Difference between revisions of "MWLL Performance Guide"

Revision as of 15:34, 24 May 2022

While MWLL is built off of a relatively dated engine, intense teamfights ingame can even bog down modern computers, if unoptimized. However, with the gamut of customization options available, its no difficult task getting your game running just the way you want.
Here we go over some of the options available to you in meeting your performance needs. There are plenty of stories circulating the community about how users managed to get surprising FPS on hardware old enough to be your grandpa. If you're willing to make compromises to visual effects, you'd be hard pressed to find a machine that won't play at 30+ frames on minimum settings.

The Settings Menu

Sound

It is advised that on your first launch, that you reduce the in-game sound to a minimum and bring it up to a comfortable level afterwards, MWLL is notorious for having an uncomfortably high default volume. Performance wise, there is functionally no gains to be made by playing with settings in the Sound menu. Similarly, Contrast, Gamma and Brightness in the following Graphics menu seem to have little effect.

Graphics

It is strongly suggested that you do NOT change the settings in OPTIONS / SYSTEM SETTINGS / GRAPHICS / ADVANCED from their defaults. MWLL ships with pre-configured optimal medium settings that have combined performance and visual tweaks to give you more FPS in intense graphics heavy battles. Do use the "Autodetect - Optimal Settings" as they will remove the optimizations until the next restart.

The Crysis engine that MWLL is built on requires a CPU that has high single thread performance to deliver high FPS. Recent AMD Ryzen 3000/5000 and Intel CPUs Haswell and later series with 3 GHz base clock or faster are recommended. Crysis doesn't require a high-end GPU for smooth 1080p (1920x1080) gaming. Any AMD RX460 or GTX 1030 or newer GPU will be fine for the pre-configured optimal settings.

The quickest way to reclaim FPS:

• Setting in-game Anti-Aliasing Quality to OFF found in OPTIONS / SYSTEM SETTINGS / GRAPHICS. The MWLL pre-configured optimal settings already have Crysis's FPS friendly edge anti-aliasing enabled by default.

• Reduce your in-game resolution and disabling any multi-GPU setups (Nvidia SLI, AMD CrossFire, or Nvidia Optimus). After finding your monitors native resolution, try to reduce your resolution to some lower setting of the same ratio. Anecdotally, some users find a performance spike by selecting a resolution that's a half multiple of their native resolution (for example; 1920 x 1080 -> 960 x 540). The FPS gains made by lowering your resolution will only be more pronounced if your machine lacks a discrete graphics card.

• Disabling FULLSCREEN found in OPTIONS / SYSTEM SETTINGS / GRAPHICS. Some combinations of GPUs and monitors using HDMI may select the lowest refresh rate (~24 Hz) when running in fullscreen mode effectively locking you to 24 FPS max. Running in Windowed mode (disabling fullscreen) will get around this problem. Use Borderless Windowed mode helper applications to remove the border around MWLL. Details here: https://wiki.mechlivinglegends.net/index.php?title=Troubleshooting#How_can_I_run_the_game_in_Fullscreen-Window_.2F_Borderless-Window_mode.3F

Advanced Settings

We strongly recommend that you don't alter these settings as they will possibly disable the MWLL pre-configured optimizations but reducing the following settings might increase your FPS.

• POSTPROCESSING QUALITY
• VOLUMETRIC EFFECTS QUALITY
• PARTICLES QUALITY
• SHADERS QUALITY
• WATER QUALITY

For higher FPS while keeping the MWLL optimizations, you'll need to utilize the user.cfg.

User.cfg

User.cfg is a file that provides configuration instructions to the game on how to run, such as the resolution of the game window, properties of various game graphical and performance settings. Many tweaks can be made to this file to either cut out unnecessary features for extra performance, or to unlock the best visuals possible within Cryengine 2.

It is placed in the C:\Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Crysis Wars\MWLL\Client directory. (Replace username and/or drive name with your current Windows username / Windows installation drive.)

Alternatively, you can browse to the correct folder by cut/pasting this into your Explorer window: %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Crysis Wars\MWLL\Client

NOTE: We highly recommend disabling Crysis's in-game anti-aliasing (set to 0x/disabled) in the graphics settings unless you have a powerful GPU as it can be quite a FPS drain. Instead, use Crysis's FPS friendly edge anti-aliasing which is enabled by default in the first 2 user configs listed below.

The following user.cfg files are hosted on Discord - consider joining the MWLL community to meet up with other MWLL players and ask for help with user.cfg config files https://discord.me/mwll . For more information on how to install, customize, or write your own User.cfg file, see the page on Console Variables.

The three updated 2022 user.cfg files below all feature mapped function keys that toggle a few key settings:

• F4 toggles HDR rendering (disabling HDR may help FPS at the cost of blown out / overbright colors on some maps)
• F9 toggles Shader post processing (slightly increases FPS but some maps look dull / desaturated with it disabled, removes depth of field effect while zooming)
• F10 toggles Crysis's FPS counter
• F11 toggles net_channelstats - use to diagnose red-x / lossy connection to servers. Details how to use it are found here: Net_channelstats
• PAUSE toggles HUD - for screenshots

• Highest quality visuals and good performance Preset - Updated April 2022
  • Set for highest quality visuals. Better FPS than stock Crysis High settings yet looks more detailed than Very High preset.
    • Longer shadow draw distances with more real-time shadows cast from terrain and objects.
    • Edge anti-aliasing enabled for less jaggies.
    • Screen Space Ambient Occlusion disabled as it can be a FPS drain. Consider using ReShade MXAO as an alternative.
    • Optimized particle and texture settings - balanced for visuals and FPS.
    • Increased FPS by reducing the water effect quality a tad - especially helps during water tracer impact effects.
    • Increased FPS by shortening the decal effects lifetime - laser burn effects disappear more quickly.

• Balanced quality vs performance preset - Updated April 2022
  • Set for balanced quality visuals. FPS almost as fast as stock Crysis Medium settings but with considerably improved visuals.
    • Medium shadow draw distances and keeps shadows cast from terrains on.
    • Edge anti-aliasing enabled for less jaggies.
    • Screen Space Ambient Occlusion disabled as it can be a FPS drain.
    • Optimized particle and texture settings - leans towards better performance.
    • Increased FPS by further reducing the water effect quality - especially helps during water tracer impact effects.
    • Increased FPS by shortening the decal effects lifetime - laser burn effects disappear more quickly.

• Best performance optimized preset - Updated April 2022
  • Set for performance oriented visuals. FPS around stock Crysis Medium graphics settings while looking a lot better (avoids opaque water bug).
    • Low shadow draw distances.
    • Edge anti-aliasing disabled.
    • Screen Space Ambient Occlusion disabled.
    • Performance optimized light, particle, decal and texture settings.
    • Increased FPS by further reducing the water effect quality - especially helps during water tracer impact effects - no light impact reflections.
    • Increased FPS by further shortening the decal effects lifetime - laser burn effects disappear more quickly.

Here's some slightly older screenshots showing the differences between the configs and how they compare to the stock Crysis settings: Screenshots Comparison

The following user.cfg files are out of date and have a bunch of bugs that causes some settings to be set to the highest possible setting (ie sys_spec_Shadows = 0 sets *all* shadows to the max and killing performance). Only use them if you are willing to edit the file yourself to fix the bugs and change/experiment with the necessary config settings at your discretion to meet your preferences.

There are multiple bugs in the following user.cfgs! DO NOT USE THEM WITHOUT CAREFULLY ANALYZING THEM! At the minimum, change the following:

• sys_spec_Shadows = 0 should be sys_spec_Shadows = 1 .
• Deleting the line e_particles_quality = 9 or ingame projectiles will become invisible.
• Deleting the line d3d9_forcesoftware = 1, or the ingame Console and Cbill Transfer Menu will be unusable due to invisible text
• Deleting the line e_particles_max_emitter_draw_screen = 0, or too many particles will be shown on certain maps and perf will tank.

(Outdated/Buggy) Low Visuals/High Performance Preset

(Outdated/Buggy) Alternate Low Visuals/High Performance Preset

(OLD) High Visuals Preset

Shader Cache cleanup

If you normally have adequate performance, but lose it seemingly out of the blue: use the Clear Shaders option from the MWLL Launcher. MWLL Shaders have a gamut of interesting bugs tied to them, from hidden performance sinks to rainbow clouds and pink hovercraft dust- but it's easily fixed in the click of a button.

Other Options

If you are still having trouble getting the performance you're looking for, consider joining the MWLL Discord and inquiring in the #tech_support channel for more assistance.

Besides that, the following are a few more options that can increase stability and performance, but have to be approached with a trial-and-error mindset, considering each player's mix and match of these settings may not work for another player's system.

• Running the game in DX9, 10 mode from the launcher
• Running the game in fullscreen, or windowed mode
• Running the game in Windows Compatibility mode for Windows 8, Windows 7.1 (Can be found by right-clicking the launcher, and opening 'Properties')

These, and a few more steps can be found in the Troubleshooting Guide