Ultra Custom Settings

[Tayzor Azul]

Hello people ! I want to know how can I make the game from custom settings look much better does anyone have a clue ?

[ogg]

Go to Options > Advanced > Rendering (something like that)

Texture settings >
Normal size - large
Animation size - large
Effect size - large
Normal quality - 32bit
Effect quality - 32bit
Filtering method - sharpend
Effect filtering method - maximum
Filtering booster - enabled
Dithering method - High diffusion

Shadow settings >
Size - large
Quality - 32bit
Filtering method - maximum
Dithering method - maximum
Cache size - large
Precache shadowmaps - no

Model settings >
LOD Quality - supreme
Shadows type - Complex (multiple lights)
Precision - Normal
Detail textutres - Enabled
Specularity - Enabled
Reflection mapping - Enabled

Rendering control >
Multi-texturing mode - Quad
Texture rendering method - Trilinear (sharpen)
Texture anysothopy - 32
Texture LOD bias - sharpen
16-bit color dithering - High
Truform/N-patches - Disabled
Use Truform/N-Patches - only for truform-ready models

OpenGL Settings >
Texture compression system - OpenGL wrapper (default)
Optimize rendering - Enabled for everything
Access mode - Compatibility

Direct3D Settings >
T&L usage - Hardware
T&L buffer size - huge
Faster Lens Flares - no

Display settings >
Saturation - Normal
Brightness - Normal
Contrast - high 1
Gamma - high 1
Red bias - high 2
Green bias - high 2
Blue bias - high 1
Levels - 256
Stereoscopic view - none

Additional settings >
Enviroment particles density - maximum
Enviroment particles range - maximum
Lens flare rendering - Complete
Screen refresh rate - Go from 60Hz (1920x1080) to 75hz (~somewhere about 1280x720)
Grab z-buffer - no
Pretouch memory - Custom
---------------------------
Resolution - 1920x1080
Fullscreen - Yes
No Border - Yes (duh).
---------------------------
PC Specs -
Intel E7600 Dual Core @ 3.06~3.07GHz, 3.2GHz overclock
ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series
4GB RAM
FLATRON W2243S
50-60FPS; rare stutters
--------------------------

Well, If you don't want 'pixelly/blocky' textures, you'll have to adjust LOD (Level of Detail) Bias via ATI Tray Tools / RivaTuner / nVidia control panel
Since I don't have nvidia GPU there's no way for me to help you.
ATI --
Download ATI Tray Tools
Install
Go to Tray
Rightclick on ATITT
Go to Direct3D (3D)
Settings (Advanced)
Go to Advanced
Change LOD Bias slider to -7.0 (-15.0 nVidia) <= Almost no blocky textures
7.0 (15.0 nVidia) <= blocky textures
^^^^^^^^^ NO performance boost
-------------------------
Also, I edited some stuff in Catalyst Control Center
>3D strandard settings - Use custom settings
SMOOTHVISION HD Anti-Aliasing -
^Override application settings
^^ Level - 8x
^^^ Samples - 8x
^^^^ Filter - Box
SMOOTHVISION HD Anisotropic Filtering -
^ Override application settings
^^ Per-pixel samples - 2x
Catalyst A.I. - Enabled (Advanced)
Mipmap Detail Level - Quality
Wait for vertical refresh - Always off
Adaptive AntiAliasing - Enabled
OpenGL Settings - Triple buffering (enabled)
-------------------------
Also, I hope you have an ATI/AMD GPU.

-----
I'll post screenshots, stay tuned (60kb/s)

[Tayzor Azul]

thanks man I got nVidia video card too :)

[Tayzor Azul]

I can't try it right now I am very busy at the moment but I will.

[aTastySandMitch]

There are a few settings wrong here for "Ultra" quality. I have changed them and explained why by them.


Texture settings >
Normal size - large
Animation size - large
Effect size - large
Normal quality - 32bit
Effect quality - 32bit
Filtering method - NONE (unless you are using Sparse-Grid SuperSampling AA, do not touch these 3 filtering settings)
Effect filtering method - NONE (stated above)
Filtering booster - NONE (stated above)
Dithering method - NONE (This is only useful for 16-bit quality and since both above settings are 32-bit, this setting won't any effect. It is use to minimize color banding of 16-bit textures)

Shadow settings >
Size - large
Quality - 32bit
Filtering method - maximum
Dithering method - NONE (just like 16-bit textures, this setting reduces color banding for 16-bit shadowmaps. Since 32-bit Quality is selected, this setting does nothing).

Cache size - HUGE (I hope no one is using less than 64mb of video memory. This speeds up shadowmap rendering).

Precache shadowmaps - YES (as stated above, modern graphics cards have more than enough vram for this game. This loads all shadowmaps into vram at level load which may take a second longer, but will prevent any stutter caused by loading in shadowmaps).

Model settings >
LOD Quality - supreme (Note: Using mdl_iLODDisappear=0 and mdl_fLODMul=0 , you can enable the farthest draw distance the engine allows).
Shadows type - Complex (multiple lights)
Precision - Normal
Detail textutres - Enabled
Specularity - Enabled
Reflection mapping - Enabled

Rendering control >
Multi-texturing mode - Quad
Texture rendering method - TRILINEAR (this setting controls the depth quality of textures. As stated above, do NOT use "sharpen" unless you are applying Sparse-Grid SSAA).

Texture rendering method - TRILINEAR (sharpen will do the same as texture filtering above and is not recommended unless you are using FSAA)

Texture anisotropy - 16 (ONLY older ATI cards could do 128 Anisotropy with minimal change in image quality, The feature never caught on and both AMD and Nvidia allow up to 16 so it is only suitable to leave at 16. To be honest, ANY game can be set to 16x aniso as it is not hard to render this distance even with integrated graphics).

Texture LOD bias - NONE (Don't know why this setting appears twice with a different name. Maybe its a more specific LOD option just for texture rather than the global setting above for effects and animations too. Same rules apply though by only changing this when using Sparse-Grid SSAA).

16-bit color dithering - NONE (as stated above, won't affect anything if 32-bit quality is selected)

Truform/N-patches - Disabled (a little history, Truform tech. was an early approach to tesselation by ATI (what DirectX 11 now provides for ALL supported cards). It was only an ATI feature and caused Serious Sam Classic to crash frequently. Only couple years before they discontinued the feature in their cards did it work properly).

Use Truform/N-Patches - only for truform-ready models

OpenGL Settings >
Texture compression system - NONE (Assuming you have at least 64mb of vram, there's no need for this setting in modern PC's).

Optimize rendering - DISABLED (this actually slowed down my GTX 480 even in areas where there wasn't anything going on. This setting is suppose to use an OpenGL extension called "Compiled Vertex Arrays" to speed up rendering in OpenGL. It is still supported in drivers, but not in modern PC games).

Access mode - PERFORMANCE (Compatibilty will slow down rendering farther than if Performance was causing a slowdown in rendering. This is only useful for older cards with low vram and specific resolutions).

Direct3D Settings > (Note: These 3 settings do not currently matter as SSR does not include the DirectX API. Maybe it will be added in the future?).
T&L usage - Hardware
T&L buffer size - huge
Faster Lens Flares - no

Display settings > (Only change these settings as a last resort for calibrating ingame color. Use your graphics card's or monitor's color settings for calibration first).

Saturation - Normal
Brightness - Normal
Contrast - NORMAL
Gamma - NORMAL
Red bias - NORMAL
Green bias - NORMAL
Blue bias - NORMAL
Levels - 256
Stereoscopic view - none

Additional settings >
Enviroment particles density - maximum
Enviroment particles range - maximum
Lens flare rendering - Complete
Screen refresh rate - DEFAULT (This is actually a framerate limiter setting. (Use gap_iRefreshRate to control the framerate limit to a more specific value if desired. This does NOT control your screen's refresh rate).
Grab z-buffer - no
Pretouch memory - Custom

[Da Doom Man]

Can you explain a little more about why there's no need for filtering and multi-texturing?
Just wondering...

[aTastySandMitch]

Originally posted by Da Doom Man:

Can you explain a little more about why there's no need for filtering and multi-texturing?
Just wondering...

Filtering/texture sharpening is only needed for oversampled textures. Certain forms of Transparency Antialiasing/Full-scene Antialiasing will oversample into textures and not just edges, causing textures to blur more than normal. You would offset this by sharpening or "filtering" the texture to restore its original clarity.

As for multi-texturing, it uses queues/units to decode textures when the engine is rasterizing them. The more you set it to, the faster the textures can get a spot for rasterizing and results in a big fps gain. It was numerated by how many shader units a GPU had back then (but we have thousands now).

[Bo9da]

Hey thank ya all guys. UPD: Unfortunately mdl_iLODDisappear=0 doesnt seem to work anymore, game says that its not a valid console command( How can i turn on mentioned above "Sparse-Grid SuperSampling AA" on modern nvidia videocard? Control Panel hasnt that option at all, only fsaa, mfaa and regular antialiasing settings

[LIFELESS]

Originally posted by aTastySandMitch:

There are a few settings wrong here for "Ultra" quality. I have changed them and explained why by them.


Texture settings >
Normal size - large
Animation size - large
Effect size - large
Normal quality - 32bit
Effect quality - 32bit
Filtering method - NONE (unless you are using Sparse-Grid SuperSampling AA, do not touch these 3 filtering settings)
Effect filtering method - NONE (stated above)
Filtering booster - NONE (stated above)
Dithering method - NONE (This is only useful for 16-bit quality and since both above settings are 32-bit, this setting won't any effect. It is use to minimize color banding of 16-bit textures)

Shadow settings >
Size - large
Quality - 32bit
Filtering method - maximum
Dithering method - NONE (just like 16-bit textures, this setting reduces color banding for 16-bit shadowmaps. Since 32-bit Quality is selected, this setting does nothing).

Cache size - HUGE (I hope no one is using less than 64mb of video memory. This speeds up shadowmap rendering).

Precache shadowmaps - YES (as stated above, modern graphics cards have more than enough vram for this game. This loads all shadowmaps into vram at level load which may take a second longer, but will prevent any stutter caused by loading in shadowmaps).

Model settings >
LOD Quality - supreme (Note: Using mdl_iLODDisappear=0 and mdl_fLODMul=0 , you can enable the farthest draw distance the engine allows).
Shadows type - Complex (multiple lights)
Precision - Normal
Detail textutres - Enabled
Specularity - Enabled
Reflection mapping - Enabled

Rendering control >
Multi-texturing mode - Quad
Texture rendering method - TRILINEAR (this setting controls the depth quality of textures. As stated above, do NOT use "sharpen" unless you are applying Sparse-Grid SSAA).

Texture rendering method - TRILINEAR (sharpen will do the same as texture filtering above and is not recommended unless you are using FSAA)

Texture anisotropy - 16 (ONLY older ATI cards could do 128 Anisotropy with minimal change in image quality, The feature never caught on and both AMD and Nvidia allow up to 16 so it is only suitable to leave at 16. To be honest, ANY game can be set to 16x aniso as it is not hard to render this distance even with integrated graphics).

Texture LOD bias - NONE (Don't know why this setting appears twice with a different name. Maybe its a more specific LOD option just for texture rather than the global setting above for effects and animations too. Same rules apply though by only changing this when using Sparse-Grid SSAA).

16-bit color dithering - NONE (as stated above, won't affect anything if 32-bit quality is selected)

Truform/N-patches - Disabled (a little history, Truform tech. was an early approach to tesselation by ATI (what DirectX 11 now provides for ALL supported cards). It was only an ATI feature and caused Serious Sam Classic to crash frequently. Only couple years before they discontinued the feature in their cards did it work properly).

Use Truform/N-Patches - only for truform-ready models

OpenGL Settings >
Texture compression system - NONE (Assuming you have at least 64mb of vram, there's no need for this setting in modern PC's).

Optimize rendering - DISABLED (this actually slowed down my GTX 480 even in areas where there wasn't anything going on. This setting is suppose to use an OpenGL extension called "Compiled Vertex Arrays" to speed up rendering in OpenGL. It is still supported in drivers, but not in modern PC games).

Access mode - PERFORMANCE (Compatibilty will slow down rendering farther than if Performance was causing a slowdown in rendering. This is only useful for older cards with low vram and specific resolutions).

Direct3D Settings > (Note: These 3 settings do not currently matter as SSR does not include the DirectX API. Maybe it will be added in the future?).
T&L usage - Hardware
T&L buffer size - huge
Faster Lens Flares - no

Display settings > (Only change these settings as a last resort for calibrating ingame color. Use your graphics card's or monitor's color settings for calibration first).

Saturation - Normal
Brightness - Normal
Contrast - NORMAL
Gamma - NORMAL
Red bias - NORMAL
Green bias - NORMAL
Blue bias - NORMAL
Levels - 256
Stereoscopic view - none

Additional settings >
Enviroment particles density - maximum
Enviroment particles range - maximum
Lens flare rendering - Complete
Screen refresh rate - DEFAULT (This is actually a framerate limiter setting. (Use gap_iRefreshRate to control the framerate limit to a more specific value if desired. This does NOT control your screen's refresh rate).
Grab z-buffer - no
Pretouch memory - Custom

thanks from 2023

[SolivaN]

Originally posted by aTastySandMitch:

There are a few settings wrong here for "Ultra" quality. I have changed them and explained why by them.


Texture settings >
Normal size - large
Animation size - large
Effect size - large
Normal quality - 32bit
Effect quality - 32bit
Filtering method - NONE (unless you are using Sparse-Grid SuperSampling AA, do not touch these 3 filtering settings)
Effect filtering method - NONE (stated above)
Filtering booster - NONE (stated above)
Dithering method - NONE (This is only useful for 16-bit quality and since both above settings are 32-bit, this setting won't any effect. It is use to minimize color banding of 16-bit textures)

Shadow settings >
Size - large
Quality - 32bit
Filtering method - maximum
Dithering method - NONE (just like 16-bit textures, this setting reduces color banding for 16-bit shadowmaps. Since 32-bit Quality is selected, this setting does nothing).

Cache size - HUGE (I hope no one is using less than 64mb of video memory. This speeds up shadowmap rendering).

Precache shadowmaps - YES (as stated above, modern graphics cards have more than enough vram for this game. This loads all shadowmaps into vram at level load which may take a second longer, but will prevent any stutter caused by loading in shadowmaps).

Model settings >
LOD Quality - supreme (Note: Using mdl_iLODDisappear=0 and mdl_fLODMul=0 , you can enable the farthest draw distance the engine allows).
Shadows type - Complex (multiple lights)
Precision - Normal
Detail textutres - Enabled
Specularity - Enabled
Reflection mapping - Enabled

Rendering control >
Multi-texturing mode - Quad
Texture rendering method - TRILINEAR (this setting controls the depth quality of textures. As stated above, do NOT use "sharpen" unless you are applying Sparse-Grid SSAA).

Texture rendering method - TRILINEAR (sharpen will do the same as texture filtering above and is not recommended unless you are using FSAA)

Texture anisotropy - 16 (ONLY older ATI cards could do 128 Anisotropy with minimal change in image quality, The feature never caught on and both AMD and Nvidia allow up to 16 so it is only suitable to leave at 16. To be honest, ANY game can be set to 16x aniso as it is not hard to render this distance even with integrated graphics).

Texture LOD bias - NONE (Don't know why this setting appears twice with a different name. Maybe its a more specific LOD option just for texture rather than the global setting above for effects and animations too. Same rules apply though by only changing this when using Sparse-Grid SSAA).

16-bit color dithering - NONE (as stated above, won't affect anything if 32-bit quality is selected)

Truform/N-patches - Disabled (a little history, Truform tech. was an early approach to tesselation by ATI (what DirectX 11 now provides for ALL supported cards). It was only an ATI feature and caused Serious Sam Classic to crash frequently. Only couple years before they discontinued the feature in their cards did it work properly).

Use Truform/N-Patches - only for truform-ready models

OpenGL Settings >
Texture compression system - NONE (Assuming you have at least 64mb of vram, there's no need for this setting in modern PC's).

Optimize rendering - DISABLED (this actually slowed down my GTX 480 even in areas where there wasn't anything going on. This setting is suppose to use an OpenGL extension called "Compiled Vertex Arrays" to speed up rendering in OpenGL. It is still supported in drivers, but not in modern PC games).

Access mode - PERFORMANCE (Compatibilty will slow down rendering farther than if Performance was causing a slowdown in rendering. This is only useful for older cards with low vram and specific resolutions).

Direct3D Settings > (Note: These 3 settings do not currently matter as SSR does not include the DirectX API. Maybe it will be added in the future?).
T&L usage - Hardware
T&L buffer size - huge
Faster Lens Flares - no

Display settings > (Only change these settings as a last resort for calibrating ingame color. Use your graphics card's or monitor's color settings for calibration first).

Saturation - Normal
Brightness - Normal
Contrast - NORMAL
Gamma - NORMAL
Red bias - NORMAL
Green bias - NORMAL
Blue bias - NORMAL
Levels - 256
Stereoscopic view - none

Additional settings >
Enviroment particles density - maximum
Enviroment particles range - maximum
Lens flare rendering - Complete
Screen refresh rate - DEFAULT (This is actually a framerate limiter setting. (Use gap_iRefreshRate to control the framerate limit to a more specific value if desired. This does NOT control your screen's refresh rate).
Grab z-buffer - no
Pretouch memory - Custom

thanks for that, i've some little settings wrong, and with your help now SS looks perfect and the frames are smooth like a honey.
this settings work great for the three games: SS FE, SS SE and SS Rev.

many thanks!!!