[Request] Optimal GFX Settings per GPU

[WanderingAries]

So I just recently made the jump to a 120Hz 4k TV (that all my tech is connected to) and realized that I'm not sure what to adjust the game's GFX settings to. My build is still powered by an EVGA GTX 970 FTW (04G-P4-2978-KR) and while I don't Expect to see anything beyond 60Hz (based on the control panel), it would be nice to setup the game so that it's as smooth as it can be, even if some things get dialed down. I do have to admit that I haven't actually Played in quite a while, but I think a thread where people are sharing their optimized setups would be helpful to others.

 

 

[AboveTheChemist]

I've been fiddling with my settings a bit recently and may as well share what I've settled on. My GPU is a Radeon RX 6700 (non-XT). I play at 1080p on a 144hz monitor. I applied some GPU overclock/undervolt settings but found that for CoH, I had to bump the recommended voltage to 1080mV in order for it to be stable. It's been solid on that voltage, though.

 

Here are the in-game settings I use:

 

 

 

In addition to the above, I manually set the World Detail (via the visscale command) to 400%, and the Character Detail (via the lodbias command) to 1000% using the following commands:

 

/visscale 4
/lodbias 10

 

In my case I actually set these in the HC Launcher launch parameters so that the settings are applied at launch and remain (more or less) persistent during my gaming sessions.

 

I'll freely admit that my understanding of these settings isn't great and they might not be truly optimal. There may be some tweaks I could make yet that would improve things a bit, but I am pretty happy with how things run. In the AMD GPU software settings, I capped the FPS at 144 (since my monitor can't exceed that anyway), and the game usually runs around there. It'll dip down as low as 60ish FPS if I am looking across the length of a zone, and in a couple of spots I've seen it dip to 35ish FPS briefly, but by and large my FPS is usually at or near 144. If I drop my visscale back to 2 then the FPS drops all but disappear, but I prefer setting it higher.

 

My GPU utilization is generally pretty low as well (around 30%) and it draws about 50 watts running CoH, so it seems like CoH doesn't really tax the GPU all that much (and my CPU barely goes above idle). Given the relatively low GPU utilization, the FPS drops I mentioned above are somewhat puzzling, but like I said I do not fully understand the dark magic that goes into it.

[Ago]

Regardless of Graphics, FPS drops are common in the following places:
 

• Kallisti Wharf, Praetorian Maps, and First/Night Ward (and any other new city map from/since Going Rogue. Pretty new buildings? More FPS weight.)
• Echo Plaza (see above)
• Larger Shadow Shard maps (Cathedral of Storms easily strains a client at 4GB RAM or less, even during live play.)
• Rikti War Zone
• ...and the ever-FPS killing Atlas Park: if you doubt this, remember that City Hall has a mirror-flipped copy of the center rotunda directly beneath the floor.  It's... not an environment reflection.  It also has at least eight public doors to enter sub-maps beneath the zone: x4 from the training arcs with Habashy, Fields/Costel, and Thierry, one each for the PD station, hospital, Icon Building, and one for the new Fort Trident/FC Building.  Now add the new assets from GR on top.

For the most part, if its not size of the map in the game engine, map complexity can cause the lag.  And mission maps with a defined ceiling will always do much better on FPS than open instances (caves, warehouses and offices always beat forests and shorelines) because the radical map size needed to permit the sky/ground horizon isn't a factor.

And player population.  Echo Plaza unoccupied vs. during an HC Event will also be a fair comparison point.

 

With all of the above in consideration, those zones are the stress-test of how well a configuration works, but not the be-all-end-all of how well the game can play in any zone.  Most places have a few of those factors.

TL;DR: anyone who claims they have a minimum of 60FPS+ throughout in Atlas Park, even on top-end equipment, I treat with a touch of skepticism.  (They may be right and incredibly lucky, but not paying attention or lying is also a possibility.)  Your system appears to be running just fine. 🙂

Edited July 25, 2023 by Tock

[kanga]

On 6/14/2023 at 9:24 AM, AboveTheChemist said:

I've been fiddling with my settings a bit recently and may as well share what I've settled on. My GPU is a Radeon RX 6700 (non-XT). I play at 1080p on a 144hz monitor. I applied some GPU overclock/undervolt settings but found that for CoH, I had to bump the recommended voltage to 1080mV in order for it to be stable. It's been solid on that voltage, though.

 

Here are the in-game settings I use:

 

 

 

In addition to the above, I manually set the World Detail (via the visscale command) to 400%, and the Character Detail (via the lodbias command) to 1000% using the following commands:

 

/visscale 4
/lodbias 10

 

In my case I actually set these in the HC Launcher launch parameters so that the settings are applied at launch and remain (more or less) persistent during my gaming sessions.

 

I'll freely admit that my understanding of these settings isn't great and they might not be truly optimal. There may be some tweaks I could make yet that would improve things a bit, but I am pretty happy with how things run. In the AMD GPU software settings, I capped the FPS at 144 (since my monitor can't exceed that anyway), and the game usually runs around there. It'll dip down as low as 60ish FPS if I am looking across the length of a zone, and in a couple of spots I've seen it dip to 35ish FPS briefly, but by and large my FPS is usually at or near 144. If I drop my visscale back to 2 then the FPS drops all but disappear, but I prefer setting it higher.

 

My GPU utilization is generally pretty low as well (around 30%) and it draws about 50 watts running CoH, so it seems like CoH doesn't really tax the GPU all that much (and my CPU barely goes above idle). Given the relatively low GPU utilization, the FPS drops I mentioned above are somewhat puzzling, but like I said I do not fully understand the dark magic that goes into it.

 

Lodbias!!! i didn't know that was a thing, definitely going to do that next reboot. Already love running Viscale at 4 or higher, seeing the distant trees show up in the fog is a treat. I just wish the game had better resolution textures

[AboveTheChemist]

I recently built a small form factor computer and wanted to share my experience. I hadn't originally planned to put any games on it, but I play several older games and when I saw how light the CPU/GPU usage was for these games on my main gaming computer (the one that is the focus of my previous post above), I decided to migrate them to the SFF build. This includes stuff like Project 1999, Icewind Dale, Forgotten Hope 2, and I decided to try out City of Heroes on there as well.

 

This SFF computer has a Ryzen 5 5600G with 16 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM (4 GB of which I allocated to the iGPU), and no discrete GPU. I'm using the same monitor as above (1080p, 144 Hz), but the motherboard is limited to 120 Hz output so 120 FPS is the best I could hope for. Note that the numbers below are just general observations, and not the result of rigorous testing/data collection. I mostly wanted to get a general feel for how this hardware would do with City of Heroes.

 

I initially tried the same settings I mentioned above, which are approaching Ultra settings, and it performed at the lower end of playability. I checked Atlas Park, Perez Park, Imperial City, and a few random Paragon City zones. These zones were around 20-30 FPS, which isn't great, but playable.

 

I dialed some of the settings back, and saw significant improvement. I set FSAA to zero, lowered the water effects and shadow quality to low (but not off), and set visscale and lodbias to 2. I consistently saw FPS generally in the 75-85 range, up to 100ish FPS in some zones.

 

I then turned shadows, water effects, environmental reflections, ambient occlusion, and anisotropic filtering to off/zero, and consistently saw FPS in the 90-120 range, with Atlas Park and Praetoria being at the lower end of that range, and all other zones at the higher end.

 

In keeping with the spirit of the thread, I tried to strike a balance of settings to try to get to around 60 FPS, and here's what I came up with:

 

Spoiler

/visscale 4
/lodbias 10

 

 

This gave me performance in the 55-65+ FPS range, except in Perez Park where it was about 10 FPS lower.

 

I don't intend to use this computer for normal CoH play, but I fully intend to keep CoH on there and use it when I am testing or just gathering data (which I do quite often). Overall I was really pleased with what the R5 5600G was able to do. For someone who just wants to play CoH in 1080p on a small budget and is willing to dial the settings back a little, it might be worth consideration. My particular build was a little more expensive since I went with a super small ITX form factor build, but tinkering around on PC PartPicker I could put together a decent mATX/ATX parts list (except monitor) for $350-$400.

 

Edited March 28 by AboveTheChemist
minor rewrite to add numbers based on a bit more consistent testing, and to add settings screenshot

[GM Tock]

Odd posting in a thread my non-GM self posted in.  It's like TimeCop.  (I'll try not to shake my own hand.)

 

Anyway, Mac Silicon users are in a similar place with Ryzen with on-board graphics, with some key differences:

1. Most Post Processing Effects are disabled.  This emulates Intel IGP support, Mac systems with Core i-Series CPUs had the same limitation.  Was corrected elsewhere that the Shadow Engine (above the lowest setting representing the dithering shadow engine) and Amb. Occlusion are both post-processing effects.
2. FSAA is limited to 4x max.
3. Regarding the entire M1-M3 lineup, the CPU makes no real difference across all four variants of each chip.  (Having 4, 8, 12, or 16 Graphic Cores for the game is negligible when only one is needed to run it well.  Better frame rates on the more expensive models, that's basically it.)

Refresh rate doesn't appear because I'm using Borderless windowed mode.  I've also favored water effects over shadows because the weird 'clock warp' when a zone load in happens and seems a bit Breaking Bad-ish to me, so in the old Shadow engine, it's a lot less pronounced.  Ambient Occlusion makes little sense without the new shadow engine, so that's off too. 

 

Finally I also prefer high FPS performance over pretty. As such, Vertical Sync is disabled.  This is because I have a monitor that is made for gaming use, so screen tearing is handled in the Monitor Hardware itself suitably well not to worry about it (AMD Freesync certified, but still works on Apple).  If you're on a 60FPS or sub-60FPS display, really consider leaving that feature on unless you like seeing "tears" in the graphics when you spin left and right quickly.

 

Edited April 26 by GM Tock
Minor changes

[Hyperstrike]

On 2/6/2023 at 10:02 PM, WanderingAries said:

So I just recently made the jump to a 120Hz 4k TV (that all my tech is connected to) and realized that I'm not sure what to adjust the game's GFX settings to. My build is still powered by an EVGA GTX 970 FTW (04G-P4-2978-KR) and while I don't Expect to see anything beyond 60Hz (based on the control panel), it would be nice to setup the game so that it's as smooth as it can be, even if some things get dialed down. I do have to admit that I haven't actually Played in quite a while, but I think a thread where people are sharing their optimized setups would be helpful to others.

 

 

I'm hating 16x9.  I REALLY prefer a taller screen aspect.

This is why I have a triple monitor setup with all screens in portrait mode.  (Long aspect vertical).

Having to deal with it right now as I've had to fall back to a 4K laptop.

And I'd have this problem on a 4K TV too.

The only thing that makes it MILDLY usable for me is I crank the FOV ALL THE WAY UP to 90 (max).

It delivers a very slight "fish eye" look.  But for things like ship raids?  It's utterly invaluable when I need to zoom all the way out (400) and want to see as much as possible.
I've grown so used to it, trying to crash around in default FOV is just that.  Nearly un-navigable for me anymore.

[GM Tock]

The other advice for those new to Variable Sync or AMD Freesync/Nvidia GSync compatible displays (like I am): for your display, be sure "Game Mode", "Freesync", "GSync" or "High Refresh" is turned on.  (Language may vary.)  The option should be somewhere in the monitor's OSD (On Screen Display, visible when you press MENU on the display, or press the buttons to find a settings panel on those with a 4-way button and "OK"/"Back" buttons instead of a menu.)  If there's more than one, check the manual (in the box or online, most sites will load it with a Model number typed in to Support search.)

 

Most displays advertise the refresh rate, but don't have the mode enabled by default because customers realize more Power Savings if someone never turns it on.  (Compared to a CRT, still far less with High Refresh Rates enabled, just a bit more than the ~12V-30V AC Brick is used to on defaults.)

 

This is absolutely anecdotal.  I had Game mode enabled on my displays then realized Freesync was a second option to also turn on along with Game Mode... my 144Hz class displays now push 166Hz with both enabled, so average frame rates in most zones are easily 80-100FPS, if not higher.  The classic FPS killer Atlas Park never goes below 45FPS now. 

 

Definitely worth checking out.