New PC,

[FTJR]

Greetings,
I was fortunate enough to get a new pc, however it has a radeon card which I am not familar with, with the sliders at midpoint I can get a frame rate of about 45. I'd like to get it up to 60 if I can. Can anyone help me with which options I should choose from the app that governs the video card?  its an RX460,  the screenshot is the options that I have.
Thanks...

[Bizman]

To start with, the RX460 is in the same range with the GTX 660 Hitech used in his development system during the Beta. Shortly said it's a mediocre card, the weakest of the RX series. That means you'll have to cut some of the game settings down for better performance. Good thing is you most likely won't notice the difference too much!

Another important thing to do is to get rid of any unnecessary background processes including those by Windows itself. Uninstall all bloatware you don't need, disable the Auto-Update features of those you decide to save. Check for Windows and Anti-virus updates before you start playing to prevent them slowing down your game etc.

AH has been built to work using the default settings of the card, all the eye candy being controlled by the game. So rather than fiddling with the custom settings of the card, go to the Graphics options in the game. The biggest resource hogs are Post Lighting and Environment mapping. Disable those for a start. As you can see, there's more items you can disable, too, if needed for better performance. Play with the settings until you find ones that please your eye fast enough.



Pudgie is the Radeon expert here, should you feel the need for adjusting the card settings after having done all the previous.

[FTJR]

Thanks Bizman,
I am aware its not the best card, sadly I didn't have much of a say. Anyway have to work with what I have. I have most of the stuff turned off. It I've managed to get it to 50+, was just wondering what else I could do to tweak it.

Thank you.

[TequilaChaser]

Heya FTJR, glad you were able to get you a new PC so you are able to play AH3

If you don't mind, could you post the top 1/3rd of your DXDIAG REPORT, or post the specs of your new system?

If you don't mind flying without Shadows enabled, that is another graphics setting that will free up some fps

Also on the main menu (where you decide to fly online or offline, you can go into your video settings and if you're flying with 4096 textures, you can possibly turn them down to 2048 textures or even 1024 to gain a little more fps

Also, with the new version of AMD/ATI video drivers now called Crimson, there is a setting where you can go and lock in the fps that you desire the game(s) (well, the video card) to run at...

Hope this helps and best of luck

TC

[FTJR]

Hi TC,
I've attached the DXdiag report, thank you
I dont mind flying wihtout shadows, I am also runing at 1024 already to get as much out of it as possible. Thanks for the suggestion.
Also when I installed AH3 it automatically went with DX9, is that something I want?

There are a lot of choices in the radeon settings, such as Anti Aliasing, Morphological filtering Anisotropic filtering Shader Cache, Tessellation mode.  Any idea on how they should be set.?

Thank you for your interest.
Cheers

[Skuzzy]

Go to the games "Video Settings" and make sure the Radeon card is being used and not the Intel video chip.

The biggest resource hogs, in the Graphic Detail settings, are shadows, detail, and reflection/post lighting.  In that order.

Decide what you can live with or without.

I see it is an HP computer, which is loaded with all manner of bloatware.  Getting that cleaned up will help as well.

[FTJR]

Thanks Skuzzy,
Could you be more specific about the bloatware? I wouldn't know it if it bit me.

Cheers

[Skuzzy]

Historically, HP installs a lot of software which has been set to start at boot time.  None of which is required for the computer to run.

I have no way of knowing what is installed today.  Someone who has recently purchased an HP would be in a better position to say.

[Bizman]

For HP bloatware, basically every installed program that starts with HP does not belong to a clean Windows installation. Before blindly uninstalling every single one of those, pay some attention to what they're doing, though. A "HP<device>driver" should obviously be left untouched whereas "HP ePrint" is most often not needed. Google is your friend, sites as shouldiremoveit.com tell what the program does and what other people think about it.

I also noticed that your system is a 4k AIO. No wonder if you can't get a solid 60 FPS! That would be tough for most of the cards available!

For the Radeon settings, set them to default. Then check that they're set to "Use application settings" to start with and do the settings in AH. If you then feel that the image would need something, this article tells what the settings do: http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/DH-012.aspx

[Skuzzy]

Good catch on the 4K display Bizman.  I missed that.

Yes, that is going to hurt performance in a big way.  A top of the line video card would struggle with that resolution.

[Bizman]

Actually not 4K, "only" UWVA which is 60% the load of a 4K. Or 2.4 x the load of a 1080p.

[FTJR]

Bizman, Skuzzy, thank you both for the replies.