Allow us to disable depth of field

(esomonk) #1

Normally I get decent fps with the new drivers and updates using ATI but one problem persist. Massive performance drops in open areas. I think this is due to depth of field not being optimized for ATI. The easiest fix would be to just disable it but there’s no way. The post processing effects are locked in so we cant change anything once we get into the game. Normally I get 60-80 fps but on the open areas of security tower it drops into the mid 20s. This would give performance boosts to all ATI users.

(Smoochy) #2

download the brink utility. lots of stuff to change in there. i found setting view distance to 0.8 helped a lot. only occasionally drops to ~20 FPS. and at round start it seems to drop the fps drops too.

that tool really helps tweak brink.

go here and badger him:
http://twitter.com/#!/CatalystCreator

(esomonk) #3

I just don’t get it. Its obvious that at least some of the performance problems are from this effect. You can disable it in the menu and it doubles the framerate but that command is locked in the game. Why don’t they fix this?

(Smoochy) #4

the brink config utility menus? you kind of contradict yourself in that post?!..

(.Chris.) #5

Motion blur and depth of field are different things, only motion blur is in the game menu which can be turned off.

(Smoochy) #6

i find i get better performance with motion blur on!?!?!

yeah, depth of field seems to need to be set in a 3rd party config utility.

(Humate) #7

Regarding depth of field:

We still aim to make it as configurable as possible, but the problem with removing the blur for incapacitation and while being knocked down is that you have a distinct advantage over people who are playing with default settings. One of our abilities allows you to fire with your secondary weapon while incapacitated, so the level of blur is a balancing mechanic against this.
The blur is actually depth of field, so you can still see anything that’s close to you relatively clearly. We don’t necessarily want you to be able to see long distances and report things back to your team while you’re down.

Link: http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/showpost.php?p=239359&postcount=46

(.Chris.) #8

Surely you can force DOF when downed whilst having it off when playing.

(Humate) #9

I dunno, but i agree with what you’re saying.

(kilL_888) #10

of course you can do this. almost everything is possible when you’re a good programmer.

but to change this there is probably some effort involved. its not just puttin a value from 1 to 0. it probably is very complicated and consumes a lot of time. and the result maybe is not worth it to spend so much time into it?

(.Chris.) #11

Actually thinking about it, they already do no? The change the amount of DOF when you are down, it’s no where near the same as when you are walking about, so they already dynamically change it depending on your status and add some other effects on top to give the full effect when you are downed.

(szr) #12

Yep your right, they do change it anyway so therefore it is possible to force it when downed and have it off when normal.

Besides, lets be honest, would you rather allow users to have good FPS by enabling them to disable the DOF, or stop them because of a minor advantage when people are downed firing (the perk is a joke anyway and shouldn’t exist but never mind) and make everyone have to suffer from bad FPS.

Its more logical just to remove downed fire and allow users to change DOF if its that much of a problem. Whats better, bad FPS for the majority of users which means hardly anyone plays the game? Or remove “Downed Fire” and allow users to remove DOF and have good FPS? I know which one I would choose.

(legend123) #13

blur motion change didnt do anything for me.

to answer the above question I would prefer more stable FPS anyday.

(Smoochy) #14

[QUOTE=szr;339027]Yep your right, they do change it anyway so therefore it is possible to force it when downed and have it off when normal.

Besides, lets be honest, would you rather allow users to have good FPS by enabling them to disable the DOF, or stop them because of a minor advantage when people are downed firing (the perk is a joke anyway and shouldn’t exist but never mind) and make everyone have to suffer from bad FPS.

Its more logical just to remove downed fire and allow users to change DOF if its that much of a problem. Whats better, bad FPS for the majority of users which means hardly anyone plays the game? Or remove “Downed Fire” and allow users to remove DOF and have good FPS? I know which one I would choose.[/QUOTE]

surely you should be able to set DOF yourself, then when downed it would still decrease as normal, then if you get revived go back to what you set. its not like we are asking for BETTER dof, many of us want to turn it down!

(szr) #15

Yeh I agree, this is basically what I was saying :stuck_out_tongue:

(r3fleX) #16

Right, for me i have acceptable fps compared to most players who complain about low fps.
It’s just the fluctuations that annoy me so much.

I pretty much meet recommended system requirements (core i5 750/ATI 5850) but play with lowest tweaked gfx i think is possible + 11.6 drivers + a lower res (1280x720) instead of what i usually use of 1920x1080.

Here’s 2 SS’s taken on Resort about 10m apart on the same server + settings yet there is a 250fps difference?!

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540645368630125206/5F131B46D6040584BCA00FF0CF24B48CB7B4CF15/

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540645368630082182/659FAAD59C1536E79A17BFDCBBEB7249E85D7D49/

Since i was on the server alone i had about 20higher fps than usual in both cases, as it usually will go as low as 39fps on the 1 SS which is unplayable for me in comp.

So is this the effect DOF has on performance as in far distances = awful fps, but close walls = high fps?

(.Chris.) #17

That’s not really it, one shot you are in a corridor that is purely indoors, not much to render, the next you are in a bigger room with an opening to a larger open area which itself leads onto another room across the yard there, where that turret is. It’s purely rendering more in one than the other I think.

(kilL_888) #18

yea. but what is to render on the second shot that lets the framerate drop that drastically?

most of the outside area is blocked by a wall. every game nowadays has occlusion culling, so the areas not visible are not rendered. i know that this is already the case in etqw. the engine does the vis_portal calculation by itself as far as i know. i check my maps with r_showtris usually and etqw does a good job to occlude non visible areas.

(.Chris.) #19

This isn’t ET:QW, I think it’s a combination of things, there clearly is a larger line of sight in that second shot.

(szr) #20

They have disabled r_usePortals which means that it draws things which are out of view (behind walls) thats another large contributing factor to the FPS drops. It also explains why when you look outside that way on Resort the frame rate drops as its drawing things which are going on way off in the distance which you cant see.