Useless settings in graphics

[LilDavyy]

I have found a few useless settings in the graphics menu, such as number of background characters and detail level... Does anyone else have any settings that really dont do anything to the game graphically?

[zacharyb]

Those aren't useless settings, they can help add to the immersion.

[Roland of Gilead]

ya what do you mean useless? turn those all the way down and walk around the towns..... they make a huge difference.

[Bite]

Originally posted by Roland of Gilead:

ya what do you mean useless? turn those all the way down and walk around the towns..... they make a huge difference.

It's hard to come into a situation with more than the minimun amount of NPCs, so the number of background characters does become kind of useless. As far as Detail go, this is mostly seen in combat, not walking through cities.

[LilDavyy]

Originally posted by zacharyb:

Those aren't useless settings, they can help add to the immersion.

Background characters is pretty useless because I never see more than 75 background characters anyway!

[supertrooper225]

I noticed a huge difference in Novigrad.

[Bite]

Originally posted by supertrooper225:

I noticed a huge difference in Novigrad.

To be fair though, you never get to see or happen to be in a situation that demands more than 75 characters to be on screen, much less 150 which is for the Ultra setting. It's really hard to imagine noticing a tangible difference in that regard. (Performance also suffers practically zero from this option).

Novigrad may be an impressive and immersive city, but it's really hard to find any place in it that remotely gives the impression of having more than 50 people at once.

[SoxmisUK]

I read that a few people have tried Ultra and found it to still only allow 75 people, so a guy edited his CFG file to 150, and still only 75 appeared on the screen so they think it's either a bug or a design feature by CDP.

[SoxmisUK]

Funnily enough only 2 days I adjusted this feature as I must have accidentaly moved the slider down a notch while messing in there the night before. I noticed in-game as characters suddenly started popping into existence right in front of me.

Raising it up to high (Didn't go Ultra, no point..) solved the problem entirely.

[millard]

I'm not sure if number of background characters changes the number of different models available to the game for npcs. Its a theory as when i had it at high I felt like there was more variaty in the people I was meeting rather than the same npc faces over and over again on low. I haven't noticed any difference in number of npc's in any area when changing this setting.

[Bite]

Originally posted by SoxmisUK:

Funnily enough only 2 days I adjusted this feature as I must have accidentaly moved the slider down a notch while messing in there the night before. I noticed in-game as characters suddenly started popping into existence right in front of me.

Raising it up to high (Didn't go Ultra, no point..) solved the problem entirely.

The issue with NPCs popping in and out of existence is unrelated to the Number of background characters actually, and it's a consequence of poor LOD textures and mip-mapping. Setting it to ultra doesn't get the rid of the issue, and it's actually a very common issue with the game. 1.07 should be correcting this however, according to patch notes.

[Dead2Rights]

Originally posted by Bite:

Originally posted by supertrooper225:

I noticed a huge difference in Novigrad.

To be fair though, you never get to see or happen to be in a situation that demands more than 75 characters to be on screen, much less 150 which is for the Ultra setting. It's really hard to imagine noticing a tangible difference in that regard. (Performance also suffers practically zero from this option).

Novigrad may be an impressive and immersive city, but it's really hard to find any place in it that remotely gives the impression of having more than 50 people at once.

Performance here is all based on your CPU and not your video card. If there are 150 background actors, the game isn't rendering them unless you somehow manage to wrangle all of them into your camera view.

It is however running their AI scripts and barks and then calculating if you can hear them, etc. All CPU bound stuff.

If people get stutter in Novigrad, this is the first thing to turn down before messing with anything graphics related.

EDIT: I should add - you're more or less right about the population density of Novigrad, but I have noticed an improvement dropping this setting down on my wifes older i5 2500k. Completely eliminated any stuttering she was experiencing running around.

[Bite]

Originally posted by Dead2Rights:

Performance here is all based on your CPU and not your video card. If there are 150 background actors, the game isn't rendering them unless you somehow manage to wrangle all of them into your camera view.

Never said it wasn't.

Originally posted by Dead2Rights:

It is however running their AI scripts and barks and then calculating if you can hear them, etc. All CPU bound stuff.

Again, there isn't a situation when there really is that number of NPCs near or around you. (Don't know about the sound there, as in, I doubt the game is ever modulationg the sound effects for hundreds of different NPCs, I feel it simply uses stock sounds for the different parts of the city).

Originally posted by Dead2Rights:

If people get stutter in Novigrad, this is the first thing to turn down before messing with anything graphics related.

Haven't noticed any performance difference in this regard myself. Stuttering in Novigrad seems to be a fairly common issue all around, even present on top notch PCs.

As someone stated above, this setting has been tested in different ways and, throughout the internet, the common consensus is that it really doesn't change anythning tangible, even the Geforce optimization guide states the team couldn't find any way to test this as far as performance goes.

[Dead2Rights]

Originally posted by Bite:

Haven't noticed any performance difference in this regard myself. Stuttering in Novigrad seems to be a fairly common issue all around, even present on top notch PCs.

As someone stated above, this setting has been tested in different ways and, throughout the internet, the common consensus is that it really doesn't change anythning tangible, even the Geforce optimization guide states the team couldn't find any way to test this as far as performance goes.

And my anecdotal evidence contradicts your anecdotal evidence. I lowered this setting (and only this setting) on my wifes i5 2500k and all the stuttering she was experiencing in Novigrad disappeared.

[BodyPolitic]

I've been playing on ultra and had big issue with microstutter in novigrad, it turns out it was releated to me setting adaptive vysnc in Nvidia control panel. After disabling that (now back to default let application decide) just enabling vync via the game fixed the issue for me. I'm running sli and the only thing I could think of was the adaptive vysnc was throwing off the timing between the two cards. Whats stranger was I mostly noticed it in Novigrad. Now with it turned off its smooth everywhere and the only time it drops below 60 I can literally coorelate with a non game proccess running in the background, very rare occurance.

Also for those that where having bugs w/ hairworks at luanch try it again its been working really well for me and with all the talking heads in the city I've seen its benifit much more than the beggining part of the game. Dandelions hair looks particulary good w/ it lol

[LilDavyy]

Originally posted by SoxmisUK:

Funnily enough only 2 days I adjusted this feature as I must have accidentaly moved the slider down a notch while messing in there the night before. I noticed in-game as characters suddenly started popping into existence right in front of me.

Raising it up to high (Didn't go Ultra, no point..) solved the problem entirely.

Are you running the game off of a hdd or ssd? Ive heard people like to pop in with an hdd..