get anything right. Does someone have the default CVar group files? Would be nice to start over...

[Gaco]

Originally Posted by CaptNKILL

Ok, I feel kind of dumb asking this, but are there any screenshots in this rar file that show the standard DX9 64bit "high" settings with framerates?

I'm looking through and it seems like they are all screenshots of various tweaks. I'm curious as to how the performance and image quality compares to the standard high settings.

EDIT: Another dumb question.

What do I do with this autoexec.cfg file?

Nevermind. I figured it out. They go right in the main Crysis SP Demo folder.

You might want to put that somewhere in your .rar file.

No sorry didn't do any shots of the regular DX9 high settings since the performance hit of the partial DX9 tweak was so little, I thought that no one would want to play with the regular DX9

And about the autoexec, I've given instructions in several of the readme's throughout the folders, also in the main readme. I didn't make em for nothing

[Gaco]

Originally Posted by Nanosuitguy

Can someone please explain to me, wther to create an autoexec.cfg file or to change the settings in the CVar group files? Also, where do i put the autoexec.cfg if i want to use it? In the Crysis SP demo folder? or in Game/Config?

According to your "ultra tweaks" are those for Xp only? or for Vista with dx10 too?

I would like to have this "new tweak" from this post: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/show...0&postcount=24


All help is highly appreciated!


I messed around alot and now i cant seem to get anything right. Does someone have the default CVar group files? Would be nice to start over...

I've written a guide the in readme's. In short the CVarGroups method is inconvenient compared to the autoexec one. To make an autoexec just copy the whole lot of commands into notepad and when saving the file just call it autoexec.cfg (remember that last .cfg) and place it directly out in the Crysis Demo folder (not the one in my documents).

[miahallen]

Originally Posted by FastRedPonyCar

Last time I promise. I'm laying down 37 fps!!

Sacrificed a few graphics goodies but the difference is still so negligable, the 10fps increase makes it worth it.

For real? I cannot understand how you are acheiving 37FPS
I put un the values you list, and I'm ending up with 22FPS average at 800x600, 17FPS @ 1280x720 (actual gameplay values, not timedemo). What gives?

[miahallen]

Originally Posted by Gaco

I've completely overhauled my old DX9/DX10 analysis project and added a lot of new content and more precise descriptions and definitions.
This final version is much more correct and comprehensive. New is the comparison of the completely tweaked DX9 meaning it has the same lightning, colors and shaders as the DX10 as well as a lengthy conclusion. The existing stuff is still there: the 32bit/64bit comparison and the partially tweaked DX9 mode vs. DX10 where I also look into the shader/post processing high/very high setting differences. There are lots of juicy comparison screenshots in here, so have a look

Thanks for the guide Gaco, but I'm still having some problems. With any of the "Ultra" configs I've tried, I'm unable to get my FPS out of the teens with any resolution higher than 1024x768. Am I doing something wrong, or are you just running very low resolutions?

I'd like to play at my monitors native resolution (1080p), any reccomendations on what settings I should change to acheive playable framerates (>20 is OK with me)?

I'm using a system with very similar specs to yours & FastRedPonyCar's:
Q6600 @ 3.2GHz
GA-P35-DS4 Rev.2.0
4GB Ballistix @ PC2-8000 5-5-5-15
eVGA 8800GTX @ 621-1512-1053
FW 169.04 beta
Vista HP x64
x64 .exe & DX10