Far Cry 3 - Graphical Tweaks & Problem Solving

PostFX is motion blur, depth of field (game and cinematic), FXAA, SSAO, "cloudshadows," and "PostFXLevel" - which when disabled seems to turn off light rays

Here are the default "ultra" settings for postFX

Code:

<Post>
	<quality id="ultrahigh" PostFXLevel="2"  FXAALevel="2"  SSAO="1"  SSAOMaxDistance="100"  GameDepthOfField="1"  CinematicDepthOfField="1"  MotionBlur="1"  DepthDownsample="0"  CloudShadows="1"/>
</Post>

 

actually disabling postfc in xml file, and adding the post line of depthoffield=0 and cinematic depthoffield and motion blur=0 has made matters worse, now stuttering all over the place, when i put postfx to low, everything is smooth, but everything seems blurred, trees, textures,background mountains.. etc..

 

Your results don't make sense to me at all. Make sure the same setting you have for "ID" is the setting you choose in-game. So, if you set PostFX to ultra, make sure you have:

<Post>
<quality id="ultrahigh" />
</Post>

Then, you can enable\disable whatever you want for that particular quality. For the best performance\visuals compromise, I'd use the following:

Code:

<Post>
	<quality id="ultrahigh" PostFXLevel="2"  FXAALevel="0"  SSAO="0"  SSAOMaxDistance="0"  GameDepthOfField="0"  CinematicDepthOfField="1"  MotionBlur="0"  DepthDownsample="0"  CloudShadows="0"/>
</Post>

SSAO disabled because it's ugly in this game and eats performance. FXAA disabled... but honestly, even at 2, I don't think it kills performance and it doesn't blur much at all (no FXAA - FXAA level 2 - clears up aliasing, doesn't blur). cloudshadows seems to do very little and eats performance so disable that. Disable motion blur and game depth of field, but leave PostFXLevel on 2... because I think that affects lighting and looks goooood.

 

So, for those of you that are using mods - does that cause any problems with Co-Op or Multiplayer? I really want to try the Better Sights mod, but I don't want it to mess up my Co-Op since the other people playing won't have the same mods etc... Any insight?

 

Maybe for you but for me things are very different

 

I do not get good enough prerformance to downsample and have AA...so I am playing at 1920x1080

 

Hey dudes, you god some fixes about the flickering small shadows on the grass, while moving and looking at them ???

 

@veteran Are you disabling postfx via xml "=0" or "=false"?

 

false

 

Any LOD tweak advice? I've upped TerrainDetailViewDistance and TerrainDetailBlendViewDistance but the draw distance is still average and the texture/vegetation pop-in is terrible. My config below:

Spoiler

<Terrain>
<quality TerrainLodScale="0.5" TerrainDetailViewDistance="8192" TerrainDetailBlendViewDistance="1024" id="high" />
</Terrain>
<Geometry>
<quality KillLodScale="0.5" LodScale="0.5" RealTreesLodScale="0.5" RealTreesVistaMinViewDistanceScale="0.5" ClustersLodScale="0.5" TerrainLodScale="0.5" MaxDecalCount="200" MaxDecalCountPerType="25" id="ultrahigh" />
</Geometry>

 

NeoEnigma your settings look awesome, however when mouse panning it is not smooth and looks really stuttery. In fact, any use of MSAA even in dx11 exhibits the same jittery motion while panning.

Do you experience the same thing?

 

SSAOLevel 0 = off
SSAOLevel 1 = SSAO
SSAOLevel 2 = HBAO (PS)
SSAOLevel 3 = HBAO (CS)
SSAOLevel 4 = HDAO (PS)
SSAOLevel 5 = HDAO (CS)
SSAOLevel 6 = HDAO (CS Blur)

(CS = compute shader? )
(PS = pixel-shader? )

Finally found something else of use in the D3D11 .dll or rather the Dunia 2 .dll file.


Also I solved the command line problem.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Ubisoft\Far Cry 3]
"ExecutableName"="bin\\farcry3_d3d11.exe"
"StartArguments"=" -language=English"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Ubisoft\Far Cry 3\GameUpdate]
"previousCRC"="d0ebcc65"
"lastinfo"="ca32d7a363334a55b66633237b0335b7"


You have to modify that StartArguments string however they will reset when you start the game (try using -language=English -showprocessinfo for example and you'll notice that it has been removed the next time the game has been started.) so you have to alter permissions as well and deny access to the modified commands.

Also unfortunately there is no -devmode from what I found.

(If you run the game in windowed mode with -showprocess info the title bar should say "FarCry3.exe -language=English -showprocessinfo, unsure how to best explain.)

Some other commands.

-forceloadallsectors
-disablesectorcollision
-splitscreen4
-splitscreen
-d3dmts
-password
-showprocessinfo
-client
-yres
-xres
-ypos
-xpos
-norender
-host
-floatexceptions
-affinity
-editorpc (Doesn't seem to work very well.)
-language (German, French, Italian, Spanish, English, Russian and so on I guess.)
-zombieai (NPC won't do anything.)
-allrigidchars
-norigidchars
-nospuheightfield
-16bitbroadphase
-physicworkeraff
-mtphys
-nbphysicworker
-nobwregulator
-networktimeslice
-enablenetobjectstats
-emulator
-novoicechat
-sandbox (Doesn't seem to do anything?)
-daresync
-darespyreport
-nosndocc (No Sound Occlusion?)
-bloombergstats (Bloomberg seems to be some debug server, unsure.)
-nosound
-offline (Can be useful)
-skipintro (Also useful)
-donotloadfrontendworld

 

Spoiler

Sets the scale used when blending between cascades and longrange shadows based on longrange shadow value (not the distance based scale)

StaticShadowUpdateDistance Distance threshold for updating the static shadow

StaticShadowRadius Radius of the static shadow

EnableStaticShadow Enable static last shadow cascade

EnablePCSS Enable Percentage Closer Soft Shadows

SpotsCastShadows Allow spots to cast shadows Shaders

ReflectionShadowZBias Reflection shadow depth bias

SpotSlopeScaleDepthBias Slope scale depth bias used for spots

SpotDepthBias Depth bias used for spots

SlopeScaleDepthBiasCSM2

SlopeScaleDepthBiasCSM1

SlopeScaleDepthBiasCSM0

DepthBiasCSM2_PCSS

DepthBiasCSM1_PCSS

DepthBiasCSM0_PCSS Change shadow depth bias (PCSS on).

DepthBiasCSM2

DepthBiasCSM1

DepthBiasCSM0 Change shadow depth bias.

ForceLeafSingleSlice The renderer will use only one slice of shadow to render leaf. Ex: if it touch slice 1 and 2, it will only use the 2.

MinProjectedRatio Controls the minimum projected ratio to skip objects in the shadow.

UsePredicates Enable some predicates to optimize the shadow pass.

DisableShadowNightRange Disable shadow specific night range.

DisableShadowGenTerrain Disable shadow generation on terrain.

DisableShadowGeneration Disable the shadow generation.

DisableShadow Disable the shadow.

Use16BitFormat

SoftShadows Enable softer shadow filtering.

RainShadowMapSize

CascadedShadowMapSize

SunShadowNightRange Change shadow night range for CSM 1 et 2.

SunShadowRange2

SunShadowRange1

SunShadowRange0 Change shadow range.

SunShadowFadeRange

EnableAdaptiveExposure Enable adaptive exposure use ShowThroughWalls FX.

SSAOMaxDistance Distance where SSAO is turned off (in meters). Use SSAO

FXAALevel FXAA quality level (0=off, 1=normal, 2=ultra).

ParticleBuffer Use offscreen buffer for particles. Use downsampled depth for particles/SSAO etc.

CloudShadows Disable the cloud shadows. Disable the Motion Blur.

DepthOfFieldHalfSize Use half-size intermediate texture for DoF (default is quarter size).

CinematicDepthOfField Disable the Cinematic Depth of Field.

GameDepthOfField Disable the InGame Depth of Field.

ArtisticPost Disable the artistic post.

PostFXLevel Set the postfx level (0 off, 1 sd, 2 hd).

DensityLodScales

DensityLodScale scale

MaxDecalCountPerType

Max decal count per type

MaxDecalCount Max decal count for all types

SceneObjectMinSizeShadowScale Scene object min projected size shadow scale.

SceneObjectDepthPassMinSize Scene object min projected size for depth pass.

SceneObjectMinSize Scene object min projected size.

ClusterObjectMinSizeShadowScale Cluster object min projected size shadow scale.

ClusterObjectMinSize Cluster object min projected size.

RealTreeLeafShadowDistance Cutoff for realtree leaf shadowing

RealTreeMinSizeShadowScale RealTree min projected size shadow scale.

RealTreeNodeMinSize RealTree node min projected size.

RealTreeHLeafMinSize RealTree hybrid leaf min projected size.

RealTreeLeafMinSize RealTree leaf min projected size.

RealTreeOcclusionMeshFarScale Occlusion mesh far scale.

RealTreeOcclusionMeshNearScale Occlusion mesh near scale.

RealTreeOcclusionMeshFarDistanceScale Distance at which the occlusion mesh far scale is fully applied.

RealTreeOcclusionMeshNearDistanceScale Distance at which the occlusion mesh near scale is fully applied.

EnableLowQualityCharacterFakeSSS Enables low quality character fake SSS

RealTreeCapsMaxDistance Change the leaves ratio.

RealtreeReflectionMinLODTrunk Minimum LOD for RealTree Trunks in the reflection

RealtreeReflectionMinLODLeaf Minimum LOD for RealTree Leaves in the reflection

RealTreesVistaMinViewDistanceScale Controls minimal view distance of vista trees.

RealTreesLodScale Change the realtrees LOD scale.

ClustersMaxCountMultiplier Change the multiplier applied to the maximum number of cluster instances.

ClusterZoomFactorScale Change the clusters zoom factor scale.

ClustersLodScale Change the clusters LOD scale.

LodScale Change the LOD scale.

MinZoomFactor Lower bound zoom LOD scale.

KillLodScale Change the Kill LOD scale.

DetailDistanceScaleModifier Change the Detail Objects LOD scale. 0 means no detail object.

DisableGraphicObjectInstancing Disables gfx obj instancing

RimLightAmbientBoostMultiplier Set Rim Light Ambient Boost Multiplier

RimLightAmbientBoostDistance Set Rim Light Ambient Boost Distance

RimLightAmbientBoostStart Set Rim Light Ambient Boost Start

HighQualityParticles Enable HighQuality particles.

DisableGodRayCloudMasking Disable god ray cloud masking.

ParticleUniformFogRangeThreshold Set the range threshold where uniform fog will be used on particle systems.

RainNumSplashesPerSecond Set the num of rain splashes per second.

DisableRain Disable the rain. DisableSky Disable the sky.

AntiPortalSelfCulling Test portals against other portals.

AntiPortalMaxTestPlanes Cap the number of planes to test.

AntiPortalKillDistanceFromCenter Test kill distance from center of occluder.

AntiPortalKillDistanceScale Scale anti-portal kill distance.

AntiPortalUseBoxTest Use aabb test if sphere test fails, but center is inside.

OcclusionMeshKillDistanceFromCenter

OcclusionMeshKillDistanceScale Scale occlusion mesh kill distance.

DrawPortalFrustums Debug drawing of clipped portal frustums.

DrawSectors Debug drawing of world sectors.

DrawPortalSpheres Debug drawing of all portals' spheres.

DrawObjectSpheres Debug drawing of all objects that belong to at least one room.

PortalMaxIndoorTests Maximum number of indoor tests made recursively.

PortalMaxOutdoorTests Maximum number of outdoor tests made recursively.

PortalUseGlobalOutdoorTest Make only one outdoor test for non-clipped camera frustum.

PortalKillDistance Kill distance from camera to the center of the portal.

PortalUseOcclusionCulling Allow portals to be occluded by anti-portals.

DisablePortals Disable usage of the portal system.

OceanLODDistance1 Farthest ocean LOD distance.

OceanLODDistance0 Closest ocean LOD distance.

OceanRealReflection Enable ocean reflection.

ProtoDisplacement Enable ocean displacement proto.

OceanShoreEffect Enable Ocean Shore Effect.

WaterRefraction Enable water refraction.

ReflectionTextureSizeY ReflectionTextureSizeX

ReflectionMaxDistanceScaleModifier Modifier on current kill distance scale in the reflection.

DisableSplinesInReflection Disable splines in reflection.

DisableWater Disable water.

NumWaterReflectionPlanes

WaterReflectionQuality Change the water reflection level.

WaterReflectionSizeThreshold Control minimum radius of objects in reflection.

UseRealTreeHD Use high def Realtree data.

UsePixelLeafNormals Use per-pixel normals on Realtree leaf cards.

ClusterCsmExcludeMask Cluster csm exclusion mask.

RealTreeCsmExcludeMask Realtree csm exclusion mask.

TerrainAffectedByMuzzleFlash Change if the terrain is affected by the muzzle flash.

TerrainDetailBlendViewDistance Change the terrain detail blend texture distance.

TerrainDetailViewDistance Change the terrain detail texture distance.

TerrainLodScale Change the terrain LOD scale.

BlurQuality

SectorTextureSize

SectorCountY

SectorCountX

DisableSectorAmbient Disable sector ambient.

MaxHemiMapDistance Distance at which we stop using the hemi map for clustered objects

HemiQuality Configure ambient quality. 2 = dynamic, 1 = static, 0 = disabled.

UseParallaxOcclusionMapping

TextureFilteringQuality

DepthPassPartial Partial depth pass.

DepthPassMode

DepthPass Depth pass mode (0 = full, 1 = partial, 2 = none).

EnableVertexBinding Enable vertex binding to save command buffer space.

ReflectionHdr HdrFP32 Use 32-bit 'half-float' hdr format for main rendering.

Hdr Enable/Disable the hdr.

EditorQuality

ShadowQuality

DeferredAmbientQuality

AmbientQuality

GeometryQuality

TerrainQuality

VegetationQuality

DepthPassQuality

WaterQuality

TextureResolutionQuality

TextureQuality

PostFxQuality

PortalQuality

AntiPortalQuality

EnvironmentQuality

UsePartialPrecision Use partial precision for pixel shaders

WaterDisableVisibilityTest Disable water visibility test.

VolatileTextureSize

ShaderModel

ResolutionY

ResolutionX


–C ŒBRI9 D top=%d, bottom=%d, left=%d, right=%d %dx%d (%f), multimonitor(%d), bezel corrected(%d) Available resolutions : - CSM slope scale bias: %f, %f, %f - CSM depth bias: %f, %f, %f - CSM ranges: %f, %f, %f - CSM use 16 bits: %d Shadow: %s Shadow changed: from %s to %s New config created: %s optimal_splitscreen _splitscreen Ház?{ƒ/>nativeres

SafeAreaBlackBorderPercentSDY Control height of black border (in percent of screen height) optim for SD TVs

SafeAreaBlackBorderPercentSDX Control width of black border (in percent of screen width) optim for SD TVs

SafeAreaBlackBorderPercentHDY Control height of black border (in percent of screen height) optim for HD TVs

SafeAreaBlackBorderPercentHDX Control width of black border (in percent of screen width) optim for HD TVs

AllowAsynchShaderLoading

Editor

DeferredShadows

TextureResolution

Post

Portals

AntiPortal

DisableWaterDepth

DisableTerrainDecalDepth Terrain decal depth pass

DisableTerrainPerPixel Per pixel lighting on terrain

AmbientSkyOcclusionDynamicMinVisibility Ambient sky occlusion minimum visibility for dynamic texture

AmbientSkyOcclusionMinVisibility Ambient sky occlusion minimum visibility

AmbientSkyOcclusionTreeOpacityB Ambient sky occlusion tree opacity (Blue)

AmbientSkyOcclusionTreeOpacityG Ambient sky occlusion tree opacity (Green)

AmbientSkyOcclusionTreeOpacityR Ambient sky occlusion tree opacity (Red)

ShowDynVBAllocStats Dyn VB Alloc stats

GammaRamp Gamma ramp.

Contrast.

Brightness Brightness.

TerrainCompilerLOD3Tolerance Error Tolerance for terrain compiler at lod 3

TerrainCompilerLOD2Tolerance Error Tolerance for terrain compiler at lod 2

TerrainCompilerLOD1Tolerance Error Tolerance for terrain compiler at lod 1

ClustersZPassMaxLOD Control last LOD index present in depth pass

ShowFPS Display FPS level(0, 1, 2...)

GrassMotionPerturbationRadius2 Grass motion perturbation radius2.

GrassMotionPerturbationRadius1 Grass motion perturbation radius1.

GrassMotionPerturbationSin2 Grass motion perturbation sin2.

GrassMotionPerturbationSin1 Grass motion perturbation sin1.

GrassMotionOnSlope Grass motion frequency on slope.

GrassMotionFrenquency2 Grass motion frequency2.

GrassMotionFrenquency Grass motion frequency.

GPUMaxBufferedFrames Max number of frames buffered by the GPU. (-1 to disable)

DisableRealtreesCluster Disable cluster RealTree rendering.

DisableRealtreesInstanced Disable instanced RealTree rendering.

DisableRealtreesNotInstanced Disable not instanced RealTree rendering.

ClusterInstancing 0: no instancing, 1:static instancing, 2:dynamic instancing.

DisableMeshMerging Disable mesh merging.

MaxFps Maximum fps.

DisableRendering Disable rendering.

GrassWindMax Grass Wind Factor Max.

GrassWindMin Grass Wind Factor Min.

GrassWindFactorLerpTime Grass Wind Factor lerp time.

GrassWindFactor Grass Wind Factor.

DisplayLines Display lines.

DisplayText Display text.

DebugWaterPlaneIndex Index of camera's plane to debug or -1 for nothing.

DisplayVisibilityNodesDistance Stop displaying bounding sphere of visibility nodes beyond this distance.

DisplayVisibilityNodes Display bounding sphere of visibility nodes.

DisplayAspectRatioArea Display 4:3 (value 4) or 16:9 (value 16) area in every viewports.

DisplaySafeFrame Disable safe frame.

DisableVisibilityTest Disable visibility test.

UpdateRenderCamera Update the rendering camera.

UpdateCullingCamera Update the culling camera.

SectorAmbientSingleFrame Completely update a sector ambient texture in a single frame (speeds up debugging/editing).

DisableMip0Loading

DisableOcclusionMeshes Disable occlusion meshes.

DisablePortalSystem

DisableAntiPortals Disable anti portals.

DisableRealtrees Disable realtrees.

DisableClusters Disable clusters.

DisableFireUiPrimitives Disable the Fire Ui primitives.

DisableDecals Disable the decals primitives.

DisablePrimitives Disable the primitives.

DisableSplinePrimitives Disable the spline primitives.

DisableObjects Disable the objects.

DisableParticles Disable the particles.

DisableDynamicLigths Disable the dynamic lights.

DisableLightEffects Disable the lights effects.

DisableTerrain Disable the terrain.

WaterDisplayDebug Draw water debug.

CustomQuality

RenderQuality quality

NearPassZMax

NearPassZMin

RefreshRate

SubResolutionY Sets the height of the sub resolution.

SubResolutionX Sets the width of the sub resolution.

EnableSubResolution enables/disables sub res on PS3 (956 x 576).

FOVScaleFactor Set a scale factor for FOV, as a multiplier of the default. Default=1.0.

UseWidescreenFOV Force use of widescreen FOV.

WidescreenLetterbox Force widescreen letterboxing.

D3D11MultithreadedRendering Toggle multithreaded rendering.

UseD3D11

Borderless Enable/Disable borderless window mode.

Fullscreen

QualityEditor Quality

MaxShaderObjectToProcessLoadtime Max pending shaders to process per frame (loading)

MaxShaderObjectToCreateLoadtime

Max shaders to create per frame (loading)

MaxShaderObjectToCreateRuntime Max shaders to create per frame (in game)

MaxShadersToPreloadPerFrame Max shaders to preload per frame

MaxShadersToPreload Max shaders to preload Toggle sample distribution shadow maps.

SSAOLevel SSAO quality level (0=off, 1=SSAO, 2=HBAO (ps), 3=HBAO (cs), 4=HDAO (ps), 5=HDAO (cs), 6=HDAO (cs blur)).

AlphaToCoverage Set alpha to coverage level (0,1,2).

MSAALevel Set MSAA Level (0,2,4,8).

gfx_DensityLodScale Change a density lod scale.
Usage: gfx_DensityLodScale name scale.


gfx_ShowResolutions Lists all available resolutions.
Usage: gfx_ShowResolutions


gfx_SetResolution Changes the render resolution.
Usage: gfx_SetResolution resX resY


gfx_ConfigChangeShadow Changes the shadow render configuration.
Usage: gfx_ConfigChangeShadow configname


gfx_ConfigChange Changes the render configuration.
Usage: gfx_ConfigChange configname


gfx_ShowConfig Prints the render configuration in the console.

Ripped the entire section out of the .dll, all settings and their descriptions in a really big mess.
(EDIT: Somewhat fixed now.)

 

What can we achieve by modifying these settings?

 

Those in the spoiler in the second post are just the existing commands with whatever description was available for them (The xml files should contain all of them already, I did not notice anything new at least and having their description is handy such as just the SSAOLevel differences.) whereas the command line options (Those I found at least, there's probably more.) can be used to set specific behavior such as skipping the introduction movies (Can be achieved by XML config file editing as well actually.) or forcing the game to use it's offline mode.
(I find it much faster for start-up and such but it doesn't sync anything either.)

You should theoretically be able to inject xml config file tweaks this way too via the -Gameprofile command as seen with Far Cry 2 but editing the existing config file is more convenient.
( -GameProfile_UnlimitedReliability 1 to give a example albeit here it doesn't do anything since items don't break with use.)

(Might need -RenderProfile and so on actually, I never used it much in Far Cry 2 so I don't remember.)

 

Oh ok, thanks. Seems quite difficult (for me )...

For LOD distance, moving vegetation, water caustics and such there's nothing to do, right?

 

Vegetation such as the amount of trees, grass distance and grouping and such seems controlled by the game landscape files, LOD tweaks can make them appear a bit further out but only to some degree (Turning the system off entirely doesn't work either, just has the player walking around a empty basic landscape since nothing else is being loaded.) tweaking those files might work but I don't know how the world files function at all, tried unpacking it but it didn't work very well.
(At worst it might not be possible to do much at all without the map source files to use via the editor but the version we have is a bit limited if I remember correctly.)

 

Yes, I tried the editor yesterday, quite poor in options i must admit... I expected something better.

Anyway, looks like modding FC 3 is not as easy as modding Crysis with its CVARS, for example... It needs a lot of reverse engineering, since those few variables don't give great results, unfortunately...

 

thanks for the config tweak, it works now, everything is clear butdo u recommend using fxaalevel=2 on my setup?

 

FXAA, in my experience, doesn't impact performance too much. If you feel as though th game isn't running smooth enough, try turning it off. But I'd be shocked if you were able to come up with a decent frame rate using any settings at all with that hardware.