CONAN Graphic and PC Enhancements
Post of helpful Optimizations and Client side bug fixes for our Conan Exiles Players:
Last updated
Post of helpful Optimizations and Client side bug fixes for our Conan Exiles Players:
Last updated
On Steam, go to your library, right-click on Conan Exiles, select Properties and click on Set Launch Options.
On Epic, click the little Settings cog under Conan Exiles to open the settings. Scroll all the way down until you see Advanced Command Line Arguments.
Here’s a list of the best ones you can and should use:
-USEALLAVAILABLECORES: (the game will use all your CPU cores)
-lowmemory: Lowers a few settings to make the game run on PCs with “only” 4 GB of RAM.
-high: Forces high CPU priority, which might give you extra FPS. However, as discussed in this article, Ark isn’t a CPU-bound game, so unless you’re running tons of background applications, this command won’t do much. But it doesn’t hurt to have it on!
-window (Note: the -window, will make your game start in windowed mode. This can slow your fps rate down on some Pc's.) It is not required and you may remove it.
List of the all useful launch options with descriptions:
-USEALLAVAILABLECORES - (the game will use all your CPU cores) -sm4 and -d3d10 - (runs game with DirectX 10) -nomansky (removes clouds and some sky effects) -lowmemory (the game will use only 4gb of your RAM) -w 640 -h 480 - (runs game in 640x480 resolution) -full - (fullscreen mode) -window - (windowed mode with borders) -noborder - (windowed mode without borders) -low - (runs ARK as a low-priority process) -high - (runs ARK as a high-priority process) -noaafonts - (removes fonts anitalising) -autoconfig - (return default settings) -novid (turns off some cinematics) -console - turns on the developer console (ark doesn't use this) -noeac - turns off the easy anti-cheat software. (ark doesn't use this) -dx10 - toggles dx10 use -dx11 - toggles dx11 use -dx12 - toggles dx12 use
Go to Conan Settings Screen Before entering game and click on Video Tab: Set Max FPS to 60 for Desk Tops with a 960 or better Card Set Max FPS to 30 for a Lap Top View Distance: Medium Post Processing: Ultra General Shadows: Low Effects Quality: Low Texture Quality: Medium Foliage Quality: Medium Anti-Aliasing: Off
UE4 is a very flexible engine which allows changing many settings outside the game--even those which don't appear in the in-game options menu. In this guide, we'll examine how to configure a handful of these settings which may be of particular interest to Players. First, you must know that CE can look much better than it is in the present state. Game is built on Unreal engine 4 and with proper knowledge you can add effects that are not implemented by devs. So, first of all, CE does not have Anisotropic filtering. (Yes, it has x4 on High and x8 on ultra in Texture quality settings) And because of that game textures are very blurry, when you look at them from different angles.
This folder contains several .ini files, many of which are empty. However, for our purposes we only need three: Engine.ini, Scalability.ini, and GameUserSettings.ini.
The first file contains explicit engine settings, while the last two handle user-level options instead. To edit the most basic settings, open GameUserSettings.ini and look for the header ScalabilityGroups.
[ScalabilityGroups]
sg.ResolutionQuality=100.000000
sg.ViewDistanceQuality=3
sg.AntiAliasingQuality=3
sg.ShadowQuality=3
sg.PostProcessQuality=3
sg.TextureQuality=3
sg.EffectsQuality=3
sg.FoliageQuality=3
Most of these settings are directly configurable from the in-game options menu, and have a range of 0-3, where 0 is low/off and 3 is ultra. But note the term "scalability groups". Each of these settings actually modifies an entire group of settings. While it's a nice way to simplify things, it's entirely possible you only want to disable one or two features while keeping the rest.
That's where Scalability.ini comes in. In this file, it is possible to modify individual settings affected by scalability groups and even determine which quality setting to apply them to. In other words, instead of permanently overriding the in-game options menu, you can completely customize how the in-game options menu behaves!
Below are Some Recommended changes to the Scalability.ini. Only choose ONE Texture Quality setting. (0-1-2-3 numbers here are equal to low\medium\high\ultra settings in game)
[TextureQuality@0]
r.MaxAnisotropy=16
[TextureQuality@1]
r.MaxAnisotropy=16
[TextureQuality@2]
r.MaxAnisotropy=16
r.Streaming.PoolSize=5000
[TextureQuality@3]
r.MaxAnisotropy=16
r.Streaming.PoolSize=5000
[ShadowQuality@2]
r.DistanceFieldAO=1
[ViewDistanceQuality@3]
r.ViewDistanceScale=2.0
[ShadowQuality@3]
r.LightFunctionQuality=1
r.ShadowQuality=5
r.Shadow.CSM.MaxCascades=4
r.Shadow.MaxResolution=2048
r.Shadow.RadiusThreshold=0.03
r.Shadow.DistanceScale=2.0
r.Shadow.CSM.TransitionScale=2.0
r.DistanceFieldShadowing=1
r.DistanceFieldAO=1
r.Shadow.CachedShadowsCastFromMovablePrimitives=0 r.Shadow.AdaptiveLODDistanceScale.Max=1
[PostProcessQuality@3]
r.AmbientOcclusionLevels=3
r.FastBlurThreshold=7
r.ScreenSpaceReflections=1
Paste the above into your Scalability.ini, Save! AND don't forget to flag it to Read only so the game won't change it.
To apply engine settings, edit Engine.ini and add the header:
[SystemSettings]
Almost any custom engine settings should be added under this header to function.
UE4 uses a method of anti-aliasing known as FXAA by default. FXAA is a very fast, shader-based approach to anti-aliasing, but as a post-process effect it is unable to truly eliminate jaggies at the source. Temporal anti-aliasing is a newer alternative built directly into UE4 which works by jittering pixels and sampling color data from a variety of positions to create a smoother final image.
To enable TAA in CONAN EXILES,
add the following settings under the
[SystemSettings] header:
Go to Steam\steamapps\common\Conan Exiles\ConanSandbox\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor
Open Engine.ini
Add the text below existing (don't replace, just add from a new line!)
[Core.System]
Paths=../../../Engine/Content Paths=%GAMEDIR%Content Paths=../../../Engine/Plugins/2D/Paper2D/Content Paths=../../../Engine/Plugins/Runtime/HoudiniEngine/Content Paths=../../../ConanSandbox/Plugins/DialoguePlugin/Content Paths=../../../ConanSandbox/Plugins/FuncomLiveServices/Content
[OnlineSubsystem]
bUseBuildIdOverride=True
BuildIdOverride=140332832
[SystemSettings]
r.DefaultFeature.AntiAliasing=2
r.TemporalAACurrentFrameWeight=0.2
r.TemporalAASamples=32
r.TemporalAASharpness=0.5
r.Tonemapper.Sharpen=1
[WindowsApplication.Accessibility]
StickyKeysHotkey=True
ToggleKeysHotkey=True
FilterKeysHotkey=True
StickyKeysConfirmation=True
ToggleKeysConfirmation=True
FilterKeysConfirmation=True
That's all, save file, AND don't forget to flag it to Read only so the game won't change it. Then ingame when you will use game AA you will have TXAA instead of x2\x4\x6 AA.
What it changes:
-improved shadows draw distance
-more crisp and clear image
-distance field AO
-draw distance for land and grass and objects are x2 higher
-more complex shadowing
-added 16xAF (to all texture settings)
-and more minor tweaks.
*notice that you must set your game settings to ULTRA for shadows\draw distance\postprocess\effects vegetation and textures can be set on any setting.
Delete files for Conan Exiles in the Steam Library. In any %appdata% too.
Reverify in Steam and it will fully download the game again.
After its done downloading and installing. Reverify again till you get "0" lost files.
Apply the pinned ModControllerCache.json IF you are getting "Spear_2h_C" crash errors.
Go to your install directory (Steam > steamapps > common > Conan Exiles > ConanSandbox > Saved) and find the file ModControllerCache.json DOWN load this corrected copy (Make it READ ONLY in the properties tab.) DROP this into the above mentioned FILE. Save to a Notepas as ModControllerCache.json
{
"modControllerCaches":
{
"Endgame Extended Weapon Arsenal (EEWA) v0.29.8":
{
"mD5Hash": "b8c112067518ec56ec2c1e7f3e9f4ebb",
"modControllerPaths": [
"/Game/Mods/Tutorial/bp_ModController"
]
}
}
}Apply the pinned Pack UniversalModList.txt.
Navigate to Steam > steamapps > common > Conan Exiles > ConanSandbox DROP this file in the ConanSandbox file! Save to a Notepad as servermodlist.txt
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\880454836/Pippi.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\1823412793/ModControlPanel.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\1396310739/StacksizePlus.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\2411388528/SandAndStone.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\1928978003/NorthernTimber.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\1966733568/immersivearmor.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\1113901982/TheColdEmbrace-Main.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\1734383367/Tutorial.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\1629644846/KerozardsParagonLeveling.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\2644416526/Beyond_Stations.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\1159180273/StylistPlus.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\2275543723/Improved_Quality_of_Life.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\1444947329/LBPR_Collision_Update_Add_On.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\1369743238/No_Building_Placement_Restrictions.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\2704153181/Decay_Away.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\877108545/UnlockableContainers.pak
..\..\..\..\workshop\content\440900\2377569193/Savage_Wilds.pakApply any changes like screen size and graphics changes to your files. (I keep copies of the different changed .ini in a seperate folder outside conan. So the game does not erase them.)
Make sure any changed file is set to "READ ONLY"
Start Conan and PRAY to CROM! LOL.
Go to C:Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/ConanExiles/ConanSandbox/Config
Open the DefaultInput.ini file with Notepad
Find the lines that have PreviousMessage and NextMessage
Where it says Key= , change the assigned key to whatever other key you would prefer to use.
This temporary solution involves editing a vital game file. Avoid changing and deleting any characters in any of the lines in the file as this can be game breaking.
Conan Exiles C++ errors are most likely due to out-of-date Windows versions. Make sure that your computer is running the latest Windows version:
Run Windows Update > install the available updates > restart your computer
Install the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015
Install Conan Exiles
Anytime you experience either Exceptional long loading times or Fatal errors on loading. EXIT GAME, EXIT STEAM, and then re-enter to the game lobby and try again. If it repeatedly loads slowly or errors, or if the game is hanging on the loading screen and is not progressing beyond a black screen, wait a little longer. If nothing happens after a few minutes, end the task by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ESC. Restart the game and then try to launch it again.
It is good to know that this issue may be caused by hardware that is close to the minimum specifications. Also, try running the Steam client’s built-in integrity checker. OR try doing a Re-Verify of your game files.
For everyone with AMD CPUs who are having issues with Alt + Tab alt-tabbing causing freezes, please do the following to eliminate the problem.
If you have followed any of the previous workarounds posted in the forums, revert those changes. (For example restoring XAudio2_7.dll if you have removed it)
Locate your Engine.ini file, which should be found in your ConanExilesInstallPath>/ConanSandbox/Saved/Config/WindowsNoEditor/Engine.ini folder.
C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/ConanExiles/ConanSandbox/Saved/Config/WindowsNoEditor/Engine.ini
Edit it in notepad, and add the following to the end of the file:
[/script/engine.audiosettings] bDisableMasterEQ=True Save the file, and start the game. You should no longer experience freezes when alt tabbing. Save the file, and start the game. You should no longer experience freezes when alt tabbing.
If you do not want to edit files, just hit the [ESC] key when the Funcom logo comes up. Otherwise, this is correct: IN STEAM LIBRARY PAGE, Right click : Conan Exiles\properties\local files\browse local files\ConanSandbox\Config open "DefaultGame.ini and set: [/script/movieplayer.movieplayersettings] (these will be + insted of - so reset them all to the -) -StartupMovies=StartupUE4 -StartupMovies=StartupNvidia -StartupMovies=CinematicIntroV2 SAVE the file. Close the File. In the File manager, find the file you just opened, and right click on it. Go down to properties and click that. In the box that shows please go to the bottom of the box and click the box that says Attributes and click the Read only box and then click ok. This will save the file in a way that when the game updates the files the file will not be reset to the previous settings.
