ED's default graphics settings and Ultra preset are pretty solid, for the most part, but there is definitely still room for improvement. In particular, I find that the lighting relies too much on bloom instead of tonemapping; there are too many instances of 'Peter Panning' shadows; texture resolutions are too low; and some default settings not accessible through the UI are overly slanted to low-end hardware. So, I've done my best to mitigate these issues where possible on my own system and I'd like to share my current configuration for commentary, criticism, and potential refinement/improvement.
Some assumptions about the hardware and software environment being used with the more advanced components of these tweaks:
- At least a fast quad-core CPU, preferably with SMT.
- More than 8GiB of system memory, though 8GiB might work with an appropriately large page file (paging won't happen, but a sufficiently large commit charge is still needed for memory management purposes).
- At least 4GiB of dedicated video memory (for 1080p). Higher resolutions may need more and you'll probably want ~6GiB for 1440p and 8GiB or more for 4k.
- Some 64-bit version of Windows that supports DX11 (duh) and up to date graphics drivers.
- The 'high performance' OS power profile.
- All together a system fast enough to use the Ultra preset at your chosen resolution.
- A display with a solid static contrast ratio and at least a token attempt at a decent gamma curve.
Personally, I'm using an i7-5820k @ 4.2GHz, 16GiB of CL12 DDR4-2667, and a GTX 1080 Ti 11GiB @ 2025MHz core/11880Mbps memory, while playing at 4k (1440p with 1.5x supersampling, or 3.00x DSR) on my primary gaming system. My secondary system is running a Xeon X5670 @ 4.2GHz, 12GiB of CL10 DDR3-2000, and an R9 Fury 4GiB @ 1053MHz core/500MHz HBM, which my wife uses to play ED at 1920*1200. My tertiary gaming system is an Alienware R4 17 laptop with an i7-6700HQ, 16GiB of CL11 DDR3L-2133, GTX 1070 8GiB. The desktops both run Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1, while the laptop runs Server 2016 (same kernel as Windows 10, just less fluff and more control). All have the OS Spectre/Meltdown mitigations installed and enabled. The same tweaks apply nearly equally well to all of these systems, though the Fury is slightly VRAM constrained.
First step will be basic driver profile adjustment for the game. For NVDIA do the following:
- Open the 'NVIDIA Control Panel', select "adjust image settings with preview", then "Manage 3D Settings".
- Go to the 'Program Settings' tab, manually "Add" "EliteDangerous64.exe" which can be found in "\Products\elite-dangerous-64" of wherever you told the launcher (or Steam) to install the game.
- Change the following options: "Anisotropic filtering" to "16x"; "Maximum pre-rendered frames" to "1" (or the number of GPUs you are using in SLI); "Power management mode" to "Prefer maximum performance"; "Texture filtering - Quality" to "High quality"; "Threaded optimization" to "On".
- If you are using ShadowPlay or any other video recording/streaming software that makes use of NVENC, you are going to want to use "NVIDIA Profile Inspector" (available here: https://ci.appveyor.com/project/Orbmu2k/nvidiaprofileinspector/build/artifacts) to set CUDA - Force P2 State" to "Off" to prevent your VRAM from underclocking itself while encoding video (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/376660-New-video-card-new-capture-settings).
For AMD graphics cards, the steps are basically the same, except where otherwise noted:
- "Radeon Settings", "Add", "EliteDangerous64.exe" from the same location, then edit that profile.
- "Anisotropic Filtering Mode" to "Override Application Setting", "Anisotropic Filtering Level" to "16x", "Texture Filtering Quality" to "High", "Surface Format Optimization" to "Off", and "Shader Cache" to "On".
Second step is to fire up the game and select the quality preset you want to use under graphics options. Since the tweaks below mostly only apply to Ultra, select "Ultra". Additionally, you want to raise the "Terrain Work" slider to it's maximum; this will almost always smooth out loading transitions and improve frame rate on any non-ancient GPU. It's probably the single fastest and most effective performance tweak there is. Quit the game to save those settings.
Now for some advanced tweaking; non-graphics stuff first, then several custom adjustments that can be put in the GraphicsConfigurationOverride the game uses for just that sort of thing. Note that the registry tweaks have a fairly subtle effect on performance and can easily be skipped if you are uncomfortable with them. I'll bundle everything in a SendSpace link for download at the end of this post.
- Disable core parking (guide: http://www.overclock.net/t/1544554/core-parking-in-windows-disable-for-more-performance).
- Tell Elite: Dangerous to use large memory pages by adding the following to the registry (either manually, or by pasting the following code into notepad and saving the file as anything.reg then running it):
- Increase the "NumWorkerThreads" to the number of logical cores on your CPU, minus 2 (e.g. if you have a four-core, eight-thread part, you want to set this figure to six), and disable (by setting to 0) "PerformanceScaling", both in AppConfig.xml. This file should be located in the main game directory, same as the EliteDangerous64.exe that you've already referenced.
- Open GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml, normally located in "%UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Graphics" and replace it's contents with the following:
This will alter the tonemapping back to the reference HDR settings, which is more filmic and looks subtly better (to me) on any remotely decent display; slightly increase the intensity of the game's ambient occlusion, while also making it play better with geometry; significantly mitigate Peter Panning of shadows and smooth out some shadow transitions; sharpen textures, reflections, and the galaxy background; cut bloom intensity significantly, so it's not blinding and oversaturated to the point of crapping up the HUD and making all the lens flares look like a J.J. Abrams wet dream; and reduce the density of debris caused by exploding ships because 3000 doesn't look any better than 2000 but can reduce FPS in some scenarios.
Note, I did not increase the shadow map resolution/slice size as it's effects are fairly subtle and it wastes a lot of the game's texture budget, which seems to be limited more than necessary on high-end hardware. If you want to increase this anyway, reference Voubi's link below for instructions.
If you don't like a specific something, feel free to not use it, or alter it to taste.
I'd like to thank @Voubi for his shadow tweaks that I referenced in making my own. His thread is here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...quot-How-to-get-pretty-shadows-for-noobs-quot .
Miscellaneous links to other crap I referenced that might be interesting:
http://docs.nvidia.com/gameworks/content/gameworkslibrary/visualfx/hbao/product.html
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee416324(v=vs.85).aspx
https://www.slideshare.net/ozlael/hable-john-uncharted2-hdr-lighting
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366720(v=vs.85).aspx
Download link for my GraphicsConfiguration.xml and LargePages.reg: https://www.sendspace.com/file/9a8x5a
Let me know what you think.
Some assumptions about the hardware and software environment being used with the more advanced components of these tweaks:
- At least a fast quad-core CPU, preferably with SMT.
- More than 8GiB of system memory, though 8GiB might work with an appropriately large page file (paging won't happen, but a sufficiently large commit charge is still needed for memory management purposes).
- At least 4GiB of dedicated video memory (for 1080p). Higher resolutions may need more and you'll probably want ~6GiB for 1440p and 8GiB or more for 4k.
- Some 64-bit version of Windows that supports DX11 (duh) and up to date graphics drivers.
- The 'high performance' OS power profile.
- All together a system fast enough to use the Ultra preset at your chosen resolution.
- A display with a solid static contrast ratio and at least a token attempt at a decent gamma curve.
Personally, I'm using an i7-5820k @ 4.2GHz, 16GiB of CL12 DDR4-2667, and a GTX 1080 Ti 11GiB @ 2025MHz core/11880Mbps memory, while playing at 4k (1440p with 1.5x supersampling, or 3.00x DSR) on my primary gaming system. My secondary system is running a Xeon X5670 @ 4.2GHz, 12GiB of CL10 DDR3-2000, and an R9 Fury 4GiB @ 1053MHz core/500MHz HBM, which my wife uses to play ED at 1920*1200. My tertiary gaming system is an Alienware R4 17 laptop with an i7-6700HQ, 16GiB of CL11 DDR3L-2133, GTX 1070 8GiB. The desktops both run Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1, while the laptop runs Server 2016 (same kernel as Windows 10, just less fluff and more control). All have the OS Spectre/Meltdown mitigations installed and enabled. The same tweaks apply nearly equally well to all of these systems, though the Fury is slightly VRAM constrained.
First step will be basic driver profile adjustment for the game. For NVDIA do the following:
- Open the 'NVIDIA Control Panel', select "adjust image settings with preview", then "Manage 3D Settings".
- Go to the 'Program Settings' tab, manually "Add" "EliteDangerous64.exe" which can be found in "\Products\elite-dangerous-64" of wherever you told the launcher (or Steam) to install the game.
- Change the following options: "Anisotropic filtering" to "16x"; "Maximum pre-rendered frames" to "1" (or the number of GPUs you are using in SLI); "Power management mode" to "Prefer maximum performance"; "Texture filtering - Quality" to "High quality"; "Threaded optimization" to "On".
- If you are using ShadowPlay or any other video recording/streaming software that makes use of NVENC, you are going to want to use "NVIDIA Profile Inspector" (available here: https://ci.appveyor.com/project/Orbmu2k/nvidiaprofileinspector/build/artifacts) to set CUDA - Force P2 State" to "Off" to prevent your VRAM from underclocking itself while encoding video (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/376660-New-video-card-new-capture-settings).
For AMD graphics cards, the steps are basically the same, except where otherwise noted:
- "Radeon Settings", "Add", "EliteDangerous64.exe" from the same location, then edit that profile.
- "Anisotropic Filtering Mode" to "Override Application Setting", "Anisotropic Filtering Level" to "16x", "Texture Filtering Quality" to "High", "Surface Format Optimization" to "Off", and "Shader Cache" to "On".
Second step is to fire up the game and select the quality preset you want to use under graphics options. Since the tweaks below mostly only apply to Ultra, select "Ultra". Additionally, you want to raise the "Terrain Work" slider to it's maximum; this will almost always smooth out loading transitions and improve frame rate on any non-ancient GPU. It's probably the single fastest and most effective performance tweak there is. Quit the game to save those settings.
Now for some advanced tweaking; non-graphics stuff first, then several custom adjustments that can be put in the GraphicsConfigurationOverride the game uses for just that sort of thing. Note that the registry tweaks have a fairly subtle effect on performance and can easily be skipped if you are uncomfortable with them. I'll bundle everything in a SendSpace link for download at the end of this post.
- Disable core parking (guide: http://www.overclock.net/t/1544554/core-parking-in-windows-disable-for-more-performance).
- Tell Elite: Dangerous to use large memory pages by adding the following to the registry (either manually, or by pasting the following code into notepad and saving the file as anything.reg then running it):
Code:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\EliteDangerous64.exe]
"UseLargePages"=dword:00000001- Increase the "NumWorkerThreads" to the number of logical cores on your CPU, minus 2 (e.g. if you have a four-core, eight-thread part, you want to set this figure to six), and disable (by setting to 0) "PerformanceScaling", both in AppConfig.xml. This file should be located in the main game directory, same as the EliteDangerous64.exe that you've already referenced.
- Open GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml, normally located in "%UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Graphics" and replace it's contents with the following:
Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<GraphicsConfig>
<HDRNode>
<ManualExposure>-0.500000</ManualExposure>
<ShoulderStrength>0.15000</ShoulderStrength>
<LinearStrength>0.5000</LinearStrength>
<LinearAngle>0.1000</LinearAngle>
<ToeStrength>0.2000</ToeStrength>
<ToeNumerator>0.02000</ToeNumerator>
<ToeDenominator>0.3000</ToeDenominator>
<LinearWhite>11.2000</LinearWhite>
</HDRNode>
<HBAO>
<High>
<NearRadiusInMeters>3.0</NearRadiusInMeters>
<PowExponent>2.0</PowExponent>
<Bias>0.6</Bias>
</High>
</HBAO>
<Shadows_Ultra>
<Profile_General>
<NumFrustums>8</NumFrustums>
<Fade>1</Fade>
<Frustum0>
<EndDistance>15.000000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.00045</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>2.0</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>3.5</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum0>
<Frustum1>
<EndDistance>40.00000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.0005</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>1.0</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>1.5</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum1>
<Frustum2>
<EndDistance>100.000000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.0005</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>1.0</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>2.5</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum2>
<Frustum3>
<EndDistance>250.000000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.0005</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>1.0</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>3.0</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum3>
<Frustum4>
<EndDistance>450.000000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.0005</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>1.0</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>3.0</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum4>
<Frustum5>
<EndDistance>1000.000000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.0005</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>1.0</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>3.0</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum5>
<Frustum6>
<EndDistance>2500.000000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.0005</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>1.0</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>3.0</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum6>
<Frustum7>
<EndDistance>7000.000000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.0005</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>1.0</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>2.5</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum7>
</Profile_General>
<Profile_PlanetApproach>
<Frustum0>
<DepthBias>0.00045</DepthBias>
</Frustum0>
<Frustum1>
<DepthBias>0.0008</DepthBias>
</Frustum1>
</Profile_PlanetApproach>
<Profile_StationInterior>
<Frustum0>
<DepthBias>0.0005</DepthBias>
</Frustum0>
</Profile_StationInterior>
<Profile_AsteroidField>
<NumFrustums>8</NumFrustums>
<Fade>1</Fade>
<Frustum0>
<EndDistance>15.000000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.00045</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>2.0</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>3.5</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum0>
<Frustum1>
<EndDistance>40.00000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.005</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>3.0</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>1.5</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum1>
<Frustum2>
<EndDistance>100.000000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.005</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>2.0</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>2.5</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum2>
<Frustum3>
<EndDistance>250.00000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.002</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>1.5</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>3.0</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum3>
<Frustum4>
<EndDistance>450.000000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.0015</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>2.0</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>3.5</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum4>
<Frustum5>
<EndDistance>1000.000000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.001</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>2.0</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>3.0</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum5>
<Frustum6>
<EndDistance>2500.000000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.0005</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>1.5</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>3.0</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum6>
<Frustum7>
<EndDistance>7000.000000</EndDistance>
<DepthBias>0.0005</DepthBias>
<DepthSlopeBias>1.0</DepthSlopeBias>
<FilterKernelSize>3.0</FilterKernelSize>
</Frustum7>
</Profile_AsteroidField>
</Shadows_Ultra>
<Planets>
<Ultra>
<TextureSize>4096</TextureSize>
<WorkPerFrame>512</WorkPerFrame>
</Ultra>
</Planets>
<GalaxyBackground>
<High>
<TextureSize>4096</TextureSize>
</High>
</GalaxyBackground>
<Bloom>
<High>
<GlareWeight0>0.5</GlareWeight0>
<GlareWeight1>0.225</GlareWeight1>
<GlareWeight2>0.1007</GlareWeight2>
<GlareWeight3>0.15</GlareWeight3>
<GlareWeight4>0.2074</GlareWeight4>
<GlareScale>0.05</GlareScale>
</High>
</Bloom>
<Envmap>
<High>
<TextureSize>1024</TextureSize>
</High>
</Envmap>
<Debris>
<High>
<DebrisLimit>2000</DebrisLimit>
</High>
</Debris>
</GraphicsConfig>This will alter the tonemapping back to the reference HDR settings, which is more filmic and looks subtly better (to me) on any remotely decent display; slightly increase the intensity of the game's ambient occlusion, while also making it play better with geometry; significantly mitigate Peter Panning of shadows and smooth out some shadow transitions; sharpen textures, reflections, and the galaxy background; cut bloom intensity significantly, so it's not blinding and oversaturated to the point of crapping up the HUD and making all the lens flares look like a J.J. Abrams wet dream; and reduce the density of debris caused by exploding ships because 3000 doesn't look any better than 2000 but can reduce FPS in some scenarios.
Note, I did not increase the shadow map resolution/slice size as it's effects are fairly subtle and it wastes a lot of the game's texture budget, which seems to be limited more than necessary on high-end hardware. If you want to increase this anyway, reference Voubi's link below for instructions.
If you don't like a specific something, feel free to not use it, or alter it to taste.
I'd like to thank @Voubi for his shadow tweaks that I referenced in making my own. His thread is here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...quot-How-to-get-pretty-shadows-for-noobs-quot .
Miscellaneous links to other crap I referenced that might be interesting:
http://docs.nvidia.com/gameworks/content/gameworkslibrary/visualfx/hbao/product.html
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee416324(v=vs.85).aspx
https://www.slideshare.net/ozlael/hable-john-uncharted2-hdr-lighting
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366720(v=vs.85).aspx
Download link for my GraphicsConfiguration.xml and LargePages.reg: https://www.sendspace.com/file/9a8x5a
Let me know what you think.
![[VR] optimal_909](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/109/109067.jpg?1553781733){kind=avatar}
