How to Increase frames in DayZ with a Mid/Low end PC (in game specs)

[Tactical Soldier Gaming 20]

Hello! I think I have the best settings possible for getting good frames in DayZ Standalone while maintaining a good graphics quality on a Mid to Low end gaming PC

 

My Specs: 

 

GPU: GeForce GTX 650 ti

 

CPU: AMD A6-3650 APU

 

Memory: 8 GB DDR3 RAM

 

HDD: 1 TB

 

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 

 

Graphical Settings:  This is what I run on, and I get 40+ frames outside of cities and 25-30 inside. 

 

First, go to your Video settings in game.  Upon opening change your  RENDERING RESOLUTION to 100% and turn VSync OFF.

 

Then Go to TEXTURES

 

Video Memory: AUTO

 

Texture Detail: HIGH

 

Texture Filtering: HIGH  (changing this to high makes your graphics card take the load of processing/rendering the textures and can help performance on some builds)

 

Then go to QUALITY

 

Objects: VERY LOW (changes the rendering distance for objects, can massively improve performance)

 

Terrain: NORMAL (changing this setting currently does nothing)

 

Clouds: DISABLED (clouds reduce fps by a lot and really aren't that important) 

 

Shadows: NORMAL (changing this to low can give an extra frame or two but will change shadows to render as blocky and undetailed)

 

Now go to RENDERING

 

DISABLE EVERYTHING OR PUT AT THE LOWEST SETTING.  THEN CHANGE EDGE SMOOTHING TO HIGH SMAA OR FXAA (SMAA or FXAA makes up for Anti-Aliasing which reduces jaggies on the edges of objects)

 

 

After all this has been changed in game, consider taking these steps to maybe improve fps more in game:

 

Go to this directory: Libraries/Documents/DayZ/Dayz.cfg  Then change 3D Performance to 100000 (One hundred thousand)

 

Also change these two from what you have them at to:  

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1;

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=1;

 

Please let me know if this has helped you and if you have any questions please comment below.

 

Edit: Colored bold words for easier viewing.

Edited January 6, 2014 by Tactical Soldier Gaming

[hoffa (DayZ) 71]

Thanks mate! This works great! I have a 4 years old laptop, and even the main menu screen was laggy when I first entered the game. With your settings the game runs perfect (haven't checked the frames yet), but it's very smooth and still looks nice. Enjoy your newly acquired beans!

[freakinFreddy 13]

Hmmm I'm gonna try this configuration when I get home since my rig is pretty much mid range.

Thanks! ;)

[Highlander007 249]

All is good except rendering distance. You need that to see players coming

[pacific_coast 632]

this game is far away from being optimized

choose pretty or choose 30+ fps in citites

the only choice you have right now

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

this game is far away from being optimized

choose pretty or choose 30+ fps in citites

the only choice you have right now

I choose pretty and I still get 30 fps in cities, except in Svetlojarsk.  Bad bad city

[Tactical Soldier Gaming 20]

All is good except rendering distance. You need that to see players coming

 

Rendering distance adds more objects to your screen.  Big FPS killer.  Most conflicts in my experience happen at roughly >200 meters

[aldrag 12]

Pretty damn sure setting shadows to Very High or High will increase frames opposed to having it below high. Because CPU renders shadows below high and GPU renders shadows High and Very high.

[TheWanderingMan 170]

My frame rate increased when I set textures to high instead of normal.

 

#WTF!!

[soulfirez 901]

My frame rate increased when I set textures to high instead of normal.

 

#WTF!!

Lol you havent played many RV engine games have you ?? its always been a dice roll on settings always best to test and choose settings for yourself because every rig seeems to handle them differently and yes quite often turning somethings up increases fps due to taking it from being cpu rendered to gpu rendered such as has been mentioned in this thread shadows...

[TheWanderingMan 170]

^Just Arma 2 and dayz mod but I never had a problem with them.

[soulfirez 901]

^Just Arma 2 and dayz mod but I never had a problem with them.

no need to specify the two as there the same thing as far as the engine goes and guess you were a lucky man with arma 2 then because it had just as many unusual settings problems as SA again shadows the higher the better and everything else was pretty much rig specific been that way since OFP arma 1 2 and to a lesser degree 3 also ( although id say 3 is there best shake at optimizing the RV engine by a long way (although people have had trouble with that to just not as many , hoping for better out of SA only time will tell )

[rotteck 104]

in my dayz.cfg there is no "3D Performance" that i could change ?

only: Resolution_W, Resolution_H, winX, winY, winW, winDefW, winDefH, Resolution_Bpp, refresh, Render_W, Render_H, FSAA, postFX, GPU_MaxFramesAhead, GPU_DetectedFramesAhead, HDRPrecision, lastDeviceId, localVRAM, nonlocalVRAM, vsync, AToC, SWLayersCount, PipQuality, PPAA, Windowed

[Mos1ey 6301]

My frame rate increased when I set textures to high instead of normal.

 

#WTF!!

 

Texture detail is handled by your CPU when set to anything under high, when you set it to high or very high the load is shifted to your graphics card. It's pretty standard in RV engine games.

[The-MCV- 149]

I don't lose any frames by switching clouds from disabled to very low. Looks better too.

Edited March 16, 2014 by DontGoToBalotaAlone

[korpisoturi (DayZ) 127]

Changing object detail to low will make impossible to see people in windows, also buildings will look like shit.

 

I have Object detail High because you can see people in buildings a lot easier