Dying light: We twist the graphics. Dying Light slows down, freezes, freezes the game, low FPS How to improve the performance of the dying light game

Dying Light is a new free-running zombie action game from the Polish studio Techland, creators of such franchises as Call of Juarez and Dead Island. If you've played Dead Island before, you'll find a lot of Dying Light familiar: there's four-player co-op, weapon crafting, loot, leveling, mutating super-zombies, and open-world exploration. Of course, for Dying Light, all of the listed mechanics have been finalized and new ones have been added.

The most important of them is, probably, freerunning, which expanded the game world “vertically”. Thanks to him, you can now move around the map like Sebastien Foucan, overcoming any barriers that arise in your path. The second innovation is the change of time of day and new types of monsters that take to the streets with the advent of darkness for one purpose: to quickly take your life. There are safe areas in the game that allow you to wait out the night in shelter, but some missions must be completed only at night (for this you will receive double the amount of experience points). A lot depends on cunning and proper route planning (it is possible to lure dangerous "night" zombies into player-controlled traps). Also, the gameplay diversified the warring human clans, competing with you (as well as among themselves) for supplies dropped from the air and new territories. Humans are, of course, smarter than zombies, they have weapons, and therefore they are a big threat. But as soon as you capture one of the cargo intended for him, it will immediately positively affect the number of experience points.

As for the "invisible" part of the game, here the performance of Dying Light is provided by Chrome Engine 6 - latest version self-developed engine from Techland. It has updated and improved visual effects, as well as support for open areas of the world with increased detail. In this guide, we will focus on these options, describe the PC-only tweaks of the game, show comparisons that demonstrate their benefits, and evaluate the impact that the aforementioned effects have on game performance.

System requirements

Below are the official Dying Light system requirements, giving us an idea of ​​the system configuration required to comfortably play this zombie action.

Minimum system requirements

• Operating system: Windows Vista 64 bit or later
• Processor: Intel Core i5-2500 3.3 GHz or AMD FX-8320 3.5 GHz
• RAM: 4 GB or more
• Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 / AMD Radeon HD 6870 (1GB VRAM) or higher
• DirectX: 11 or higher

• Processor: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4 GHz or AMD FX-8350 4.0 GHz
• RAM: 8 GB or more
• Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 / AMD Radeon R9 290 (2GB VRAM) or higher

Chrome Engine 6

Dying Light marks the debut of the sixth version of Techland's Chrome Engine, a twelve-year-long reputation for being a great game engine for open-world titles like Dead Island. Specifically, little is known about the changes that differentiate Chrome Engine 6 from its predecessors, there is only official information indicating “the ability for developers to create open game worlds of a larger size and detail along with indoor and outdoor game locations.” The graphics promise to be "more photorealistic than ever with improvements such as variable weather conditions, a physical lighting model, Indirect Lighting effects based on spherical harmonics (Spherical Harmonics) and atmospheric scattering (Atmospheric Scattering). Whether everything is as beautiful as the developers describe, we can find out by analyzing Dying Light in more detail.

Exclusive PC Graphics Improvements

Like any other multi-platform game, Dying Light looks and plays best on a personal computer. Thanks to the use of HBAO + Ambient Occlusion and Depth of Field technologies, the clarity of the transfer of the game image has been significantly improved: this is noticeable by improving the quality of textures and increasing the distance for a high-quality view of the game world. In addition, the Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR) function allows you to increase the rendering resolution.

Consoles are capped at 30 FPS. The PC can provide up to 144 FPS and even higher.

HBAO+ Ambient Occlusion (shadows of the game world)

The Ambient Occlusion (AO) technique adds contrasting shadows where two surfaces or objects overlap, or where an object blocks light from another nearby game element. When using AO, the drawing of game shadows increases and the process of their formation at a low level of imposition of one object on another. Without AO, landscapes look flat and unrealistic, and new objects appear as if from underground.

In Dying Light, players can choose between Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) and HBAO+. To select the first technique, you just need to activate the game setting "Ambient Occlusion". To enable HBAO+, activate not only "Ambient Occlusion", but also "HBAO+". As you can see from the comparison below, HBAO+ generates shadows of a high level of realism, as evidenced by the absence of "shadows" around the fan and from the chandelier shades on the ceiling.

Outdoors, there is also more realistic shading throughout the scene. In particular, we note the disappearance of dark areas around grass bushes with active HBAO+.

If we compare the shadows with AO turned off completely, then HBAO + also shows significant changes for the better, which is clearly seen in the comparison below.

Our latest comparison shows the importance of game world shadows in modern games. When AO is turned off, the shadows on the walls and ceiling mouldings completely disappear, and the cable on the floor that goes into the distance becomes barely visible.

Performance: In game-heavy scenes, SSAO costs you just under 5 frames per second, while significantly improving the quality of the game image. At the same time, the additional use of HBAO + has almost no effect on performance, and the overall realism of the scene is noticeably increased.

Delivering superb image quality and slowing performance by almost one frame per second, HBAO+ seems to be the only option when setting Dying Light's Ambient Occlusion setting.

Depth of Field (depth of field)

The Depth of Field (DOF) setting allows developers to apply high quality depth of field rendering to their products. In Dying Light, this DirectX 11-based effect enhances the clarity and quality of areas of images to which DOF is applied, and also allows Techland to vary the depth of field of different scenes at its own discretion.

This setting is mostly used during cutscenes and dialogues, and cannot be changed manually during the game. Thus, the difference between its two available values ​​On and Off is most clearly seen from the picture of the main menu.

Performance: The use of blurring large areas of the image during cutscenes and dialogues has a significant impact on game performance. However, since these are scenes that do not require the participation of the player, and when you return to the active game mode, the frame rate increases again, DOF can safely be left on.

Additional graphics settings

Anti-Aliasing (smoothing)

Dying Light's cityscapes are replete with jagged edges on buildings, cars, and other objects. To reduce their number, a fast post-processing smoothing technique is used. Given the large number of visual effects, the high pace of gameplay, and the optional use of motion blur (motion blur), post-processing anti-aliasing does a tremendous job of smoothing out jagged edges.

Comparison of close areas of the image better emphasizes the effectiveness of this setting and demonstrates the absence of blurred texture areas typical for such cases.

Performance: Given the post-processing nature of the anti-aliasing technology, it has little to no effect on performance and should therefore be one of the first settings to activate.

Foliage Quality (leaf quality)

In the vast majority of locations, this parameter has almost no effect on the density of the grass cover (as you can see from the screenshots below).

However, there are also areas where any level of Foliage Quality below the maximum results in the complete loss of small vegetation, significantly reducing the quality of the game image.

Performance: As you can see from our tests, large areas of turf that are common in the game can have a noticeable impact on performance.

If there are no extra FPS at your disposal, we recommend lowering the Foliage Quality parameter to Medium, but not lower. At the Low level, many patches of land turn out to be simply “bald”, and single grass bushes that are occasionally found on them look just pathetic.

Shadow Map Size (shadow map size)

This setting, despite its intricate name, is responsible for the quality of the shadows of the game world. The higher its value, the more beautiful shadows (better detail, fewer artifacts) we will observe.

As of patch 1.2.1, the available levels of this setting are now called Very High, High, Medium, and Low.

Performance: High definition at High (Very High since patch 1.2.1) has a significant impact on performance. However, given the improvements that come with the shadows, we think it's worth it.

If you're having performance issues, lower the Shadow Quality to High. But we would not recommend further reduction of this parameter: at Medium, the quality of the shadows noticeably deteriorates, and at Low, only shapeless dark spots remain.

Texture Quality (texture quality)

Unfortunately, in Dying Light you cannot change this parameter directly during the game. Given the respawning of locations and the constant change of day and night, it becomes simply impossible to make true comparisons in interesting locations. According to the test results, it turns out that there is no difference in quality between the two existing levels of this setting, and High only stores more textures in the GPU memory. For example, we tested the same section of the game with Medium and High levels. In the first case, there were slight delays in rendering some textures and the video memory usage was fixed at 2 GB. In the second, there were no delays at all, but at the same time 3.3 GB of VRAM was used, and during long gaming sessions, peak values ​​approached 4 GB.

With so many external factors affecting the quality of textures, it is difficult for us to provide any unambiguous recommendations. Therefore, we advise you to start with High, and see how the system will react to this. If the game starts to noticeably lag, then the limit of the video card's capabilities has been reached, and it's time to move down a step in the matter of the Texture Quality value.

View Distance

Of all the settings, View Distance has the biggest impact on performance, dropping framerate by more than half even at 1920x1080. Please note: in patch 1.2.1 dated 01/30/2015, this setting was subject to some changes, which we will describe in more detail in the corresponding section of this guide.

In other games, View Distance reduces the overall visibility of the game world in order to increase the frame rate, covering many details with fog. In Dying Light, everything is a little different: here all the main elements are immediately visible very well, and the action of the parameter is aimed at additional, non-essential details of buildings, zombies, cars, small objects, trees, cliffs, etc. Many of the above objects also do not cast shadows at low levels, View Distance values, which in some scenes significantly reduces the quality of the picture.

Values ​​from the bottom of the graph (between 5 and 50 percent) will add detail at long and medium distances, drawing detail where there was none before, or simply emphasizing the presence of an element in a particular location. Higher values ​​(50 percent or more) improve the quality of the resulting detail, and make some objects visible at very long distances. Starting from 75%, many trees change their obscure contours to their real outlines, distinguishable even from afar. Only for such an improvement you have to pay 10 frames per second frame rate. At the same time, the overall image quality does not improve due to the pixelated structure of the trees (at low resolutions like 1920 × 1080 rendering small details at large distances is not the best way).

In scenes dominated by dense urban development, the visual impact of this parameter is not so noticeable, and the location has significantly more details and shadows, starting from the 45% mark.

Of course, the addition of new parts does not go unnoticed for the GPU, but during testing we found that the main limiting factor is still the CPU. Using a single-core CPU will load it at 100%, but the more we increase the View Distance value, the less GPU is used, as well as the frame rate decreases. Testing at a different resolution once again confirmed our theory, differing only by a few frames per second.

Resetting our CPU from 4.8 to 3.4 GHz was accompanied by a noticeable drop in performance, proving that the weak link in this case is the CPU.

So what is the optimal value for the game world detail parameter? Judging by the screenshots we have seen, this is without a doubt maximum level at 100%. But during active gameplay, it will simply be physically very difficult for you to notice all the small details that appear on the screen because you have to constantly move (especially if Motion Blur is enabled). In our case, the optimal value was 45%, when there were more shadows, and the detail increased, and nothing more arose “out of the ground”. Increasing the level of detail makes the overall picture even neater and prettier, but after 75% we no longer notice any changes. The screenshots show improvements at longer ranges, but when all you need to do is aim accurately at the head of a zombie ten meters away, it's unlikely you'll be watching for a new tree to appear on the horizon.

Whichever value you choose, we recommend overclocking the CPU to improve performance. Google your CPU name and motherboard model and you'll find plenty of guides on the subject, but be sure to carefully read any warnings that come with potential damage to your computer and shorten its lifespan. Also remember that overclocking and the process of changing thermal paste or cooler that goes with it will void any hardware warranties.

Patch 1.2.1 (visual changes)

On January 30, Techland released patch 1.2.1 aimed at "optimizing many performance issues". After looking into the details of the changes, we found a significant decrease in the maximum distance for the View Distance parameter, which entails a decrease in the amount of displayed details and, as a result, an improvement in performance. This change most likely occurred as a result of dissatisfaction with a certain layer of gamers who are accustomed to playing on any system with maximum settings without lags and scornfully magnify games that do not fit their high standards as “not optimized”. Now, by reducing the distance from which small details are visible, performance has increased, returning peace to the souls of the players mentioned above (numerous forums dedicated to Dying Light testify to this).

Upon close examination, we found that the maximum View Distance was reduced by almost two-thirds, significantly reducing the detail of objects in the distance. Compared to the initial version of the game (1.2), this corresponds to a level of 55-60 percent, at which there was a good quality of the game picture and a frame rate of 45 frames per second even in the most graphics-rich areas of the game.

To demonstrate the changes and identify other potential "improvements", we decided to make new comparisons. On the first of them you will see the maximum View Distance of the 1.2 version of the game compared to the maximum after patch 1.2.1. The remaining screenshots provide an opportunity to compare the values ​​​​of 5 and 55 percent of the View Distance parameter in both versions of Dying Light.

Have something to say about the game or about this guide? Let us know about it in the comments!

Test and screenshots geforce.com

Each game has a certain level of graphics and optimization. And to find the line between these indicators, you need to carefully analyze all the available settings and then your FPS level will increase.

Dying Light The Following: how to increase FPS?

Any game has its own specific FPS level, which directly depends on your technical equipment in the computer. Therefore, every adventure lover is interested in how to increase FPS in Dying Light? In fact, this can be done in absolutely any game, the main thing is just to carefully analyze the various settings that are responsible for the performance of various gaming processes and the level of graphics. In Dying Light, optimization and FPS boosts have a special place, as they allow you to understand a little about what level of graphical perfection you can use for a comfortable game. And it’s worth noting right away that if FPS sags in Dying Light, it means that you don’t have full version games or you even play pirates. Users who actively use the licensed version no longer face such a problem. Therefore, we will try to analyze situations that can help you only in the case of using a purchased game, and not downloaded from the Internet.

Parsing the settings

How to increase FPS in Dying Light? At first, it’s worth a little understanding of the settings of this game project. The game has detailed adjustments for each graphic element, so you can take a closer look at each element and test it in the game. Thus, you are sure to find the best option that will allow your computer to quickly process the graphical flow of information and enjoy the adventure. What is the FPS limit for Dying Light? At the moment, for the version on computers, a limit of 60 frames is set and this is quite enough for a comfortable game. It is possible to remove this restriction, but it's not worth it, as this may adversely affect your computer or the gameplay itself.

Technical component

Do not forget that the special dependence of the frame rate is based on the technical component of your computer. How to increase FPS in Dying Light on a weak computer? You can do this by setting the minimum value in the graphics item. Of course, after this, the game project will not look attractive, but this is what will allow you to get the maximum influx of performance and a high level of comfort. Now you know how to increase FPS in Dying Light and you can use our recommendations. In case our methods do not help you, this means that it would be time to update your computer, otherwise the problem will not go away by itself.

To date, the zombie apocalypse is one of the most popular topics in absolutely all areas. Movie theaters show full-length films about the undead, TV series about the walking dead are broadcast, authors publish a wide variety of books about them - and, of course, computer game developers are creating more and more new projects in this direction. Naturally, among them there are a large number of not the highest quality games, as many seek to make quick and easy money on a hot topic. However, there are also conscientious developers who put their soul and all their strength into the creation of a new masterpiece. This is how you can characterize the project of the Polish company Techland called Dying Light. Gamers leave extremely positive reviews about it, so you should definitely try your hand if you haven't had time yet.

What kind of game is it?

As you already understood, in relation to Dying Light, player reviews are mostly positive, but this is not enough to interest most gamers. Naturally, they want details, because no one wants to buy a pig in a poke. So, this project is a zombie survival game. It has a pretty strong and engaging storyline, but it also has a fairly large open world that you can explore with absolutely no limits. But at the same time, you should always remember one of the most important features of this project - the change of time of day. During the day, the city is almost safe - you can conflict with other survivors, especially if they belong to some gangs of marauders. You can use this time of day to collect various supplies, look for weapons and move around the city. However, with the onset of night, you will have to throw all your strength into survival, because there are many times more monsters on the streets, they become faster, stronger and more aggressive. You will have to fight them with a variety of devices - from knives and axes to shotguns and assault rifles. However, at the same time, you also have the opportunity to improve any weapon, strengthening it or adding additional functions to it. Also, if necessary, you can use your fists and legs. With Dying Light, reviews always touch on these features, as they are the most eye-catching and give gamers the most fun.

release date

Many are surprised that Dying Light has so many reviews, although the game was released quite recently. This can be explained by its incredible success and high quality - and, of course, a competent advertising campaign. A lot of people knew that this project would appear, as well as what exactly it would approximately represent. Since we are talking about the release date of this game, then it is worth mentioning - this event happened in January 2015, that is, the project is not even six months old, and it has gained worldwide fame - at the moment the game has more than three million fan players, And that's just the official data. Dying Light ratings are always quite high, although it is worth noting that there are those gamers who do not like something in this game, but reviews are written for this - so that other players who have not yet had time to try their hand at a particular project can evaluate it from all angles.

System requirements

Before looking at the Dying Light scores in more detail, it is worth paying attention to the system requirements for this game. The fact is that the project was released quite recently and has incredibly high-quality graphics, a very well-developed engine, a big world full of various little things. So you should not think that you can run Dying Light on any computer without any problems. You will need a very powerful machine to enjoy the gameplay and not watch the storyboard. The minimum requirement is a 3.5 GHz quad-core processor, four gigabytes of RAM, and at least one gigabyte of video memory. However, it is worth noting that the recommended requirements are much higher - the frequency should already be 4 GHz, you will need eight gigabytes of RAM, and two video memory. Thus, you will have to seriously upgrade your computer to run this game, but it's really worth it. Many reviews about Dying Light and player ratings speak only in favor of buying this game.

Top marks

The description of Dying Light, which may already captivate players and make them buy this project, can only tell you about the tip of the iceberg - in fact, you'd better familiarize yourself with this game in order to fully experience its magnificence. If you need confirmation from experts, then you can look at the gotVG online publication, which has recently become more and more influential in its field. There, this game was rated nine out of ten. However, it is worth noting that the ratings and reviews of Dying Light are very different from each other, even among reputable publications.

Lowest grades

Other ratings

Naturally, you can not consider the game solely on the basis of the best and worst reviews - it is worth considering the whole picture. And the situation here is as follows - ratings of 8 out of 10 are no less than "sevens", and there is also a fairly large number of reviews and reviews in which there was any average rating between 7 and 8. What conclusion can be drawn from this? Critics disagreed, but there is a simple math for everything. If we put together the ratings from all the major domestic gaming magazines, then the average rating of the game will be 7.6, which is very good, but still does not pull on a masterpiece. Many may think that domestic critics overestimate or underestimate the ratings, someone generally prefers to read only foreign critics. But in this case, do not worry - the fact is that almost forty foreign reviews from the most famous gaming magazines have the same arithmetic mean. They give an average rating of 7.5, so everything here is pretty accurate and objective. But these are only reviews of Dying Light written by professional critics. But what do ordinary users think about this game?

Gamer Ratings

In the case of Dying Light, the release date played an important role here, as gamers have been waiting for quite a long time, so they already had some expectations that the project had to live up to. It's always easier to judge a game that just came out and no one expected it. And if the whole world has already managed to build some image in their head, then the game can get underestimated. However, it is worth noting that Russian-speaking users rated the game very, very high - an average of ten points out of ten. This is what should be taken as the main assessment, and not reviews of critics, since it demonstrates that people really enjoy this game.

But again, the question arises - perhaps it was only in Russia that this project was so highly appreciated? In fact, you can calm down in this case. If you open the page of this game on the largest gaming platform "Steam", you can see that the average score is even higher - 9.1. Accordingly, you should definitely try your hand at this project if you like this topic.

What did the players like?

And now it's time to talk about what really attracted gamers so much in this game. After all, such a huge number of positive reviews could not come out of nowhere. So, first of all, gamers note the very innovative system for changing the time of day, which greatly affects how the world around you behaves. These are really impressive experiences, especially considering that the time of day was implemented more than once earlier, and its change even influenced the abilities of the characters in some way and so on. However, in Dying Light, this system has become truly revolutionary, as it has a very serious impact on the game world, completely transforming it.

But this is not all that hooked users in this game. They also note the incredible freedom of action that they are given. Many compare this project with the previous release of this development company. It was Dead game Island, which was also themed around zombies. Only there you were locked in a limited space of the island and forced to strictly follow the plot, but here you yourself can choose your fate, as well as the actions that you will perform. Moreover, quite a few players noted the huge variety of melee options with the living dead. You can use wrestling techniques on them, throw them off the roof, take a running start, and so on. All this makes the game Dying Light simply unique.

Graphics and gameplay are what this game has been highlighted by both gamers and critics. Also, both of them noticed the fact that the plot still gives slack. Perhaps, like Dead Island, there will be a sequel to Dying Light with a much more serious and thoughtful plot, because the rest of the game is just great. This is exactly what a modern zombie-themed project should be like, from which other developers need to take an example.

Negative Feedback

But it is worth paying attention not only to those laudatory reviews that prevail, but also to the negative ones, which are in the minority. But they are still there, so they should not be ignored. Why are users dissatisfied - of course, except storyline, which has already been mentioned more than once before? First of all, they highlight not the most convenient parkour system, which significantly limits your character's ability to overcome various obstacles and perform tricks. Secondly, there is dissatisfaction with artificial intelligence, but only specifically human. All gamers agree with the behavior of zombies - it is quite original and impressive, but at the same time it does not give the impression that the only living dead will definitely defeat you.

As for the other people you will meet on the streets of the city, there is one small minus that a lot of people did not like. The fact is that you will not have the opportunity to fully deal with such opponents in close combat, because they somehow manage to parry almost all of your blows. The same applies to any throws of objects or, accordingly, you have to fight with people only with small arms, which is not very encouraging. After all, shots attract the attention of zombies, and also spend your ammunition, which you would like to save on bosses with incredible power.

Since we are talking about bosses, the final boss caused a lot of indignation among people, which could be defeated with the help of QTE. Simply pressing the keys that are displayed on the screen is a way to dilute game process, fill certain scenes with action and tension. But doing a QTE battle with the main boss in the game is a rather strange decision. Well, most likely, these are all the disadvantages that can be noted in this game, which relate specifically to it. But you should also pay attention to the technical component, as many gamers had problems starting even if the computer fully met the system requirements. For some, the game simply did not start, and for some, the number of frames per second was seriously falling. Therefore, you should learn how to increase FPS in Dying Light - this can help you a lot if you start to have serious "brakes".

FPS boost

If you want to learn how to increase FPS in Dying Light, then you won't need much time. The easiest way is to set the priority for processors. The fact is that computer games consume a lot of resources, but do not always run with a high priority, so they may not have enough of these resources. Then you need to minimize the game and set a high priority for Dying Light in the settings yourself - then the FPS problem should disappear.