[GUIDE & TIPS] Elite Dangerous Graphic Tweaks, Getting Crossfire Working Properly, and Other Useful Tips
Hey guys, I was tweaking around with the graphics settings and crossfire and I wanted to share my results with you. I got the graphics to look really great, and crossfire to work extremely well (GPU usage between 50-100% on both)
I run 2 R9 290X
Here are the things I changed, both for crossfire and for the quality of the graphics.
#1: SweetFX
Please refer to Obsidian Ant's excellent guide video here (full credit to him for this part!)
[video=youtube;iIosivU9uVw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIosivU9uVw[/video]
His video is a bit old, and the SweetFX version linked does not seem to work with Elite Dangerous 64 bit. You will have to use SweetFX 2.0, and copy over the settings file from Obsidian Ant's link.
Download SweetFX from Obsidian Ant's guide.
Download SweetFX 2.0 here: http://reshade.me/sweetfx
Install SweetFX 2.0 to your games directory. (SweetFX has instructions how)
Find and copy SweetFXSettings text file from Obsidian Ant's guide, and copy inside the "SweetFX" folder inside your game's directory. (On older SweetFX versions, the settings file was on the same directory as the games executable. This is no longer the case with SweetFX 2.0)
#2 Crossfire and Elite Dangerous
-In the AMD Catalyst Control Center, create an individual profile for Elite Dangerous (don't use Global Settings for Elite)
-Under the Crossfire option, set Crossfire mode to "Optimize 1x1" this is the only mode that seems to work with Elite, I tried all the others with no luck.
AMD has a feature called "ULPS" or Ultra Low Power State. This is a "sleep" state that lowers the frequency and voltage of non-primary cards in order to save power. And you guessed it, in crossfire, you have a secondary card that will be heavily affected by this "feature". Another problem with this is that the card never seems to "wake up" on time based on workload, which can cause heavy performance loss, choppy gameplay, and a lot of other issues. Lastly, ULPS seems to introduce a lot of instability for Crossfire configurations.
So, the solution is to disable ULPS. Programs such as MSI afterburner have a "Disable ULPS" option within their settings, but this does NOT disable it completely. (In short, MSI Afterburner and similar programs fail at disabling ULPS properly)
Here's what to do to get rid of it.
-On your Start menu, type regedit, and open the program that shows up (as administrator). Alternatively, open the Run dialog and type regedit, then press Enter.
-Once the Window opens, press F3. A box will open, type ULPS in it and press enter. Look for the entry "enableulps", edit it, and change its value from 1, to 0.
-After this, just keep pressing F3 until you find every single entry with 'enableulps". Set them all to 0.
-Once the system tells you "Finished searching through the registry" you are all done.
-Restart your computer and your settings will take effect.
The only issue with Crossfire in this case is when you make a hyperjump to a different system: Once you start jumping, the game will microfreeze and stutter for bit, and will be a bit "slow" for about 5 seconds after you reach the next system. That's about the only problem I've noticed. To know what I'm talking about, check the video at the end of this post.
AMD Virtual Super Resolution (VSR)
Check if your video card supports VSR: http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/vsr
VSR basically renders an image at much higher resolution than your monitor's native resolutions and then downscales it to your native resolution. In a way, it's very similar to Supersampling. This is similar to Nvidia's DSR technology, but AMDs option actually offers better performance in this mode, sometimes by as much as 50%. I will save you the technicalities: basically AMD cut off a lot of the overhead in the way the driver handles this mode, improving performance significantly.
To enable VSR, simply open your Catalyst Control Center, go to the My Digital Panel tab or section, and check the corresponding box. Once you start the game again, go to your graphic settings, under resolution, and you will notice that you have resolutions available that are higher than what your monitor supports.
I would highly recommend using VSR instead of the in-game Supersampling. It seems that Supersampling is very poorly coded on Elite, and the performance hit is not worth the added quality.
Here's an example: With a single R9 290X, the game at 1920x1080 resolution and Supersampling at 1.5x, Everything would run capped at 60FPS everywhere, but on planet surfaces it could dip to around 40-55.
Setting Supersampling to 2.0x would drop FPS on planet to around 30-45.
Enabling VSR and choosing the highest possible resolution available (varies per card, in my case it's 3200X1800), my FPS never dipps below 55 on planets, and the result is astounding (after all, you are rendering the game at nearly 4K).
In short, it's a great feature to make use of, and some people might even be able to disable Antialiasing altogether with it. Antialiasing is something else I found that either it barely does anything, or it just doesn't perform well.
And now, some examples of what my game currently looks like:
First, a slideshow with some screenies (make sure to set the quality to 1080P and full screen to better appreciate it). Sorry, I did not put any music on this slideshow.
[video=youtube;w5lRBvfHv6w]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5lRBvfHv6w[/video]
Here is a short video showing a bit of planet surfaces, approaching a planet, and finally the small issue I mentioned in Crossfire during hyperspace jumps.
[video=youtube;_8kdljNKKqM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8kdljNKKqM[/video]
I am sorry if this post is a bit disorganized, but I hope that it can help some of you guys to get the best quality out of Elite. If you have any questions, let me know!!!
Hey guys, I was tweaking around with the graphics settings and crossfire and I wanted to share my results with you. I got the graphics to look really great, and crossfire to work extremely well (GPU usage between 50-100% on both)
I run 2 R9 290X
Here are the things I changed, both for crossfire and for the quality of the graphics.
#1: SweetFX
Please refer to Obsidian Ant's excellent guide video here (full credit to him for this part!)
[video=youtube;iIosivU9uVw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIosivU9uVw[/video]
His video is a bit old, and the SweetFX version linked does not seem to work with Elite Dangerous 64 bit. You will have to use SweetFX 2.0, and copy over the settings file from Obsidian Ant's link.
Download SweetFX from Obsidian Ant's guide.
Download SweetFX 2.0 here: http://reshade.me/sweetfx
Install SweetFX 2.0 to your games directory. (SweetFX has instructions how)
Find and copy SweetFXSettings text file from Obsidian Ant's guide, and copy inside the "SweetFX" folder inside your game's directory. (On older SweetFX versions, the settings file was on the same directory as the games executable. This is no longer the case with SweetFX 2.0)
#2 Crossfire and Elite Dangerous
-In the AMD Catalyst Control Center, create an individual profile for Elite Dangerous (don't use Global Settings for Elite)
-Under the Crossfire option, set Crossfire mode to "Optimize 1x1" this is the only mode that seems to work with Elite, I tried all the others with no luck.
AMD has a feature called "ULPS" or Ultra Low Power State. This is a "sleep" state that lowers the frequency and voltage of non-primary cards in order to save power. And you guessed it, in crossfire, you have a secondary card that will be heavily affected by this "feature". Another problem with this is that the card never seems to "wake up" on time based on workload, which can cause heavy performance loss, choppy gameplay, and a lot of other issues. Lastly, ULPS seems to introduce a lot of instability for Crossfire configurations.
So, the solution is to disable ULPS. Programs such as MSI afterburner have a "Disable ULPS" option within their settings, but this does NOT disable it completely. (In short, MSI Afterburner and similar programs fail at disabling ULPS properly)
Here's what to do to get rid of it.
-On your Start menu, type regedit, and open the program that shows up (as administrator). Alternatively, open the Run dialog and type regedit, then press Enter.
-Once the Window opens, press F3. A box will open, type ULPS in it and press enter. Look for the entry "enableulps", edit it, and change its value from 1, to 0.
-After this, just keep pressing F3 until you find every single entry with 'enableulps". Set them all to 0.
-Once the system tells you "Finished searching through the registry" you are all done.
-Restart your computer and your settings will take effect.
The only issue with Crossfire in this case is when you make a hyperjump to a different system: Once you start jumping, the game will microfreeze and stutter for bit, and will be a bit "slow" for about 5 seconds after you reach the next system. That's about the only problem I've noticed. To know what I'm talking about, check the video at the end of this post.
AMD Virtual Super Resolution (VSR)
Check if your video card supports VSR: http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/vsr
VSR basically renders an image at much higher resolution than your monitor's native resolutions and then downscales it to your native resolution. In a way, it's very similar to Supersampling. This is similar to Nvidia's DSR technology, but AMDs option actually offers better performance in this mode, sometimes by as much as 50%. I will save you the technicalities: basically AMD cut off a lot of the overhead in the way the driver handles this mode, improving performance significantly.
To enable VSR, simply open your Catalyst Control Center, go to the My Digital Panel tab or section, and check the corresponding box. Once you start the game again, go to your graphic settings, under resolution, and you will notice that you have resolutions available that are higher than what your monitor supports.
I would highly recommend using VSR instead of the in-game Supersampling. It seems that Supersampling is very poorly coded on Elite, and the performance hit is not worth the added quality.
Here's an example: With a single R9 290X, the game at 1920x1080 resolution and Supersampling at 1.5x, Everything would run capped at 60FPS everywhere, but on planet surfaces it could dip to around 40-55.
Setting Supersampling to 2.0x would drop FPS on planet to around 30-45.
Enabling VSR and choosing the highest possible resolution available (varies per card, in my case it's 3200X1800), my FPS never dipps below 55 on planets, and the result is astounding (after all, you are rendering the game at nearly 4K).
In short, it's a great feature to make use of, and some people might even be able to disable Antialiasing altogether with it. Antialiasing is something else I found that either it barely does anything, or it just doesn't perform well.
And now, some examples of what my game currently looks like:
First, a slideshow with some screenies (make sure to set the quality to 1080P and full screen to better appreciate it). Sorry, I did not put any music on this slideshow.
[video=youtube;w5lRBvfHv6w]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5lRBvfHv6w[/video]
Here is a short video showing a bit of planet surfaces, approaching a planet, and finally the small issue I mentioned in Crossfire during hyperspace jumps.
[video=youtube;_8kdljNKKqM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8kdljNKKqM[/video]
I am sorry if this post is a bit disorganized, but I hope that it can help some of you guys to get the best quality out of Elite. If you have any questions, let me know!!!
Last edited:
Launcher file. Then I just set Crossfire to Optimize 1x1 and I was off to the races. Did the same thing before upgrading to W10, so it should work on 8.1 as well.
