INCREASE PERFORMANCE! By: Tazzy

[Tazzy 5]

Okay, so I have been playing DayZ ever since the middle of 2012. I played on an Acer laptop, with Intel HD Graphics, with 1.5 GHz. With no knowing of requirements to play PC games, I thought my PC was beast. Ever since I researched a lot about computers, and came to the conclusion that I needed a gaming PC (Obviously). Well now I have one. However, it is a gaming laptop, people tend to say it is shit, but it gets the job done. It is an Alienware 14.

 

Besides that, I have done everything there was to increase my FPS in DayZ. With it being un-optimized and still in Alpha, I understand the reasoning of the low FPS.

However, I have found a way to get 35+ FPS in forest, and 25+ FPS in cities, on a FAIR to MID-RANGE PC, a really good rig will get more FPS, but someone with an really good rig, I'd doubt will be checking out this guide. By far to mid-range I mean at-least a Quad Core Processor with 2.5 GHz or higher, and an Nvidia or AMD Radeon graphics that is decent, and is up-to-date.

 

Lets begin....

 

NOTE: WITH A FAIR TO MID-RANGE PC, DO NOT EXPECT TO PLAY ON ULTRA SETTINGS! THIS GUIDE IS GOING TO MAKE YOUR GAME LOOK DECENT, BUT GET YOU THE MOST FPS AS POSSIBLE!

 

1 - MAKE SURE YOU HAVE NO MALWARE OR ANY VIRUS ON YOUR COMPUTER!

 

This is an obvious one, but you may be surprised what is on your computer. You may not have an Anti-Virus software on your computer, because you know what you're downloading. But I recommend to download AVG. http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage....It is very useful and essential to removing threats and other virus or suspicious files on your computer.

 

2 - CLEAN OUT YOUR COMPUTER!

 

Once a week, or every day, or every couple days, clean out your PC by deleting unnecessary files. I recommend CCLeaner as it is the best for cleaning out your PC on a day to day basis. https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

 

3 - SHUT DOWN PROGRAMS THAT ARE UNNECESSARY TO HAVE OPEN!

 

Obvious one again, but make sure you shut down those programs, that are taking up space on the CPU that you don't need to be on. For example: UTorrent, Gyazo, Photoshop, whatever is may be, shut it down if your not using it.

 

4 - HARD-DRIVE INFORMATION!

 

Now it is very essential to have a lot of hard drive space. But not 1 hard-drive is enough. For PC Gaming, you might want to invest in getting an SSD, as putting recordings, games, your OS, etc onto your SSD, will increase loading times and performance. Here's some information on an SSD. http://www.cnet.com/products/samsung-ssd-850-pro/

 

DayZ Settings:

 

Lets start with the config files for DayZ.

 

1 - Go to your search on windows 7 or 8, and type in "Documents".

 

2 - Click enter and click DayZ.

 

3 - on the DayZ.cfg File, right click it, and open with NotePad. 

 

4 - Make sure the Max Frames Ahead and the GPU Detected Frames Ahead are set to this ---- GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1; GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=0;

 

Q: What does this do?

 

A: I can't tell you exactly, but the higher the number, the smoother the game but lower FPS, and we'd rather have more FPS.

 

Now click save, and back out to where the DayZ.CFG file is.

 

5 - Right click "User.DayZProfile" and click open with notepad. 

 

Scroll down and you should see these 3 settings. (Forget Terrain Grid, that is controlled by the server)

 

Screenshot.

 

Now change "Scene Complexity" To 100000.

Change "ShadowZDistance" To 100.

Change "View Distance" To 1500 or 1000, I prefer more FPS so I go with 1000.

Change "PreferredObjectViewDistance"  to 1500.

 

Now all together, these 3 settings, your view distance will be lower. Now you'll be able to see all of your surroundings, just things very very far away. Here's a picture.

 

Screenshot.

 

 

DayZ Video Settings:

 

NOTE: THESE SETTINGS ARE FOR THE MOST FPS, AND DECENT QUALITY. BY DECENT QUALITY I MEAN, NICE LOOKING TREES AND TERRAIN AND BUILDINGS FROM A CLOSE DISTANCE, BUT JAGGED TREES FROM A FAR!!!

 

Go to your Video Settings On DayZ.

 

Go to your "User Interface" and make sure it is the same as your designated monitor resolution (Mine is 1366x768) 

 

Make Sure the % Is on 100% to get the best looked and make sure it is not blurry.

 

Then, go to Quality.

 

Follow These Steps:

 

Object: Very Low. (If you have a decent enough PC Put this to Normal, if you still have FPS Issues set it to Very Low)

Terrain: Very Low (Does not matter, controlled by server)

Clouds: Disabled Or Very High (Did not see an FPS difference, However, it could lower your FPS a ton if your PC is not that good)

Shadows: Disabled (Sure they are nice, but lower your FPS by 10-15. Your preference, I recommend 10 for best performance)

 

Then, go to Rendering.

 

On Rendering, make sure everything is disabled and HDR quality is very low.

 

Then, go to Textures.

 

Follow These Steps:

 

Video Memory - Auto (Auto uses the most as it can)

Texture Detail - Very High (So you don't get terrible quality, makes it look decent, same for Texture Filtering)

Texture Filtering - Very High

 

 

Now, your FPS should be increased by 10-20 FPS. I hope this guide helped on everything you need to know, and how to get the best performance on any PC!

 

For any questions, comment on one my videos on YouTube. My YouTube name is CriticalTaz89. That is the best of contact for me.

 

If you want my settings, copy and paste this into the button of your"User.DayZProfile"... It starts at keySuicide...

 

keySuicide[]={87};

keyHeart[]={};

lastMPServer="199.229.249.91:2402";

lastMPServerName="[WA]High LOOT LOOT LOOT!/24/7/All welcome!/PVP/PVE/Come on!";

keyMilitarySalute[]={};

keySitDownRelax[]={};

keyCarShiftGearUp[]={18};

keyCarShiftGearDown[]={16};

headBob=0;

floatingZoneArea=0;

fov=1.3110397;

mouseSensitivityX=1;

mouseSensitivityY=1;

sceneComplexity=100000;

shadowZDistance=100;

viewDistance=1000;

preferredObjectViewDistance=1500;

terrainGrid=12.5;

volumeCD=6.5;

volumeFX=8.5;

volumeSpeech=5.5;

volumeVoN=10;

vonRecThreshold=0;

gamma=2;

bloom=1;

rotblur=0;

brightness=1.5;

fovTop=0.75;

fovLeft=1.3333334;

uiTopLeftX=0.23750001;

uiTopLeftY=0.15000001;

uiBottomRightX=0.76249999;

uiBottomRightY=0.85000002;

IGUIScale=0.69999999;

 

 

FINAL LOOK AFTER MY GUIDE:

 

Screenshot.

 

Screenshot.

 

Screenshot.

 

As you can see, everything is nice, crisp, clean, and smooth.

 

[Tazzy 5]

Everyone NOTE: I never said the game was going to look amazing. It's purpose is for better performance while the game still looks decent!

[Tazzy 5]

So I get good FPS in DayZ. I get 40-60 cities and 30 in cities. Although I was so wondering any FPS tips. I know about launch parameters and editing the config. Also if you can, screenshot your in game settings and show me how it looks and how much FPS you get. I appreciate as much replies As I can get.

[Tazzy 5]

So I get good FPS in DayZ. I get 40-60 cities and 30 in cities. Although I was so wondering any FPS tips. I know about launch parameters and editing the config. Also if you can, screenshot your in game settings and show me how it looks and how much FPS you get. I appreciate as much replies As I can get.

[Felony Inhibitor 59]

Couple things I noticed in your write up I wanted to comment on...

 

Out of the 826 hours I have logged in the Standalone, I have spent nearly 1/4 of that optimizing, across 3 separate systems: 1 midrange gaming pc (my old rig), 1 good gaming pc (my girlfriends), and 1 "good plus"  gaming pc (my new rig). So don't take this as me trying in any way to contradict what you're saying, I'm basing my comments on time invested, as well as finding common ground among settings between all 3 computers I have been tweaking, as well as countless hours surfing forums and youtube and so on, so if anything, since there are already 9 million of these "DayZ Performance Enhancers" out there, there are only a few items that are common across any machine that will give the same effect no matter what.

 

First thing I noticed - GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1; GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=0; -these should both be set to 1, that I can attest to firsthand as one of the things that will make a difference, no matter the machine, however keep in mind that once you edit the folder you either have to revisit the folder every time you launch the game and check to see if these values have been reset by the game itself, or you have to change the folder properties to "Read Only", but doing that means you can not change anything else in the game that is in that folder, or it will revert to the value it was at when you made it a read only file, because the game can not change the file anymore.

 

Next, Scene Complexity. My old rig had similar components to what you have showing in your signature, if that is indeed your system, 100000 is quite a bit too low from what I found. Base is a million, I never had to drop it below 600000 on my old rig, and to be honest, I don't think I could play with a scene complexity lower than 500000 (personal preference I guess). The difference in performance from 100000 to 5-600000 should be minimal.

 

ShadowZDistance- This one had a HUGE impact on my performance. Even now, with my new rig, I have it set and keep it at 50, at all times. The difference in 100 down to 50 graphics wise, was nill on my end, but the boost I got in performance for that extra 50 was huge, may wanna give it a shot.

 

The rest of the stuff in the DayZ config and profile folders are system based. I noticed with my new rig that I got better performance turning things like view and preferredobject distance UP. (Don't ask me why.) But 1000 isnt gonna kill ya on either end of that spectrum, until and unless they release a weapon with a range of over 1000m, then you'd be in trouble because the players wouldn't render at all.

 

Another big one, HDR Quality, most of what I read, and what works for me, is to have it on low, at all times, never on very low. Now, I use AMD Graphics cards, and there is an issue with DayZ rain and AMD, they don't like each other. It starts raining, my GPU spits spider webs all over the grass. Black spider webs. However, that ONLY happens, if HDR Quality, is set to very low. So, again, it may be situational, because I only use AMD GPU's currently for all my machines.

 

As for shadows and clouds, don't let this fool ya, you're right that it should give better FPS to just disable them, but I have noticed I get better FPS with shadows on Low (no clouds), IF I'm not running any Anti-aliasing, because it darkens the entire ground, and gets rid of the jagged lines from the suns reflection (even with shadows off, you still get some shadowing). With that said, under rendering, it may be worth a try to play with the grass and tree renderer some, on my old rig I got better FPS having it render standard trees and grass (not disabled), and on my new rig I get better performance using the arma trees and grass.  Also if you can handle it, I would always have at least a low form of anti-aliasing on, specifically for what I was saying about the jagged "shadow" lines.

 

Now for Objects in the Quality settings. Don't gimp yourself ingame, you can squeeze FPS from other places to keep this at a usable level. Normal would be my minimum suggestion for objects, and for good reason, Walk into a wooden building, set a brown rifle down on the floor, walk to the other side of the building, and walk back towards that rifle with Objects on Very Low, Low, and then Normal. You tell me how much of a difference it makes in rendering and becoming obvious as to what it is and that there is even something there at all. (that was just an example, You can see this with anything that has a similar color pattern to its surroundings.)

 

Monitor Resolution you are correct that it needs to be the same as your monitors actual resolution, however, "rendering resolution" (the one that's a % based now and not an actual resolution, can be lowered a bit to gain some frames if you really need to, I wouldn't shave off more than 10% max personally, and only in dire need, but I would sacrifice 10% overall rendering resolution to have my Objects set to normal or higher any day of the week.

 

Final thoughts, don't forget to turn "Head Bob" off, it will help a bit with performance, and IF you're able to get FXAA very low or low on, and it doesn't destroy your FPS, turn post process quality ON to its lowest setting at that point, you'll notice a very nice increase in performance from that while sprinting (yah I know it gives a bit of tunnel vision, but if it gives you 10FPS, you could live with it I bet lol.)

 

Sorry, didn't realize how long this had gotten, and I'm in no way trying to hijack your thread, just putting my input in there, give it a try if you like, see what works and what doesnt :)

 

I currently keep VSYNC turned on, which caps the framerate at 60 but helps with screen tearing, and I can tell you that I do NOT have a super high end rig now, but, I consistently run at the max 60FPS that Vsync allows, and drop in the cities into the mid 40's, or right at 40 if there are a ton of people shooting at each other. If I turn Vsync off, I can easily get 80+fps in the woods and open areas, and fluctuate into the 60's in cities, but I get tearing in cities, so I prefer the vsync on. -Just saying that to point out that fine tuning all the above things you mentioned, DOES work, if you take the time to experiement... A LOT. On my old rig I ran a cool 50 in the woods and 30-35 in cities, consistently. So it can be done! 

 

GOOD LUCK!

-Felony

 

TL/DR; -change some settings and you might get better performance out of DayZ. Or not.

 

[Tazzy 5]

Couple things I noticed in your write up I wanted to comment on...

 

Out of the 826 hours I have logged in the Standalone, I have spent nearly 1/4 of that optimizing, across 3 separate systems: 1 midrange gaming pc (my old rig), 1 good gaming pc (my girlfriends), and 1 "good plus"  gaming pc (my new rig). So don't take this as me trying in any way to contradict what you're saying, I'm basing my comments on time invested, as well as finding common ground among settings between all 3 computers I have been tweaking, as well as countless hours surfing forums and youtube and so on, so if anything, since there are already 9 million of these "DayZ Performance Enhancers" out there, there are only a few items that are common across any machine that will give the same effect no matter what.

 

First thing I noticed - GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1; GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=0; -these should both be set to 1, that I can attest to firsthand as one of the things that will make a difference, no matter the machine, however keep in mind that once you edit the folder you either have to revisit the folder every time you launch the game and check to see if these values have been reset by the game itself, or you have to change the folder properties to "Read Only", but doing that means you can not change anything else in the game that is in that folder, or it will revert to the value it was at when you made it a read only file, because the game can not change the file anymore.

 

Next, Scene Complexity. My old rig had similar components to what you have showing in your signature, if that is indeed your system, 100000 is quite a bit too low from what I found. Base is a million, I never had to drop it below 600000 on my old rig, and to be honest, I don't think I could play with a scene complexity lower than 500000 (personal preference I guess). The difference in performance from 100000 to 5-600000 should be minimal.

 

ShadowZDistance- This one had a HUGE impact on my performance. Even now, with my new rig, I have it set and keep it at 50, at all times. The difference in 100 down to 50 graphics wise, was nill on my end, but the boost I got in performance for that extra 50 was huge, may wanna give it a shot.

 

The rest of the stuff in the DayZ config and profile folders are system based. I noticed with my new rig that I got better performance turning things like view and preferredobject distance UP. (Don't ask me why.) But 1000 isnt gonna kill ya on either end of that spectrum, until and unless they release a weapon with a range of over 1000m, then you'd be in trouble because the players wouldn't render at all.

 

Another big one, HDR Quality, most of what I read, and what works for me, is to have it on low, at all times, never on very low. Now, I use AMD Graphics cards, and there is an issue with DayZ rain and AMD, they don't like each other. It starts raining, my GPU spits spider webs all over the grass. Black spider webs. However, that ONLY happens, if HDR Quality, is set to very low. So, again, it may be situational, because I only use AMD GPU's currently for all my machines.

 

As for shadows and clouds, don't let this fool ya, you're right that it should give better FPS to just disable them, but I have noticed I get better FPS with shadows on Low (no clouds), IF I'm not running any Anti-aliasing, because it darkens the entire ground, and gets rid of the jagged lines from the suns reflection (even with shadows off, you still get some shadowing). With that said, under rendering, it may be worth a try to play with the grass and tree renderer some, on my old rig I got better FPS having it render standard trees and grass (not disabled), and on my new rig I get better performance using the arma trees and grass.  Also if you can handle it, I would always have at least a low form of anti-aliasing on, specifically for what I was saying about the jagged "shadow" lines.

 

Now for Objects in the Quality settings. Don't gimp yourself ingame, you can squeeze FPS from other places to keep this at a usable level. Normal would be my minimum suggestion for objects, and for good reason, Walk into a wooden building, set a brown rifle down on the floor, walk to the other side of the building, and walk back towards that rifle with Objects on Very Low, Low, and then Normal. You tell me how much of a difference it makes in rendering and becoming obvious as to what it is and that there is even something there at all. (that was just an example, You can see this with anything that has a similar color pattern to its surroundings.)

 

Monitor Resolution you are correct that it needs to be the same as your monitors actual resolution, however, "rendering resolution" (the one that's a % based now and not an actual resolution, can be lowered a bit to gain some frames if you really need to, I wouldn't shave off more than 10% max personally, and only in dire need, but I would sacrifice 10% overall rendering resolution to have my Objects set to normal or higher any day of the week.

 

Final thoughts, don't forget to turn "Head Bob" off, it will help a bit with performance, and IF you're able to get FXAA very low or low on, and it doesn't destroy your FPS, turn post process quality ON to its lowest setting at that point, you'll notice a very nice increase in performance from that while sprinting (yah I know it gives a bit of tunnel vision, but if it gives you 10FPS, you could live with it I bet lol.)

 

Sorry, didn't realize how long this had gotten, and I'm in no way trying to hijack your thread, just putting my input in there, give it a try if you like, see what works and what doesnt :)

 

I currently keep VSYNC turned on, which caps the framerate at 60 but helps with screen tearing, and I can tell you that I do NOT have a super high end rig now, but, I consistently run at the max 60FPS that Vsync allows, and drop in the cities into the mid 40's, or right at 40 if there are a ton of people shooting at each other. If I turn Vsync off, I can easily get 80+fps in the woods and open areas, and fluctuate into the 60's in cities, but I get tearing in cities, so I prefer the vsync on. -Just saying that to point out that fine tuning all the above things you mentioned, DOES work, if you take the time to experiement... A LOT. On my old rig I ran a cool 50 in the woods and 30-35 in cities, consistently. So it can be done! 

 

GOOD LUCK!

-Felony

 

TL/DR; -change some settings and you might get better performance out of DayZ. Or not.

Screw my forum post lol, listen to this guy ^^^^. Thanks for the reply bro, appreciate it a ton! 

[Felony Inhibitor 59]

lol, don't go telling people to listen to me, no one has ever accused me of being intelligent :P

 

But seriously, I would actually like to know between the tweaks you had already done, and anything you tested based on my info, what if anything worked out for you and why, as well as anything that had no effect, or made things worse (if you can scrounge up the time to post it that is).  Knowledge is power or so they say, and I would love to see an actual compiled comprehensive guide that is broken down to help everyone before launch, and right now the info is out there, on about 9 billion Youtube, twitch, Reddit and forum accounts. 

[Tazzy 5]

lol, don't go telling people to listen to me, no one has ever accused me of being intelligent :P

 

But seriously, I would actually like to know between the tweaks you had already done, and anything you tested based on my info, what if anything worked out for you and why, as well as anything that had no effect, or made things worse (if you can scrounge up the time to post it that is).  Knowledge is power or so they say, and I would love to see an actual compiled comprehensive guide that is broken down to help everyone before launch, and right now the info is out there, on about 9 billion Youtube, twitch, Reddit and forum accounts. 

Post processing while running gave me an FPS boost, most likely only thing that worked for me. But thats just for me! I gave my friends your forum post, 2 of them said all of your options worked for them as giving them more FPS, and 1 of my other friends got a TREMENDOUS FPS Boost, he followed some of your TIPS and he said he got 30+ FPS boost. Thanks a lot bro, yes and DEFINITELY make a comprehensive guide. Probably would help many people.  

[Felony Inhibitor 59]

LOL, glad to hear it helped some people. You know what though... Thought had never crossed my mind to put together a guide myself... I may put some feelers out and see if there would be support for an in-depth, per hardware and software type guide. Interesting concept :)

[Steak and Potatoes 13480]

LOL, glad to hear it helped some people. You know what though... Thought had never crossed my mind to put together a guide myself... I may put some feelers out and see if there would be support for an in-depth, per hardware and software type guide. Interesting concept :)

 

I'd say go for it, just be mindful there are a few on here present, but more insight with cross references is a good thing.

[Felony Inhibitor 59]

I'd say go for it, just be mindful there are a few on here present, but more insight with cross references is a good thing.

 

Awesome, I'll set a foundation then and see how to build on it, I know there are several on here, and tons other places, I have been compiling all that information and analyzing it, along with comments from other people, to try to get some separation - "performance boost using method x decays to nill at [insert hardware threshold/software type]" kinda thing. It's a start I guess!

 

Hey I've been needing a project :P

[Tazzy 5]

Awesome, I'll set a foundation then and see how to build on it, I know there are several on here, and tons other places, I have been compiling all that information and analyzing it, along with comments from other people, to try to get some separation - "performance boost using method x decays to nill at [insert hardware threshold/software type]" kinda thing. It's a start I guess!

 

Hey I've been needing a project :P

Good luck bro, if you need any help, feel free to ask me at any time!

[sneakydudes 278]

great work, I am on intel and going to test these things out. Also this might be an issue or not.

 

fov=0.8654092;

 

That is so I don't get headaches while running around or having to turn fast. I keep my character in view only to the backpack.

 

Some use it as an excuse to see players behind walls, I use it because I have to. I do believe it reduces FPS but I am not sure on that, unless shadows etc render different.

 

I also have 16gb. liquid cooled, and evga GTX 780TI SC video. I should be ripping those 120+ fps plus like I was seeing in .54 over the ocean.

[Felony Inhibitor 59]

Good luck bro, if you need any help, feel free to ask me at any time!

Oh I definitely will, you took the time to post what you knew, so I know there's interest on your part :)

 

 

great work, I am on intel and going to test these things out. Also this might be an issue or not.

 

fov=0.8654092;

 

That is so I don't get headaches while running around or having to turn fast. I keep my character in view only to the backpack.

 

Some use it as an excuse to see players behind walls, I use it because I have to. I do believe it reduces FPS but I am not sure on that, unless shadows etc render different.

 

I also have 16gb. liquid cooled, and evga GTX 780TI SC video. I should be ripping those 120+ fps plus like I was seeing in .54 over the ocean.

 

I'll add the field of view modifier to my list and check it on my system and see if we can find any correlation.

[lee83 21]

Id be well invested in a performance topic Felony

 

Thanks for the tips above guys i got my new rig last week and whilst i dont have to scale back on much its handy to know a few tweaks to give me that edge in Elektro / Cherno especally with shadowplay hogging resources

[Felony Inhibitor 59]

Id be well invested in a performance topic Felony

 

Thanks for the tips above guys i got my new rig last week and whilst i dont have to scale back on much its handy to know a few tweaks to give me that edge in Elektro / Cherno especally with shadowplay hogging resources

 

I'm in the process of creating a format/layout for one, I want to make sure it is broken up into sections that people can jump to based on certain issues they're having, as well as having a good system for feedback, I believe it would work much better to assimilate information from other users as it comes in. Much like this game itself, the success of an all in one performance tweaker would be based on the input of individuals, and their individual machines, and finding out what worked/didn't work, and why.