ICEnhancer Tips Tricks Performance Discussion

[chronicdog]

So Ive done a fair bit of tweaking with ICEnhancer, and finally gotten great results. Im using the Steam compatible version, and after a bunch of faffing about, realized I have to live with the red sky glitch as any and all attempts to fix it make the game look or run much worse. Its a minor thing, only occurs certain times of day, and I just have to live with it for those 5 mins.

BUT I have come up with some valuable performance tweaks. For starters, view distance and view detail have a HUGE affect on performance, as well as car density. I have mine set to 30, 15, 10 respectively, but you can go MUCH lower or maybe higher. Turning off Night Shadows helped my framerates a lot, as did turning off Clip Capture from the in game menu, if you arent making a movie make SURE to leave this OFF.

Setting the game to a lower resolution, like 720p vs 1080p, doesnt seem to result in a performance leap for me - but setting the in game textures from HIGH to MEDIUM did wonders for my framerates, and now Im looking at sustained 30fps with jumps to 45 and never going below 20, all while looking amazing - the HIGH textures arent always better looking in every situation and the reality is, we probably need a big leap in graphics card and CPU power before we can run this software at 100% flat out MAX.

It seems with my version of ICEnhancer, there is no motion blur. Im sure this would be another performance hit, but the blur can add a lot to the image quality and even make up for some of the lost frames via its smoothing film-like effect. Ive seen it in videos, and dont some poking around, but cant seem to find a way to get it going.

Depth of field can add a lot visually, so I always leave this on (normal, not HQ). In terms of other tweaks, like many I find the default nightime to be way too dark so I changed some of the lighting and adaptation settings from default. Also I set SSAO_SSIL to TRUE, and combined it with the recommended SMAA for best image quality while maintaining good 30fps performance. If you have an AMD card, you could try disabling all ICE-AA and force morphological AA from Catalyst, this seemed to work for me but whether you like the look is personal (I dont like the blurry text).

Please post your settings and any tips or tricks you have to make GTAIV look amazeballs.

My rig:
Intel Q9550 quad core @ 3.6ghz
8GB DDR2
7970 overclocked to 1100/1600

ICEnhancer config file settings:

[PROXY]
EnableProxyLibrary=true
InitProxyFunctions=true
ProxyLibrary=SMAA.dll

[GLOBAL]
AdditionalConfigFile=lol
UseEffect=true
CyclicConfigReading=false
ForceNVidiaCard=false
ForceNVidiaCaps=false

[ENGINE]
ForceDisplaySize=false
ForceAntialiasing=false
ForceDisplayRefreshRate=false
ForceAnisotropicFiltering=true
MaxAnisotropy=16
AntialiasingQuality=2
DisplayRefreshRateHz=144
DisplayWidth=1920
DisplayHeight=1080
ReflectionsForceHighPrecision=true
ReflectionsExtremePrecision=true
AntialiasingUpScale=0.87

[EFFECT]
EnableBloom=true
EnableAmbientOcclusion=true
EnableSkyLighting=true
UseOriginalPostProcessing=false

[INPUT]
KeyUseEffect=123
KeyCombination=16
KeyScreenshot=44
KeyAmbientOcclusion=121
KeyShowFPS=106

[BLOOD]
ReflectionAmount=0.475
SpecularPower=1.0

[TREE]
LeavesReflectionAmount=0.01
LeavesSpecularPower=0.2
LeavesAmbientAmount=0.3
LeavesColorMultiplier=1.1
LeavesColorPow=1.2
LeavesColorFilterR=1
LeavesColorFilterG=1.15
LeavesColorFilterB=1

[BUILDING]
WindowLightIntensity=1

[LIGHT1]
LightIntensity=3
LightAOAmount=3
LightILAmount=1.0
EdgeLighteningAmount=0.0
ColorPow=2.5
LightCurve=1

[LIGHT2]
LightIntensity=0..2
LightAOAmount=1
LightILAmount=1
EdgeLighteningAmount=0.1
ColorPow=1
LightCurve=1
ColorFilterR=.7
ColorFilterG=1
ColorFilterB=1

[LIGHT3]
LightIntensity=.8
LightAOAmount=1
LightILAmount=1
EdgeLighteningAmount=0.0
ColorPow=2.5
LightCurve=1

[LIGHT4]
LightIntensity=0.02
LightAOAmount=1
LightILAmount=0
EdgeLighteningAmount=0.0
ColorPow=1.5
LightCurve=1

[LIGHT5]
LightIntensity=.8
LightAOAmount=1
LightILAmount=1.0
EdgeLighteningAmount=0.0
ColorPow=2.5
LightCurve=1.0

[LIGHT6]
LightIntensity=.8
LightAOAmount=1
LightILAmount=1.0
EdgeLighteningAmount=0.0
ColorPow=2.5
LightCurve=1.0

[CARHEADLIGHT]
EmissiveMuliplier=1.5
LightIntensity=1.5

[LIGHTSPRITE]
UseExternalTexture=true
Intensity=1
IntensityInReflection=1
UseRays=false
RaysNumber=5
RaysIntensity=1
RaysRateOfChange=5
RaysLength=4

[CARWINDOWGLASS]
ReflectionAmount=0.4
SpecularPower=100
SpecularAmount=2
OpacityMultiplier=1

[CHROME]
ReflectionFront=3
ReflectionSide=3
SpecularPower=100
SideFade=1.5
MetallicAmount=0

[WHEELS]
ReflectionFront=1
ReflectionSide=2
SpecularPower=1
SideFade=1
MetallicAmount=0.25

[REFLECTION1]
ReflectionFront=3
ReflectionSide=3
SpecularPower=100
SideFade=2
MetallicAmount=0.05

[REFLECTION2]
ReflectionFront=3
ReflectionSide=3
SpecularPower=1.0
SideFade=0.5

[REFLECTION3]
ReflectionFront=3
ReflectionSide=3
SpecularPower=1
SideFade=0.3

[BLOOM]
BloomQuality=0
BlueShiftAmount=0
Radius1=10
Radius2=20
Contrast=1

[SSAO_SSIL]
ApplyAntialiasing=true
SamplingQuality=1
SamplingRange=0.25
SizeScale=0.4
SourceTexturesScale=0.4
FilterQuality=1
AOAmount=1
ILAmount=0.4
EdgeLighteningAmount=0.2

[SHADOW]
FilterQuality=0
CharacterShadowMultiplier=1
CarShadowMultiplier=1.25

[ADAPTATION]
ForceMinMaxValues=true
AdaptationTime=0.2
AdaptationMin=0.2
AdaptationMax=3
AdaptationMinMultiplier=1.0
AdaptationMaxMultiplier=1.0

[ENVIRONMENT]
DirectLightingIntensity=3.7
NightLightingIntensity=1.4
DirectLightingCurve=1
ReflectionAmountMultiplier=0.18
SpecularAmountMultiplier=1
SpecularPowerMultiplier=1
ColorPow=2
AmbientSunMultiplier=1
AmbientSkyMultiplier=1
AmbientSunSaturation=1
AmbientSkySaturation=1

[SKYLIGHTING]
FilterQuality=0
AmbientSunMix=4
AmbientSkyMix=4
AmbientContrast=1
AmbientMinLevel=0.4

[SKY]
AzimuthHeight=1
AzimuthMultiplier=1.5
AzimuthSunAffectPower=1
AzimuthSunAffectAmount=1
TopColorMultiplier=0.7
ColorSaturation=0
ColorPower=1.5
SunIntensity=1
SunMaxBrightness=100
SunColorFilterR=0.98
SunColorFilterG=0.90
SunColorFilterB=0.54
SunColorFilterCurve=1
SunCoronaCurve=1
SunCoronaIntensity=0.5
SunDesaturation=0
OverallPower=1
OverallIntensity=1
BrightnessUpperLimitMultiplier=8
CloudsUseCustomTexture=false
CloudsCurve=1
CloudsIntensity=1
CloudsDesaturation=0.8
CloudsEdgeClamp=0.7
CloudsEdgeIntensity=4
CloudsEdgeRange=2
StarsUseCustomTexture=false
StarsAmount=0
StarsIntensity=0
StarsBrightness=0
MoonIntensity=100
MoonGamma=1
MoonSize=0.025
MoonLightingCurve=0.7
NightCloudsEdgeClamp=1.0
NightCloudsEdgeIntensity=3.5
NightCloudsEdgeRange=8.0
Enable=true

[PARTICLE]
SoftParticlesEnable=true
SoftParticlesEdgeRange=0.5

[DETAIL]
DetailMapEnable=true

[COLORCORRECTION]
UsePaletteTexture=false