Started By techdude01, Apr 11 2015 05:32 PM
NOTICE: This version of the guide/thread is the final version that shall be made available. I am no longer playing TERA Online. Thank you to everyone who has supported me with your words and kindness during my time here.
Sources Clarification: As techdude01 and the author of this guide, I do my best to attribute the sources that I have used. This guide is currently undergoing an overhaul to prepare for the influx of people in July. By that time, I hope to have all ORIGINAL sources properly attributed whenever possible, otherwise secondary surviving sources will be attributed and linked to both directly and via archival for posterity.
Permission for Use: I, techdude01 of the TeraToday forums, hereby grant any individual person a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use this guide for any PERSONAL non-commercial use. I also hereby grant any individual or legal entity full permission to translate this guide into any other languages on condition that they provide a link back to this original source. So feel free to translate this guide for any non-commercial purpose, you don't have to wait on asking me. I reserve the right to change these permissions for any future updates to the guide at any point in the future but this does not revoke permission granted to prior versions of this guide.
ShortURL for this post: http://www.tinyurl.com/teratechguide
INDEX
1 - **START HERE General Computer Tweaks **START HERE**
2 - Port Forwarding Guide to reduce network latency
3 - KTERA ini file analysis
4 - Continued file analysis & downloadable S1Engine INI -- Laptop S1Engine.ini linked here -- Audio/Music Fix Here
5 - Unreal Engine command line arguments & tips
6 - CPU Core Unparking & Explanations
7 - Some more Tera-Specific in-game tested tweaks
8 - Bypass Intro Videos for Performance
9 - My UI Modding Thread
10 - Fix your FOV (Field of View) and Tera Chat Font Info Thread
11 - My own personal Tera Chat Font GFxUI.usa has this information for easy reference
12 - What is ExampleGame.INT and do I need to worry about it? (No, you dont)
13 - Loriri's Korean Guide & Theorycrafting Translations
Archived ToDo:
I have no plans to finish any of these for the forseeable future. If you really want to know why, then check my signature.
-Add in information to the relevant S1Engine.ini download that you need to change the Screenshots directory to the one on your system; I will look into using global variables to perhaps automate this process rather than require manual tweaks. Info added; automation not feasible
-UI Mod reorganization & thread overhaul
-Reorganization & overhaul of the line-by-line analysis with proper links in certain spots to the original sources (sources are linked but they're scattered about on various posts I've made on the forums).
-Adding in proper source information to the first post as well.
-Expanding the guide with some additional general-tweak information that helps more than just TERA
-Make a Tera Chat Font Guide that works with the French client/alphabet
-Clarify/Add in my specific in-game settings & other UI tweaks in-game
-Add in link to guide on Vsync & Triple Buffering & why you use BOTH or NEITHER, not just one
Changelog (+ added ;; - removed ;; ~ changed):
Thread Last Updated @ July 25th of 2015 @ 16:44 UTC-5
July 25, 2015 (Really Final Version of Guide, for reals now)
+Linked to Laptop S1Engine INI that was already posted in thread but buried among many other posts
+Linked to new post on fixing audio/music (especially ambient effects and interface sounds) if using my Downloadable S1Engine.ini
July 10, 2015 (FINAL VERSION OF GUIDE - No more updates after this - Check my signature if you want to know why)
~Updated the downloadable S1Engine.ini to include what I am personally using. You can use the diffnow website to check the differences if you like.
~Slight edit to Post #4 with some additional info on 0.25x values being safe for really low-end systems.
June 30, 2015
+Added Korean guide & spreadsheet translated by Loriri @ TeraToday.
June 27, 2015
+Permission for use and sources clarification
June 2, 2015
+Post 2 (latency guide) now has a one-picture visual reference for those who don't care about the details in the EME forum link.
May 27, 2015
+Post 4 now has Important Note with updated testing & attribution for help from Idi0ticGenius of these TeraToday forums.
+Post 38
+Todo for French Font Fix/Tweak
+Todo for in-game settings & UI tweaks in-game
+Todo for Vsync & Triple Buffering guide link/explanation
May 26, 2015
+Post 1 has a Changelog & ToDo now
+Posts 32, 33, and 34 in this thread
~Post 1 edited slightly to add in spoiler tags
~Post 2 edited slightly for spacing and a bit of clarity
~Post 17 edited slightly for spacing & clarity
Between April 11th and May 26th
+Tons of info added
~Tons of info changed
-Some info removed
Too much to list here, don't worry about the details :)
April 11th, 2015
+Tons of info and first post
Intro:
I had posted this originally on the official NA Aion Online forums. So I'm reposting it here along with an archived(https://archive.is/ApfKF) mirror cause NcSoft is derpy.
I edited the post to remove info that was not necessary to leave in, even as a strikethrough. I no longer play Aion Online cause hacker-kids using AionScript hacktool have ruined all PvP aspects of it for me. Also zerg vs zerg gankfests aren't all that fun.
I also edited a few Aion-specific in-jokes so that a non-Aion audience could relate to it :)
All of the content in this FIRST POST written below is my own creation. Redistribution without permission is NOT allowed. Please let me know if you see this guide anywhere other than the following authorized locations: TeraToday; Aion Online forums. If you aren't a forum member (why not?) send me an e-mail to: spammeplease---AT---caramail---DOT---com.
Note on Avira Antivirus Free:
Avira Antivirus is no longer anywhere near(https://www.avira.com/en/avira-searchfree-toolbar) as digustingly(http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2335139) bad/evil as it used to be(https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/blocked/i600). It seems the backlash and outrage actually changed their minds and they pulled a 180 in retracting everything wrong with their Free Antivirus. I'm surprised they didn't get rid of it completely (which would've also solved the issue) but I figure the backlash on THAT would've been even worse.
By default the install doesn't give you options on where to install or anything, BUT it doesn't install anything extra. You have to manually install extra components by clicking the system tray icon and clicking the 'install' thing when hovering over one of the icons. There's little to no way to 'accidentally' click it.
Their toolbar is under 'Browser Safety' and can be completely removed also if you don't want it.
The 'SpeedUp', 'AntiTheft', and 'Identity Guard' are 30-day trials. The SpeedUp only does it's thing once and I'm hesitant to actually try it out for myself. Lots of Snake Oil garbage once you know how to do it manually.
Don't put a password on Avira itself, just keep a strong Windows User Account password at least 12+ characters in length with at least one special symbol on the upper row of the QWERTY layout USA keyboard like !@#$%^&*
If you do put a password on certain parts of Avira, the right-click 'Manage Antivirus' thing won't work at all. You'll have to click the icon then click 'Open' manually. So easiest thing is just don't worry about that 'feature'.
Note on Flame Malware:
No longer an issue, thankfully, but always be vigilent and keep several layers of security at all times as well as regular computer backups. The advice to not auto-install Windows Updates still remains and I follow the advice of security professionals(http://www.askwoody.com/automatic-updates/) when possible. That guy isn't ALWAYS right but he does give good advice on Windows Updates.
The Easy Fix-It Guide for 99% of Gaming Issues
I'd make a flowchart but my MsPaint skills suck so meh.
Don't take any 'bad' option seriously. Humor helps people remember things. Laugh a little. :)
A computer is like an automobile and requires proper knowledge, tools, and maintenance in order to perform at peak efficiency. If you lack such knowledge, please consult someone who is tech-saavy enough to know what to do. If you regularly like to randomly do mechanic work on your automobile without a clue or yank wires out of your electrical sockets just for the hell of it, please shut down your computer and have a fantastic day outdoors.
For the sake of brevity, I'm assuming you have a good antivirus/antimalware and firewall already set up and properly configured. Built-in Windows firewall works wonders, nothing else really needed for firewall software. If you use another firewall you gotta disable the Windows one.
Security issues are a whole 'nother can of worms. Quick thing on there is avoid anything McAffee, Norton, Symantec. Good antivirus is Avira, Avast or AVG. Good antimalware is MalwareBytes and SpyBot Search & Destroy (feel free to use more than one at the same time, they don't conflict with each other).
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1 - **START HERE General Computer Tweaks **START HERE**
***BEGIN HERE***
--->1 - Are you running a desktop or notebook/tablet/non-desktop computing device?
a - I'm running a desktop. YAY!. Please go to #2
b - I'm not on a desktop for w/e reason. Go to #3
--->2 - Congratulations on getting the best bang for your buck! Desktops are much easier to clean, repair, upgrade, and have the least issues and best video driver support when gaming (on average)! Give yourself a pat on the back! Now choose which option you fall into below.
a - I bought my desktop from Walmart/Target and got whatever was cheap. I fail miserably and got ripped off. I will uninstall whatever 3D game I want to play and go play some Facebook browser games instead because I am too stupid to learn about computers or do proper research before buying electronics. I will make amends and learn to use internet search and the wealth of internet information in the future. I will make the time to improve myself instead of whining like a moron about how unfair life is. FISSION MAILED, STOP HERE!
b - I did proper research and looked at specs while also asking other knowledgeable computer people about what is best (MicroCenter employees are great for this, mostly) for my gaming needs. I made sure my desktop should run most modern 3D games without issues and I made sure I do NOT have a crappy Intel/whatever integrated graphics card with shared video memory. I verified this through internet research and running a program on my computer that tells me exactly what brand/specs of various hardware I have installed. Please proceed to #4
--->3 - So you're either on a netbook (yuck) or (hopefully) a decent laptop. Brand doesn't matter and Alienware tends to be a very hefty premium for something you could have done yourself (or by your local computer geek store) for about half price or lower. With that said this assumes you're using a laptop. If you're using a netbook, stop here and go play browser games instead. You'll be lucky if you can even watch YouTube videos with that crappy cheap thing.
a - I bought my laptop from Walmart/Target and got whatever was cheap because I am too stupid to do proper research on electronics before purchase. I fail miserably and got ripped off. I will uninstall whatever 3D game I want to play and go play some browser games instead of wasting everyone's time with tech issues. FISSION MAILED, STOP HERE!
b - I did proper research and looked at specs while also asking other knowledgeable computer people about what is best (MicroCenter employees are great for this) for my gaming needs. I made sure my laptop should run most modern 3D games without issues and I made sure I do NOT have a crappy Intel/whatever integrated graphics card with shared video memory. I also made sure that I know how to clean out my laptop regularly to get rid of dust/hair and I know my laptop doesn't overheat and auto-shutdown when playing 3D games. Please proceed to #5
--->4 - You are on a desktop, you do not have a crappy integrated graphics card but are using a real dedicated graphics card and you have run one or more programs to determine the exact specifications of the hardware on your computer. If you lack the time or patience to learn how to do any of this, you know someone who will take care of all this for free (or a nominal fee) and they have already done so. Please proceed to #6
--->5 - You are on a laptop, you do not have a crappy integrated graphics card but are using a real dedicated mobile graphics card and you have run one or more programs to determine the exact specifications of the hardware on your computer. If you lack the time or patience to learn how to do any of this, you know someone who will take care of all this for free (or a nominal fee) and they have already done so. Especially in the case of laptops, you have disabled any/all of the 'power saving' options on your computer so you don't encounter random 'freezes' or 'lag' during gameplay. Please proceed to #6
--->6 - Do all of the following or ask your knowledgeable computer person to do it for you. You were smart enough to get detailed hardware stats on everything you have so you know exactly who made each piece of hardware in your computer.
-Update your DirectX drivers direct from Microsoft. Manually type in www.microsoft.com and then go from there. Search around in the 'Download Center'. If it looks too confusing then ask someone to help you find it. Maybe use your favorite search engine to find things easier.
-Update your video card's graphic drivers from your respective manufacturer. Do NOT use any 3rd-party or customized drivers unless you have the technical knowledge to troubleshoot any issues yourself. My experience has been that using official Nvidia/ATI graphics drivers works better than using the 'customized' ones that various OEM (3rd party) manufacturers release. For example, MSI makes Nvidia graphic cards but their drivers are really out of date after a few months. They don't care or bother to update them at all and you miss out on performance and bugfixes.
-Update your motherboard drivers.
--DO NOT update your BIOS unless you can troubleshoot any resulting issues yourself. BIOS updates generally only help if you are already having issues with RAM/memory compatibility or weird hardware-related errors. For the most part you're fine with what you have. BIOS updates may cause MORE issues later on because computer stuff is weird like that. Follow the mantra 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' when it comes to BIOS updates.
-DO NOT set Windows to update automatically. Yes, seriously. The vast majority of Windows Updates will NOT help your computer issues and may cause MORE issues for you now or in the future! Get someone tech-saavy to read through each update and determine whether it will actually benefit you or not.
-Go to the Black Viper Windows tech website(http://www.blackviper.com/) and configure your computer properly. This is best done on a 'clean' OS install but you can also do this on an existing computer. Disable unneeded and unnecessary Windows services. Disable System Restore and Remote Desktop. Dump that stupid 'Indexing Service'. If you can't figure out the information or need help, ASK SOMEONE IN PERSON THAT YOU KNOW who is tech-saavy to show you how to do it or do it for you.
-So you've got the best damn computer around, configured and updated and everything!
Now you get to BACK IT UP and make a 'system image' of the entire thing so you don't LOSE it when a nasty virus or something manages to get through your security software and wreck things. You can use the built-in Windows Backup in Windows 7 to do this if you like. Just make sure you have a Windows 7 install USB/DVD so that you can restore if your computer is unbootable.
-Congratulations! You've just solved 99% of gaming issues by following this guide! If you continue to have issues, please feel free to post in the Tech forum here, thanks!
The computer analogy is fairly congruent with a similar transportation analogy. If I need to go to work then I have several choices:
-I can drive to work in a car (gaming PC desktop) that is at least $10K+ for a decent one; financed with monthly payments or w/e. Thankfully real decent gaming PCs can now be had for under $800 if you search for good deals. Even cheaper if you no-life enough online to find the flash deals in time (or buy used from others).
-I can drive to work on a motorcycle (overpriced 'gaming' laptop) that is usually cheaper than a car, has very bare-minimum features, but has much more mobility.
-I can drive to work on a scooter (standard 'non-gaming' laptop) that is much cheaper than other options but is unable to legally be driven on a U.S. highway where the speed limit is usually 55 miles per hour.
-I can travel to work on a bike (junky old PCs either from GoodWill or the junkyard or used electronics stores) that will severely impact my ability to get to work on time unless I live very close to work or work very hard to plan ahead.
-I can walk to work (using a computer at the local library or school) which is pretty much 'free' but is the slowest possible method of travel.
Most people are yelling at tech people because their scooter or bike won't run as fast or as efficiently as a car. We have to be nice enough to explain to them that no matter what software-configuration they do, the entire thing is pretty much useless (except maybe the hard drive).
Now with that analogy, do you see how silly people can be?
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2 - Port Forwarding Guide to reduce network latency
So I found this guide on the EME forums. It will be archived here(https://archive.is/FwH9N) for posterity (use scrollbar at the bottom of page to see the full archived post).
I've made a handy 'picture is worth a thousand words' visual reference HERE(https://anony.ws/i/2015/06/02/TeraOnlinePortForwarding.png). Hope it helps ^_^
Spoiler Hide
Doing the port-forwarding myself, my latency went from ~90 ms to ~60 ms(http://anony.ws/i/2015/05/15/tera-network.png). Not bad at all O_O.
Just one issue with the guide is the whole 'bandwidth routing' crap that not every router has. Don't bother with that as it only takes effect if you have QoS rules enabled on your router. And if you don't know what that is, get someone techy to handle it so you don't break things.
I also used 'Application Forwarding' in my router instead of Port Fowarding so if you have that option, it is often a better choice since you don't need to specify a remote IP address (which may change over time).
I didn't realize that the game had such bad net coding that it didn't automatically forward whatever ports it needed in an efficient way.
The TERA Launcher is going to cause you a great deal of additional latency as it seems to open up at least 20+ connections when launching the game. Just close it after you launch the game and ignore the stupid error that pops up when you exit about 'You must keep the launcher open'. Stupid EME. >_>
Mind you this is all on Tempest Reach, your mileage may vary (YMMV) and such. I'm somewhat disappointed that they didn't use port 9001 instead of 10001 but it still works :)
There's a clear difference between network latency (lag) and low fps (stuttering/etc). Please don't be THAT person(https://archive.is/1TxOa) that confuses the two.
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3 - KTERA ini file analysis
The KTERA INI file tweaks are mirrored here(http://www.mediafire.com/download/vbs27ynrdi8a5re/KTERA+Ini+Files.7z) with permission from MyseriousFPS.
The original thread is located here(http://forum.teratoday.com/topic/846-ktera-fps-tweaks-w-ini-file/) and was created by MyseriousFPS using sources from the KTERA boards.
Some of the analysis of what certain INI file lines do came from sources here(http://guidescroll.com/2012/02/tera-online-ini-performance-tweaks-guide/), here(http://tera-online-guides.blogspot.com/2012/10/tweaking-tera-onlines-game-performance.html), and here(http://tera-online-guides.blogspot.com/2013/05/full-break-down-of-s1engineini.html).
I elaborated on the outdated info, tested it out on the current client, and did some tweaking of my own. Certain INI values were used from the KTERA 1G Nvidia file and you can easily compare my downloaded file to any of the KTERA files if you want to learn exactly what is different using the DIFF website linked below.
I'm using diffnow.com to compare these files to my own and see what differences there are. I'm using an Nvidia card for reference.
I'm going to use the Nvidia files for doing all the analyzing. Source for certain info is here(http://guidescroll.com/2012/02/tera-online-ini-performance-tweaks-guide/) (not the original source).
From what I've analyzed, these INI files are very amateurish and can be somewhat dangerous since the original Korean authors of them didn't seem to have any clue on how the Unreal Engine works. Oh Korea, y u so silly...
-The difference between the Nvidia and AMD versions are two simple things(https://www.diffnow.com/?report=x8t4i). That's it.
-The 'Tera Basic PC' and the 'Nvidia 1G' files are exactly identical. Be careful if your GPU is AMD!
-The differences between 'Nvidia 1G' and 'Nvidia 2G' files are a few minor changes(https://www.diffnow.com/?report=05uzk). Some of those changes are things I don't agree with.
I wasn't aware of changing the PackageSizeSoftLimit so that's new. I knew of the PoolSize tweak, but MemoryMargin is new.
The PoolSize one was posted way back in 2012/2013 on some PasteBin that I forget the link of. It was posted anonymously without attribution so meh.
The changes I don't agree with are the LoD changes. TERA's LoD by default is pretty odd (going closer makes it look worse instead of better) and it has been mentioned elsewhere(http://guidescroll.com/2012/02/tera-online-ini-performance-tweaks-guide/) about those issues.
I've also been informed that certain INI values are automatically overwritten by the Tera EXE so changing them doesn't really help much, this includes those LoD values. Also the Nvidia 2G file has 'AllowD3D11=True' twice. Oops :P
-The differences between 'Nvidia 2G' and 'Nvidia 2G Graphics Up' are also minimal(https://www.diffnow.com/?report=rlz1t) and some are a bit nonsensical/wierd. According to my source and Unreal Engine 3 documentation, setting LoD 4 actually REDUCES graphics rather than improves them. If they wanted to max it out, the correct setting is -1. The other changes are the usual LoD texture increases. Dynamic shadows and Distortion are enabled. MaxAnsiotropy is set to max (16). D3D10 is set to false, but D3D11 is set to true. Uh sure, ok then.
-The differences between 'Nvidia 3G' and 'Nvidia 3G Graphics Up' seem to mirror(https://www.diffnow.com/?report=pf80y) those of the 2G series. The Nvidia 3G file has the same issue with D3D11=True being set twice. Same LoD bias errors, same LoD increases; main difference is that CPUNumLogicalProcessers is set to 8 instead of 4. This is pretty dangerous to do as not everyone has 8 cores and doing so will likely DECREASE performance rather than increasing it. I remember a tweak in PCSX2 PS2 emulator that was similar to this where you could specify using X number of logical processors for software rendering (on the CPU only). Setting a higher value there actually was useful to a point. I don't believe the Unreal Engine works in the same way though. It is better to set your command line argument to -USEALLAVAILABLECORES and keep the INI file thing to only the number of cores your processor has (or leave it out altogether).
-The minor one-line difference between 'Nvidia 3G' and 'Nvidia 3G - i7' make me chuckle(https://www.diffnow.com/?report=toy5j). Not only does the i7 file have the same double D3D11 error but it only changes the CPUNumLogicalProcessors value to 8 instead of 4. So the '3G Graphics Up' already includes the tweak in the i7 file. How confusing.
-Differences between 'Nvidia 2G' and 'Nvidia 3G' are 3 lines(https://www.diffnow.com/?report=0fkgu). They increase the values of PackageSizeSoftLimit, PoolSize, and MemoryMargin.
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So FINALLY, now the grand finale. How does the 3G Graphics Up file compare(https://www.diffnow.com/?report=j6mwk) to my own? Let's find out how my specs hold up.
I'm using an AMD Phenom II X4 840 (Quad-Core) with an Nvidia GTX 560 Ti.
-They don't have bAllowMatureLanguage enabled.
-I forced bigger fonts because squinting sucks
-TessellationAdaptivePixelsPerTriangle ; was unaware of this being a thing; from what I can find the higher the value the more 'blocky' textures and objects look. I'll have to add this one into my INI file as well.
-MaxPixelShaderOpaqueComplexityCount and MaxVertexShaderComplexityCount being bumped up slightly.
-bOnScreenKismetWarnings is something I disabled. You should too. It is less stuff for the UI to process and discard if it is disabled completely. These warnings relate to the Physics engine in Unreal Engine called 'Kismet'. It is a dev option and shouldn't even be enabled by default.
-The MipMaps FadeIn and FadeOut are new. That might be useful to mess around with :)
-Another error in the 3G Nvidia file that has bDisablePhysXHardwareSupport=True; WRONG WRONG WRONG! For Nvidia it should be FALSE for better performance! You only set this to TRUE if you have an AMD or Intel Graphics Card!
-I have several tweaks that they don't have for MaxFluidNumVerts being lower, FluidSimulationTimeLimit having a higher limit (both of these disable some fancy water effects for better FPS increase without noticeable image quality drop). I also used my source and set MaxParticleResize and MaxParticleResizeWarn as well as bCheckParticleRenderSize to values that are optimal to mitigate the issues of low FPS with a lot of skill spam going around. The NetClientTicksPerSecond value is something I have to force an update from the server more often than normal for lower latency.
-bEnableOnScreenDebugMessages=FALSE and bEnableOnScreenDebugMessagesDisplay=FALSE are to remove more hidden UI crap that doesn't affect us and should increase UI performance. We aren't debugging so the less it processes the better.
-The three EngineISVHacks are set the opposite of what they should be in the 3G file. Guess they copy/pasted from their AMD version and didn't update it hmm? Oopsie..lol.
-bClearAnimSetLinkupCachesOnLoadMap=True and bClearAnimSetLinkupCachesMap=True are DANGEROUS! I don't know why the fuck these stupid morons put these in the file! According to my source, they cause major playability issues with animations and player/vehicle/npc models when set to True. This kind of shit is why I always caution against such 'drop in easy fix' solutions to complex problems.
-CacheSizeMegs being there is useful. I can't believe I forgot to add this in during my INI tweaks earlier. I was already aware of it and THOUGHT it was already there. Ah well, good thing I checked it out. I'd recommend setting to 512 instead of 256 but you should do your own testing of this value depending on your GPU.
-On my system, smoothing the framerate helps me. You have to test this out for yourself to see how it works for you. Disabling this won't increase your FPS but it will make things less 'smooth' and possibly cause Vsync issues with screen-tearing; at least that's what I experienced when this was disabled.
-I increased MaxClientRate to let them know I'm not on crappy cheap internet. Should help with latency.
-I greatly increased my 'StaleCache' and 'OverallCache' sizes so that I get better performance. This value being increased works best if TERA is installed on an SSD (though you will wear it the hell out since MMOs are file-access whores).
-ScreenshotPath, duh. Tried to comment out the Suppress things when I was trying to enable the Unreal Engine console (but naturally it didn't work).
-MinDesiredFramerate to match my monitor's 60Hz. AllowJoystickInput since I play with a Logitech F310 controller (that is Xinput compatible).
-More Internet/LAN speed tweaks for lower latency.
-Precache and Reserving channels for audio are new. Might mess around with those. Using on-board hardware audio rendering might help too; nice catch there.
-Yet more internet latency tweaks (see how many damn values/sections are related to this? Come on Unreal, ffs).
-MaxResidentMipMap is a helpful tweak I found online, either at source or elsewhere in the Unreal Engine 3 documentation.
-MemoryMargin and MinEvictSize are new. Will have to test these.
-The various 'limit' values are from that anonymous PasteBin thing I found online a while back.
-More MipMap tweaks.
-AllowStreamingLightmaps=False and TextureFileCacheBulkDataAlignment=1 are new; will have to test these out.
-Increased Loading Pause because....reasons I guess?
-FOVAngle doesn't matter. This only affects their Dev version of the Unreal Editor and doesn't affect anything in-game. Setting FOV is already in another thread on these forums.
-I don't believe those DevOptionShaders tweaks will do anything for us. The tweaks are something I should test later on.
-I did some LiveSock tweaks for lower latency on my end.
-I didn't touch CustomStats at all so that is stuff they removed (for some reason). I don't know why the 3G file removed these lines or if it makes a difference. Needs more testing.
-The entire MemLeakCheckExtraExecsToRun seems new. Needs some testing but looks like good tweaks to do.
-Smaller MemoryPools since my card only has 1 GB of space.
-I added in several SystemSettings of my own that the Unreal Documentation and my source had mentioned. The DecalCullDistanceScale isn't necessary to have but you can put it in if you want. I wouldn't recommend setting Decals to 0 since many boss attacks use Dynamic Decals.
-Too many in this section but you can look at the differences for yourself. They disable PostProcessingAA effects globally (in-game Anti Aliasing basically) which isn't completely needed since you can disable FXAA with another line anyways.
-They set their in-game resolution to 1366 by 768 (and this is supposed to be their max settings file). Oops.
-TesselationDistance is new. Should be a useful tweak to do if value is decreased as needed.
-I already did 'ForceCPUAccesstoGPUSkinInverts' earlier and I recommend this to be TRUE so that your CPU has the data it needs as fast as the GPU renders it. I'm not sure about SkeletalInstanceWeights but I wouldn't mess with that or other Skeleton-model tweaks.
-My LoDs are way too big. Need to cut them by 75% at least >_<
-I have FXAA to True. It makes things look nice & less aliased. If you're struggling for performance set this to FALSE.
-We recently received d3dx11_43.dll and d3dx10_41.dll in our Client Binaries directory for the Arcane Engineer patch. I'm hoping the Unreal Engine finally uses DX10 or DX11, hence why I enabled it in my S1Engine file.
-SpeedTreeLeaves because why not. Same idea as Branches/Trees.
-Destructible physics tweak for better FPS in-game when breaking barrels and other stuff during a dungeon run.
-Different audio settings, because reasons.
-INI version should be whatever the game sets it as; usually updated every Patch Tuesday as needed.
-AppCompat is based on my system. I have a better CPU than they did apparently.
OVERALL I'd say they introduced me to a few Unreal Engine tweaks I wasn't aware of, but the amateurish way they did certain things (DX11 twice) and the dangerous ClearAnim tweaks makes me give these INI files an overall THUMBS DOWN.
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4 - Continued file analysis & downloadable S1Engine INI
So I'll post my personal S1Engine.ini file along with what I did and why in 'comments' per line.
Easy? Easy. I have an Nvidia GTX 560 Ti with 1 GB of GDDR5 video RAM so I'll put in comments if you have a better card or an ATI card.
You can also just copy/paste it and do a comparison with your own existing S1Engine.ini file and see what the differences are for yourself.
My analysis posted previously will only be archived for a year. Should be enough time :)
Let's get started. I put everything on the DIFF site and archived it here. I'll explain the changes by using Line Numbers that correspond to MyCustom-S1Engine file on that DIFF website. Have it open in a browser tab so you can follow along!
Be mindful of the GPU-specific tweaks that I marked and adjust for your system. You'll want to get your GPU and CPU info so that you have an idea of how high/low the values should be. Much of this will have to be testing for your own specific system; there is no easy drop-in solution for everyone; it requires testing & time/patience.
If I spent over 4 hours compiling all these guides, the least anyone can do is take the time to read them (or persuade/bribe/pay someone else in person to do it for their computer setup). All I would ask for is a simple 'thanks' or a like. Whatever works.
If you aren't sure what specs your computer has you can easily find out
In Windows 7: Start Menu --> All Programs --> Accessories --> System Tools --> System Information
Or you can also just go to Start Menu --> Run --> msinfo32.exe
For finding out how much GPU RAM you have, in the System Information Tool, it is under Components --> Display --> Adapter RAM
22 = Disable censorship of profanity in chat
30, 31, and 34 = Force larger fonts to reduce eye strain
65 = Tesselation tweak to improve performance
83 to 85 = Shader tweaks to improve performance (divisible by base 16 instead of base 10)
99 = Kismet tweak related to Physics & UI debugging. Don't ever need this enabled unless you're the TERA devs
111 to 114 = MipMap tweaks for performance/quality
**GPU SPECIFIC** 115 = Set to FALSE if on Nvidia; Set to TRUE on any others
118 and 119 = Water/fluid physics vertices
120-123 = Particle effect sizes and tweaks; related to nearly any player/enemy skill effects and environmental effects
128 and 129 = Additional tweaks to prevent debug info from cluttering memory
**GPU SPECIFIC** 137 = Set to FALSE if on ATI; Set to TRUE on any others
**GPU SPECIFIC** 138 = Set to FALSE if on Nvidia; Set to TRUE on any others
142 to 144 = Framerate smoothing; adjust to whatever you like, but my values of 58 min and 62 max tend to give me the best performance
**GPU SPECIFIC** 145 = Size of overal texture cache; should be no more than 50% of your GPU's on-board GDDR5 RAM
**GPU SPECIFIC** 181-183 = Try to multiply these values by how many GB of on-board GDDR5 RAM your GPU has. Please see updates at bottom of this post. The values I have set should work with nearly any discrete GPU card
244 = Just set it to match the Hz setting of your monitor. Most people have 60Hz monitors so set this to 60. There's an issue with Windows sometimes showing 59 when it should be 59.999765 or so; don't worry about that and just use 60
269 and 270 = Precache of audio isn't necessary; you want your textures to be loaded instead; Reserve at least 2 audio channels so that audio is always able to be heard when in-game without overlapping issues from other applications
275 = Use your on-board motherboard audio hardware instead of emulation in software; using software audio means more strain on your CPU
306 = MipMap performance tweak
**GPU SPECIFIC** 307 = Texture Pool Size tweak ; Try to multiply these values by how many GB of on-board GDDR5 RAM your GPU has. Please see updates at bottom of this post. The values I have set should work with nearly any discrete GPU card
**GPU SPECIFIC** 308 = GPU Memory tweak; Try to multiply these values by how many GB of on-board GDDR5 RAM your GPU has. Please see updates at bottom of this post. The values I have set should work with nearly any discrete GPU card
**GPU SPECIFIC** 309 to 313 = More GPU & Texture Memory tweaks; Try to multiply these values by how many GB of on-board GDDR5 RAM your GPU has. Please see updates at bottom of this post. The values I have set should work with nearly any discrete GPU card
318 and 319 = More MipMap tweaks; reduces MipMap display delay
320 = This value should always be set to TRUE for best performance
321 = Lightmaps are simplified and don't need to be streamed; save texturestreaming for other textures
322 = Align Texture File Cache data so that it is organized by location for faster access instead of FIFO (first in first out) order
331, 332, and 337 = Custom random tweaks I'm experimenting with to figure out some UI things; just leave these all as TRUE
405 to 407 = On-the-fly shader compilation tweaks for performance; If you don't have at least a dual-core CPU then don't add these lines in at all
551 to 559 = Memory leak garbage collection through the Unreal Engine; may impact performance slightly in exchange for being able to go longer without having to restart the client due to things being sluggish
**SYSTEM SPECIFIC** 590 and 591 = Related to texture memory pools; these values should be 25% of your total system RAM (not counting on-board GDDR5 GPU RAM). Since I have eight GB of RAM in my system, I set this to 2048 (or 2 GB); be sure to use multiples of 512 (half a GB) or 1024 (one GB) when setting these values.
594 = Radial Blur is a post-processing graphical effect; Set this to FALSE for performance
595 = Related to how light interacts with skin on characters and other surfaces; Set to FALSE for performance
596 = HighPolyChars increases the polygon count visible by default for Player Characters; Set to FALSE for performance
597 = LightShafts are stuff like 'GodRays' from the sun when you're looking at it through branches; Set to FALSE for performance
598 and 599 = DO NOT SET THESE TO FALSE; many boss attacks and player skills use decals so you won't be able to see aggro circles & such if these are disabled; many bad 'tweak guides' disable these; don't fall for it!
600 = Set Decals to only be culled (removed) if they aren't in your visible range; you can set this to 0.5 or other values if you want to experiment but it is recommended to leave it at 1.000000
602 and 603 = Removes some shadows; greatly improves performance if these are set to FALSE; leave these to TRUE only if you have a hefty GPU with at least 3 GB of on-board GDDR5 RAM.
604 = Setting this to FALSE is the same as doing 'Low Performance Lighting' in the game options; leave this as TRUE unless you're struggling for performance as the game will look very ugly/dark otherwise.
606 and 607 = More motion blur, cause I like it. Set to FALSE for Performance
608 = Making the background all fuzzy (Depth of Field) when your camera is focused on close-up stuff; Set to FALSE for Performance but will look more jaggy
609 = Ambient Occulsion is related to shadows; TERA doesn't have it programmed properly so just set this to FALSE; consult another online guide for how to override the crappy AO in TERA and use SweetFX or something to make it look better.
610 = Bloom effects, makes it all soft-focus around bright lights and sunlight; Set to FALSE for performance but will look plainer
611 = Doesn't make any noticeable difference; Set to FALSE for performance
612 = When you look at the desert areas or at a campfire through the smoke, the 'Distortion' is what that does; Set to FALSE for performance
613 = Drops Particle Distortion related to skill particle effects and environmental effects; Set to TRUE for performance but test this in your dungeon runs so you make sure you can still see boss effects on the ground
614 and 615 = I moved both of these to line 702 and removed the existing duplicate I had; oops ^_^ (corrected in downloadable version)
617 = Lens Flares when looking at the Sun; Set FALSE for performance
618 = No visible difference by disabling this; Set to FALSE for performance
**CPU AND GPU SPECIFIC** 620 and 621 = Set OneFrameThreadLag to TRUE if your CPU is your bottleneck; Set FALSE if GPU is bottleneck; Set OneFrameGPULag to the opposite value of whatever OneFrameThreadLag is set to.
622 = I like Vsync but you can set this FALSE here
**GPU SPECIFIC** 625 = Combined with the -D3D11 command line option, this (hopefully) uses DirectX 11 features in TERA for better performance; needs more testing
**GPU SPECIFIC** 626 = Set this to TRUE only if your GPU/system doesn't support DirectX 11 features; Otherwise set to FALSE by default
**GPU SPECIFIC** 627, 628 and 630 = LoD Bias settings ; -1 is best quality and 4 is worst quality but highest performance
**GPU SPECIFIC** 631 and 632 = Anisotropy and Multisampling settings; Unreal Engine Multisampling is very poor but Anisotropy can be set here if you have a great GPU that can handle it; just leave Multisampling to zero but set Anisotropy to values like 2, 4, 8, or 16 for better image quality at the cost of performance
633 to 637 = Shadow quality tweaks
640 = PostProcess Anti Aliasing; Set to 0 for performance
643 = Controls grass & bushes; Set to 0 for performance; does the same thing as Foliage Slider in the game options
644 = Shadow quality tweak; Set to 0 to disable shadows for performance
647 to 651 = More shadow tweaks
661 = CPU performance tweak
662 = Leave this at FALSE or don't put it in the INI file at all (Default is FALSE)
**GPU SPECIFIC** 663 to 698 = LoD (level of detail) tweaks; You can customize this by changing MaxLODSize to higher/lower values and LoDBias to anywhere from -1 (best quality) to 4 (worst quality); The 'Lighting' versions should be one step 'below' what the corresponding LoDBias is. If TextureGroup World is LoD 0, then Light_TextureGroup World should be LoD 1 (one step worse). Feel free to increase MaxLODSize values and tweak LoDBias to better quality if you have a great GPU
699 = FXAA aka Full Screen Anti Aliasing; a quick & dirty method of anti aliasing that sometimes causes issues with reading nameplates since it blurs everything; blurring on text can be mitigated with the Tera Font Tweak and my Font Size tweaks in the S1Engine INI file. After using my tweaks I have no issues with font blurring with FXAA enabled
700 to 703 = SpeedTree stuff. Make sure it is all set to TRUE otherwise you'll mess up trees/branches/leaves/etc. You CAN set these all to FALSE for performance if you really want to, but it is very minimal impact anyways.
705 and 706 = Reduce these values so you get less breakables debris flying around and get better performance
726 and 727 = My own personal tweaks to improve performance but you can leave it at default
730 to 754 = Customize sounds a bit more than you can in-game; Vehicles = Mounts
794 = Add in this line and set it to the number of cores you have in your CPU; You may experiment with setting this higher than your number of cores but you may experience issues if you do so. Set 2 for dual-core, 4 for quad-core, etc
And that's all, folks! PHEW! My S1Engine INI file is available for download HERE(http://www.mediafire.com/download/0ng7bhe5b9dx5nx/TechDude-S1Engine-Jul10-2015.7z). (Updated as of July 10th, 2015).
Just be sure you modify things for your system, especially if you are on an ATI graphics setup. The password is my username on these forums.
UPDATE: Please make sure you change your 'ScreenShots' directory to the one matching your system. Automating this ended up with some odd glitches, so change it manually before using it. Screenshots will NOT work until you update the directory with the one matching your system/username.
IMPORTANT NOTE: I've modified my recommendations on GPU/CPU Specific Values; many awesome thanks on testing from Idi0ticGenius on these forums!
For laptop or systems weaker than my own, use 0.5x (half) my values. If those aren't helpful enough, try 0.25 my values
For 1G GPU with roughly equal CPU than mine, use my values
For 2G GPU with slightly better CPU than mine, use 1.5x my values
For 3G GPU with significantly better CPU than mine, use 2x my values
Any values over 2x are NOT supported and have a very high chance of randomly crashing TERA.
Some additional helpful tweaks.
Unreal Engine 3 command line arguments(http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/CommandLineArguments.html). In Windows, right click the Tera Online shortcut that you use to launch the game, then add these arguments to the end of the Target box.
My 'Target' Line looks like this; truncated for example purposes
"\TERA-Launcher.exe" -USEALLAVAILABLECORES -VSYNC -D3D11 -NOSTEAM
-UseAllAvailableCores if you have a Dual-Core or better to force TERA to use more of your CPU cores
-Vsync if you want to force it on in the engine
-D3D11 to (hopefully) force use of DirectX 11 rendering paths if available
-No Steam to disable Steamworks if you aren't launching from Steam
If you use different game settings depending on PvP, PvE, dungeon runs, etc then you can use the INI file command line overrides to specify an alternate path to specific INIs then just have different shortcuts with these settings rather than having to copy/paste/replace INI files.
PSA: Be careful if you follow what some others have posted(http://forum.teratoday.com/topic/860-the-complete-guide-to-tera-fps-improvement/). Test for yourself(http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/large-address-aware.112556/)! There is still a great deal of outdated information about whether you need to use the 4GB NtCore patcher on the TERA files. There is NO more need(http://anony.ws/i/2015/05/17/LAA-TERA.png) to do this as of at least March when it was hotfixed in during routine maintenance.
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5 - Unreal Engine command line arguments & tips
I've included the most important Nvidia Control Panel Performance Tweaks(http://www.sinisterswarm.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16086):
Set PhysX Configuration > Select your GPU rather than your CPU
Manage 3D Settings > Program Settings > Select the entire TERA Online folder
Maximum Pre-rendered Frame = 3
Power Management = Prefer Maximum Performance
Shader Cache = ON
Texture Filtering Negative LOD Bias = ALLOW
Texture Filtering Quality = High Performance
Texture Filtering Trilinear Optimization = ON
Threaded Optimization = ON (if you have more than one core in your CPU)
Triple Buffering & Vsync = Set these both to ON or OFF together; I recommend setting ON for less screen-tearing issues
Under 'Global Settings' tab, make sure DSR Factors & DSR Smoothness are both OFF unless you know what they do and have a hefty GPU.
Don't have a version of these control panel tweaks for ATI cards, sorry >_<
Critique of another Tera Performance Guide(http://forum.teratoday.com/topic/860-the-complete-guide-to-tera-fps-improvement/).
Figured I'd put it here instead of being all rightous in someone else's thread. Heh ^_^
Much of what I posted is from reading other guides and also testing things myself.
Critique by section:
Intro - No you don't need NotePad++ to do these tweaks. It is useful to have but that's not something you wanna stick in your Performance guide. Keep it simple, ya know.
Scaleform & Nvidia Control Panel - The Nvidia Control Panel fixes are useful but the Scaleform/Adobe ones are not as useful anymore; you don't use the web control with newer versions of flash; they replaced it with a 32-bit flash control panel in the Windows Control Panel on your system. These flash tweaks are placebos and are not recommended. Using the local Flash Control panel will override all these web-based settings anyways. If you're using Chrome (or Chromium) like I am then these settings don't even affect the PPAPI version of the Pepper Flash plugin that is used by those browsers. If TERA does indeed still use the system's flash, it would be the NPAPI version.
Mouse Smoothing - Go to S1Input.ini and bEnableMouseSmoothing=FALSE ; simple and done
KTERA ini files - Amateur work and potentially dangerous; AVOID!
Unlock Framerate - Go to S1Engine.ini and bSmoothFrameRate=FALSE ; may cause stuttering and other issues
Power Management - Almost completely worthless if you're on a Desktop; Laptop users should know this stuff by now but just go to your Windows Power Schemes and choose the one that says ALWAYS ON. Done.
Core Unparking - Again a laptop-specific tweak as I have yet to see any desktops that have core parking enabled. It is best to consult the page itself and read the information(https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/). They don't have a link to the 64-bit version so copy & paste the download link on their page (instead of clicking it) and replace '32' with '64' and then hit enter to download it. Much safer to do it yourself than trust someone else's links to a program. An alternative program is available HERE(http://coderbag.com/Programming-C/CPU-core-parking-manager) as well and is 64-bit only; that is the one that I use personally.
AntiAliasing & SweetFX - Most people consult an 'FPS Improvement' guide and 'Performance' guide to increase performance, not decrease it. Kinda odd to have these here but sure; you can follow those tips if you want better image quality while sacrificing performance.
INI Guide & Nvidia Inspector - You want to decrease your performance to make the game look prettier? Use the Nvidia Inspector tweaks as much as you like. The INI Guide may or may not have originated with 'StormSeekaz(https://tera-forums.enmasse.com/forums/general-discussion/topics/ini-tweaks-and-performance-guide)' as other posts(http://guidescroll.com/2012/02/tera-online-ini-performance-tweaks-guide/) around the same time in various spots(http://tera-online-guides.blogspot.com/2012/10/tweaking-tera-onlines-game-performance.html) have most(http://tera-online-guides.blogspot.com/2013/05/full-break-down-of-s1engineini.html) of the same information.
Mandatory Finalization & 4GB Patcher - NO you do NOT need the 4GB Patcher. I already posted about that above. Outdated info is outdated. NO you do NOT need to set your files to read-only. That doesn't make a difference. Outdated info is outdated. The TERA Launcher actually overrides certain INI file settings on startup/shutdown if they aren't already present. It doesn't edit or alter your INI files even after a repair so read-only isn't necessary. It can actually cause issues to do something like this if you make ANY changes to stuff in-game (even moving around UI elements) if you aren't careful. If it ain't broke...
I wish I'd gotten around to posting and editing things faster. But it is good to have multiple guides from different people as long as you are posting correct & accurate info with explanations on what & why. Just linking to a ton of stuff without explaining it doesn't really help people, but explanations help to enlighten us all.
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6 - CPU Core Unparking & Explanations
This is primarily a guide meant for people who want to improve performance and are willing to dig down and edit simple text files. Taking the time to learn things properly will help them in far more than just TERA. If they are unable to do so themselves for whatever reason then they can ask, bribe, or pay someone tech-saavy to do it for them. Asking me to 'simplify' for them is doing a disservice to both myself and the community here. This is one point where 'Just search for it' can apply. TERA-specific updated information is few and far between, but information on computers & technology is readily available on the internet.
One of the big issues I had with the KTERA INI files is that same mentality of 'simplify for the masses' that resulted in dangerous oversights and glaring errors that could cause more harm than good. My guide isn't a simple 'drop it in' replacement. The person who uses my S1Engine.ini download also has to edit it for their system if their specs differ significantly from my own.
You want to know how many cores your CPU has? Check the Microsoft System Information Tool (MsInfo32) and it tells you.
Need to know how much GPU RAM you have? Again the MsInfo32 will tell you.
I believe all of the content I posted is valuable information, including my personal comments & insight into the specific INI commands on a line-by-line basis. I made sure to highlight the 'LOOK HERE AND CHANGE THIS FOR YOUR SYSTEM' stuff with the **Specific Tweaks** moniker.
As specified in the INI post, the line numbers are based on the report posted on the DIFF website that I linked to. The website report line numbers are agnostic of any specific program or system-specific stuff.
The only thing most people would have to do is download my (updated) S1Engine.ini and either keep it as-is if they are on Nvidia, or change TWO LINES if they're on ATI. The other tweaks are mostly for taking advantage of additional RAM they have on their GPU (video card). I have 1 GB of on-board GDDR5 RAM on my GPU so if they have more than that they can adjust and tweak it as necessary.
I made a few errors in my personal S1Engine.ini earlier that made the hit/damage numbers completely blocky but the current version I have posted is the latest version; the exact same one that I'm using now for my own TERA install.
I'm not sure what you mean by the confusion over basic multiplication. You take the numbers specified and you multiply them by the amount of GB of video RAM (GPU GDDR5 RAM) on your video card (GPU). The values I have posted are for those who have 1 GB of GPU RAM. If you have 2 GB you'd double those numbers. If you have 3 GB you triple the numbers. I didn't think this needed clarification but I've spelled it out here in case people need to find out.
I've gone ahead and added in additional information about the MsInfo32 tool so that people can get their specs in an easier fashion. This should help mitigate many questions and other issues.
You're on a laptop GPU (which is suboptimal). Perhaps you should consider multiplying all GPU-specific values by 0.5 and using those instead. That i7 is inefficient on a laptop. I already know my CPU is weak (though I have the 3.2 Ghz model instead of the 2.8 Ghz model listed there) so I compensate by tweaking as needed and removing excess UI elements.
To use my vehicle analogy, I have a Honda Civic (mid-size 4-liter engine used 2011 vehicle) while you're using the equivalent of a bicycle with fancy rims. No amount of polishing or adding boosters to your bicycle is going to make it go as fast as a car.
I'd be interested in seeing how doing the tweaks will work on your system, especially the core unparking and power management stuff since you're on a laptop. Use a laptop cooler if you aren't already and clean your laptop regularly.
Core Unparking
Mostly a laptop-specific tweak as I have yet to see many desktops that have core parking enabled.
All it does is force all the cores in your CPU to always be at 100% ready-status no matter what. This will drain your laptop battery much faster so keep it plugged in when gaming.
There is one program called ParkControl(https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/) by BitSum Optimization Experts with a good explanation of the technical parts of Core Unparking. You need to click here(https://bitsum.com/files/parkcontroldist64.exe) to download the 64-bit version since they only link to the 32-bit version on their download page for some silly reason.
I personally recommend using the CPU Core Parking Manager(http://coderbag.com/Programming-C/CPU-core-parking-manager) by CoderBag if you are on a 64-bit system; this is the program that I have personally used (even though I didn't need to unpark cores on my desktop).
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7 - Some more Tera-Specific in-game tested tweaks
I would avoid posting it on the official forums, as they don't allow certain tweaks to be posted because reasons. Even though skipping intro videos provides a fix for the stupid memory leak of 'BIK' files in the Unreal Engine (because BHS can't code for shit). But meh.
!-You don't need to 4GB patch anymore; that issue was fixed to be default a few patches ago shortly after FoA first dropped.
-Set 'Lurid Details' (blood etc) to zero. Read somewhere that there was a glitch/issue with the blood effects loading properly and it affects performance.
-PC View Distance is the biggest contributor to low fps; yes, really
!-Set 'Background Quality' to zero. Mostly affects water 'ripple' effects and doesn't mess with boss effects as far as I can tell.
-Set other distance sliders to half of the maximum value. The game renders stuff above/below you so these help out quite a bit.
!-Turn off 'Show names on guild members' so that it doesn't load the guild icons of everyone around you (guilded or otherwise).
!-Turn off all the 'show UI names' options except 'Party Members' and 'Enemy Players'. The less UI the better.
!-Check my thread for the mod that hides Party/Raid UI that I was able to make with the help of others on the forums here. The more of your UI that you can hide, the more you will minimize the impact that the UI has on your system.
!-Intel CPUs do software flash rendering better than AMD CPUs; though AMD CPUs are reported to handle multithreading far better.
-Edit your command line target to '-USEALLAVAILABLECORES' and see if that helps out (if your CPU is dual-core or better).
!-Be on a 64-bit system with at least 8 GB of RAM.
!-Go yell at BHS for coding like shit and not updating their software.
EDIT: If you're wondering about sources, most of this is based on personal testing, a random blogspot, and several (anonymous) pastebins that are no longer active as far as I could tell. I personally spent hours researching Unreal Engine INI file tweaks (independant of other sources) so once I get things together I'll post more in a proper format.
I've gone ahead and put a ! for the things that I didn't obtain from other sources but came up with on my own AND sometimes with help from people like Seelroy (modding help), Onyx (hiding UI stuff), Kitsune (modding mastercrafter), etc on these forums. I made sure to credit certain modding help to them when I posted some mods so please thank them as well :)
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8 - Bypass Intro Videos for Performance
Bypass Intro Videos for Better Performance
The 'BIK' file format used by TERA Online is an older version that isn't well optimized for today's modern systems. It also contains a memory leak bug that affects gameplay and eventually grinds everything to a halt until the game crashes or freezes. This is why many players have to restart every 1-3 hours or so. This information is based on my own testing with Windows Resource Monitor and reading information on bug reports for BIK files from dozens of forums & wikis related to the Unreal Engine. Linking all the sources isn't necessary for this post.
1 - Go to your Tera Online Install directory and find "\Client\S1Game\CookedPC\Art_Data\Packages\Video".
2 - Rename all the following files with 'OLD' at the start; aka "intro_atari.bik" becomes "OLDintro_atari.bik"
--intro_atari.bik
--intro_bhs.bik
--intro_eme.bik
--intro_fog.bik
--intro_ubi.bik
--Prologue_kor.bik
3 - You have to undo this every time you run a launcher repair, otherwise it will redownload all of these video files again.
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9 - My UI Modding Thread
http://forum.teratoday.com/topic/723-tds-tera-ui-modding-thread/
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10 - Fix your FOV (Field of View) and Tera Chat Font Info Thread
FOV- http://forum.teratoday.com/topic/665-field-of-view-and-you/
Fonts - http://forum.teratoday.com/topic/624-info-tera-font-replacement-no-dl-needed/
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11 - My own personal Tera Chat Font GFxUI.usa has this information for easy reference
Here are the settings you should have in your GFxUI.usa file. Please note that this file will be overwritten & replaced by defaults whenever you run a 'repair' through the TERA Launcher. Be sure to keep a backup!
I am merely quoting information I previously posted(http://forum.teratoday.com/topic/624-info-tera-font-replacement-no-dl-needed/?p=7234) but am including here for easier reference.
You can open the GFxUI file with any text editor; highlight everything and replace it with the information below:
[FontLib]
FontLib=fonts_kr.fonts_kr
[Fonts]
TitleFont=GasiII L,Normal
TitleFontB=GasiII B,Normal
NormalFont=2002L,Bold
NormalFont_B=2002L,Bold
NormalFont_I=2002L,Bold
NormalFont_BI=2002L,Bold
SmallFont=2002L,Bold
SmallFont_B=2002L,Bold
SmallFont_I=2002L,Bold
SmallFont_BI=2002L,Bold
MediumFont=2002L,Bold
MediumFont_B=2002L,Bold
MediumFont_I=2002L,Bold
MediumFont_BI=2002L,Bold
LargeFont=2002L,Bold
LargeFont_B=2002L,Bold
LargeFont_I=2002L,Bold
LargeFont_BI=2002L,Bold
ComponentFont=2002L,Bold
NumberFont=Eurostile,Normal
ChatFont=2002L,Bold
[IME]
MoviePath=GFxIME.IME
[Translation]
Enable=1
[Global]
No Trigger=No Trigger!
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12 - What is ExampleGame.INT and do I need to worry about it? (No, you dont)
While I appreciate your critques, please provide a link to your pictures rather than embedding them. I'd like to keep the guide as mobile-friendly and dial-up-friendly as possible. Setting them in "spoiler" tags also works but may or may not work well on certain mobile clients.
I would appreciate you PMing me your critiques before passing around potential misinformation.
ExampleGame.INT does not change anything (in my testing/knowledge). It is a leftover from the development of the game.
Here it is pasted in full; I've added some comments:
[ExampleDMOnlineGameSearch] ;; Searching for games for Unreal FPS games
PropertyMappings[0]=(Name="Non Standard Options") ;; Custom Server options flag enabled or disabled
PropertyMappings[1]=(Name="Dedicated Server") ;; Do you want to look for Dedicated Servers only?
[ExampleDMOnlineGameSettings]
LocalizedSettingsMappings[0]=(ValueMappings=((Name="Entry"),(Name="ExampleEntry"))) ;; What the 'Entry' setting is for showing what the game mode is
LocalizedSettingsMappings[1]=(ValueMappings=((Name="DM"),(Name="TDM"))) ;; Name DeathMatch or Team DeathMatch
PropertyMappings[0]=(Name="Non Standard Options") ;; Set up Custom Server options
PropertyMappings[1]=(Name="Dedicated Server") ;; Set up a Dedicated Server
[ExampleTDMOnlineGameSettings]
PropertyMappings[2]=(Name="Friendly Fire") ;; Enable Friendly Fire
PropertyMappings[3]=(Name="Human Team Score") ;; Team1 Score
PropertyMappings[4]=(Name="Orc Team Score") ;; Team2 Score
[ExampleGameStatsRead]
ColumnMappings[0]=(Name="Orcs Killed") ;; GameStats -- Kills
ColumnMappings[1]=(Name="Gold Collected") ;; GameStats -- Points
ColumnMappings[2]=(Name="Long Bow Rating") ;; GameStats -- Rating
[ExampleTDMOnlineGameSearch]
PropertyMappings[0]=(Name="Non Standard Options") ;; Same as above
PropertyMappings[1]=(Name="Dedicated Server") ;; Same as above
[ExampleProfileSettings]
ProfileMappings[16]=(ValueMappings=((Name="Dagger"),(Name="Mace"),(Name="Sword"))) ;; Weapons Available
ProfileMappings[17]=(ValueMappings=((Name="Leather"),(Name="Chainmail"),(Name="Splintmail"))) ;; Armor Available
;; So all these options are an 'Example' that Epic Games includes for those making Arena-Deathmatch style games with a more fantasy flavoring
;; They are useless and do not affect the game at all regardless of which directory you put them in
The font tweak that I already linked to (made by freshgaming on these forums) in the first post is what is recommended to be used. It is identical to what you have posted so you're just reposting information.
In the bottom of the font tweak thread, I put my own personal settings that work better for readability than just using the default settings in that 'INT' version of the GFxUI.int file.
I'll be going over my line by line guide and putting an updated version with my current S1Engine.INI and just comparing it to the default S1Engine.INI settings on a line by line basis. I'll also need to clarify that the line by line numbers are based on what I have linked on the DIFF site in the comparison report. I did this so that people wouldn't need a specific text editor or word wrap/page settings to know which line is which.
The basis of negating the use of 'SmallFonts' and 'TinyFonts' and forcing the use of 'MediumFonts' or higher does indeed work and improves legibility of certain text sizes that would otherwise be hard to read on certain resolution/monitor setups. The Font Tweaks mentioned in the GFxUI files do NOT change the font sizes at all. Those are determined programatically on a dynamic basis in the Unreal Engine based on UnrealScript files.
In-game, the main way to change font size is to globally scale everything via the 'Total UI Size' in the in-game UI options. Then you can resize certain other UI elements as you like. Chat fonts in the font box are also able to be resized.
I welcome any critiques and insight from anyone else, but please PM me first so I can keep this thread clean of misinformation. I never want to censor good information but I want to keep misleading information away from this thread.
Thank you for your comments.
I'll go ahead and put my own GFxUI font settings in the next post and link it in the OP (first thread post) just in case people get confused.
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13 - Loriri's Korean Guide & Theorycrafting Translations
Posted 30 June 2015 - 06:10 PM
So I've finally decided to upload the information(http://www.mediafire.com/download/4a0v2h00mtzu4ut/Tera+Korean+GuideInfo+-+Translated+by+Loriri.7z) that I've been sitting on for about a month. I was hesitant to release it as-is because I haven't personally verified the accuracy and usefulness of the various tweaks within that guide.
It is a Korean guide based on an English source (original source has gone offline and isn't archived). I'll dig some more and get an original author if possible. So this is a Korean guide that was taken from an English source, translated to Korean, and then translated BACK to English by Loriri.
Many thanks to Loriri for their fantastic translation work!
There was also a spreadsheet related to theorycrafting that might be useful.
These files are released as-is until I get around to finishing up my guide overhaul.
Password for the archive is the username of the TeraToday person who did the translations (all lowercase).
Thank you again to everyone who's patiently followed this thread.
There are 1367 downloads of the Tera Tweaked S1Engine(http://www.mediafire.com/download/l7tvih41tgp8sw8/Tweaked+TERA+S1Engine+INI.7z).
There are 884 downloads of the Tera Hide Party/Raid UI modhttp://www.mediafire.com/download/1gs4r2e5ao6e41a/TeraHiddenPartyRaidUI.zip).
Would be nice if people would at least drop by the #TeraChat IRC to say hi. ^_^
I'm just glad I've been able to help so many people make TERA a more enjoyable game.
EDIT: Please thank Loriri for finding the info and translating it for the community here. They should get ALL the kudos ^_^
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Removing Gunner and Reaper Effects
Posted 04 July 2015 - 08:26 PM
I've found some very nice info via random searching on the internet:
UE3 Internal Engine Variables(http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/UE3:Engine_internal_variables_(UT3))
Official UDK Documentation on Unreal Script Variables(http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UnrealScriptVariables.html)
Reaper skill effects:
FX_D_Hotfix_131231.gpk
Gunner skill effects:
A_Empty_Shell.gpk
FX_A_HotFix_141031.gpk
FX_A_HotFix_150102.gpk
FX_E_HotFix_140925.gpk
If you wanna dig around in those or rename them or w/e, that's your call.
©Kenny Please.Heal.Me Updated 7:52 AM 1/14/2016