FPS Guide / Optimal PvP settings / Full Summary in OP.

[sobieski12 835]

 

 

For those not interested in watching the whole video, here is an overall summary regarding the subject.

 

Hello and welcome survivors to my FPS guide / tutorial, the whole goal of this presentation is to focus on the settings that can help the performance issues that many players experience and to also find a balance in terms of PvP based settings. Changing various settings can give both pro / cons in terms of pvp combat and knowing all setting and how it impacts your game-play experience is quite interesting to know. 

 

But before I go into specifics regarding setting changes. 

 

I'd like to focus on a setting of which the players can't change and hopefully grab the developers attention. The setting I'd like to talk about specifically is "Terrain", while on a server. This option is completely server-forced, which means the players has no control over this option. The current server-forced setting is set at "Very High" thus the FPS experience for a number of players is quite poor. The render distance is about 100 meters around a player. If the DayZ developers team was to lower this server forced settings, it would greatly improve the FPS for the community as a whole. In my video demonstration I was able to go from 75 FPS "Very High" to 100 FPS on "Normal".

 

"Very High" terrain screenshot 

 

"Normal" terrain screenshot

 

Why the rise in FPS?

* The grass surrounding the player is lowered from 100 meters to about 60 meters.

 

Now that I've got that covered, lets focus on settings of which the player can change. To truly test the overall settings, I'll test my FPS in one of the laggy cities in DayZ.

* Novodmitrovsk

 

Esc -> Configure -> Video 

 

Here are the general settings I use in Video.

 

Textures is a subject I'd like to put some emphasis for the people that need to lower every setting. Not every setting will impact FPS and textures is one of them. Make sure to set Memory on Auto, the game will utilize all memory on your GPU. 

 

As for the Quality, this section depends on your GPU. If you have a 2GB and you can more than likely support Very High textures on DayZ. If you really need the bare minimum in terms of memory usage, setting the setting to very low will only use 500 mb of memory.  

 

 

Quality is probably the most FPS significant subject due to both "Objects and Terrain"

 

Sadly we can't control terrain but we can control objects and we can also make precise changes with it in the cfg files. Of which I'll cover later.

 

Setting "Objects" at Very Low will give the players a massive amount of FPS. But there is a massive con for this settings, the render distance for players is shortened to 500-600 meters on the field. Even lower when it comes to render players within buildings, at about 100 meters and less. I have a test in the video of which I displayed the cons of settings your Objects at Very Low later down the video. 

 

I'd say there are two game-play settings for DayZ players, too balance both FPS and PvP settings. 

* Settings to Very Low is better for close quarter combat, but you would be vulnerable to long range shots.

* Settings to Very High is better for long range combat, but you would suffer lower FPS. 

 

Clouds do not impact FPS, but it does impact the GPU but that is not really a problem. 

 

Shadows should be disabled, setting it to Normal will make a player lose about 4-5 FPS. Having it disabled will give FPS, of which I personally think is more important in this game than visuals. 

 

Here are the settings I use for "Rendering"

 

 

This concludes my fps guide. 

 

Also regarding system upgrades or is planning to build a system.

 

With the the November sales getting closer, I'd suggest anyone that is planning to upgrade or is planning to build a new system to buy from "Micro-center". 

 

Micro-center is a U.S. based store of which has really great discounts and on cyber-monday those sales are three times better.

 

---- 

 

For those interested in the specs of my machine. 

 

Full system specs

CPU - I7-3770K " OC at 4.3 Ghz"

GPU - dedicated resolution GTX 690 / dedicated physx GTX 460 

Motherboard - Z77 Sabertooth 

RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900)

CPU Heatsink - Hyper 212 EVO 

Case - HAF X 942

Storage - 2 x 1TB HDD in Raid 0 / 1 x 238 GB SSD / 1 x 4 TB HDD

Fan Controller - ZALMAN MFC1 Plus-B Black 6 Channel Multi Fan Controller

PSU -  CORSAIR HX Series HX850 850W

Fans -  Cooler Master MegaFlow 200 - Sleeve Bearing 200mm Red LED Silent Fan /  NZXT Air Flow Series RF-FZ140-R1 140mm Red LED Case Fan

Edited September 3, 2014 by Sobieski12

[t1337dude 101]

I just play with all my settings turned up (except for AA, which I just use 2x). i7 930, 6gb RAM, GTX 670, FPS drops only in dense cities but not enough to effect gameplay, wouldn't consider turning down any of my settings,

[riedlZ 0]

 

*snip*

 

 

 

I couldn't watch your video yet, but i strongly disagree with the shadow settings. You should let them definitely on for the pvp aspect of this guide (if you play on first person servers which is ofc the only way to enjoy the dayz pvp experience).

 

 

I just play with all my settings turned up (except for AA, which I just use 2x). i7 930, 6gb RAM, GTX 670, FPS drops only in dense cities but not enough to effect gameplay, wouldn't consider turning down any of my settings,

 

That dosen't say anything. On which resolution do you play? everybody could run dayz on 1024x or 80x with everything cranked up. But on 1920x1080 your statement isn't possible. I have by far better specs and drop even on High in cities to about 25...

[sobieski12 835]

I couldn't watch your video yet, but i strongly disagree with the shadow settings. You should let them definitely on for the pvp aspect of this guide (if you play on first person servers which is ofc the only way to enjoy the dayz pvp experience).

 

Shadows is both a pro / con. 

 

If you leave it off, you can gain a small amount of FPS. 

* About 5 FPS. 

 

If you have it set at normal, you lose about 5 FPS on average.

 

Sure it can help in various PvP scenarios, but I just prefer more FPS. 

 

It's just a matter of opinion. 

[t1337dude 101]

I couldn't watch your video yet, but i strongly disagree with the shadow settings. You should let them definitely on for the pvp aspect of this guide (if you play on first person servers which is ofc the only way to enjoy the dayz pvp experience).

 

 

 

That dosen't say anything. On which resolution do you play? everybody could run dayz on 1024x or 80x with everything cranked up. But on 1920x1080 your statement isn't possible. I have by far better specs and drop even on High in cities to about 25...

The standard resolution these days is 1080P, so that'd be a pretty safe assumption. I'm actually at 1200P. Do you have your DayZ on a SSD? Helped the dip in city performance for me by a lot...

 

Also, my i7 930 is overclocked to 4.3 GhZ. It's not running at standard spec.

Edited September 3, 2014 by t1337Dude