Nvidia graphical settings

[Shiggs]

I've been playing around with my settings in my Nvidia control panel and I think I have found a sweet spot in terms of balancing performance and quality of image... Just thought I'd share and maybe compare with others to try and help find optimal settings.

I am turning Anisotropic filtering and Antialiasing OFF in the game menu.

In the Nvidia control panel I have a custom program setting for CS as the following;

Ambient Occlusion : greyed out /not supported
Anisotropic Filtering : 4x (16x max)
Antialiasing FXAA : On
Antialiasing Gamma Correction : On
Antialiasing Mode : Override application setting
Antialiasing Setting : 16x CSAA (32x max)
Antialiasing Transparency : Off
CUDA - GPU's : All (I only have 1 anyways)
Max Pre Rendered Frames : 4 (max)
Multi-Display: Single Display Performance (I use 1 monitor)
Power Management Mode : Prefer Performance
Shader Cache : On
Texture Filtering (anisotropic sample) : Off
Texture Filtering (negative LOD bias : Allow
Texture Filtering : Quality
Texture Filtering (trilinear optimization) : On
Threaded Optimization : On
Triple buffering : Off
Vertical Sync : Use application setting
Virtual Reality Pre rendered frames : 4 (max)

This is on a 560ti gtx, kinda old, playing on almost maximum settings in game (texture quality and shadow's on high/far rather than very high/very far).

Most configurations I have made almost all had about 10 less fps than what I am getting like this, and the textures look smooth enough to not bother me. Zooming and scrolling is pretty good, not always completely smooth though.

Some things I have noticed; Triple buffering on seemed like it made the screen stutter and the fan run constantly. Shader cache on is a no brainer, especially for older pc's that have a good gfx card swapped into them.

The higher you put the anisotropic filtering and antialiasing the better it will look at a cost of performance, so that is best weighed on an individual basis.

Locking the negative LOD bias to Allow rather than Clamp seemed to yield a performance boost, at no visual cost, though I am speculating.

Vertical Sync, any setting but that one seems to hurt my fps pretty bad.

Thoughts?

 

[barrygreybeard]

I have no idea what the majority of these settings mean but I tried them on my GTX 660 and could see a large improvement, thanks. However cities doesn't exit without crashing. Not a biggy as everything is saved. If I revert back to the defaults cities exits cleanly, something there the program and or drivers don't like, but great stuff thanks.

 

[Shiggs]

yea, cities always ctd's when I exit, but yea not a big deal.

I too am unfamiliar with at least about half of these settings, though most of them fairly clearly say what they are in the control panel. Still I have just been trying different settings, playing for about a 1/2 hour and then checking my fps, temperatures, and cpu/gpu activity, and it seems to have helped.

 

[Xterminator]

Thanks for posting this Shiggs! I run an Nvidia card on my laptop that I think is very similar to yours or even the same one, and I have horrible performance problems. I will try out these settings, and hopefully that will help it.
My laptop should be able to handle the game well, but even on Medium graphic settings, I get like 18fps... and I have no idea why.

 

[barrygreybeard]

I have isolated the setting that crashes C:SL on exit and that is turning on Anti-aliasing FXAA. If set to on C:SL will crash on exit, if this setting is off the program exits cleanly. Any thoughts folks?

 

[Shiggs]

ah, nice Barry! I'll try it and see if it changes anything... might be why I've always been ctd'ing on exit, I think it is a global setting for me also.

 

[Zed68]

Interestings thing here.

Could you share a screenshot with us to show what results you get ??

 

[Shiggs]

yea, maybe here in a bit. I was actually gonna play with it some more because my city has grown a bunch and my fps is crapping out again... I might be forced to lower the resolution.

Edit: and yea Barry, that made it stop crashing on exit for me too

Another Edit: Removed all mods, removed game, deleted all the left over folders in 3 different places. Reinstalled, and only installed the fine road heights mod and the fps tracker mod. Fps tracker seemed to have stopped working for some reason, but I can tell for sure the game is running much much smoother now. I'm probably just going to have to live with crappy graphics and low resolution to have huge cities for another month or two until I buy a new computer.

 

[barrygreybeard]

I'm going to stick with those settings for now (apart from the AA-FXAA ) as it seems to run well and look good. I have no idea of the fps, but as long as the performance doesn't bother me then I'm happy. I don't tend to go for vast cities, when I get new ideas and start again ... and I am not that keen on too many mods, and then only the ones with custom buildings or UI tweaks, not keen on those to adjust the gameplay. Not yet anyway, unless something appears that really annoys me!

 

[dakdak99]

How do you do this? My NVIDIA Control Panel does not have an option for custom program settings.

EDIT: Never mind, for some reason it's under "Manage 3D Settings", unlike other versions of the Control Panel.

 

[NZSimplicity]

Tried it out with my 660 Ti

This is what it looks like(Anti-aliasing FXAA. is turned OFF)

 

[Shiggs]

very nice, glad it has helped

 

[oakshios]

Any updates to your settings Shiggs?

 

[FX2K]

This never bothered me, but just saw a link via the 1.07c thread.... thought I would try it.

With FXAA off in NV Control panel, no more crashing on exit

 

[Gordon Dry]

Thoughts?

I altered the settings to my liking, for this system:

Spoiler

Model: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9450 @ 2.66GHz (8192 MB)
OS: Windows 8.1 (6.3.9600) 64bit
Language: German
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9450 @ 2.66GHz (4 core(s))
System Memory: 8192
Gfx Device: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660
Gfx Version: Direct3D 11.0 [level 11.0]
Gfx Memory: 1989
Gfx Shader Model: 50
Game Version: 1.0.7c

The file, exported from nvidiaInspector:
https://mega.co.nz/#!GIBkiRIL!IXwCuPIVrl2hkfFd1dvQXYtJvj0djGX9q2a8AWnR1GE ( 2 KB )

 

[charlesnew]

Good. Gonna try this once I get a chance to play again. I was thinking of getting a new graphics card, but if this works well, then I wont need to.

 

[FourWinds]

I have isolated the setting that crashes C:SL on exit and that is turning on Anti-aliasing FXAA. If set to on C:SL will crash on exit, if this setting is off the program exits cleanly. Any thoughts folks?

I tried and can confirm that this works for me too. I've been using the -force-d3d9 switch to force DX9 since a hour after the launch date, as that fixed the crash too. Now I've turned off FXAA I can use DX11 with no crashing. GTX660 TI.

I now have to use a Windows Aero desktop as DX11 gives me a frame rate that will cause nasty tearing on my TV; so DX9 was under 60 and DX11 must be over 60fps.

 

[oakshios]

I turned off FXAA in the settings, but still get the crash on exit. I wonder what mod is causing it.

 

[charlesnew]

Thanks for this, but something doesn't seem to be working for me. When I go into the Nvidia Control Panel and try to change the settings for Cities: Skylines, it isn't listed in the drop-down menu. So I click choose and type in Cities: Skylines. I click on Cities: Skylines, and click "open". But it doesn't seem to work. It's not showing that I'm actually changing it. Instead, there's just a blank area where the name should be.

Or am I supposed to change the settings for Steam? Because that doesn't seem to really be working or having any effect.

Thanks for your time. I'm a bit of a noob at this kind of stuff...

 

[Gordon Dry]

That's the reason to use nvidiaInspector, because it's easier to share settings.