Potential Unofficial Fixes

[Rastlaff]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13RiFozEEQvicVZNjhfOxcudPu7KltCvE/view?usp=sharing

Description
===========

Network: better server-client synchronization from the client side, no more jagged and lagged animations from mobiles, much less skipping animation on mobiles, more responsive interactions when picking up items.

Physics: better physics.

Graphics: better lights, shadows, lightshaft, reflections, textures, streaming on textures, LoD, etc.

Install
=======

Unpack and copy all the *.ini files to C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\CotH\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor replacing the existing ones.

Set GameUserSettings.ini to read only.

Refresh frequency is set for 144Hz monitor. The in-game FPS is set to 60. VSync is required for bot NVidia and AMD. If your numbers are different, adjust GameUserSettings.ini accordingly.

Note that since the edits aim for better graphics, low-end GPUs migh suffer FPS drops.

Uninstall
=========

Delete all the *.ini files from C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\CotH\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor. Run the game, let it recreate the default ones. Adjust your in-game settings.

Notes for the developers
========================

We invite the developers to check the changes on those files, because the ones provided with the game seem to be default ones from Unreal Engine and never tuned to the specifics of the game.

We also invite the developers to consider urgent fixes:
- the parrying mechanic is unusable, take a look at Spiderman or Lord of the Rings games as an example, better parrying HUD indicator is needed for the player to be able to react properly;
- better stamina management to invite players for more tactical combos instead of just spamming attack button ending in hack-and-slash mechanics which is not the purpose of this game;
- rearrangement of mobile placement ("big", "medium", "small") by the map to avoid having mobiles' and the player's moves constrained by improper battle arena;
- loot quality distribution over difficulty levels is not proper and makes higher difficulty feel unrewarding as you can have much better items at lower difficulty;
- very bad mechanics on mobiles not being able to drop off the ridges or jump;
- players should be able to grab a ladder by jumping as well as jump down from the ladders while climbing;
- items placed on tables are not comfortable to grab while players should be able to collect everything easily;
- more tweaks on server to have perfect sync between server and client resulting in better movement, character controls and AI behavior;
- keyboard and mouse controls should be proper for PC: not doing it the lazy way by just mapping controller actions to PC keys and mouse. Tapping mechanism on combos works for controllers, but not for PC, especially when movement keys are involved;
- gamebreaking bugs should be fixed: infinite loading screen when the team is wiped during the boss fight; not being able to revive an ally when close to ladders/other interactible objects; camps block mobiles from respawning, but there also are areas that require the players to kill all the mobiles to remove a magic barrier which are becoming bugged because of the blocked respawn if the players go exploring; character resets after joining a session - sometimes temporary and can be fixed by reload, but sometimes permanent resulting in a save being lost forever.

06/30/2021
by ForangFarosh & Ghost

Uploading of this tweak or its parts to Nexus Mods and any of its associated resources is prohibited because of the recently implemented changes in that site's policy.

Using this tweak or any of its parts for other projects is prohibited.

For the official people working on Dark Alliance: if you want to use those tweaks, contact us at [e-mail] as a matter of courtesy.

PS : Special thanks to Dionysus with those unvaluables tweaks (Sarcasm for the very polite guy) :

r.Tonemapper.Sharpen=0.5
r.TemporalAADynamicSharpen=0.8
r.TemporalAASharpness=0.5

[optimistic realization]

Where did you get these from?

[Rastlaff]

My mind. Even if it seems weird nowadays ...

[NoiT]

And the fix is ?

[wasteland_ghost]

No input lag, better physics.

[NoiT]

Aight thanks.

[無冠の帝王]

Well, thanks for trying but i feel/see no difference about the input lag, sadly :(

[Rabid Urko]

Try Disabling V-Sync for input lag.

[無冠の帝王]

Already did ^^ usually the 1st thing i do in every game :"")

But its rly weird.. never had an issue like that in so many years... that input lag.. Oo

[Dionysus 🐭]

Yeah... don't do this. Why the hell would you ever have AA at 32 samples for one, do you want jitter?

r.AOQuality=2 does what exactly? You do realize not every game uses the same AO and by using this you could potentially turn off or totally ruin the AO in-game, IF it even does anything at all?

r.ScreenPercentage=104.000000 .... lol. An extra 4%. BIG difference

r.VSync=0 Less smooth for no reason! Success! Or... wait

80% of these commands will do nothing noticeable, and if they do anything, I am 100% sure that you likely have no idea what they do and are just blindly putting them in your INI file for a better game.

Want an actual INI tweak that works? Here you go:

r.Tonemapper.Sharpen=0.5
r.TemporalAADynamicSharpen=0.8
r.TemporalAASharpness=0.5

Literally just sharpening the blurry anti-aliasing, no other tweaks. Use with the max AA setting in-game and you still get the great AA but without as much blurriness.

Need more performance? Here:

r.TemporalAA.Upsampling=1
r.ScreenPercentage=70

r.ScreenPercentage sets the screen rendering res. 70 is 70% of your native res. Use this at 4k, use 80 at 1440p, and use 90 and 1080p. TemporalAA.Upsampling activates UE4's temporal upsampling, which heavily increases the quality of the image when upscaling. It can transform that 70% res scale from looking extremely blurry to looking very close to native 4k (especially with sharpening).

[NoiT]

yeah i was noticing huge performance drops with the OP version. thanks Dionysus.

[Rastlaff]

We don't care graphics here ... and you did not read at all as always .
What is important :

[/script/engine.renderersettings]
rhi.SyncInterval=0
r.GTSyncType=0
r.OneFrameThreadLag=0
r.VSync=0

; BELOW up to you if your GPU is not a decent one


But thanks Dionysus for your help on fixing what was the most important on that vanilla failure ...

IMPORTANT NOTES :

After Cyberpunk, Outriders and I pass on many other games, I'm amazed by the lazyness of some developers when I'm still very respectfull for those behind RDR2 Solo part, Days Gone, Death Stranding and anything by Monolith Studios.

Dark Alliance is trying to copy the excellent Vermintide without any success. It's a failure on Keyboard & mouse controls with tapping mechanics tied to console controllers. It is a failure on tweaking an Engine obviously whithout proper knowledge ( it's a very unique and common feature since few years ).

Now you can add as much FX as you want and tweak them, It won't make your game being a playable one so honestly you should orientate yourself to series or movies.

[wasteland_ghost]

The game was enjoyable to play with the ini file here for the whole day yesterday - smooth mouse and kb controls, AI is not stuttering, giants not duplicating their trap attacks and so on and so forth. But since today without changing the single thing the game just crashes on every mission in every combat. Don't even know what to think about it...

[Rastlaff]

Originally posted by Dionysus:

Yeah... don't do this. Why the hell would you ever have AA at 32 samples for one, do you want jitter?

Want an actual INI tweak that works? Here you go:

r.Tonemapper.Sharpen=0.5
r.TemporalAADynamicSharpen=0.8
r.TemporalAASharpness=0.5

Literally just sharpening the blurry anti-aliasing, no other tweaks. Use with the max AA setting in-game and you still get the great AA but without as much blurriness.

Need more performance? Here:

r.TemporalAA.Upsampling=1
r.ScreenPercentage=70

r.ScreenPercentage sets the screen rendering res. 70 is 70% of your native res. Use this at 4k, use 80 at 1440p, and use 90 and 1080p. TemporalAA.Upsampling activates UE4's temporal upsampling, which heavily increases the quality of the image when upscaling. It can transform that 70% res scale from looking extremely blurry to looking very close to native 4k (especially with sharpening).

The way it's meant to be played !

[wasteland_ghost]

Originally posted by Dionysus:

Want an actual INI tweak that works? Here you go:

Define "works", please. Because what you proposing has nothing to do with any of the game's issues. Nor it's related to the enhanced graphics settings proposed initially by the OP.

What you do here is upscaling plus an attempt to "fix" the resulting blurry image with sharpening. Sorry, but it's not even close to the native resolution. Your parameters produce a blurry image, to some degree better than vanilla up close, but very noticeably blurry at mid to long range.

Upscaling will never produce anything close to the native resolution no matter all the nvidia wishful thinking. If the information is missing - it is missing. Point. All the attempts to restore the missing information (i.e. upscaling) can only produce an approximation. Depending on the method chosen it can be a decent one, but it will never be an exact one. It's a good compromise for those who own a GPU which is unable to keep up with the desired framerate/resolution, but it's never a replacement for a native resolution if you've got a high-end GPU.

And yes, RX 6800 is a high-end one, so yes, obviously for less powerful GPUs performance hit will be too severe. Hence, the warning. Hence, the need to read and think before applying.

[Laguna]

Originally posted by 神 -:

Well, thanks for trying but i feel/see no difference about the input lag, sadly :(

For me lowering motion blur to 0 worked a lot for reducing input lag. The only problem I don't understand how to correct (or if anyone else is having that) is a very low fps on cinematics. At least on the first mission, I did't saw another yet