Here is how to improve performance, turning on HDR, unlock FPS , change manually resolution and more.

[Sammarok-GoodGaming]

Hi, I have a RTX 2080 Ti playing at 4K and this game can go to from 60fps to low 30 fps depending of what effect is in the screen, I see that the Dev will probably never release another patch or at least a performance patch (because is ridiculous that this game cannot be stable 60fps 4K on a RTX 2080 Ti, it just shows how bad optimized the game is...) and we never got a proper patch for Darksiders 2 DE...

So after a lot of research and knowing this game is running in UnrealEngine4 , I found this little command to help with the fps.

File: GameUserSettings.ini
Located at: X:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Darksiders3\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\

Edit the file GameUserSettings.ini with notepad
You need to add the following line (after the line HDRDisplayOutputNits=1000):
bSmoothFrameRate=False

Save the file, close the file and run the game.

That line can automatically give you up to 20 fps gain. In my case in some scenario (with fire effect in the screen for example) instead of dropping to 30 fps, it drops to 50 fps instead, so for me it was a nice 20 fps gain when there is a big fire effect in the screen.

Now to avoid that 10 fps drop, I lowered the Effects setting in game to below Epic. Now I don't have that 10 fps drop when there is fire. Of course there are still small fps drops here and there but is very small, this command for me made a huge difference, I can finally play in 4K !!!

If you still suffer from poor performance, there are also other settings to keep in mind if you want better performance or enable HDR, etc. Here I will mention the lines, what they do and when they are recommended:

bUseDynamicResolution=False

You can set this to True to gain performance at the cost of graphic fidelity, recommended if you suffer from bad performance

FrameRateLimit=0.000000

Set it higher to uncap the 62fps limit the game have by default, recommended for high refresh rate monitors. If you want 60 fps ignore this line. If you want to totally uncap the fps limit set it to FrameRateLimit=150, you need to turn off vsync in game of course to see the difference. I put here 150 because I heard game crash if the value is higher than 150? [need confirmation/testing] I personally tested 150 and it works.

bUseHDRDisplayOutput=False

Change it to True if you want to play in HDR. Recommended ONLY for hardware/monitor that support HDR

HDRDisplayOutputNits=1000

Change the peak brightness for HDR, recommended to not change the default value unless you have issues with brightness in HDR

EDIT: Just went to underwater parts, back to 40 fps when underwater...
EDIT2: Later in the game things get worse, drops even to 30 fps... I will keep digging around trying to find a better solution.

EDIT3:

Testing experimental settings

If you want to test this yourself, copy and paste the following lines at the end of your .ini file AT YOUR OWN RISK. After a while of testing and in different areas, I have seen very little improvement, underwater now for me is 60 fps (depending on area, most underwater areas are still really bad) and there are still many FPS drops, not really a solution yet afaik.


[/script/engine.engine]
MinDesiredFrameRate=0
bSmoothFrameRate=False
SmoothedFrameRateRange=(LowerBound=
(Type=ERangeBoundTypes::Inclusive",Value=0),UpperBound=
(Type=ERangeBoundTypes::Exclusive",Value=0))
MaxPixelShaderAdditiveComplexityCount=0
MaxES2PixelShaderAdditiveComplexityCount=0
TimeBetweenPurgingPendingKillObjects=0
PoolSize=0
PhysXGpuHeapSize=0
PhysXMeshCacheSize=0
DynamicStreaming=False
bUseBackgroundLevelStreaming=False
MipFadeInSpeed0=0
MipFadeOutSpeed0=0
MipFadeInSpeed1=0
MipFadeOutSpeed1=0

[/script/engine.renderersettings]
r.Streaming.Boost=0
r.Streaming.MipBias=15
r.Streaming.PoolSize=0
r.Streaming.LimitPoolSizeToVRAM=1
r.Streaming.DefragDynamicBounds=1
r.Streaming.HLODStrategy=2
r.Streaming.FullyLoadUsedTextures=1
r.bForceCPUAccessToGPUSkinVerts=True
r.CreateShadersOnLoad=1
r.Shaders.Optimize=1
r.Shaders.FastMath=1
r.UseShaderCaching=1
r.UseShaderPredraw=1
r.TargetPrecompileFrameTime=13
r.PredrawBatchTime=13
r.AccelPredrawBatchTime=0
r.AccelTargetPrecompileFrameTime=0
r.Streaming.FramesForFullUpdate=60
r.FinishCurrentFrame=0

As I said, the experimental settings seems to be doing good for me (I mean, no crash/errors), as far as I can tell there is no quality loss that I can notice and my fps improved a bit (not worth it to be honest...), at least underwater fps improved a bit in some areas, there are still fps drops, like standing behind a waterfall, my fps goes down and stay at 45 fps. During some specific combat situations there are like around 10~20 fps drops. In some areas underwater can go down to 30 fps.

I might just lock the game to 30 fps at this point...until an official patch/solution is out

EDIT4:

How to manually change resolution

4K / 2160p = 3840 x 2160
QHD / 1440p = 2560 x 1440
Full HD / 1080p = 1920 x 1080

Change the following values to your desired resolution:

[/script/darksiders3.darksiders3usersettings]
ResolutionSizeX=3840
ResolutionSizeY=2160
LastUserConfirmedResolutionSizeX=3840
LastUserConfirmedResolutionSizeY=2160

[Sammarok-GoodGaming]

Update: Added experimental settings

[Sammarok-GoodGaming]

Bump/Necro - As I see people asking in the forum how to unlock FPS.

[Cryiox]

And one of the best tweaks for UE 4.19+ games: enabling TAAU and resolution scale.