Boosting FPS

Guide for increasing performance of Sven.

Introduction

As some people might have noticed, some maps run slower compared to other, such as:

• Retrowave arena - the worst offender so far. 5-10 fps on default settings for me;
  
• Afraid of Monster - forest and some city levels(Had to play with 10-15 fps. Still was playable.);
  
• Hotline - part 1, near van;
  
• Hidoi - boss fight;
  
• Restriction - 2 last maps (sometimes drops to 20-40 FPS even with medium optimizations);

I believe the main reason for poor performance is that game utilizes only 1 CPU core for graphical render(working with vertexes, textures, etc, and then passing them to GPU). Besides replacing CPU with one that has stronger cores, there are some ways to lessen lags.

1. CVars and launch options.

Game engine contains configuration variables(CVars) that set graphics render behavior, but they're only accessible from game console. In order to make your CVar changes permanent, add them to a userconfig.cfg file. Just copy and paste them from list to file or use already compiled config in last section with 2 presets. Default values will be left in square brackets. The most optimal values will be used with CVars.
Windows:

YourDisk:\Steam\steamapps\common\Sven Co-op\svencoop\userconfig.cfg

Linux:

~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Sven Co-op/svencoop/userconfig.cfg

Cvars:

• gl_texturemode GL_NEAREST_MIPMAP_LINEAR [GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR] - Changes how textures are handled. By default textures are blurred. This makes textures look more sharper and clear.
  
• gl_ansio 0 [16] - Anisatropic filtering;
  
• gl_fog 0 [1] - Toggles fog render;
  
• gl_keeptjunctions 0 [1] - Toggles render of cracks between textures;
  
• gl_picmip 3 [0] - Quality of texture. Higher value means faster render, but worse quality;
  
• gl_max_size 128 [1024] - Limits maximum texture size;
  
• gl_round_down 3 [0] - Accuracy of texture rounding. Rounding happens when textures need to be resized. Higher value means less accurate, but faster rounding;
  
• gl_lightholes 0 [1] - Toggles light passing past holes;
  
• gl_spriteblend 0 [1] - Toggles blending of sprites;
  
• gl_wateramp 0 [1] - Toggles water splashes;
  
• violence_{ablood/agibs/hblood/hgibs} 0 [1] - Disable blood and gibs;

Start options (Library>Sven Co-op Properties>Launch options):

• -nomtex - Disables multi-texturing. For visual comparison, check out this guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1834281341
  
• -nomsaa - Disable anti-aliasing. After testing, the only thing it seems to affect are textures.

2. Alternative ways of boosting FPS.

This section contains more ways to boost performance, but they might be better left ignored for various reasons.

• Install low-poly models.[gamebanana.com]For me it made no difference, but some people claim that installing this models made their game run faster.
  
• Install Linux. On Windows, using same graphical optimizations, game runs way slower for me compared to Linux. For example:
  
  • lostatol - 30-50 stable FPS vs 150-200
    
  • AOM DC - 10-25 in forest VS 60-140
• r_dynamic 0 [1] - Disables all dynamic lighting. Not advisable to use, since some section become pitch-black even with flashlight or nightvision on. Use with gl_overbright 1 to make areas more brighter, but be ready that it will sometimes make game extremely bright.

3. Visual reference.

Left - graphics before tweaking(with -nomtex), right - after, "optimized" config + gl_picmic 3 gl_roundown 3.

How bullet holes looks with different gl_texturemode.

the-climb with lowest config. Bullet holes here look like 4 giant pixels.

hl_a01_c1 with lowest config.

userconfig.cfg

Copypaste this to userconfig.cfg. To set one of three graphics settings, remove "//" from start of the desired line with CVars.

//Lowest. Use with -nomtex and -nomsaa.
//gl_texturemode GL_NEAREST_MIPMAP_LINEAR;gl_ansio 0;gl_fog 0;gl_keeptjunctions 0;gl_picmip 3;gl_max_size 128;gl_round_down 3;gl_lightholes 0;gl_spriteblend 0;gl_wateramp 0;violence_ablood 0;violence_agibs 0;violence_hblood 0;violence_hgibs 0;
//Optimized. Increases performance without majorly sacrificing graphics. Use with -nomtex.
//gl_texturemode GL_NEAREST_MIPMAP_LINEAR;gl_ansio 0;gl_fog 0;gl_keeptjunctions 0;gl_picmip 0;gl_max_size 1024;gl_round_down 0;gl_lightholes 0;gl_spriteblend 1;gl_wateramp 1;violence_ablood 1;violence_agibs 1;violence_hblood 1;violence_hgibs 1;
//Default(commenting all lines should also work, but I'll leave it here just in case cvar changes will persist)
//gl_texturemode GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR;gl_ansio 16;gl_fog 1;gl_keeptjunctions 1;gl_picmip 0;gl_max_size 1024;gl_round_down 0;gl_lightholes 1;gl_spriteblend 1;gl_wateramp 1;violence_ablood 1;violence_agibs 1;violence_hblood 1;violence_hgibs 1;

[cutejew]

zorik broke my distro, administration did nothing about it

[RRF_1]

genius as he is

[TheArtemMaps]

@deadric you thought i hated this guide or something? your wrong

[TheArtemMaps]

@sneaky ema, right, some servers have high poly models, and it cant handle it.

[TheArtemMaps]

@deadric "you just don't understand it because you're an ignorant fuck" bros angry, and i do understand it. chill the fuck out

[Sneaky Emλ]

Especially demanding on those servers that make players download playermodels that the client doesn't have, and in terms of polygons, can be from very few poly's to even 80K polys or more..
*More polygons = more lower fps depending of the system*
Even worse when the playermodel glows *current weapon & playermodel polycount duplicates, that in a high poly one..*

[ComitoJam]

loading a bunch of players map assets and sync can be pretty demanding, even for an old game, you just don't understand it because you're an ignorant fuck. good job on the guide might come in handy for some peeps

[TheArtemMaps]

seriously what pc will not handle this

[brickthrower2031]

the comment below me is how you should follow

[NB4]

buy a new pc