02. March 2013, 17:58:28

#0

ArthandasQuote

I just bought SS2 from GOG and after installing all the recommended mods I started the game but it didn't run too well. After messing with the cam_ext.cfg file I managed to solve all my issues. I'm going to post my finding as others may find it useful.

First thing to do if you don't have those options forced in your graphic card's control panel is to enable vsync and triple buffering. To do so, change:
single_display_mode 2 to single_display_mode 3
;vsync_mode 0 to vsync_mode 3

By default, the game has enabled 8 samples of antialiasing which is an overkill so you can safely set it to 4 for a possible performance boost:
multisampletype 8 to multisampletype 4

As noted by Kolya in the newbie modding guide, you can enable bloom by changing:
;postprocess 1 to postprocess 1
;bloomscale 5 to bloomscale 5
;bloom_threshold 0.70 to bloom_threshold 0.85
I personally would leave bloomscale at 5/6 instead of 4 as in the modding guide.

While playing on larger resolutions, the UI text can be hard to read. You can scale the UI by setting:
;d3d_disp_scaled_2d_overlay 64 to d3d_disp_scaled_2d_overlay 2
This will basically double the UI size. Alternatively you can set a custom UI resolution but it will most often result in blurred text. You can do it by typing your desired resolution like in this example:
d3d_disp_scaled_2d_overlay 1024 768

By default, the in-game movies are stretched to the width of your monitor. If you want less pixelated but smaller videos, set:
ui_scale_mode 2 to ui_scale_mode 1
;scale_movie_to_ui to scale_movie_to_ui

The last issue I had to resolve was stuttering while walking. The game ran at perfect 60 fps but there was very noticeable stuttering/frame skipping while moving in any direction. Disabling d3d_disp_limit_gpu_frames 1 1 fixed it but caused mouselook stuttering. Instead of disabling it, I changed:
;d3d_disp_enable_hdr 32 to d3d_disp_enable_hdr 32
;d3d_disp_sw_cc to d3d_disp_sw_cc
I don't know if those settings changed anything visually but stuttering was gone.

If you're having performance issues, try changing this line and see if that helps:
d3d_disp_limit_gpu_frames 1 1 to d3d_disp_limit_gpu_frames 2 2
Check bluemess' post for more details: https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?wap2;topic=4605.msg53162#msg53162

The last thing you can change is:
;d3d_disp_enable_atoc 1 to d3d_disp_enable_atoc 1
Enabling this option will smooth all transparent areas (like antialiasing).

Tested on: Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Bit, Radeon 5770 1gb (catalyst 13.1)
Results may vary but I hope this helps anyway.

Acknowledged by: Pedruh47

02. March 2013, 18:25:45

#1

voodoo47Quote

note - the performance hit when enabling FSAA (8x) should be negligible on any decent gpu. no need to disable or lower it, unless you are running a really crappy integrated card. a 5770 can take it without batting an eye.

messing with vsync is not recommended, but hey, whatever works.

this is actually not the first time a 5770 user has reported stuttering, and fixed it by enabling the hdr/shader stuff. weird, but as I've said, whatever works..

02. March 2013, 18:41:09

#2

SimplexQuote

I also thought 8 FSAA should be no problem, especially on a GTX670 but there was at least one place where my framerate would consistently drop below 60 (Sadly I do not remember where, I think it was somewhere in Hydro) - so I dialed down to 4 and I did not see any difference in graphics quality and I also no longer had any framerate hiccups.

02. March 2013, 18:55:15

#3

ArthandasQuote

I know that 8x AA performance wise is no problem (for my card at least) but I fail to see any noticeable difference between 8x and 4x at 1680x1050 resolution so why bump it more? IMO 4x is more than enough to eliminate any jaggedness. If you can spot the difference between those two settings and maintain constant 60fps then by all means leave it at 8x

02. March 2013, 19:49:51

#4

vurtQuote

Anti-Aliasing almost always affect the mouse movement and can really make it very floaty and unprecise (even if you're running a game in 100 FPS) so it's often a good idea to not bump it up too much (4x is usually enough for 1920x1200, imo).