Prophet Steve
Member
Just downloaded the game last nigt and am pumped about replaying it on PC at awesome graphical fidelity.... but....
As someone who is completely terrified of changing numbers in text files that affect my computer, what is a good general guideline of how to set certian things? Keep in mind, I'm enough of an idiot that all I really know is "Higher numbers are better" when it comes to choosing resolution of my monitors. What's the theory behind choosing numbers for certain settings? For instance:
1) How do you know which renderWidth or renderHeignt to choose? Should it just be the maximum resolution that your monitor / TV can do? (Which I assume is the number you get when you right click the desktop and go to "Screen Resolution" [in Win 7])
2) What about the display width/height? Why would you need to downscale if you can output at your monitor's maximum resolution in the first place?
3)What is the difference between "SMAA" and "FXAA"? Disclaimer: I understand what AA is already
4) What is Ambient Occlusion, and why does it have two seperate varialbles (strength, and scale)? [Types of AO are explained in the text file. Thanks for that!] If all of the strength settings have the same performace impact, why would you choose anything other then "3 = high"?
5) What exactly is "Dept of Field"? I see it references a "DoF Pyramid", does that mean it's draw distance from the "camera" outward in a pyramid shape?
If this has already been discussed to death, can someone point me towards the posts? I realize answers to this will be like a book report, so I'm sorry.
Also, A buddy and I ran into a problem yesterday: We couldn't get the co-op summon to work. There were plenty of times when I saw his summon sign (and vice versa), but we kept continually getting "Summoning Failed", no matter how many times we opened ports, had one person quit to the main menu, or just completely reset the game. Any advice?
Oh, also, last question: Is there a quick list of mods anywhere? I tried google searching during the Fiesta Bowl last night but couldn't find a list anywhere. I heard there was one that erased the splash screens at game start.... is that true? Restarting the game 10+ times last night trying to get the co-op to work made the splash screens really, really annoying.
1) For now you can set your maximum resolution of your screen (so yes, assuming you are using Windows at your highest resolution, you should have the right one). If you want to downscale (see point 2) you must set higher resolutions with the same ration. So 1280 x 720 (16:9) can be 1980 x 1080 (16:9).
2) You can set it 0 as it says. The idea is that you can set the resolution even higher than your maximum if you want. It will be scaled down to fit your resolution but since there is extra information it will look sharper and help against aliasing. If you want that, you could try playing with that
3) I am not very well versed on different AA techniques, but from I know FXAA causes more blurring to hide the aliasing. If you downscale from a higher resolution however it might be less noticable and a preferred effect to you. Since I think SMAA could have some problem with transparent edges or something (not entirely sure).
4) You might simply prefer it to be not as strong. I also don't know a lot about this technique but in practice you will mostly notice deeper shadows.
5) The depth of field is the blurring of far objects. It is a gradual effect so that is why it is a pyramid.
Coop has indeed problems but I think there are ways to get around that, I don't remember how anymore.
If you want the splash screens at the start gone, there is a turn off intro in the ini file that should do that.
