Download optimization for dishonored

based on solutions from Gigabyte

Brief information about the game

• Release date: November 11, 2016
• Genre: Adventure First Person Action
• Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
• Developer: Arkane Studios

Dishonored 2 (Dishonored 2) is a continuation of the project in the genre of stealth first-person action with elements of the role-playing game Dishonored, in which the player finds himself in the role of Empress Emily Kaldwin or Corvo Attano - the protector of the crown. The game was released on November 11, 2016 on several gaming platforms at once: PC and consoles Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Xbox One. The game takes place fifteen years after the first part - after an unusual enemy took the throne from the Empress Emily Kaldwin. Emily goes underground and prepares a massacre, trying to restore her name, like Corvo earlier. Playing as one of the two main characters, the player will find himself on the streets of Dunwall and in Karnak, a port city that plays a key role in the whole story. New abilities will help hunt down enemies and return what is rightfully theirs.

The characters differ from each other: Emily is light and agile, while Corvo is heavy and deadly. They also have different sets of abilities, weapons and equipment, although their tasks are the same. The gameplay in Dishonored 2 is as flexible as in the first part. Depending on the chosen style of passing the game, you can use supernatural forces, technical devices and unique weapons, destroying everyone in your path, or silently move along the roofs, cutting down only the interfering enemies. The system of powers and superpowers allows you to literally become a shadow and silently walk towards the goal, plunging the enemy into a trance, taking away their mind, etc.

It is even more convenient in the game to combine superpowers with various types of weapons, in some cases engaging in battle, and in others to avoid open collision - the choice is up to the player. Everyone will be able to choose a unique combination of abilities, weapons and equipment for themselves, and the game will react to every decision of the player, and depending on his actions, the outcome of tasks may differ. For example, the game world becomes darker if you resort to a more brutal playstyle.

Locations in the game are different, there are gloomy streets of Dunwall, infested with rats, and there is a flourishing coast of Karnaka. The places where the action unfolds are quite original, the player will have to visit the Dusty Quarter destroyed by storms and the madman's mansion - a house with moving walls, deadly traps and unusual sentries - mechanized soldiers. In the second part, the artificial intelligence system was improved - the guards are now more difficult to deceive and they behave more realistically in the game world, react more adequately to various situations, unite in groups or separate when necessary.

The game was announced at the Bethesda Softworks conference at E3 2015, when the game platforms became known, the release date and the use of the Void Engine created on the basis of id Tech 5 was announced. Naturally, Dishonored 2 was also shown a year later - at E3 2016. Interestingly, that if the first part of the game was developed by two teams of Arkane: French and American, then its continuation was taken up exclusively by the French part of Arkane Studios, and the studio in Austin focused on the new game Prey.

So, unlike the first part, which used Unreal Engine 3, the visual part of Dishonored 2 is based on the Void Engine, which is based on the id Tech 5 graphics engine, seriously modified and finalized by the Arkane Studios programmers (according to them, they left only 20% of the code from id). id Tech 5 is a cross-platform game engine developed by id Software after the release of Doom 3, which used the previous generation of the engine (id Tech 4).

Games using id Tech 5 include Rage, Wolfenstein: The New Order, and Wolfenstein: The Old Blood. The main distinguishing feature of the engine is the use of advanced MegaTexture technology, known since Doom 3 - virtual texturing, which can use textures with very high resolution (up to 16 times more compared to id Tech 4). So, at the first demonstration of the engine, we used about 20 GB of textures in a fully dynamic virtual world.

Virtual texturing technology allows the game engine to automatically determine the areas of textures needed for rendering and load them into video memory as needed, so that game developers do not think about limiting game systems by the amount of video memory, which greatly facilitates the development and creation of a truly unique game world without constantly repeating textures ... The engine automatically optimizes available resources for various gaming platforms, making it easier to develop multi-platform projects. Another feature of the engine is soft shadows with penumbraes, which are achieved using shadow maps, as opposed to the hard-edged shadow rendering method used in id Tech 4.

Other graphical effects and algorithms implemented in the Void Engine include advanced lighting and materials, high dynamic range (HDR) rendering, volumetric lighting, indirect lighting, soft-edge particle systems, real-time reflections, procedural animation, tissue simulation. , as well as a variety of post filters (motion blur, imitation of depth of field, etc.). Arkane has removed the unnecessary from the engine by improving the lighting and post-processing algorithms, as well as adding subsurface scattering, which is especially important for rendering skin.

Water surfaces look pretty impressive in the game. Probably, when rendering water, tessellation with a complex displacement mapping is used, as well as the screen space algorithm for rendering real-time reflections, which is very popular and is now used in almost all games. As a result, if the Void Engine lags behind modern requirements, then quite a bit, but even so it is able to use most of the capabilities of the current generation of GPUs.

If we talk not only and not so much about the graphics features of the engine, then it supports efficient multithreading using multiple cores of modern central processing units, when rendering, game logic, artificial intelligence, physics engine, sound engine and other components are executed on different CPU cores in parallel. Interestingly, although id Tech 5 uses the open cross-platform OpenGL as its graphics API, the Arkane Studios version for some reason uses Direct3D 11 capabilities. This in itself is not that important, modern APIs are not that different from each other.

By itself, Dishonored 2 immediately liked the players and left a pleasant impression - they appreciated all the improvements from the first part: more complex stealth missions, advanced adaptation of the main characters' capabilities to the chosen play style, the implementation of the game world, as well as an artificially changed for the better intelligence. Alas, numerous technical problems of the PC version prevented the game from immediately receiving high marks from PC players in general, although the gaming press appreciated the game at its true worth.

The situation was corrected by subsequent patches, first in the form of beta versions 1.2 and 1.3, and then in the form of official releases. In general, by the end of November or even the beginning of December, the game has seriously changed in terms of playability and optimization for PC. In particular, problems were fixed that prevented from showing a stable frame rate without sagging, especially on AMD Radeon video cards when simulating fabrics, but not only them - the game as a whole began to work better on relatively weak systems and in the patched form it has lower CPU power requirements. Although the main jumps in the frame rate have been eliminated, they are not completely removed, and sometimes they are noticeable on systems with a lack of video memory and / or weak CPUs. And to get rid of problems with incorrect physical effects, the frame rate was limited to 120 FPS.

Interestingly, if initially the HBAO + (Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion) global shading imitation technique, which was implemented with the help of Nvidia, worked exclusively on GeForce video cards in the release game, then using patches they made it workable on AMD Radeon as well. And only now, after all the optimizations and fixes, the game has become what the developers and players would like to see it. So maybe it was not at all necessary to rush to the PC release, faced with massive complaints about optimization flaws, but to release the game a couple of weeks after the console versions, finalizing everything that was not done well at first?

System requirements

Minimum system requirements:

• cPU Core i5-2400 or AMD FX-8320;
• random access memory 8 GB;
• graphics card Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7970;
• video memory volume 2-3 GB;
• 60 GB;
• Microsoft Windows 7 / 8.1 / 10;

• cPU Intel Core i7-4770 or AMD FX-8350;
• random access memory 16 GB;
• graphics card Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 480;
• video memory volume 6-8 GB;
• free space on the drive 60 GB;
• 64-bit operating system Microsoft Windows 10;

The obligation to use a 64-bit Windows operating system has long become familiar, it allows you to get away from the long-obsolete limitation of 2 GB of RAM per process, which is clearly not enough for modern games that easily fill many times more. Since the game uses exclusively the capabilities of DirectX 11, there are no requirements in the form of using Windows 10 in this case - Dishonored 2 can be run on all 64-bit Microsoft operating systems, starting with Windows 7. Although there is a recommendation to use Windows 10, it is likely , due to better optimization of this OS version.

The stated minimum hardware requirements for the game are not too high - the game needs a fairly decent amount of RAM, but not the most powerful processors and video cards. Under the guise of minimally suitable video cards, rather old and not so powerful video cards of the GeForce GTX 660 and Radeon HD 7970 models are presented, more or less close to each other in performance. As always, do not forget that this is only the very minimum required to run the game at low graphics settings, and even medium settings will require more.

To run the game, a system with 8 GB of RAM and a non-top processor is required. Recommendations for the use of not the most powerful CPUs can be considered too optimistic, since the game loads even a powerful test processor with work in some scenes, and this applies to both multithreading and the performance of individual cores (however, it all depends on the choice of graphics settings and the GPU - powerful GPUs can often run into the capabilities of the CPU under certain conditions). Those who want to play at high graphics settings are advised to equip the gaming system with 16 GB of memory and a much more powerful processor.

By the way, the indicated recommended configuration as a whole seems to us quite sane in terms of the obtained performance. To get a really high-quality image with an acceptable frame rate, the developers recommend running the game on a system with video cards of the level of GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 480 with 6 or 8 GB of video memory, respectively, and these solutions are really close to each other in performance, although the Nvidia video card there is a slight advantage in this particular game. These GPUs will provide good gaming comfort at very high quality, at least in Full HD resolution. In general, Dishonored 2 places serious system requirements on the entire system, the game needs both a high-performance CPU and a powerful GPU.

Test configuration and testing methodology

The game Dishonored 2 is included in the marketing and technical program of Nvidia, it was with the cooperation of its developers with the California GPU manufacturer that the project appeared to support a pair of GameWorks technologies: HBAO + and TXAA, which we will write about in detail below. It seems that this collaboration was not as active as in the case of the recent game Watch Dogs 2, and we did not find anything special in marketing terms.

It is not surprising that Nvidia released a special optimized version of the drivers by the day this game project was released, but since more than a month has passed since then, in today's tests of video cards manufactured by Gigabyte we used the latest official Nvidia driver version 376.33 WHQL, released on 12/14/2016 and designed for all modern games, including Dishonored 2.

Dishonored 2 lacks built-in performance testing, and the ability to play previously recorded gameplay is also missing. Therefore, as a test segment for measuring performance, we chose a scene in the city of Karnak, which is distinguished by a lot of details and characters, the presence of a water surface with realistic reflections and other heavy effects. The selected scene has a long rendering range, it is one of the most demanding at the beginning of the game, although it is certainly not the most difficult in general. We measured the average frame rate in a piece of gameplay using the Fraps utility, trying to make the test as stable as possible, with a low spread in the resulting frame rate between runs. As a result, according to the figures obtained in our test, it is quite possible to judge the level of performance in the game as a whole.

For a combat action game that sometimes requires very fast action, stable 60 FPS is very desirable, or at least about 40 FPS in the absence of frame rate drops below 30 FPS - we consider this performance to be the minimum playable for Dishonored 2, which is confirmed by our experience. Well, for the most demanding players, you will need to provide at least about 60 FPS. Lower frame rates in our performance test will result in lack of fluidity in the game when the response to player input becomes too sluggish. Also, when testing, you need to take into account that if immediately after the release of the game there was no upper frame rate limit in it, like other games based on the id Tech 5 engine, then after all the patches the upper limit appeared - it is impossible to get more than 120 FPS in the game. This was done in order to avoid problems with the physics calculation in the game, but it also affects the comparative tests of the performance GPUs.

Dishonored 2 is not optimized for multi-core CPUs, the game runs quite well on such CPUs, but places high demands on the CPU at some levels, especially in cities such as Karnaca. However, if you have a multi-core CPU of at least an average level by modern standards, this does not cause any special problems, the game knows how to use multithreading, although it does not do it in the best way, loading only a part of the available cores, but in general, performance is not so often limited by the CPU itself (with high graphic settings, of course). In our study, the test CPU was loaded with work from 40 to 70%, on average about 50%, and even less with medium settings. These are large enough values \u200b\u200beven for modern games. The overall speed in general was not limited by any one core, but not all of them were evenly loaded with work:

Video memory requirements for Dishonored 2 are not an easy question, as is usual for modern games, which often fill more memory than is required for rendering frames. Game engine developers set them up so that they clog the available video memory with textures and other resources, so the figures for video memory use can reach higher values \u200b\u200bthan needed in reality.

The use of video memory in the game reaches approximately 4 GB at medium settings at Full HD-resolution, and exceeds 5.5 GB at ultra-settings at the same resolution. Interestingly, the amount of video memory occupied does not depend much on the choice of rendering resolution, in 2560 × 1440 it reaches 6 GB, and in 4K it is about 6.5 GB. But these figures are not entirely indicative, at medium settings it is quite possible to play on video cards with 2 GB, and at high settings - with 4 GB, the game simply clogs all the video memory with resources, as described above.

However, at ultra-settings in WQHD-resolution on video cards with 3-4 GB of memory, though not too frequent, but still noticeable jerks are observed, especially with sharp turns and loading new data into video memory, which clearly worsens the user experience. So the minimum amount of video memory in the game is 2 GB, which is sufficient for most cases - 4 GB, but it is better to have 6-8 GB.

Impact of settings on performance and quality

Graphic settings in Dishonored 2 are changed from the internal game menu, which can be called up during gameplay as well. Changes to all graphic settings are effective immediately and this does not require restarting the application or exiting to the main menu, so it is very convenient to adjust the rendering quality in the game. True, for this you have to display the FPS counter using third-party utilities or the Steam overlay.

The graphic menu in the game has many parameters that allow fine tuning for a specific system. All graphic settings of the game are divided into three parts: basic settings (4 parameters), quality settings (16 parameters + profile selection) and advanced settings (7 parameters). Dishonored 2 offers six preset quality profiles: Very Low, Low, Medium, High, Very High, and Ultra. The last one is also the highest possible graphics quality for this game. For our tests, we used the settings profiles: Medium, High and Ultra without any changes:

Medium settings

High settings

Ultra settings

Most of the quality parameters can be set to one of the levels: Very Low, Low, Medium, High, Very High, and Ultra. The only parameter that differs in this regard is the setting for full-screen anti-aliasing. Well, some features that can only be turned on or off. Provided that the High, Very High and Ultra profiles are selected, the difference in graphics is not striking, the game looks almost the same. But starting with the average quality profile Medium, the differences are quite noticeable: lighting becomes simpler, textures lose detail, most special effects and post-filters disappear. The Low value is not at all recommended for use, as it lowers the quality of the graphics very much below the minimum decent modern level.

The most correct thing is to adjust the rendering quality and the final performance to your requirements, based on your own feelings and FPS indicators. Moreover, the influence of some parameters on the resulting rendering quality with different settings in games is not always easily noticeable with the naked eye. It should be a little easier to notice different rendering quality from video clips corresponding to different levels of graphics settings:

Medium settings

Ultra (Ultra) settings

The difference between the values \u200b\u200bof the quality settings is best seen in dynamics, when the differences in the quality of drawing the landscape and objects, lighting and shading are clearly visible. This is most noticeable in the quality of shadows and lighting, as well as the presence of reflections and post-effects. In general, the settings in the game are well balanced, the lowest ones make it possible for owners of weak systems to play, and the maximum ones are suitable only for the most powerful video cards.

At low quality settings, the image in the game looks too fuzzy, especially for various inscriptions and characters, details on which disappear in the distance. The shadow detail is also reduced, and the shadows of small objects, such as bottles, are not drawn at all. When the settings are increased, the detail of objects in the game world is noticeably improved, such effects as reflections on water, puddles and armor appear. Naturally, the effect of postfilters like Bloom and Depth of Field is also noticeable.

In total, the Dishonored 2 game settings menu has more than a couple of dozen graphical parameters, which allows you to flexibly configure the game for any system that meets the minimum requirements. In the main menu, you can select the screen mode (windowed or full screen), adjust the screen resolution and brightness, and adjust the field of view.

But the most important settings will come next. In the advanced Advanced settings, you can find the options for disabling vertical sync (you can not only turn it on and off, but also select half the frame rate and G-Sync mode, if supported by the system - this is another reminder of the cooperation of game developers with Nvidia), configure adaptive rendering resolution, frame rate limiter, triple buffering and the HBAO + global shading imitation technique, which for some reason was hidden right here:

One of the most interesting settings is adaptive rendering resolution ( Adaptive resolution). Like many other modern games, it allows you to automatically lower the rendering resolution in cases where there is a lack of performance - that is, when the frame rate drops below a certain limit. This method has long been used in many console games and makes it possible to get higher quality graphics almost always, except for the most demanding scenes. Naturally, the render resolution for menus and labels is always full.

In the game, you can set both the FPS limit, below which the resolution will be reduced, and the rendering resolution as a percentage of the full resolution selected in the settings. For example, when choosing a high-quality adaptive rendering method, its resolution can be reduced to 85% of screen resolution, in balanced - up to 75% of full resolution, and up to 50% - in high-performance method. If you absolutely lack performance with the selected graphics quality, we recommend using this opportunity.

Dishonored 2's simulation of global shading uses an algorithm developed by Nvidia programmers HBAO +, which significantly improves the quality of graphics, which is especially important in this game, which is characterized by many flat surfaces and a clear lack of volume. After all, HBAO + adds indirect shadows from small geometry, which add realism and volume to the scene. This is immediately noticeable on the streets of cities, where HBAO + adds shadows to every corner and object. Disabling this algorithm seems to take us back a few years ago, when Ambient Occlusion algorithms had not yet been used in games and everything looked flat.

Enabling HBAO + is also pleasant because it causes a very slight drop in performance - on our test system the difference in rendering speed was about 4-5%, which can be considered an acceptable price for a significant improvement in graphics quality. Interestingly, after the release of the game, the inclusion of HBAO + was only available on video cards based on Nvidia GPUs, and the owners of Radeon video cards had to wait for subsequent patches, including the ability to enable the global shading simulation algorithm on AMD chips. We recommend that you always enable HBAO + if your performance is enough, because the visual difference is huge.

Next, we will take a closer look at the graphic quality settings ( Quality settings) from the game Dishonored 2 in order, along with the speed gains they give on a system with a powerful GeForce GTX 1060 video card made by Gigabyte.

Texture Detail - the self-explanatory name of the setting, which allows you to choose the detail (resolution and filtering, probably) for the textures used when rendering in Dishonored 2, and is responsible for the detailing of all textures in the game. Naturally, the higher this parameter, the better the textures will be used when rendering in the game - everything is standard here.

As for the impact on performance, even with sufficient video memory (6-8 GB and higher), the difference between the Very Low and Ultra values \u200b\u200bis about 8-10%, which is quite a lot. That is, if there is a lack of speed, reducing this setting can give several very important FPS. True, this parameter also has a major impact on the overall image quality, so we would not advise reducing it below the level that your video card is capable of in principle.

Setting up Character Detail is responsible for the detailing of characters and weapon models, including depending on the distance from the camera to them - that is, it is the level of detail (LOD) setting. The higher the setting value, the less simplified the models with increasing distance to them. Low settings at medium and long range use less sophisticated character and weapon models. This setting has an average effect on performance - the difference between Very Low and Ultra is 6-7%, which can give you up to 4-6 FPS extra.

Parameter name Water quality also hardly needs a lot of decoding, it is responsible for the quality of rendering of the water surface: the complexity of the shader and the detail of reflections on the water. The higher the value, the more realistic the water looks, using more complex shaders when rendering foam, highlights on the water, reflections of different details, etc. Rendering speed depends on the amount of water in the frame, in our test the difference between the minimum and maximum values \u200b\u200bwas less than 5%. In general, choose the quality of water for your own reasons, in the game it looks very good, but does not affect the gameplay in any way.

Environmental Detail - a setting that adjusts the geometric detail of objects in the scene, including bushes and trees, depending on the distance to the camera. The higher the value, the higher quality variants of geometric models will be used in the game and will be simplified at a greater distance from the player. It has an average effect on performance - turning on the minimum value can give about 5-6 frames per second in addition, which can be very useful in some cases, so look at the circumstances.

Shadow quality - another setting that doesn't need to be explained too much. It changes the rendering quality of shadows, including both the resolution of shadow maps and the distance of their rendering - with lower values \u200b\u200bof the parameter, distant objects or do not cast shadows at all, or shadows are greatly simplified. This setting has the biggest impact on rendering performance. The difference between Very Low and Ultra on our system was about 15%, which is very, very much - so adjust the shadow quality very carefully. Perhaps you just don't need to raise this parameter too high.

Quality parameter Decal quality responsible for details such as marks from shots and sword strikes on walls and characters. The higher the setting, the more such detailed traces will be drawn on surfaces in the game at one time, and the longer they will remain visible on the screen. This setting has practically no effect on performance, and only in a tough battle can it significantly affect the rendering speed.

Post-process Anti-aliasing - anti-aliasing setting. The game engine uses full-screen anti-aliasing exclusively by post-processing, while hardware multisampling (MSAA) does not work in the game. The user has a choice between three post-filtering anti-aliasing methods: FXAA Low, FXAA High and TXAA 1X. The two FXAA methods differ in the quality of anti-aliasing, Low is marginally more efficient, and TXAA 1X is the highest quality anti-aliasing method available in Dishonored 2.

The TXAA method, although it is an Nvidia algorithm and has not been used on AMD Radeon graphics cards before, is available for all GPUs in Dishonored 2. This is probably done because the multisampling component is not used in the TXAA 1x method, and this is a purely post-processing method in this particular case. The image is best anti-aliased using the TXAA 1x method with a time component, and we recommend using the TXAA method, since with either of the two FXAA methods, there is a noticeable flickering of some parts of the image, and the smoothing of the edges is not good enough. Alas, TXAA also has a drawback - it significantly reduces the overall picture clarity, even in high definition. However, this can be partially corrected using a special setting. TXAA Shaprness.

All three anti-aliasing methods in Dishonored 2 cost almost no cost in terms of performance, as they are extremely uncomplicated post-processing effects. On mid-range graphics cards, such as the GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 480, enabling TXAA 1X causes a drop in performance by only 1-2%, to a maximum of 3%. So we advise you to always turn on one of the anti-aliasing methods to your liking, and if you are not worried about a slightly greater decrease in clarity with very good anti-aliasing of the entire picture, then you should choose TXAA.

Next in the quality settings menu are options for which you can choose whether to enable or disable them (Yes or No), and they are all enabled in the High and higher profiles, and disabled in Medium and lower. Settings package: Bloom, Camera motion blur, Depth of Field, Lens Flare, Volumetric lighting and Light shafts responsible for the corresponding post effects, and in the game you can only turn them on or off, and the rendering quality is not adjusted in any way. On our system, we did not find much influence from their inclusion, each of the disabled effects gives a maximum of 1-2 FPS in addition - we leave them at your discretion, depending on your own preferences.

Well, and two more remaining parameters: Rat shadows and Bloodfly shadows are responsible for enabling the shadows for the corresponding living objects in the game, both the shadows from them and the shadows on them. These two settings also do not affect the final performance in Dishonored 2 too much - on our powerful system, we did not find any noticeable difference between the on and off shadows for rats and cadaver wasps, so change this setting as you wish.

The main points to pay special attention to are Adaptive Resolution, HBAO +, Shadow Quality and Texture Detail. The Character Detail and Environmental Detail are somewhat less important for performance and quality, but all other rendering quality settings do not affect performance too much and will definitely not become a magic wand that will provide you with missing frames per second. However, everything written above is true only for our test system and scene.

Performance testing

We tested the performance of four Gigabyte graphics cards based on Nvidia GeForce GPUs in different price ranges and a couple of the latest generations of the company's graphics architectures. In testing, we used the two most common screen resolutions (1920 × 1080 and 2560 × 1440), as well as three preset settings profiles - Medium, High and Ultra.

We do not consider settings below the average level, since even the weakest video card in our comparison, the GeForce GTX 960, must cope with such graphics quality at least in Full HD resolution. Traditionally, for our site, we will also check the maximum rendering quality mode, as the most demanded option for settings among gaming enthusiasts. First, let's look at the most popular Full HD resolution with a medium quality profile, gradually complicating the task.

Resolution 1920 × 1080 (Full HD)

Even in the simplest conditions, the rendering speed was not limited by the CPU performance, and all video cards were able to reveal their capabilities. The game makes good use of the power of the CPU, considering that one of the most difficult scenes was chosen specifically for the central processor. And even the younger model from the pair, belonging to the previous generation, in the conditions of medium graphics settings and the most common resolution, was able to give an acceptable speed, providing a smooth frame rate of more than 40 FPS on average and without falling below 30 FPS. It turns out that even the GeForce GTX 960 makes it possible to play Dishonored 2 with sufficient comfort at medium settings.

All the other Gigabyte graphics cards in our comparison are based on more powerful GPUs, and in such simple conditions, they were able to provide maximum comfort and ideal smooth frame rates. Even the outdated GeForce GTX 970 graphics card showed a speed of 70 FPS on average, and a couple of Pascal architecture solutions at medium settings provided an average frame rate noticeably above 60 FPS. At the same time, in the case of the older model GeForce GTX 1070, the speed never dropped below 71 FPS, and the minimum frame rate for the GTX 1060 was 58 FPS, which is close to the ideal in the form of stable 60 FPS.

At high quality settings, the frame rate dropped, but not too much. So, the weakest graphics card in comparison, the GeForce GTX 960, still copes with its task, showing 42 FPS on average with drops to 33 FPS in our test, which is above our minimum limit. That is, with this solution, at high settings, minimal smoothness is achievable without reducing some settings to Medium or using adaptive rendering resolution. The GeForce GTX 970 provided 60 FPS on average at 45 FPS minimum, which can suit even fastidious users.

Well, even more demanding players will be satisfied with the speed of the GeForce GTX 1060 and GTX 1070, which, although they slowed down in high settings, but not too much, which confirms the emphasis on GPU power. Those wishing to get at least 60 FPS in all scenes of this game will have to use exclusively the older video card from a pair of solutions based on GPUs of the Pascal family, because the GeForce GTX 1070 was able to show an average frame rate of 86 FPS with a minimum 64 FPS, which is higher than the most comfortable level even for demanding players. The GeForce GTX 1060, in turn, did not quite reach the ideal performance, although it was very close to it.

In the case of setting the maximum possible graphics settings, the rendering speed decreased even more, but not as significantly as it happens in many modern games, which aim to provide maximum load on modern GPUs. The performance of the younger GeForce GTX 960 in such conditions is no longer enough for playability, because the average frame rate on this video card dropped to 36 FPS, and the minimum dropped to 26 FPS, which is unplayable in this game. However, this is easily solved by changing the settings to medium between high and maximum - and this is on the weakest video card of comparison!

The GeForce GTX 970 did not fail under these conditions, showing 45 FPS on average, while the frame rate never fell below 34 FPS. That is, undemanding users on this video card in Full HD resolution will be happy to play even at maximum settings. Well, solutions created on the basis of the current generation GPUs provide 55 and 72 FPS in such conditions on average with 39 and 51 FPS minimum. That is, if the younger GeForce GTX 1060 was able to show just a comfortable speed on average, but still noticeably lower than the ideal performance, then the older model GTX 1070 not only exceeded 60 FPS on average, but was also close to providing perfect smoothness with stable 60 FPS.

2560 × 1440 resolution (WQHD)

When setting a higher rendering resolution, the performance of older video cards from Gigabyte in Dishonored 2 seriously decreased, which confirms the emphasis on performance in the power of GPUs at any resolution. The younger model of the previous generation GeForce GTX 960 in the conditions of WQHD resolution and medium settings was no longer able to cope with the task of providing 40 FPS, showing only 34 frames per second on average at 27 FPS minimum, which is not enough for comfort. This is not a playable level in our experience, given the tough test scene, but not the most extreme. With such a rendering speed, the image does not have time to follow the player's actions, and it will be unpleasant to play. We'll have to reduce some of the quality settings, guided by our research from the previous part of the material.

But the GeForce GTX 970, although it is already outdated, but its safety margin was enough to show an acceptable 53 FPS on average, with at least 42 FPS. This is quite normal for most players. Gigabyte's younger model from the current generation in the form of the GeForce GTX 1060 has gone not far from it - under such conditions it is enough to provide a level of performance noticeably higher than the minimum allowable comfort with an average frame rate of 56 FPS, and the minimum during the test is not lower than 44 FPS. But the older model from the current generation GeForce pair has already provided an ideal level of comfort and smoothness, suitable for even the most demanding gamers - 59 FPS with at least 74 FPS on average.

When playing with High quality settings at a higher resolution, the weakest video card in our comparison already lacks performance at all. The GeForce GTX 960 only delivered 29 FPS on average, and this level of performance is definitely not on par. But the GeForce GTX 970 from the same previous generation showed a much higher result - 44 FPS on average at 35 FPS at least, and was able to provide the minimum performance we required in this game at a level of at least 40 FPS - that is, it even has a small margin there is.

Pascal GPUs are even faster. True, the junior solution GeForce GTX 1060 is also enough only to provide just smooth gaming - it showed a frame rate of 48 FPS on average with a drop of at least 38 FPS. So on this video card it will even be possible to lift some of the settings to the maximum level. Only the older model GeForce GTX 1070 became close to providing a stable 60 FPS, which showed 67 FPS on average with drops to 53 FPS - this is a very good level of performance, close to ideal even from the point of view of demanding enthusiasts. But will it handle the ultra settings?

We are not surprised that when setting the Ultra-profile of quality settings (corresponding to the highest possible rendering quality in the game) in WQHD-resolution, two low-end Gigabyte video cards on the previous generation Nvidia GeForce GPUs could not cope with providing acceptable comfort and smoothness. None of the outdated video cards were able to show 40 FPS on average, even the older GeForce GTX 970 provided only 34 FPS on average at 24 FPS minimum - it seems that this mode was affected by the lack of video memory, which was confirmed by noticeable jerks when loading textures. So owners of WQHD monitors and these video cards will have to settle for lower quality settings or buy a new video card.

Interestingly, the younger model of the Gigabyte video card, belonging to the current generation of the Pascal architecture, showed a frame rate almost exactly what we required from it - 41 FPS on average at 30 FPS at least. This is exactly the minimum acceptable level in our estimates, and suggests that the GeForce GTX 1060 copes with ensuring a smooth game, even in the most difficult conditions. Well, the GeForce GTX 1070 with its 54 FPS on average, although it did not reach the level of ideal smoothness with at least 60 FPS, gives more than decent comfort when playing.

So while Dishonored 2 unexpectedly turns out to be one of the most demanding video cards in terms of performance, and it really needs a pretty powerful GPU, the recommended GPU system requirements for Nvidia video cards look surprisingly adequate, since the specifically recommended GeForce GTX 1060 model is exactly was able to provide the required smoothness and comfort at maximum settings in the two resolutions we tested.

Conclusion

The new Void game engine, based on id Tech 5, but using DirectX 11 instead of OpenGL, was a nice upgrade from Unreal Engine 3 from the first game, and the graphics in Dishonored 2 have improved overall, although they look a little outdated technologically when compared to the best projects of the end of 2016. Some levels and scenes in the game look rather modest in detail and too flat, but cities such as Karnaca are distinguished by the complexity of the architecture and thoughtfulness of the details.

By the way, the difference in the scenes greatly affects the performance. It so happens that on most levels you get quite enough performance, but in some urban scenes, when too much of a level is visible, performance drops noticeably. At the same time, the frame rate is also unstable. It would seem that just now it was enough, but when you rotate the camera, the FPS almost halves, causing jerks and increased delays. Many of these issues have been observed with GPUs from both manufacturers and have been patched, though not all. There are still noticeable drops in FPS during streaming, when the game loads the missing resources into the video memory - usually it takes a second or two and is especially noticeable when there is a lack of video memory.

Although Dishonored 2 is not the most impressive game of today, especially from a technological point of view, it still looks better than the previous game in the series, has better textures, more detailed objects, complex shadows and some of the most modern algorithms and techniques, such as HBAO + and TXAA. ... At the same time, it can be argued that even after the optimizations carried out in numerous patches, Dishonored 2 remains a rather demanding game on the system's capabilities, requiring at least the use of video cards of the level of GeForce GTX 1060 or GTX 970 for high settings.

And for ultra-quality images in increased resolution, it will need something more - like a GeForce GTX 1070 or even a GTX 1080. Only such powerful solutions can cope with the maximum settings at 2560 × 1440. For the rest, we recommend the High setting, especially since it doesn't differ that much from Ultra. On game consoles, Dishonored 2 generally works at rendering resolutions of Full HD or less at 30 FPS, while the graphics settings are much lower than the Ultra level. So the game really turned out to be very demanding on the power of the system precisely on the GPU. Probably, some of this exactingness can be attributed to insufficient optimization, but the fact remains.

Judging by the results of our tests, the maximum settings in Dishonored 2 require the use of video cards starting from the level of GeForce GTX 1060, and then only in Full HD. The GeForce GTX 960 from the previous generation provides acceptable comfort at Full HD resolution and high settings, but at higher resolutions it does not pull even medium settings, unfortunately. A more powerful model from the previous generation in the form of the GeForce GTX 970 was able to show an acceptable frame rate even at maximum settings in Full HD, and in WQHD resolution it coped with the high quality settings profile. So the owners of only the weakest GeForce video cards will have to buy new video cards.

When it comes to CPUs, Dishonored 2 wants mid-range quad-core processors, but nothing more. During our research, our rather powerful test processor was loaded with work at an average of 40-60%, sometimes up to 70%, and this is above average, but the rendering speed never limited the capabilities of one of the computing cores of the CPU or the entire processor, but has always been limited by the graphics processor. So the game needs a mid-range processor - not a top-end one, but a weak one will not work either.

The RAM requirements for the game are typical by modern standards - the system consumes about 5 to 7 GB of system memory when Dishonored 2 starts, only sometimes the memory consumption reaches 8 GB, so in theory this should be enough. But for the stock, it is desirable to have a slightly larger amount of RAM, about 12-16 GB. The video memory requirements for the game are average or slightly above average - at medium settings in a Full HD game, 2 GB may be enough, but for a higher picture quality at maximum settings, a minimum of 4 GB is required, which we consider the minimum comfortable. Minimum - since at ultra-settings in WQHD-resolution on video cards with 3-4 GB of memory, though not too frequent, but still noticeable jerks are observed. For maximum settings in high resolution, you will need 6-8 GB of video memory.

In terms of plot and graphics, the recently released Dishonored 2 has practically no complaints, but from a technical point of view, the game turned out to be terrible. One of the most common problems in Dishonored 2 is its low FPS, which drops to 40-20 units. As a result, due to the low FPS in Dishonored 2, it becomes simply impossible to play. In this article we will tell you how to increase FPS (FPS), for this we have collected all the information from the Internet, from simple messages on the forums to professional advice from developers.

Guide from English user Semipalmated Plover

On one of the discussion pages on Steam, I came across a guide that was very useful according to the reviews of other users, in which it describes in detail how to fix a decrease in FPS and lag in the game in general. Unfortunately, the entire guide is written in English, but with a standard translation, you can understand that the user suggests using the TechPowerUp GPU-Z utility. Thanks to this program, you can analyze and subsequently change the necessary parameters in the dishonored2Config.cfg folder at C: \\ Users \\ XXX \\ Saved Games \\ Arkane Studios \\ dishonored2 \\ base \\ (XXX is your name).

Soon a translation will be written in this article, the English text will be published in the VKontakte group on this link ... If you know English or partially understand the written text, be sure to write the translation in the group discussion.

If you haven't bought the game yet

If you still haven't purchased Dishonored 2, follow this link on Steampay. there you can buy the game for only 1,599 rubles, 400 rubles lower than in Steam itself. The site is checked, has all licenses, technical support works much better than in other stores. Thus, everyone will benefit: you will save 400 rubles, the store will receive a buyer, and our site will receive an investment.

Update your graphics card drivers

According to the developers themselves, the situation with low FPS can be corrected by updating the video card drivers. Here are links to the official websites of the two video card manufacturers, where you can update the driver for free and without errors:

Link to nvivdia drivers - just enter your graphics card model and check if you need an update or not.

Link to AMD drivers - the site has a program that itself determines the model of the video card.

Patch

Having failed to cope with the situation, gamers pin their hopes on the patch, which should be released in the near future. As soon as the patch is published, we will definitely inform about it in the site news or in this article.

Disabling programs and lower graphics settings

Turn off your antivirus and all unnecessary programs. You can also change the settings in the game by making the graphics lower, or by turning them on in the window. These recommendations are unlikely to significantly improve the situation, but will at least increase the FPS by 10 units.

other methods

This is all that was collected on the topic of low FPS in Dishonored 2. If you have found an effective way to increase FPS, be sure to write it in the comments or post it in the group discussions. Good luck!

Alas and ah, but Dishonored 2 joined the list of failed PC versions of games. The mystical action has so many no less mystical problems that not everyone can play it calmly. Players blame Dishonored 2 for the lack of any kind of optimization, and you know, looking at the 54% user rating, it's hard to believe that such a significant proportion of players have problems due to their inability to customize the game. But the developers, meanwhile, think so, and even released instructions for improving performance "for dummies."

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So what do Arkane Studios staff advise us? First, we'd like to make sure our computers meet the system requirements. No need to set the settings to "ultra" if the computer barely meets the recommended requirements. According to the creators of the game, only owners of computers with significantly higher power requirements will be able to play at the highest graphics settings. Secondly, we are recommended to install all updates for the operating system, update DirectX and install the latest video card drivers.

The game takes place in the fictional, epidemic-ridden city of Dunwall, to some extent copied from the London of the Victorian era. The protagonist of the game, Lord Protector Corvo Attano, is accused of murdering the Empress and thrown into prison. However, the remaining "loyalist" friends and a supernatural being known as the Alien help him out and give Corvo the opportunity to take revenge on his enemies and restore justice. The player acts as an assassin - in most missions of the game, he must make his way through one of the city districts to the guarded victim and destroy it. The player has at his disposal both conventional weapons and supernatural abilities granted to the Aliens, such as teleportation, the ability to infuse people and animals, or summon a flock of rats. Missions are not linear, and they can be passed in several possible ways, both by engaging in battle with opponents, and by making your way past them and remaining unnoticed.

Installation

1. Select an optimization version.
2. Copy the file - "DishonoredEngine.ini" to the following directory: C: \\ Users \\ Username \\ Documents \\ My Games \\ Dishonored \\ DishonoredGame \\ Config
3. Be sure to set the attribute - "Read only" in the properties of this file.

By the way, optimization does not affect your resolution in the game, although it is written in that file. The game reads it from another source - the registry. Therefore, you are free to choose it yourself.

If someone needs the path to this directory, then here is:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \\ Software \\ Arkane \\ Dishonored

Overview

For a comparison of versions and tests, see this video:

Download

Leave feedback on optimization

This helps us to improve the content and troubleshoot in time, please do not be lazy 🙂

There are many ways to improve the performance of games on not the weakest computer. Next, we'll go through them in order from easy to complex and tell you what to do if Dishonored 2 lags.

A simple solution to the brakes in Dishonored 2

1. Download and run the world famous CCleaner (download by direct link) is a program that cleans your computer of unnecessary garbage, as a result of which the system will work faster after the first reboot;
2. Update all drivers in the system using the program Driver Updater (download via direct link) - it will scan your computer and update all drivers to the latest version in 5 minutes;
3. Install the program WinOptimizer (download via direct link) and enable game mode in it, which will terminate useless background processes during the launch of games and increase the performance in the game.

Free up disk space

Before proceeding to the active steps, you need to make sure that the computer has at least 10-15 GB of free space on the hard disk on which the operating system is installed.

This is usually the "C" drive. This minimum headroom is required for the system to create Dishonored 2 temporary file stores, caches, and so on without any problems.

And make sure you have enough space on your hard drive for the game to run normally.

Disable unnecessary programs

Each program that runs in the OS takes up a certain percentage of the RAM and loads the processor. It is easy to verify this, just open the Task Manager using the Ctrl + Alt + Del keyboard shortcut:

If the computer does not have the most powerful processor, and the RAM is less than 8-16 GB, then before starting Dishonored 2 you need to disable unnecessary programs. For example, Skype, Discord, Telegram, Google Chrome and so on.

Disable overlays

We are talking about those programs that are able to display their interface on top of the game. Often there are such on the computer - Fraps, Steam, Origin, and so on. Even when the overlay is hidden, it is processed by the computer, reducing the FPS in Dishonored 2.

Therefore, all overlays must be disabled. Almost always, this can be done in the program settings without having to uninstall it. For example, the Steam overlay is easily disabled via the menu:

Update video card drivers, download drivers for Dishonored 2

Regardless of which video card is in the system unit, its drivers must be kept up to date. Therefore, before launching Dishonored 2, you should go to the manufacturer's website and check if new drivers have been released:

After installing the driver, you should restart your computer to eliminate the possibility of crashes. It should also be borne in mind that for many old video cards, new drivers are no longer available.

For some games, video card manufacturers release specially optimized drivers. Look for them in the Dishonored 2 news section - we usually write about them. You can also look at the website of the video card manufacturers.

Change power options

By default, the computer has a balanced power supply mode, which, and in some laptops, in order to increase the operating time, is completely set to save energy.

This prevents the computer from reaching its full potential in Dishonored 2, so the first step is to open the control panel, which can be found using a search. Then you need to do the following:

• Select the "Small icons" view mode;
• Click on "Power supply";
• On the screen, find the option "Setting the power supply scheme", click on it;
• Click on "Change advanced power settings";
• In the window that opens, find the drop-down list;
• Select "High performance" from the list;
• Click the "Apply" button, then click "OK".

Enable Nvidia Performance Mode

After installing the Nvidia graphics card driver, you can speed up Dishonored 2 by using Performance Mode. This will slightly simplify the graphics in the game, but will increase the FPS. Please note that this method is only available if you have a video card with an Nvidia chip. Here's how to do it:

• In the lower right corner of the screen, in the tray, right-click on the NVIDIA Settings icon;
• In the window that opens, on the right, select the "3D Parameters" tab;
• Click on the option "Adjust image settings with preview";
• On the right, check the box next to "Custom settings with focus on:";
• Move the "slider", which is below, to the extreme left position "Performance";
• Click on the "Apply" button below.

Next, you need to launch Dishonored 2 and make sure everything is displayed correctly. If you have problems, instead of "Custom settings with focus on:" select "Settings according to 3D application".

Disable Windows Effects

If Dishonored 2 does not work in full screen mode, but in a window, including without a frame, then you can increase the FPS by turning off the Windows effects. To do this, you need to do the following:

• Open "Explorer";
• In the window that opens, go to the "Visual effects" tab;
• Check the box next to the "Provide best performance" option.

If necessary, you can select the "Special Effects" option in the last step. In this case, you can independently choose which effects to leave and which ones to turn off.

Increase the paging file if there is not enough RAM for Dishonored 2

To compensate for the lack of RAM, you can increase the paging file. This will allow the system to store some of the data Dishonored 2 needs right on the hard drive. Here's what to do:

• Open "Explorer";
• Right-click on "This computer" (or "My computer");
• In the context menu, click on "Properties";
• In the window that opens, on the left, click on "Additional system parameters";
• In the window that opens, go to the "Advanced" tab;
• In the "Performance" section, click on the "Options ..." button;
• In the window that opens, go to the "Advanced" tab;
• Uncheck the option "Automatically select paging file size" (if any);
• Check the box next to the "Specify size" option;
• In the "Original size (MB):" and "Maximum size (MB):" text boxes, specify in megabytes a value equal to half the amount of RAM.

For example, if a 4 GB "disk" is installed in the system unit, that is, 4192 MB, the number 2048 must be entered in the fields above. You can make the paging file larger, but this will not give any increase.

It should be understood that the paging file is only effective when the system is low on RAM. If the computer has 8-16 GB, then the paging file is practically not used. And when using an SSD drive as a system drive, the presence of a paging file can completely slow down the performance of Dishonored 2, so you should not mindlessly set a large paging file value.

To further worsen the graphics in Dishonored 2 ("potato" mode) - turn off anti-aliasing, etc.

If Dishonored 2 starts, but slows down a lot, then before starting all the procedures, you should reduce the graphics to a minimum through the game settings. If this does not help, then you will have to resort to using third-party programs to configure the video card:

• for video cards from Nvidia;
• for video cards from AMD.

After downloading the program, we launch it. In the case of NVIDIA Inspector, you need to run nvidiaProfileInspector.exe, not nvidiaInspector.exe. Above, in the "Profiles:" line, you can select any game that is supported by Nvidia drivers.

Below are all available settings. There are many of them, but in order to worsen the graphics in the game to "potato", just a few are enough, which are in the "Antialiasing" section.

The greatest performance gain is obtained by changing these two parameters:

• Texture filtering - LOD bias;
• Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling.

Each of these settings has different meanings. Some of them can make the picture in Dishonored 2 indigestible, so you should try different combinations of values \u200b\u200bthat give a more or less playable picture.

In the case of RadeonMod, everything is the same: you need to find the settings that are responsible for displaying textures and reduce them until the FPS in the game becomes high enough.

How to overclock your graphics card for Dishonored 2

Everything related to "overclocking" is aimed at increasing performance, but these are rather extensive topics, which are difficult to tell in a nutshell. Plus, it's always a pretty risky business. If anything, we have warned you.

To get more FPS in Dishonored 2, you can first try overclocking your graphics card. The easiest way to do this is to use the built-in features of the software from the video card manufacturer.

For example, the Graphics Engine program comes bundled with some video cards from GIGABYTE, which has several ready-made overclocking profiles. This allows you to squeeze out 5-10 additional frames per second from the video card.

If there is no program from the manufacturer, then you can always use a universal solution -. This is one of the best overclocking software out there and has a lot of different settings.

But here you have to configure everything manually. First of all, the frequency of the video chip itself ("Core Clock") and the frequency of the video card memory ("Memory Clock") should be increased. On the left are the basic values \u200b\u200bof these parameters. On the right, the temperature and voltage increase are displayed - these characteristics allow you to monitor the "health" of the video card.

As the frequency increases, the video card heats up. If the temperature goes over 85 degrees, you should increase the fan speed ("Fan Speed"). If the temperature rises to 100 degrees, then you should immediately stop overclocking, otherwise the chip may melt. Powerful "overclocking" requires water cooling, so do not increase the frequencies by more than 10%.

Overclock the processor

While "overclocking" a video card is quite feasible right in Windows, in order to improve the processor's work and thereby increase the speed of Dishonored 2, you will have to go to "BIOS".

Gaming processor overclocking usually involves increasing the processor multiplier (Core Ratio). This can be done not on every processor, but only on the one where this multiplier is unlocked. Typically, these processors are labeled in a special way. For example, Intel uses the 'K' and 'X' markings. That is, for example, the i7-4790 cannot be overclocked using a multiplier, but the i7-4790K is completely.

But how do you know the exact name of the processor model? The easiest way is to use the program. Having started it, you need to open the "CPU" tab and look at the very first line - "Name". This is the name of the processor. By the way, you can also see the multiplier itself there. It's in the Clocks section, in the Multiplier line. If the processor supports overclocking, then this multiplier can be changed.

To change the Core Ratio, you first need to get into the BIOS shell. To do this, you need to press a special key combination while the computer boots up (before the Windows screen appears).

The combination may vary depending on the motherboard. Often the BIOS can be invoked with the "F8" or "Del" key. On the Bios screen, you need to find the section dedicated to the processor. Here, too, everything is complicated, since the BIOS has a lot of shells. Almost every motherboard manufacturer uses their own, so without knowing the English language, finding the right place is not so easy.

Change the multiplier gradually, increasing it by 2. After each change, restart the computer and carefully check the processor's performance and temperature. If it gets higher than 80 degrees during the game, then you need to immediately turn off Dishonored 2, restart your computer, enter the BIOS and lower the Core Ratio value. Otherwise, the processor may burn out.