For those of you with poor performance, this might help.

[Irkie500]

Hey Everyone,

When I did some digging in the system files to install sweetfx I couldn't help but notice that this game runs on the unreal engine, which means there are plenty of tweaks we can do to make things run a bit smoother for those of you who are struggling, and for those of us with really powerful systems to crank things up even more.

All modifications will be done in BaseEngine.ini found in steamapps/common/grav/engine/BaseEngine.ini

I am currently away from my computer so I'm going from memory at the moment, but I will edit and update this when I get home later today.

The vast size of the world can really take its toll on even very high end computers like mine. I was surprised at first because usually unreal is extremely well optimized for modern hardware, but this game is so large it really stressed mine pretty good.

Some things that can help that are not in the in game graphics options:

Turning down the draw distance
Reducing shadow map size
Turning off Anti Aliasing(in any form)
Turning off SSAO(Screen Space Ambient Occlusion) - This is a big one, really stresses graphics cards.
Turning off Post Processing

Most of these can be found by using CTRL+F to bring up the "find" window while in the text document. Search for things like "Draw" "Shadow" "Bloom" "ScreenSpace" ect. Dont be afraid to mess around with the values, the worst that will happen is the game might crash, DONT PANIC, your system will not explode. If you want to undo anything you changed just delete the ini file and the game will make a new default one when you start up again.

Again apologies for not being more specific right now, I will add in the actual lines to change when I get home later today, just wanted to get a base article out there as a placeholder.

[Brone]

You should update this and be very specific, browsing through the BaseEngine.ini myself and its not very clear to me personally as what affects what. Also none of the "keywords" you supplied had any significant matches for me. Thanks in advanced.

[Brunnen-Gee]

I'll look more into this later as well. I just bought the game and ran it for the first time and was shocked at how poor it performed (<30fps) even with everything turned off. My system can smash other Unreal Engine games maxed out well over 100fps. Most likely it'll be the render distance, I'll do some poking around later when I get home.

[Joreel]

Originally posted by Chew Magna:

I'll look more into this later as well. I just bought the game and ran it for the first time and was shocked at how poor it performed (<30fps) even with everything turned off. My system can smash other Unreal Engine games maxed out well over 100fps. Most likely it'll be the render distance, I'll do some poking around later when I get home.

Good to know if this was a finished game, but its 2 weeks into alpha so there isn't any optimization which will come at the end after everything is in place. The game itself is only 6 months old so most of it isn't even developed. Its amazing that it runs as well as it does for being an alpha game.

[Goth667]

Before you try to look into the configs look at this:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=374738562
If you find stuff to add just post it or if it is too much ask me and I'll make you able to edit the guide.

[Brunnen-Gee]

Originally posted by Joreel:

Good to know if this was a finished game, but its 2 weeks into alpha so there isn't any optimization which will come at the end after everything is in place. The game itself is only 6 months old so most of it isn't even developed. Its amazing that it runs as well as it does for being an alpha game.

Oh I know. It just surprised me at how poorly it ran. I've been watching people play it on YouTube and it looked like it ran great for them. As it stands right now it's unplayable, I can't even look around without severe frame drop and stuttering.

[Brunnen-Gee]

I looked through both guides, changed a ton of settings (turned most completely off), dropped the distance a good bit and it's still not really playable. Looks like I'll just have to wait for them to work on it some more and then give it another shot.

[bitmonster_matt]

We plan on adding things like SSAO to the options screen to make this a bit easier :)

[spykerKonyn]

Performance on the game is crazy bad at the moment. Even with everything tuned to low I am still only getting 25 frames max. It was fine two or three patches ago but it turned unplayable after that.

I know it is early access though so I will wait for optimization fixes. :)

[Irkie500]

Ok so I went through most of the system setting here and explained what they all do to the best of my knowledge. =SASS= Goth667 please feel free to include this information in your guide and make changes as needed, just give me a shoutout.

Once you make changes be sure to save and then right click the file, hit properties and change to "Read Only" this will prevent the game from overwriting your changes you just made.

Also a quick note, the game seems to have a very hard time keeping my resolution set so it might revert back to something smaller than what you had set previously. It might be all the patches overwirting though.

Any questions let me know and I will explain the best I can.

[SystemSettings]
bUseMaxQualityMode=FALSE(Usually causes bugs when TRUE so leave as is)
bMobileMinimizeFogShaders=FALSE
bMobileAllowDepthPrePass=FALSE
; NOTE THAT ANY ITEMS IN THIS SECTION WILL AFFECT ALL PLATFORMS!!!
StaticDecals=True
DynamicDecals=True
UnbatchedDecals=True

DecalCullDistanceScale=1.0(Distance at which decals start to fade out. Lower this for better performance)

DynamicLights=True(Set to false for better performance. Controls light that are run in real time think of a swinging light and not prebaked(such as a lamp))
DynamicShadows=True(Set to false for better performance. Same thing as above except dealing with the shadows the lights cast)
LightEnvironmentShadows=True
CompositeDynamicLights=True(Kepp this at true for better performance an no loss to visual quality)
SHSecondaryLighting=True
DirectionalLightmaps=True

MotionBlur=True(Turn off for better performance when sprinting, driving or moving quickly)

MotionBlurPause=True
MotionBlurSkinning=1

DepthOfField=True(Adds a blur effect to objects that are out of focus, disable for better performance)

AmbientOcclusion=True(Disable for a sizeable performance gain. Very GPU heavy as this is a post process effect)

Bloom=True(Adds a glow effect to bright lights, disable for minimal performance gains or visual preference)

bAllowLightShafts=True(Adds god rays from the sun as the sun is displaced by an object such as a tree. You will see a light shafts around the tree, disable for performance gains)

Distortion=True(Heat shimmer effect, disable for performance gain)

FilteredDistortion=True(Adds a filter to the distortion for improved quality, minimal performance gain if any)

DropParticleDistortion=False(Removes distortion on particle effects, disable for performance gains)

AllowDistortionAndColorInSameMaterial=True
bAllowDownsampledTranslucency=False

SpeedTreeLeaves=True(Disable to remove all leaves from the trees, possible performance gain, untested by myself)

SpeedTreeFronds=True
OnlyStreamInTextures=False

LensFlares=True(Colored "halo" rings when you look at a bright object, which simulates a camera. Minimal gains to be had by disabling)

FogVolumes=True

FloatingPointRenderTargets=True(Affects shadows and SSAO so leave on, or turn to false if you disabled SSAO)

OneFrameThreadLag=True

UseVsync=False(Syncs every frame to your monitors refresh rate. Can have a large performance impact if your computer is underpowered, set to false.)

UpscaleScreenPercentage=True
Fullscreen=True

AllowD3D11=False(Keep to false, game does not use any form of DX11)

AllowOpenGL=False(Keep false, usually crashes if set to true)

AllowRadialBlur=True(Blurring effect when you rotate quickly, disable for performance gain)

AllowSubsurfaceScattering=True(Simulates how light penetrates surfaces such as skin, or plant fibers, disable for performance gains)

AllowImageReflections=True(Allows for image based reflections, disable for performance)

AllowImageReflectionShadowing=True
bAllowSeparateTranslucency=False
bAllowPostprocessMLAA=False
bAllowHighQualityMaterials=True
MaxFilterBlurSampleCount=16

SkeletalMeshLODBias=0(Set HIGHER to reduce quality, highest value is 2, and best quality is -1)
ParticleLODBias=0(Same as above)

DetailMode=2(Set lower to improve performance, I think 0 is lowest)

MaxDrawDistanceScale=1(Overall draw distance, reduce to improve performace. I dont know if this controls how far you can actually see or at what distance lower LOD's are rendered)

ShadowFilterQualityBias=0

MaxAnisotropy=16(Max amount of Antistropic Filtering samples. Leave at 16 for no performance loss and better image quality)

MaxMultiSamples=1(Number of samples for MSAA, higher yields lower jagged edges but loss in performance. 1=OFF)

bAllowD3D9MSAA=False

bAllowTemporalAA=False(Allows transparent textures and objects to recieve AA, think of thinks like fences and trees)

TemporalAA_MinDepth=500
TemporalAA_StartDepthVelocityScale=100

MinShadowResolution=64(Lowest resolution of shadows, leave at 64 because changing it causes shadow glitches)

MinPreShadowResolution=8

MaxShadowResolution=1120(Maximum shadow resolution. Game engines usually follow a 512, 1024, 2048 ect pattern so thats what I use, however Unreal might be different. I couldnt find any documentation on their scale)

MobileShadowTextureResolution=1120
MaxWholeSceneDominantShadowResolution=1344
MobileBloomMultiplier=1.0
ShadowFadeResolution=128
PreShadowFadeResolution=16
ShadowFadeExponent=.25
ResX=1280(Resolution of screen width. Most will be 1920)
ResY=720(Resolution of screen height. Most will be 1080)
ScreenPercentage=100.000000
SceneCaptureStreamingMultiplier=1.000000
ShadowTexelsPerPixel=1.27324
PreShadowResolutionFactor=.5
bEnableBranchingPCFShadows=False
bAllowHardwareShadowFiltering=False
TessellationAdaptivePixelsPerTriangle=48.0
bEnableForegroundShadowsOnWorld=True

bEnableForegroundSelfShadowing=False(Allows your character to cast a self shadow on the ground)

bAllowWholeSceneDominantShadows=True
bUseConservativeShadowBounds=False

ShadowFilterRadius=2(Controls how sharp or blurry shadows will look. Set lower for crisp shadows and higher for softer shadows)

[Goth667]

I would much rather add you as a friend and give you the rights to edit it yourself :)
Better having more people to work on one guide and ensure quality :P

[BillytheSquig]

how bout making it not eat RAM for breakfast

[Irkie500]

Thanks Goth, ill try to update it later tonight when I am home from work.

@Septimussynn unfortunately there is nothing that can be changed in the INI files to reduce ram usage, thats just how the game is designed. Most games stream in data as you play dividing the game into invisible "cells" or "zones".

Take Skyrim for example, massive game by all accounts but ram usage is very low compared to GRAV. The main difference? Skyrim only renders what is inside your "cell", everything outside of it stays static. This provides much lower ram usage, however it can break immersion when you can see great distances as the LOD(Level of Detail) can be very low, such as waterfalls that dont move, animals stuck in place ect.

Both have pros and cons, and frankly I would rather have everything pre load and have no loading screens or stuttering, than have it stream in. The reality is that computers are getting more and more powerful for lower and lower costs. Several years ago 8gb of ram was overkill for just about everything, now a days it is commonplace to have 8gb or 16gb.

As more and more patches roll out the game becomes better optimized, however I would not expect to have the RAM usage cut in half of what it is now. I would say a 20% reduction would be a remarkable improvement, and probably all that can be saved. This would then be reversed by adding in more content, its a constant balancing act.

[Goth667]

Originally posted by Irkie500:

Thanks Goth, ill try to update it later tonight when I am home from work.

Sure no Problem. Sent you the invite to the guide :)