DRG Settings Guide for Hell Let loose c:

DRG - Doodlebugs and ReformedGamer

DRG Settings Guide is a guide for players, new or veteran, with the goal to increase FPS, increase visual clarity, reduce stuttering, reduce load times, reduce mouse input latency, reduce crashing, and improve server browsing.

HLL Graphics

Almost everything on lowest.
Textures on High or medium for best visual fidelity with minimum fps loss. Low setting can make it hard to see targets and epic can lower fps without benefit.

Foliage can be medium or high.

Change anti-aliasing to community TAA and Quality to off if you want no anti-aliasing with best results.

Change brightness as needed depending on map and filters. Preference will vary.
I run brightness at:
100-120% on most maps
150-200% for night maps (test this yourself)
80% for snow maps

Under gameplay tab, make sure Dead Body Despawn Delay is set to 0.5 minutes. Lowest FoV (90) gives best visual fidelity for far away targets.

Nvidia Control Panel - Manage 3D settings

Should give you the best game performance in any game without impacting graphics.

If using gsync, set max framerate to 161 on 165hz monitors, and 141 on 144hz monitors. If not, set it to monitor refresh or leave it off.

Capping frames in control panel is known to cause slight input delay so it's a trade off for stability. Currently I leave it uncapped.

Set vsync to off or on based on preference. Capping framerate below monitor refresh can act as a replacement to vsync for usage with gsync. If you turn vsync on, no need to cap framerate.

Shader cache is computer dependent. 10GB should be fairly universal without issues though.
'Anisotropic filtering' set to '16x' with 'Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias' set to 'clamp' gives best visual fidelity for targets far away for a minor fps hit.


Setting global 'Power management mode' to 'Prefer maximum performance' can be bad for your gpu and shorten its life. Set it to only perform at maximum while HLL is running.
Tab over to Program Settings and find Hell Let Loose (hll-win64-shipping.exe).
Change 'Power management mode' to 'Prefer maximum performance'.

Low latency mode set to 'on' or 'ultra' can be great for non-dx12 games including HLL. However, if you play in dx12, low latency can allegedly cause stutters. What I do is set global to 'ultra', and then tab over to Program Settings and find Hell Let Loose.
Change 'Low latency mode' to 'off' for Hell Let Loose and other dx12 games.

Nvidia Control Panel - Display, Video, Physx, G-sync

Vibrance preference will depend on taste and monitor brand/settings. I like 58% as a balanced option. Helps with seeing enemies without turning game into a cartoon.


Set monitor resolution and refresh rate to best available. Make sure output dynamic range is set to full.


Same here, set to full.


Make sure physx is set to your GPU.


Turn on g-sync if you'd like. *Supposedly* helps with input delay and image tearing.
I'm rather 50/50 on it.


Confirms that it's on via green icon in top right of games. Click g-sync on left for display option to appear at top.

Steam Launch Options

Right click Hell Let Loose in your library. Click properties.

Put these in launch options:
-dx12 -USEALLAVAILABLECORES

*dx12 will increase your cpu utilizing and framerate by a significant amount, at the cost of more frequent game stutters (process lasso fixes most of it) and occasional game crashes (islc should fix)

** DO NOT USE -NOTEXTURESTREAMING
Using notexturestreaming without at least 12GB of video memory can cause significant game
stuttering, and regardless is not worth it.

Steam HLL Intro Movies

Delete these (pathing might be different per computer) -

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Hell Let Loose\HLL\Content\Movies

^ Makes game launch a minute faster. Rumored to also increase ingame framerate for whatever reason.

Steam Server Browser

Launches game and skips HLL server browser. Use steam server browser to find and connect to servers easier and faster. Filter by server, ping, map, ect. Can right click to favorite servers.

**Might have to click to join server twice, once before game launches and once after. Might have to enter passwords twice as well. Much preferable to being frozen in the enlist screen for 2 minutes in my opinion.

Windows Tweaks

Windows Tweaks
Enable Game Mode
Settings > Gaming > Game Mode > On.

Enable Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling & Variable Refresh Rate
Settings > System > Display > Graphics Settings > Enable Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling and Variable Refresh Rate.

Enable High Performance Mode
Settings > System > Display > Graphics Settings > Search for "HLL.exe" and "HLL-Win64-Shipping.exe" > Options > Select High Performance.

^ For me they were in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Hell Let Loose "HLL.exe"
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Hell Let Loose\HLL\Binaries\Win64 "HLL-Win64-Shipping.exe"

Enable High Performance Power Plan
Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Power Options > Select High Performance.



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Disable Enhance Pointer Precision
Settings > Devices > Mouse > Additional Mouse Options > Pointer Options > Uncheck Enhance Pointer Precision.


Additional Optimisations
Install Windows and Hell Let Loose on a Solid State Drive (SSD).
Download the latest GPU driver.
Temporarily pause Windows updates.
Disable any unnecessary start-up apps.
Disable any unnecessary processes and services.
Disable background apps.
Disable restart apps.
Use Disk Clean-up (cleanmgr.exe) to delete the DirectX Shader Cache.


Disable hardware optimization for Discord. Can cause stuttering in games if enabled.

Uncheck 'Enable hardware video decoding, if supported' In steam settings.

Process Lasso - Optional Download

https://bitsum.com/get-lasso-pro/

Manages your processor better than windows. Removes majority of stutters and frame drops. Good for every game. I have it running 24/7.

Download/install free version. Have it always running on startup.

Settings:
-Options, cpu, probalance, enable probalance
-Options, power, start process lasso with power profile, bitsum highest performance

Intelligent Standby List Cleaner (ISLC) - Optional Download

https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1256

ISLC actively cleans out your ram while playing. Helps remove many game crashes from a variety of games, including hell let loose. I have it running 24/7.

Download/install Intelligent standby list cleaner

Have free memory set to:
4096 for 8 gigs of ram.
8192 MB for 16 gigs of ram.
16384 for 32 gigs of ram.


Enable custom timer resolution. Set Wanted timer resolution to 0.50.
Click Start on Launch options on the left. Set polling rate on the right to 1000. Click Start and you're done. Always minimize, don't X or it'll close the program.

Fix 60 fps lock - **Only if needed**

**ONLY DO THIS IF YOUR GAME IS LOCKED AT 60 FPS FOR WHATEVER REASON.**

Some people struggle with the game locking itself to 60 frames. Fix it with the following.

Type *appdata* into windows and locate the below file. Might need to back 1 file to find Local.

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\HLL\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\GameUserSettings.ini

Open the GameUserSettings.ini in NotePad, find FrateRateLimit by hitting ctrl + F and typing 'frame', and set the FrameRateLimit parameter to 0.000000.

Save and close. Right click, click properties, check read-only and hit apply.

**DISCLAIMER - Setting GameUserSettings.ini to read only will cause your ingame settings to reset to what's in the file every time you launch the game. As in, if you change the brightness or audio percentage ingame, close the game, and then relaunch it, it will be the old settings in the ini file.

Only way to easily change ingame settings with this option is to
-unlock the file from read-only
-relaunch the game,
-change settings ingame
-close game
-open up file and change/confirm frameratelimit to 0.000000
-make read-only again and hit apply

Nvidia Filters (Obsolete)

**This section is obsolete and stays as a relic for the future. At this point I actually recommend turning off geforce experience overlay to increase fps**

Make sure ingame overlay is on in geforce experience. Then hit the keybind to open the overlay while Hell Let Loose (or any game really) is running. Default keybind is Alt + F3. Enter filters listed below.

Sharpen: 40, 15
Brightness: 0, 0, 0, -30, 0
Color: 0, 0, -11, 100

or

Sharpen+: 20, 55
Details: 15, 15, 100, 0
Brightness: 0, 0, 0, -20, 0
Color: 0, 0, -11, 56

Order of filters matters. Will impact your max frames slightly (especially the second one) but shouldn't drop your minimum frames during heavy gunfights. Might not be able to get numbers exact, close is good enough. Preferences will vary heavily but I like these options for visual clarity without impacting fps heavily.

Sharpen vs Sharpen+ is a debate I've been having for awhile. Sharpen+ seems to handle depth perception better for far away targets. Tradeoff is it has a lower maximum fps vs sharpen.

Details also takes a hit on the fps, at the benefit of brighter shadows and clearer foliage.

**SNOW MAPS**

I change the Color filter's temperature from -11 to +11 to see farther. I also raise the Brightness filter shadows from -30 to -20 so the snow and fog doesn't wash your screen out.

Sharpen: 40, 15
Brightness: 0, 0, 0, -20, 0
Color: 0, 0, 11, 100