Darth Hater

They are still talking about people having problems getting it to run 50-60 FPS.  I totally understand.  It was a real nightmare to get it to look great an still run 50-60 FPS.  I think some programers are considering looking at it.  But eh I'm not sure I really care enough to play it.  I sent them $100 I just have dreadful luck in the game.  I might try again soon though.  SWTOR is so massive I'll never get anywhere.  Then the people I meet are always dreadful from my rotten luck.  I played RAGE in 64 bit which was a trip compared to how crappy it used to run.

I rolled to a more populated server this week.  I noticed the framerate was not as smooth as I'm used too.  This is no doubt caused by the 100 people running around in the instance I was currently in.  So some adjustments had to be made to increase performance.  What you do here is try to think of a setting that will increase performance but with the least amount of visual impact detail wise.

I've lowered SpeedTreeDistanceScale = 0.468750 so that it's roughly 40% instead of 75%.  The main reason why is the standard game space I'm loading because of the 0.25 clipscale.  Half of this amount of space should be low poly trees, logically.  In part the design of the world plays into it so really less than half should be low detail.  So 0.625 is half, and 0.468750 is the middle between 25% an 50%.

This only gained a few frames, but it was enough to make the gameplay smooth in the now higher populated area.  It didn't require further edits to keep the high frame rate here, but it could later on depending.  So setting Negative LOD to 0.00, lowering plant density, using a quality filter instead of high quality, an other ways to increase performance were options, but were not needed at this time.

******** Nvidia Inspector ********

Nvidia Inspector is a 3rd party sharewear project that provides a interface to directly edit a Nvidia video card driver.  I only use it for one thing, sharpness.

Launch the inspector, you'll see a screwdriver & wrench about halfway down next to the Driver Version, click that button, it opens the settings interface.  Under Texture Filtering there is a setting for texture filtering LOD bias (DX9)  which should be 0.00 by default, you can set this to -1.00 -2.00 -3.00  with each setting more sharp than the last.  I currently use -1.50 not too much not too little.  You also can't forget about this setting an go play some other game.  A -3.00 on Skyrim for example will make Skyrim look too real an not as good as it does using a 0.00 setting.  Also don't forget an set it to 1.00 because that will make it less sharp an more blury an you'll be thinking omg this gaming rig sucks.

Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample optimization - off  This setting is disabled an greyed out by the high quality setting below

Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias - Allow Set to allow because jaggies on moving objects are not as noticeable an not often focused on

Texture filtering - Quality - High quality  Set to High Quality because a high quality 8x looks better an runs better than the default SWTOR max 16x which sucks

Texture filtering - Trilinear optimization - On  This setting is greyed out an overrided by the above High Quality setting

Triple buffereing - On Set to on so that performance is better when the framerate is locked when in Vsync mode

Vertical sync - Adaptive  This is set to adaptive to match the config.  So the game will run with the framerate locked when 60 FPS or above, but unlock the framerate for high performance if the framerate is below 60.  This also stops the screen from tearing from super high framerates.  This also keeps TOR from running 110 FPS an above which can heat up the video card above the optimal temp.  This also locks any character animations to a constant speed rather than having animations speed up or slow down depending on framerate.  Then lastly it lowers the power usage of your computer thus lowering the utility bills an giving everyone happy feelings.

******** Nvidia Control Panel ********

Adjust image settings with preview - Use the advanced 3D image settings

then

Manage 3D settings

Ambient Occlusion - Off Set to off because it only makes things look weird if the game isn't built for it

Anisotropic filtering - 8x Set to match the config setting

Antialiasing - FXAA - Off Set to off because there isn't much use for a full screen AA

Antialiasing - Gamma Correction - On Set to on because Nvidia recommended it

Antialising - Mode - Enhance the application setting  Set to enhance to take advantage of the on-card AA hardware

Antialiasing - Setting - 2x Set to match the config, an set to 2x because any higher doesn't work well

Antialiasing - Transparency - Off Set to off because the art assets for the most part don't allow or include alpha AA

Cuda - GPUs - All Set to all because Cuda is where Nvidia gets it's speed

Maximum pre-rendered frames - 1-4 or Use the 3D application setting depending on input lag if any

Multi - display/mixed-GPU acceleration - single display performance mode Set to single because multi display is anoying an doesn't work as smoothly

Power management mode - Adaptive Set to adaptive to downclock/shutdown the GPU when it isn't being used

Right click the client_settings file, properties, set it so that read-only isn't checkmarked when you make your config tweeks so you can save it, after you save it you do this again to set it to read-only.  This is so that SWTOR won't make edits to your settings that revert back to the poor FPS/detail default state.

Since it's a read only config file now, when SWTOR tries to edit it, the edits are rejected an the game defaults to a error state.  So if you hit okay or apply to change a normal setting it will break the tweeked graphics you are using an will default to settings other than your tweeks.  For example shadows will be removed an such.

So everytime you change a keybinding or change something like volume, you have to exit an relaunch the game in order to use your new setting with your old tweeked config file.  Small price to pay for better detail an framerates.

doBlobShadows = false to my knowlege are shadow blobs under the characters.  For some reason you can run high shadows, but blob shadows will drag the framerate down so doShadows = true makes TOR draw all the shadows you need to enjoy high detail shadows.  The blob part drags the framerate down for some reason.  So in my initial settings for TOR I max shadows, but limit them in the tweeks here with doBlobShadows = false to get the smooth high framerate.

VerticalSyncState = true Without this setting TOR will run 110 FPS an above which increases the heat of the video card considerably.  Your performance degrades the hotter the card is running above normal rates.  So this Vsync setting along with Nvidia Adaptive Vsync keeps the video card in the normal heat range.  Like AF an AA this setting works with the Nvidia settings I'll talk about below in adaptive Vsync.

FarClipScale = 0.250000  is the minimum global clip amount, but that is pretty much a normal loaded grid size for a game.  The problem is how Hero Engine is designed to display world space.  It doesn't load primary an secondary grids of high detail/lower detail  instead it just loads the actual assets an attempts to limit them to a usable amount.  Using 0.25 will break parts of the game, for example when on a ship looking down at a planet an some conversation cameras, but it also makes some areas look much better, for example standing on Nar Shada you only see the distant skydome but filtered which makes it feel like you are more on the planet.  This setting also effects the global clip which will change when items apear an disapear for example gather nodes an shadows.  Rather than being seperate settings for each item type it's bound to the global Hero Engine clip setting here.  Most of the time I use 0.25 to limit everything, but I use 0.5 or 0.99 sometimes.

******** Tweeks ********

Users/Computer Name/AppData is a hidden file.  You should only show hidden files if you are smart an experienced enough to be the computer admin.  If you don't know what you are doing then you'll end up breaking the computer.  There are other ways to find the config file without showing hidden files, but I don't know them offhand.  So you'll have to figure this part out yourself.

Users/Computer Name/AppData/Local/SWTOR/swtor/settings/

client_settings

MeshLODQuality = 0 is the setting that controls that character LOD Low/High.  I'm pretty sure a 1 here is high an would drop your framerate which is why it's set to 0

SpeedTreeDistanceScale = 0.9375000 This lowers the switch point for trees in the game between high poly assets an low poly LOD meshes.  1.25 is the original setting, but it's been lowered to 75% of that which is 0.937 something.  The reason is because the clip distance on the trees is very high an they are pretty detailed poly wise.

TextureAnisotropy = 8 This is texture filtering.  In a 3D enviroment the further away something is then the more blury an awful looking it becomes.  It's a symtom of the 3D simulated enviroment an isn't avoidable.  The filter corrects the issue.  A high quality 8x filter looks much better than a lower quality 16x filter.  Max quality would be the highest quality 16x filter.  However you can achive detail beyond the default 16x max setting by using a higher quality 8x which also has half the performance requirement of a 16x filter.  So it's a way of running a much more detailed game at a much faster frame rate.  We'll get into this below in Nvidia settings.

AntiAliasingLevel = 2 this is the jaggies of drawing a curved item with square pixels, it's set to 2 because SWTOR doesn't run very well using a higher setting.  Most games have no problem running a 4x setting, but SWTOR has a big problem running 4x smoothly with any settings.  It really doesn't need more than 2x anyway.

******** Hyperthreading ********

From testing on Tom's Hardware we know that you drop a few frames running games with HT enabled.  So if you are playing a lot of games it's probably in your best interest to disable it.  What it's doing here is simulating duel core on each single core by running two threads at the same time.  That's all well an good, but what most people say is that Intel tech shines the most when running single threaded applicaitons.  It could go either way depending on your computer so it wouldn't be a bad idea to test it.  This would be enabled/disabled in your BIOS.  Then since we are on that subject when was the last time you updated your BIOS?

******** SLI ********

If you ask me this is only a marketing tactic in order to sell twice as many or at least more video cards than you would have sold.  In the begining running a single card was often faster.  It has evolved more over the years.  It's a great technology, but basicly you have graphics run on the 1st card then physics run on the second card.  Sure there's exceptions in forced modes, but rarely is that going to make a difference.  They used to build computers with two CPU's in them, it wasn't faster they just argued between each other.  SLI runs better than that, but you still have the same basic problem.  I'm sure it's very useful under certian conditions.

******** SWTOR Settings ********

To make it easy I set everything to max.  Then set Character Level of Detail to low.  I can't tell the difference between low/high visually, but running it on high will drag the framerate down.  Then you set Visible Character Limit to low.  This will insure that when there's 300 players around you that the framerate remains high.  Then disable all the nameplates, it will still display when someone is targeted.  Hero Engine has problems displaying text in 3D, the very reason there is no chat bubbles in this game.  It's more immersive to view more of the actual world rather than a world full of name plates.  You can also disable all the flytext which at best is distracting anyway.  I like it better without, but I'm sure you could turn off most of it an only use what you actually need.  I leave all of the world text off.

These are just SWTOR screenshots made with high framerate settings not so HD, but enough to enjoy and should be 1080 size.

Flesh Raider with pistol.

http://i895.photobucket.com/albums/ac156/grindedstone/SWTOR%20Loading/Fleshraid.jpg

Facepalmed Pirate

http://i895.photobucket.com/albums/ac156/grindedstone/SWTOR%20Loading/HurtGuy.jpg

Stars In Space

http://i895.photobucket.com/albums/ac156/grindedstone/SWTOR%20Loading/Space.jpg

Taris 1

http://i895.photobucket.com/albums/ac156/grindedstone/SWTOR%20Loading/Taris.jpg

Taris 2

http://i895.photobucket.com/albums/ac156/grindedstone/SWTOR%20Loading/Taris2.jpg

Tython Mountain + Water

http://i895.photobucket.com/albums/ac156/grindedstone/SWTOR%20Loading/Tython.jpg