Use these settings to improve FPS and gameplay experience on Amnesia: The Dark Descent

I play on a PC that was modern back in 2017. Amnesia is way older than that, but it still was very lagging to an unplayable degree. Upon Googling, many other users seem to have similar lag issues, but the fix that is told to them is always "fix your pc". This guide shows you some of the tweaks I made to improve my gameplay experience.

INTRO

I play on a PC that was modern back in 2017. Amnesia is way older than that, but it still was very lagging to an unplayable degree. Upon Googling, many other users seem to have similar lag issues, but the fix that is told to them is always "fix your pc". Well, I made some tweaks to my settings (in-game and out of game) to get pretty stable gameplay at a resolution of 1920x1080 on medium settings. Obviously, lowering your resolution will give you more FPS, so after following these tweaks, change your resolution until you find the perfect balance between FPS and quality.

TWEAKS SUMMARISED

All settings tweaks have been summarised and posted here ---- click this link to view[imgur.com]

TWEAKS EXPLAINED

The settings that really matter to optimize gameplay experience are the following

1. SSAO - Just turning this off by itself completely stopped my FPS drops to little to no visual difference.

2. Vertical Sync - Locks your FPS to your monitor's refresh rate. Causes slight FPS drops but removes screen tearing. IMO not worth the FPS drop

3. Image Trail - This horrible looking effect that makes your game look distorted. Its like bad motion blur. Supposed to emphasise your characters sanity but it instead deteriorates your real life sanity. Turn it off

4. Smooth Mouse - Never good in any game. "Smooths" your mouse but in the end makes your mouse movements feel wonky. Turn it off.

Keep textures as high as you want to keep the game looking crisp and you're good to go.

Hope this guide helped a little bit!

[Yogurt]

It's 3:10 AM

Help I have a mild case of insomnia I need to stay up late to be tired enough to sleep...

[HeroicEmu]

@Yogurt Tried it both ways. To me it felt better with it off. If it feels better for you on that's good too.

[Yogurt]

I'm not sure what you mean with the smooth mouse thing. It feels a lot better with it turned ON.

Turning it off makes my camera movement legitimately feel less accurate, uncomfortably sharp, and sort of static-like. Why the hell would you turn this off?