Overview
Got a potato computer with 6 GB of RAM or more? Gigantic runs like crud? This guide is for you.
Quick warning before you keep reading.
This guide is meant for people who can run the game at playable but low FPS after turning down all the settings the game already gives you, if you cannot run the game on at least 20-30 FPS, I cannot guarantee you’ll see massive changes to your FPS, it might help you get to a playable state, but I’m not a magician, and this isn’t magic, you’re probably not going to get a consistent 60 out of this.
This guide is also kinda useless for people who are used to messing around with Unreal Engine 3 games’ ini files too, we’re pretty much going to be changing things that you can change in almost every UE3 game.
Finding the .ini file.
Go to My Documents>My Games>Gigantic>RxGame>Config, there will be an .ini file there named “RxSystemSettings”.
I recommend making a backup of it just in case you mess up, and absolutely destroy your game somehow.
Tweaking the .ini file. (Part 1)
StaticDecals, DynamicDecals and UnbatchedDecals: Now, turning these off is kind of unescesarry on most computers, but just in case you’re desperate, you can turn these off by changing their values from “True” to “False”.
DynamicLights: This is a desperate tweak, changing this will make characters look really dark and some maps too, but give you a HUGE fps boost, if you’re unsure whether you need it or not, don’t change it, but if you’re desperate, change it from “True” to “False”.
DynamicShadows, LightEnviromentShadows: Assuming you’ve come to this review because you actually needed the FPS boost, DynamicShadows should already be on “False”, if it’s not, change it to that, this will give you another huge FPS boost, as for the latter, disabling almost any sort of shadows is beneficial to your FPS, change it to “False”.
MotionBlur: A gross, unnescessary effect that destroys your frame rate and makes your screen blurry whenever you turn around, set it to “False”.
Bloom: Another unnescessary eyecandy effect that can lower your FPS, set it to “False”.
bAllowLightShafts: A really cool looking effect, a shame it will absolutely destroy your framerate, set it to “False”.
Distortion, FilteredDistortion, DropParticleDistortion: A cool, circular soundwave/shockwave effect that can be destructive to your framerate, set these to “False”.
OnlyStreamInTextures: This is a dangerous tweak, turn this to True if you have a lot of VRAM but a weak GPU, otherwise, do not mess with it.
LensFlares: Unnescessary, ugly, distracting, and it destroys your framerate, set it to “False”.
FogVolumes: Possibly a FPS boost from turning this off, I’m not sure how many smoke effects Gigantic actually uses, but from my experience with every other UE3 game, disabling this helps, set it to “False”.
FloatingPointRenderTargets: I haven’t tested this enough in Gigantic, but it’s possible that disabling this could cause rendering errors and some of the ground to become invisible, a good FPS boost though, set it to “False” if you’re playing on a Intel card anyway, or if you’re sure the invisible ground and rendering errors won’t bug you.
UseVsync: Is there anyone who plays skill-based shooters or action games, enables Vsync, and is also not insane? Ruins your FPS, gives you free input lag for no good reason, set it to “False”.
AllowRadialBlur: Another blur effect that drains FPS, set it to “False.”
MaxShadowResolution, MaxWholeSceneDominantShadow: Something that can absolutely make a difference in your frame rate, set these to “256”.
This is the end of the basic stuff, after this, there will be some more tweaking with textures for those who are absolutely desperate for framerate.
Tweaking the .ini file. (Part 2)
Now, you won’t particularly NEED the next few tweaks, but for REALLY lower-end graphics cards, that are simply incapable of handling the game’s graphics even slightly, this is for you.
I would like to make a huge warning however:
Ok, now, in the same .ini file you were looking in, press CTRL-F and type in “TEXTUREGROUP” to get to the things we are going to be changing, you SHOULD be looking at TEXTUREGROUP_World, since that’s where we are going to start.
There should be some stuff in between the parentheses/round brackets/ the ( ) things, the thing we are going to be changing is “MaxLODSize=” since it controls the maximum texture resolutions things can be in, lowering it will make textures more pixelated, and reduce the amount of VRAM used by the game, sometimes, it can even increase FPS, I’ll be listing what each TEXTUREGROUP’s MaxLODSize should be at.
TEXTUREGROUP_World, TEXTUREGROUP_WorldNormalMap, TEXTUREGROUP_WorldSpecular: These control the quality of the world’s textures, ground, walls, that sort of thing, set these to “256”.
TEXTUREGROUP_Character, TEXTUREGROUP_CharacterNormalMap, TEXTUREGROUP_CharacterSpecular, TEXTUREGROUP_Weapon, TEXTUREGROUP_WeaponNormalMap, TEXTUREGROUP_WeaponSpecular: These control the quality of the characters’ textures, the quality of the textures are kinda ridiculous for a game that plays in third-person, set these to “256”.
TEXTUREGROUP_Vehicle,TEXTUREGROUP_VehicleNormalMap,TEXTUREGROUP_VehicleSpecular: I’m unsure what counts as “Vehicles” in the game, but the game has a minimum LOD for these, it asks for at least 512, if you know what you’re doing, you can change the minimum LOD, otherwise, change the MaxLODSize= to “512”.
TEXTUREGROUP_Cinematic: I’m also unsure what counts as “Cinematic”, but changing this has had no adverse effects on my game as far as I’ve noticed, change it to “256”.
TEXTUREGROUP_Effects, TEXTUREGROUP_EffectsNotFiltered: These control the quality of effects in the game, explosions, some of the game’s projectiles, basically most of the abilities, set these to “256”.
TEXTUREGROUP_Skybox: This controls the texture quality of the game’s sky, the game asks for a minimum LOD of 128, set this to “128”.
TEXTUREGROUP_UI: Skip this.
TEXTUREGROUP_Lightmap, TEXTUREGROUP_Shadowmap: Changing these can actually make your game run way better, set these to “256”.
TEXTUREGROUP_RenderTarget: Potential improvement to framerate by lowering this if you have FloatingPointRenderTargets set to True? I haven’t tested this enough, but as far as I know, I haven’t experienced any drawbacks from lowering this, set it to “256”.
That’s it, that’s almost all the changes you can do to the .ini file to increase performance.
Screenshots of the game after the tweaks.
Notice how the main menu became a lot darker after disabling Dynamic Lights.
Bigger characters make the texture changes more noticeable.
In general, everything looks kinda off compared to having Dynamic Lights enabled.
Also, this is what seems to happen when you set FloatingPointRenderTargets to “False”, some of the ground anb walls are missing, which is why you should avoid changing it if you can get away with that.
Keyword here is “Seems”, I’m still not sure.
Conclusion.
That’s it, I hope this guide was useful to you, please tell me if you think I should add anything else to this.