Full break down of S1Engine.ini

So I've done a few graphical guides to improve how Tera Online's performance works and also explained why the client is so terable. I figured it would be a good idea to provide a full break down for people that are looking for more ways to modify performance or for the players that want to try and mess with max quality and max out the game even more on current computers.

If you've used other settings from the other guides your S1Engine.ini file will be read only you need to take that off to modify it further and also keep in mind that each person's card and the effect that some of the settings will have on your computer might differ person to person. But this will at least educate you to what each of the confusing settings do.

MaxParticleResize=0

While set to 0 this allows an unlimited number of particles to be displayed for medium performance this number would range between 1000 and 10000 depending on your video cards abilities. Setting the value to below 100 effects will disappear all together.

If you notice the size of the effect is shrunk while setting it to 3 setting this to 1 will crash the game.





MaxParticleResizeWarn=0

Adds a log if particle's go higher then this number.

bCheckParticleRenderSize=True

When set to true it will perform particle checks for size.

bDisablePhysXHardwareSupport=False

This setting is related to enabling / disabling  PhysX Hardware on video cards not sure what this will do for older cards which have no PhysX support but if it is set to True with a newer card this will cause issues.

bInitializeShadersOnDemand=False

Change if you experience crashes using a nvidia video card leave it to false for performance otherwise.

DisableATITextureFilterOptimizationChecks=True

This is an ATI troubleshooting option and should be set to false only if you are having issues.

UseMinimalNVIDIADriverShaderOptimization=False

When set to true this can reduce stuttering on geforce 6 and 7.

PumpWindowMessagesWhenRenderThreadStalled=False

This is related to cut scenes and how they are rendered not sure whether this will do anything
and I have no cut scene problems so I have no reason to change this. But if you're having issues
this might be an answer.

bSmoothFrameRate=True
MinSmoothedFrameRate=22
MaxSmoothedFrameRate=62

The max frame rate for tera online is capped and the value gets determined by the MaxSmoothedFrameRate which is by default is set to 62FPS. Developers have done this to prevent FPS spikes. If you set this to false you would remove the FPS cap. If your FPS jerks often you would be best setting it back to True. By uncapping your FPS you will not increase overall performance. While set to True the settings MaxSmoothedFrameRate and MinSmoothedFrameRate will be enforced this allows you to smooth how the FPS will look usually it is best to set the cap to match
your computers refresh rate even with Vsync disabled frame rates above your refresh rate for the monitor will be partial frames. You can experiment with this setting to see if using a higher frame rate cap is better over smoothness and performance but keep in mind a low performing video card will most likely prefer smoothness and performance because that card will not hit much higher FPS in that case. Also keep in mind the engine itself has a cap of 90FPS regardless of settings and cannot be uncapped.

bClearAnimSetLinkupCachesOnLoadMap=True

This while set to true this will clear all animation set linkup caches while a map is loaded this needs to be set to true otherwise skeletal meshes will not load properly.

[System Settings]
StaticDecals=True

Static decals are posters markings in game that are decorations by the map designer these are not created by players. Setting this to false will make these not noticeable and can improve performance but it may not be that noticeable of a change.

DynamicDecals=True

These decals are the marks left by players using weapons on surrounding when set to false weapons will show impact but will not leave marks on scenery. Turning this to false can improve performance mostly in combat.

DynamicLights=True

This effects how realistic lighting is shown if you want a noticeable increase in performance especially during combat you can set this to false.  This will increase FPS 2x but the game looks darker.

My FPS in ZF is normally 15-25 but turning off dynamic lighting brings FPS to 50 to 62 FPS but makes it darker as you can see. This is with the 9000 series graphics card Nvidia 9800GT.


DynamicShadows=True

Controls interactive objects in the game and casts shadows on them disabling this can improve performance at the cost of realism. 

LightEnvironmentShadows=True

This setting controls whether sunlight creates shadows when set to false this will disable shadows for many objects.

CompositeDynamicLights=False

When set to true this enables a less accurate form of dynamic lighting that might improve performance but at the cost of image quality.

DirectionalLightmaps=True

This setting allows improved image quality and makes it so surfaces have additional depth and detailing setting this to False can increase performance but reduces quality made by surfaces making them appear flatter.

MotionBlur=True

This effect uses motion blur which adds blurring when turning or moving quickly you can disable this by setting it to false and you will gain performance while moving.

DepthOfField=True

This is an effect that simulates how objects are focused and are sharper then objects outside of the direct field of focus. Setting this to false can be used to improve performance.

ParticleLODBias=0

This will set the particle detail -1 is for the max but this can be lowered from 0 to 10 as well.

SkeletalMeshLODBias=0

This determines the character quality 0 is the highest and 4 is the lowest.

AllowD3D10=False

This when changed to True would force the game to play in direct x 10 but this will not work in tera when tried it the game would not load.

DropParticleDistortion=False

When set to True the particles based on the world are dropped if this is allowed. The effects are reduced and game performance will be increased while it is on.

Distortion=True

Adds distortion effects when something explodes or smokes.

Bloom=True

Makes the game look more realistic adding extra lighting.

UseHighQualityBloom=True

When enabled uses a higher quality of bloom effect turning this to false can improve game performance without too much of a notiable difference in quality.

bEnableBranchingPCFShadows=False

Controls soft shadow rendering known as PCF when set to false it removes soft filtered smudged edges for shadows which may increase performance but makes the shadows look more block like.

bAllowBetterModulatedShadows=True

Increases the quality of shadows turning this off will decrease shadow quality and increase performance.

bEnableForegroundShadowsOnWorld=True

This will allow fore ground shadows setting this to false will remove all of the shadows and increase performance.

bEnableForegroundSelfShadowing=True

This enables fore ground self shadows for your character turning this to false will remove these shadows and increase performance.

FXAA=False

Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing When enabled it allows anti-aliasing, rendering high-performance visuals faster and more completely. Smooth's edges in all pixels on the screen, including those inside alpha-blended textures and those resulting from pixel shader effects.

MaxAnisotropy=4

This can be set between 2 or 4 and some newer cards can go as high as 16 setting this higher will make the game take more time to load textures but will improve the quality of the game and lower performance. This makes distant textures more clear.

MaxMultisamples=1

This setting controls multi-sampling which is used to reduce jaggedness.

MinShadowResolution=70
MaxShadowResolution=2048

Both of these determine minimum and maximum values for shadow resolution the higher the minimum is set to the more dark and rich shadows appear the lower the maximum value the more shadows will appear less noticeable and gray. Lowering and raising these resolutions will result in performance drops or rises and visual errors. The higher you raise it the more edges of shadows might seem jagged depending on other filter settings. Changing this lower will improve FPS you should change it to 512 if you plan on modifying this.

ResX=1440
ResY=900

Can be used to try out custom sizes for resolution if you cannot access the settings in game to change them or want a custom setting.

ScreenPercentage=100.000000

This setting effects how the game looks setting this below 50% will higher performance but the game will look block like or blurry.

FoliageDrawRadiusMultiplier=1.000000

Changing this to 0.000000 will remove grass from the game and increase performance.

ShadowTexelsPerPixel=1.273240

This modifies smoothness of shadows setting this to 0 removes shadows while higher values will increase quality of shadows.

UseVsync=False

While disabled you get more performance when set to true vertical synchronization keeps FPS with respect to monitors refresh rate.

OneFrameThreadLag=True

When turned off greatly improves performance when turned on it effects screen tearing and partial frames.

FogVolumes=True

When set to false this would disable volumetric fog.

LensFlares=True

This causes a lens flare effect when set to false this would remove this effect of the look of bright sunlight.
OnlyStreamInTextures=False

When set to true this will avoid loading textures that are not in use increasing quality of how fast textures load.

SpeedTreeLeaves=True
SpeedTreeFronds=True

These control how foliage is rendered when set to false this will remove some of the foliage which can improve performance and increase visibility.

If I missed any and your curious what they do feel free to post in the comments and ask and I'll add more to the article but this covers most of the effects which modify performance in game.

Reducing the server lag in Battlegrounds and not being able to hit targets!

I'm sure everyone has faced problems with totally missing people in a battleground some classes notice it so bad that they almost can never properly hit a person while in a battleground. This doesn't just happen in battlegrounds of course but even open world. And it's pretty annoying even for people that have very good computers and don't even need to use any tweaking methods like the ones posted on the blog.

The reason that you go through people has to do with two things the first is the mapping of some of the maps and how they are build. A perfect example of this is when your fighting in a dungeon like Balder's Temple and going though the maze and you set a trap and the monsters chase you and someone tells you to jump inside of a pot to get them to stop following you. The reason they stop following is because the pot has a separate mapping from the normal floor any object which is a slight indentation would be considered a different plane so to speak. So if your target is standing on a flat surface and your on a slight hill and use your skill you will completely miss that person and go through them. But in a map that is all the same mapping there's something else that can cause you to miss or go through someone.

The second thing is the  de-syncing of the server to a client. This happens when someones internet connection is bad causing you to miss them completely. This can also be caused by your own internet like for example bad connection with wireless. But there's one thing you can do to help improve your connection. One thing you might not know is the launcher has a P2P sharing build in this means when ever it is left opened it will be seeding patches out to other people. And while some of us have really good connections many people that have more basic packages cannot be seeding and playing at the same time because it hurts our connections very bad.

With the old launcher we where able to turn off the P2P sharing under our tools but with this new patcher all you can do is turn the amount of upload down which is bad because we can never fully turn it off and most connections which have 256kbps upload make the downloads suffer for many internet companies.  The only way that you can stop it from lagging you in game is by closing the launcher. Closing the launcher does not make the game close the game will stay opened after you close a launcher so nothing bad happens when you do this other then you will not be torrenting.

Honestly I don't know how legal it is to force people to torrent the game for you especially since some ISP's now track torrents and will give you a hard time about them or slow your connection down when your caught torrenting. But having a reduce in battlegrounds and pvp lag is very valuable and will help you get much more kills when you can actually hit your enemies.

Explanation of Tera Online's Client lag

Many of the users coming to the blog have asked about the client lag of Tera Online and have been asking for more information on what causes it. Many of them say that they have really well built computers but still experience client lag. So for today I will explain what causes Tera's client lag and more detailed information so you can get an idea why the other topics for tweaking tera's client settings makes the game run more smoothly.

The biggest problem with Tera Onlines client is the way they built the UI system. This system as said before is built using autodesk scaleform which is a flash based system. The problem with using flash for any well built game is that flash uses your CPU for its process this also means if your running flash videos in the background or other flash based programs your system performance in Tera Online will be greatly degraded. The mix between using flash's CPU process and then mixing that with video graphics from the GPU and unreal engine causes a major delay in the client communications and that's why skills can also seem like they have some sort of delay bug. I've experience that as well but in the most current update it seems to be slightly improved.

The bad thing is because Tera Online most likely has no plans on changing this system chances are there might not be a incoming fix for this so all we can do is continue to tweak the game client in various ways hoping that it smooth's out enough to the point that its playable.

One thing that you do have to consider if you've tried some of the tweaking to your client and are still running into issues remember that like I said flash is CPU based so if your processing power is really low you'll end up with a bottleneck between your CPU and GPU processes.  Bottlenecking means that your CPU or GPU is having a loss of performance because of a single or limited number of components or resources. When your GPU bottlenecks its because you are lacking the CPU processing power and because of that your game lacks the processing. Since the UI system in Tera is based on CPU and the graphics system is based on GPU the mix of these two components cause a lag within the clients interface. But with computer that is lacking CPU processing this lag will increase by much more then the average user. So if you barely meet the minimum requirements for your CPU to play Tera Online chances are your game is sitting around 10-20 fps even if your graphic card is really amazing. Upgrading your CPU in that case would be recomended to see better performance.

Another method of tweaking to fix the UI Lag

Some people have still been having issues with the UI lag. While the settings from http://tera-online-guides.blogspot.com/2012/10/tweaking-tera-onlines-game-performance.html has helped improve game performance and fixed errors others still notice a problem with some video cards. A friend of mine from K-Tera has been kind enough to share some other settings that might help to address this problem for others so I'll post what she shared.

These settings are found under your Nvidia Control Pannel:

Antialiasing - FXAA  On
Antialiasing - Gamma correction On
Antialiasing - Mode Enhance the application setting
Antialiasing - Setting 16xQ CSAA
Antialiasing - Transparency 8x (supersample)
CUDA - GPUs All
Maximum pre-rendered frames 3
Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration  single display performance mode
SLI rendering mode  NVIDIA recommended
Texture Filtering - Anisotropic sampling option  on
Texture Filtering - Negitive LOD bias  Allow


She also recomends using the core unparking which was explained in the first guide I published as well. But keep in mind if your on a laptop core unparking will not be an option for you because it causes the system to use more power and laptops are made to be power efficiant since they run on a battery. Core unparking does not work for systems which are only single cores as well it only effects multi-core processors because all your doing is taking off the windows limits that makes the system use all 4 cores instead of locking them and making them inactive during when they are not being used.

Another thing she also recomended was downloading and installing beta legacy drivers from: http://www.geforce.com/drivers/beta-legacy

Reasoning for this is because she says many of the beta drivers for the newer cards boost performance over the main current drivers and will improve your game performance even more. She said if tweaking your system this way doesn't improve fps performance you could look to your ram and make sure that your not over your usage as well as check for any virus's on your system that could be causing fps drops but other then what was posted on the above guide there's not much you can really do to improve fps.

Tweaking Tera Online's Game Performance

Updated: 7/17/2014

Added flash memory changing for optimization~!

I wanted to add something else about the lag because it really will make players understand the lag during things like PvP and why none of the things below will make it possible to fix lag under every circumstance so if your interested click here.

Whether you have the best gaming computer on the market or have an older computer that still meets recommendations for Tera Online chances are you are not getting the best performance out of your game. There are a good number of settings that you can do outside of game and within the game client which can improve your game function increase your fps and make Tera Online play more smoothly.

The first settings that I will cover are the ones that are specific to Nvidia cards I'm not sure if the same settings can be found in Radeon cards so I can't say if it's the same for those cards. But if you pull your video settings up for your graphics by going to Nvidia Control panel. Then go to manage 3d settings you have two options you can either make a profile just for Tera Online or you can edit the global settings for all games its up to you what you decide to do. Set the options in the profile like so:

•  Vertical Sync - Force On
•  Triple Buffering - On
•  Threaded Optimization - On
•  Trilinear Optimalization - Off
•  Texture Filtering - Anisotropic sample opt... - Off
•  Power Managment mode - Prefer Maximum Performance
•  Maximum Pre-Rendered Frames - 3 (Need at least direct x9.0 for this to work)
•  Antialiasing Transparency - Multisample
•  Antialiasing Setting - 2x
•  Antialiasing Mode - Override any application settings (This uses the preset you have in Nvidia)
•  Anisotropic Filtering - 16x
•  Texture Filtering - Negative LOD bias - Allow

Now that we've covered Nvidia settings lets talk about client based settings. These settings are ones which cannot be edited by changing them in game. They are core settings for the client which Tera Online might not recommend you changing but these have direct effect on how well your graphics are in game. I was pretty impressed seeing how I wasn't using the best video card on the market and i've managed to improve my game quality by a good percentage. These settings will be found here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\TERA\Client\S1Game\Config   <- 64bit operating systems
C:\Program Files\TERA\Client\S1Game\Config  <- 32bit operating systems
C:\ProgramData\HappyCloud\Cache\TERA\Client\S1Game\Config  <- New location for the  happy cloud version of Tera Online

If you installed to another location you should know where to find the Tera Online folder. In that folder delete the following files:

S1Editor
S1EditorUserSettings
S1Engine
S1Game
S1Input
S1Option
S1UI

Load the game up and it will remake these files for you which is clearing out all the normal settings making default versions for you.

Then back up the S1Engine file. And open it in notepad so you can modify the settings in the file. Search and Replace:

Search: UseMinimalNVIDIADriverShaderOptimization=True
*Replace: UseMinimalNVIDIADriverShaderOptimization=False
Search: bDisablePhysXHardwareSupport=True
*Replace: bDisablePhysXHardwareSupport=False
Search: MinSmoothedFrameRate=
Replace: MinSmoothedFrameRate=32
Search: MaxSmoothedFrameRate=
Replace: MaxSmoothedFrameRate=120
Search: CompatLevelGPU=4
Add: CPUNumLogicalProcessors=4    <- This is the number of cores your CPU has mine is 4 which is quadcore.

*Note: This setting only applies to Nvidia cards.

Note: Make sure that you make the S1Engine.ini file read only or the settings will revert back to the default.

If you are lost making these modifications I have edited files uploaded here:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B90u9z2fsJ4baFNGVmE5THdvSDA/edit?usp=sharing

Another modification which can be done which also has an effect the UI game system uses Autodesk® Scaleform which runs on flash so updating your shockwave player as well as flash player can also play a part in improving your fps in game while most of us do this normally so it might not apply to everyone there are some people who might not update it often.

Increasing flash memory for adobe
http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html

Use the address above and make sure that the settings look like below

The reason you will want to set these settings to 10MB's instead of unlimited is when they are set to unlimited it can cause memory leaks and make the game lag very bad or cause it to crash completely so we want to just limit how much memory it can use so it doesn't do bad things.


*Note: Core Unparking is not recommended for laptops this will increase battery usage and raise CPU temperatures!
Another feature which can be modified for even more performance is the CPU core parking. In windows vista+ windows in an attempt to conserve power windows parks CPU's making it so only one core takes all of the processes. This causes GPU to bottleneck in games and decreases performance. Editing this can be done easily using a program to modify the registry which you can find below. You can switch it back if you want to but I noticed a direct increase in all of my programs not just in game. And one of my friends noticed major increases in windows 8 as well.

http://www.coderbag.com/Programming-C/Disable-CPU-Core-Parking-Utility

You will need to restart after you unpark all the cores of your computer.

So hopefully if you've managed to do all of the above at this point Tera Online should look and play that more amazing without having to use any of the other changes that you see in Tera Online Guides: Fighting Nexus Lag I can't say how these settings above will effect Nexus until tomorrow but I found much better improvement overall which makes me very happy.

More information on Tweaking Tera:

Full Break down of S1Engine.ini
Speeding up client login network throttling to reduce lag and FOV
Reducing Hitbox Lag in Battlegrounds
What causes Tera's Lag
More information on video tweaking for Tera
Reducing lag in Nexus

Fighting Nexus's Lag In Tera Online

Mmorpg's have tried for years to provide world raids in game and because of servers limitations as well as graphic cards not being able to handle it most have realized that it is not possible to have 900+ players on a single spot. But Tera Online has this issue with the world raid called Nexus. Players spend a Nexus raid lagging trying to clear portals so they can get their Agnitor reputation and gold.

To many players seeing how laggy Nexus is ends up being a major turn off. But there are some things you can do to increase your FPS and be able to at least stay connected for it which allows you to at least get into the raid Nexus Traverse which is the very first raid. And today I'll explain how to go about doing this so your Nexus this weekend will be a little better.

One of the first things you can do if your in the massive group of players you can either turn away and face outside of the group this will reduce your lag because you won't be looking into the mass of players an effects. I usually bring badges and sit on the edge of the nexus portal because I lag too much to move and its hard to fill the raid group while staying alive otherwise. If your trying to be in the center of the raid you can zoom into your character which will reduce lag some as well and improve FPS. But one of the issue's with being in the center of the pile is if the boss decides to sit on your face you can get one shot and then it makes it hard for your team to bring you back up till after the portal is dead. Another way is by turning off combat logs which you can see how to do that below by hitting ALT and clicking the combat chat tag then clicking the gear in the left corner and editing the chat options for that window and un-checking all the combat logs.

Something else that can be done to help increase your FPS is also turning off the titles and hp bars of players around you. To do this you would go to the game options I've provided a screenshot of the settings so you can see which I turned off. You can also turn off NPC's as well temporarily if you want but that's up to you.

The last way you can improve frame rate is decreasing the effects as well as the distance. Effects cannot be turned completely off unfortunately and I have suggested that to the developers but not sure if they will in the future give a way to remove all effects. The distance improves how far you see ahead of you this can be useful in PvP like battleground's so that you have less lag if your video isn't that good but it can improve frame rate during Nexus as well.

That's about all you can do other then having a good amount of ram and a decent computer with video card. Hopefully we will see more improvements made after the server merge coming up and hopefully they will improve server quality and take more measures to make Nexus function better but for now these steps above will improve your experience. Otherwise have a great weekend in Tera Online and I hope you get awesome loot!