Post by cangiano on May 30, 2005 16:45:26 GMT -5
As found here
Reduce Mouse Lag
This can easily be found in the Settings>Input window after you open AASF. If you have this ticked you can untick it for a WHOPPING FPS gain. The downside to this modification is that
A) It does not work for everyone
B) It will decrease your overall mouse resolution making it harder to compensate accurately for recoil, and harder to aim precisely.
For some people the concern of getting their FPS out of the teens and into the upper 20's is greater than the need for 'more accurate weapon'. For those already operating at 30+ FPS I do not suggest this modification.
Found in the Details>advanced details settings
Use Vsync
Setting this value to TRUE will sync the refresh rate of your monitor with your videocard output preventing screen tearing. It will, however, limit your framerate to the maximum refresh rate of your monitor. Additionally it takes some CPU power and so it may effect your minimum framerate slightly.
Dynamic lighting
Disabling this option will cause effects like gunfire and tracers to not change the visible lighting of your surrounds. This will mainly take strain off your video card. If you are not experiencing a low minimum FPS then this probably wont effect you much.
Trilinear filtering
If FPS and not quality is a concern UNCHECK this option. Trilinear filtering is a type of texture calculation that makes textures look sharper at distance. For most cases Bilinear filtering is good enough and that is what the system will default to if this is unchecked.
Triple buffering
Use this feature only if you have a large amount of Video RAM. That means 128mb +. This will reduce video lag while turning or entering new areas.
Cubemaps
Disabling this feature will cause windows, PC screens and basically anything reflective to lose the dynamic reflections that they display normally. This can conserve both Graphical and CPU power.
Precaching
Enabling precaching causes AASF to store texture and general level information in your RAM. This reduces lag as you go from area to area.
Coronas
These are the halos of light around objects such as Lamps and spotlights. Removing these may increase performance.
Projectors
Projectors are anything related to weapon damage. 203 blast marks and bullet impact marks will not display if this is checked. If you have texture issues this will enhance performance.
Decolayers
Decolayers are textures displayed on a map, typically terrain based such as bushes or shrubs. Disabling this will remove the grass on Sandstorm and may improve performance.
Clientside effects
Some computers seem to choke as they encounter firefights in maps with an already high number of polygons. Particle effects caused by rounds hitting hard surfaces eject further polygons which can severly limit your framerate in critical situations. Disabling particle effects will help or eliminate this problem altogether. The tradeoff, however, is that you will not be able to see bullet impacts, or impact marks (including 203 marks). Use this at your discression because impacts can frequently be helpful at triangulating an unseen enemy's position.
Compressed light maps
A fellow clanmember noted that he had generally 'uneven framrates' through all the SF maps. His framerate would dip and peak in unsual ways that seemed unrelated to almost any detail setting he could imagine. Apparently he found relief by DISABLING (unticking) the "Use compressed lightmaps" mark in the AASF options. Please note that he is running a P4 2.2ghz, with a Ti4200. Similar results may not exist on other cards.
Supplemental information by [-UNITY-]Bane[ECF]
Disabling Compressed Light Maps will severely reduce video quality of the game. On many maps, it can also create what people call a "purple fuzz" effect in certain cases. I recommend disabling this feature only as a last resort.
Armyops.ini MANUAL modifications
NoFractalAnim
This can be found in the [WinDrv.WindowsClient] section of the armyops.ini. By setting this value to TRUE you prevent fractal animation in such surfaces as water, ice and fire textures. This decreases CPU usage in some areas of the map, pumping up your FPS.
CacheSizeMegs
This is a common value to edit in the armyops.ini file under the [Engine.GameEngine] section of your system folder, however I feel that some people dont fully understand what this value has an effect on. Editing this value represents how much SYSTEM RAM you are devoting for the process of AASF. More system RAM allows more textures to be loaded for quick delivery to your video card. This will NOT increase your maximum attainable framerate, but it will smooth the average framerate out. Some people tend to have moments of 'lag' on larger maps while turning, or entering new areas. This is caused by textures loading into memory. A large Cachsizemegs value will decrease this occurance.
For optimal performance open your Armyops.log file and go to the very end of the file. There should be a string that says something like:
Uninitialized: Peak process RAM (or something similar) Number / Number
By looking at the two numbers that it spits out you can see exactly how much RAM the AASF process used the last time it ran. IF you have enough memory, set the Cachsizemegs in your Armyops.ini to the second Number. If this number is equal or greater than the size of your System ram, simply subtract 120 from your total system ram (mb) and insert that. You should only ever need ~120mb of system ram to run normal background processes, thus freeing the rest for AASF.
Setting your Sound driver
In the [ALAudio.ALAudioSubsystem] subsection you should almost always set the UseDefaultDriver to FALSE. This will enable your sound cards specific driver set, allowing more CPU cycles to be dedicated to rendering.
ConfiguredInternetSpeed
Believe it or not Netspeed can effect your overall FPS. The calculation is as follows:
Netspeed / 64 = Max FPS. For most netspeeds this appropriate, however if you begin to dip below 4000 your max framerate can drop. For example your max framerate at 2000 is 31fps. To tune your netspeed to its most appropriate setting go and find your monitors max refreshrate and use the following formula: Maxrefresh*64 = netspeed.
For my 85hz monitor it would be 85*64 = 5400. There is really no point to me setting it much higher than 5400 as it will degrade my netplay anyway. I have found that even with my Cable connection to the internet a 5000 to 7000 Netspeed is perfect. I used to play at 12000 on HomeLAN, but that was a different era
Supplemental Information by [-UNITY-]Bane[ECF]
Beginning version 2.0, you should no longer set your netspeed beyond 10000.
Superhighdetail actors
There is an option in the Armyops.ini in the D3Ddrv section that allow for higher detail player models. If you seem to have generally poor framerates as other teammates or enemies are on screen set both the Superhighdetail, and Highdetail actors options to FALSE. This should remove some system slowing polygons, and speed up play.
Use Stencil
Setting this option in the Armyops.ini (D3Ddrv section) to FALSE can increase framerate up to 10fps on some cards. 'Jaggies' may appear more noticably where they did not prior, however. This is one of those 'quality' vs 'speed' issues, so use it judiciously.
16 bit textures
If you REALLY have a problem with textures, and texture related memory than set the two options in the Armyops.ini regarding 16bit textures to TRUE. This will make the game look horrible, but it will probably be much smoother.
{Edit: DO NOT USE THIS SETTING! It often produces effects similar to that of a wallhack, which can get you banned by certain anti-cheating organizations if they see it in your PBSS's. Because of this glitch, our servers are set to kick anyone who is using the 16-bit textures option. ~ Peace}
Video Card driver settings
Antialiasing (AA)
Any GeForce or Radeon card is capable of displaying 2x to 4x (sometimes 6x) AA. AA is basically dithering of the surfaces in game. It makes the 'jaggies' formed by two surfaces meeting to be rounded and seem much more natural. AA can make a game look fantastic, but can cause significant FPS hits. For the Radeon Users, you will be happy to note that engaging AA may have little or no hit to your FPS at all, however GeForce users will notice a considerable FPS hit with every level of AA increase. Decreasing AA to 2x of 0x will increase FPS dramatically. Decreasing the value to 0x on Geforces is somewhat easy, simply slide the bar till it says 'No AA'. On Radeons it is a bit more complex. Slide the bar till it hits 2x, then click the box next to the slider that says 'Application preference'.
Anisotropic Filtering (AF)
Anisotropic Filtering allows textures at long range to come through with greater clarity and prescision. Again this is one of those Quality vs Speed issues. Radeon owners again will see little FPS hit while increasing the slider up to about 4x, but Geforce owners will be disappointed just as they were with AA. AF can make maps like recon look absolutely REAL, and also increase target identification at long distance. AF crispens distant textures, bringing out the subtle hues they should have. To remove AF simply do similar steps as with AA, sliding to 0x. Additionally, force PERFORMANCE AF rather than QUALITY. There is no real difference in actual viewing quality, and changing it to performance seems to make thing smoother.
AGP 2x, 4x, 8x and FASTWRITE
IF your motherboard supports any of these options, attempt to maximize them. Enabling AGP8x on and 8x compatible maching will increase bandwith to the video card increasing FPS. Enabling fastwrite (a BIOS option on newer motherboards) will accomplish the same task. Both together will maximize your Card's potential on your system.
AGP Aperture Supplemental information by [-UNITY-]Bane[ECF]
Newer motherboards are capable of using system RAM as a secondary source for video memory. It's kinda like a on-board video memory system similar to integrated video cards (except in this case you use your dedicated video card memory first.) In any case, if your system resorts to using your system RAM to supplement to your video RAM, it is 1) slower than your video card and 2) much more CPU intensive. Overall system performance will drop.
Don't set this more than 128MB or 25% of your total system RAM...at the most. People with 128MB or more video memory should set this number small too.
This can easily be found in the Settings>Input window after you open AASF. If you have this ticked you can untick it for a WHOPPING FPS gain. The downside to this modification is that
A) It does not work for everyone
B) It will decrease your overall mouse resolution making it harder to compensate accurately for recoil, and harder to aim precisely.
For some people the concern of getting their FPS out of the teens and into the upper 20's is greater than the need for 'more accurate weapon'. For those already operating at 30+ FPS I do not suggest this modification.
Found in the Details>advanced details settings
Use Vsync
Setting this value to TRUE will sync the refresh rate of your monitor with your videocard output preventing screen tearing. It will, however, limit your framerate to the maximum refresh rate of your monitor. Additionally it takes some CPU power and so it may effect your minimum framerate slightly.
Dynamic lighting
Disabling this option will cause effects like gunfire and tracers to not change the visible lighting of your surrounds. This will mainly take strain off your video card. If you are not experiencing a low minimum FPS then this probably wont effect you much.
Trilinear filtering
If FPS and not quality is a concern UNCHECK this option. Trilinear filtering is a type of texture calculation that makes textures look sharper at distance. For most cases Bilinear filtering is good enough and that is what the system will default to if this is unchecked.
Triple buffering
Use this feature only if you have a large amount of Video RAM. That means 128mb +. This will reduce video lag while turning or entering new areas.
Cubemaps
Disabling this feature will cause windows, PC screens and basically anything reflective to lose the dynamic reflections that they display normally. This can conserve both Graphical and CPU power.
Precaching
Enabling precaching causes AASF to store texture and general level information in your RAM. This reduces lag as you go from area to area.
Coronas
These are the halos of light around objects such as Lamps and spotlights. Removing these may increase performance.
Projectors
Projectors are anything related to weapon damage. 203 blast marks and bullet impact marks will not display if this is checked. If you have texture issues this will enhance performance.
Decolayers
Decolayers are textures displayed on a map, typically terrain based such as bushes or shrubs. Disabling this will remove the grass on Sandstorm and may improve performance.
Clientside effects
Some computers seem to choke as they encounter firefights in maps with an already high number of polygons. Particle effects caused by rounds hitting hard surfaces eject further polygons which can severly limit your framerate in critical situations. Disabling particle effects will help or eliminate this problem altogether. The tradeoff, however, is that you will not be able to see bullet impacts, or impact marks (including 203 marks). Use this at your discression because impacts can frequently be helpful at triangulating an unseen enemy's position.
Compressed light maps
A fellow clanmember noted that he had generally 'uneven framrates' through all the SF maps. His framerate would dip and peak in unsual ways that seemed unrelated to almost any detail setting he could imagine. Apparently he found relief by DISABLING (unticking) the "Use compressed lightmaps" mark in the AASF options. Please note that he is running a P4 2.2ghz, with a Ti4200. Similar results may not exist on other cards.
Supplemental information by [-UNITY-]Bane[ECF]
Disabling Compressed Light Maps will severely reduce video quality of the game. On many maps, it can also create what people call a "purple fuzz" effect in certain cases. I recommend disabling this feature only as a last resort.
Armyops.ini MANUAL modifications
NoFractalAnim
This can be found in the [WinDrv.WindowsClient] section of the armyops.ini. By setting this value to TRUE you prevent fractal animation in such surfaces as water, ice and fire textures. This decreases CPU usage in some areas of the map, pumping up your FPS.
CacheSizeMegs
This is a common value to edit in the armyops.ini file under the [Engine.GameEngine] section of your system folder, however I feel that some people dont fully understand what this value has an effect on. Editing this value represents how much SYSTEM RAM you are devoting for the process of AASF. More system RAM allows more textures to be loaded for quick delivery to your video card. This will NOT increase your maximum attainable framerate, but it will smooth the average framerate out. Some people tend to have moments of 'lag' on larger maps while turning, or entering new areas. This is caused by textures loading into memory. A large Cachsizemegs value will decrease this occurance.
For optimal performance open your Armyops.log file and go to the very end of the file. There should be a string that says something like:
Uninitialized: Peak process RAM (or something similar) Number / Number
By looking at the two numbers that it spits out you can see exactly how much RAM the AASF process used the last time it ran. IF you have enough memory, set the Cachsizemegs in your Armyops.ini to the second Number. If this number is equal or greater than the size of your System ram, simply subtract 120 from your total system ram (mb) and insert that. You should only ever need ~120mb of system ram to run normal background processes, thus freeing the rest for AASF.
Setting your Sound driver
In the [ALAudio.ALAudioSubsystem] subsection you should almost always set the UseDefaultDriver to FALSE. This will enable your sound cards specific driver set, allowing more CPU cycles to be dedicated to rendering.
ConfiguredInternetSpeed
Believe it or not Netspeed can effect your overall FPS. The calculation is as follows:
Netspeed / 64 = Max FPS. For most netspeeds this appropriate, however if you begin to dip below 4000 your max framerate can drop. For example your max framerate at 2000 is 31fps. To tune your netspeed to its most appropriate setting go and find your monitors max refreshrate and use the following formula: Maxrefresh*64 = netspeed.
For my 85hz monitor it would be 85*64 = 5400. There is really no point to me setting it much higher than 5400 as it will degrade my netplay anyway. I have found that even with my Cable connection to the internet a 5000 to 7000 Netspeed is perfect. I used to play at 12000 on HomeLAN, but that was a different era
Supplemental Information by [-UNITY-]Bane[ECF]
Beginning version 2.0, you should no longer set your netspeed beyond 10000.
Superhighdetail actors
There is an option in the Armyops.ini in the D3Ddrv section that allow for higher detail player models. If you seem to have generally poor framerates as other teammates or enemies are on screen set both the Superhighdetail, and Highdetail actors options to FALSE. This should remove some system slowing polygons, and speed up play.
Use Stencil
Setting this option in the Armyops.ini (D3Ddrv section) to FALSE can increase framerate up to 10fps on some cards. 'Jaggies' may appear more noticably where they did not prior, however. This is one of those 'quality' vs 'speed' issues, so use it judiciously.
If you REALLY have a problem with textures, and texture related memory than set the two options in the Armyops.ini regarding 16bit textures to TRUE. This will make the game look horrible, but it will probably be much smoother.
{Edit: DO NOT USE THIS SETTING! It often produces effects similar to that of a wallhack, which can get you banned by certain anti-cheating organizations if they see it in your PBSS's. Because of this glitch, our servers are set to kick anyone who is using the 16-bit textures option. ~ Peace}
Video Card driver settings
Antialiasing (AA)
Any GeForce or Radeon card is capable of displaying 2x to 4x (sometimes 6x) AA. AA is basically dithering of the surfaces in game. It makes the 'jaggies' formed by two surfaces meeting to be rounded and seem much more natural. AA can make a game look fantastic, but can cause significant FPS hits. For the Radeon Users, you will be happy to note that engaging AA may have little or no hit to your FPS at all, however GeForce users will notice a considerable FPS hit with every level of AA increase. Decreasing AA to 2x of 0x will increase FPS dramatically. Decreasing the value to 0x on Geforces is somewhat easy, simply slide the bar till it says 'No AA'. On Radeons it is a bit more complex. Slide the bar till it hits 2x, then click the box next to the slider that says 'Application preference'.
Anisotropic Filtering (AF)
Anisotropic Filtering allows textures at long range to come through with greater clarity and prescision. Again this is one of those Quality vs Speed issues. Radeon owners again will see little FPS hit while increasing the slider up to about 4x, but Geforce owners will be disappointed just as they were with AA. AF can make maps like recon look absolutely REAL, and also increase target identification at long distance. AF crispens distant textures, bringing out the subtle hues they should have. To remove AF simply do similar steps as with AA, sliding to 0x. Additionally, force PERFORMANCE AF rather than QUALITY. There is no real difference in actual viewing quality, and changing it to performance seems to make thing smoother.
AGP 2x, 4x, 8x and FASTWRITE
IF your motherboard supports any of these options, attempt to maximize them. Enabling AGP8x on and 8x compatible maching will increase bandwith to the video card increasing FPS. Enabling fastwrite (a BIOS option on newer motherboards) will accomplish the same task. Both together will maximize your Card's potential on your system.
AGP Aperture Supplemental information by [-UNITY-]Bane[ECF]
Newer motherboards are capable of using system RAM as a secondary source for video memory. It's kinda like a on-board video memory system similar to integrated video cards (except in this case you use your dedicated video card memory first.) In any case, if your system resorts to using your system RAM to supplement to your video RAM, it is 1) slower than your video card and 2) much more CPU intensive. Overall system performance will drop.
Don't set this more than 128MB or 25% of your total system RAM...at the most. People with 128MB or more video memory should set this number small too.
, luckily I got off of it before I even got to play a round. Trust me, it looks like the spitting image of a wall hack.