**ForeWord**
I spent over five hours designing this guide to be not only as thorough as possible, but also as user friendly as possible. I went into details that most other guides never have, and attempted to elaborate on every element that I could to make sure that you have as complete an understanding as possible of not only THIS game, but many others that you play. I did this because I believe that knowledge is open source, and because there is no better way to learn than to have someone willing to take the time to educate you. I realize that there are those out there that know some of these things. If you feel as if I'm attempting to "under-mind" you or anything please know that I'm not. I broke things down into lay-man's terms to make them as easy to understand as possible for EVERYONE. Not a single individual.
A LOT of work went into this guide, and making sure that every possible angle was as detailed as possible without being TOO lengthy, and turning into the EXTREME wall of text that it could have been, so some elements have been shortened, and as such may not sound "100% accurate" but I assure you that they're still as detailed as they need to be.
**KEYNOTES**
In this guide you will find several abbreviated words, or utilized terminologies - Below is a key of what they mean for those that may not know. I'd suggest everyone read this as there is a LOT of information within the section that details a LOT of things regarding games from an ACTUAL game developer's perspective. (Yes, I'm a game developer.)
Show Spoiler
¤ GPU: Graphics Processing Unit - Video Card.
¤ CPU: Central Processing Unit - Your actual computer processor (For Example: Intel Core I7 920 Extreme or AMD Phenom II x6 1100T, so on.)
¤ PSU: Power Supply Unit - A box within your computer that transforms the energy current within your home plug sockets into a usable wave form for your computer, and distributes power accordingly to components within it, to prevent over-voltage and fires (most of the time.![^^]()
)
¤ VRM: "Voltage Regulation Module's" are tiny chips on your motherboard that assist your PSU in turning the 12 volt signal into a smaller one usable by your processor (somewhere around 1.5Volts) so as to keep it from over-volting and frying itself.
¤ Mobo: Motherboard - The absolute core component of your entire "rig" (Computer) - Without it the CPU would have no way to communicate with the Northbridge, Southbridge, GPU, HDD's/SSD's, or RAM
¤ HDD: Hard Disk Drive - The traditional method of storing data on a computer since the '70s. These drives are thicker in style (about 25MM - The same as a typical computer fan's thickness) and have moving steel cylindrical platters within them that are negatively charged with electronic ions. As the disk spins a special reading head (similar to a record player) driven by ferrite magnets (The strongest known natural magnet on the planet) that is capable of moving across the disks at thousands of times per second reads, and writes information using electrical charges. While traditional and "more reliable" for data storage than an SSD (also more recoverable in case of accidental deletion, formatting, or partition deletion) HDD's do have a nasty down side.
Due to the fact that they have moving platters being read by a tiny head they're subject-able to damage from being moved/dropped/jolted around and also have MUCH slower read, and write times than SSD's, and are typically not the best decision for games like this due to the amount of texture information CONSTANTLY being loaded in the background (unless they spin at approximately 10000RPM or more. - You will know if you have one of these high performance drives because they get so hot that they have to have a nice big heatsink built onto them that nearly doubles their thickness.) HDD's store information in random locations, and as such need to be "Defragmented" to re-align the data in a more "seek-friendly" manner to make gameplay more smooth when loading multiple textures/objects in a single scene.
¤ SSD: Solid State Drive - These drives are different than HDD's in the fact that they have NO moving parts, and operate on an electron-based transmission whereas data is stored in a binary manner, and in a straight line starting from the back to the front. (Whether the Electron is a "1" (Charged, or "alive") or a "0" (Uncharged, or "Dead." Reference Tim Robbins in "Anti-Trust" when he says the famous line "This business is binary, you're a one or a zero. Alive or dead") Due to them having no moving parts and being based off memory architecture HIGHLY similar to that of a RAM module (stick) they don't NEED heatsinks, but users can opt for them if they're daring enough to crack them open, and use VRM Heatsinks on the memory modules. SSD's also do not benefit highly from defragmenting, and have actually been known to have been corrupted by the process simply because of the method they use to store information.
¤ RPM: Rotations Per Minute - This is literally what it sounds like. Think of an arrow rotating in a circle. Every time the arrow points up it has made one rotation.
¤ MB: Megabyte - a Megabyte is 100 Bytes
¤ Mb: MegaBIT - Not to be confused with MegaBYTES - A MegaBIT is a calculation of transmission, NOT size. In each BYTE there are 10 Bits, however there are two that are reserved for the start, and stop of each BYTE'S transmission that aren't used. Ergo 10Mb is actually 1,250 MegaBytes per second, not 10 as one would presume.
To put it further into Perspective Internet Providers advertise speeds in excess of 16Megabits per second. The average consumer thinks "Cool, that means I can download 3 songs in a second." This is WRONG. 16Mbs means you can download approximately One song per second and a half since your actual download speed is in the range of 2.04 MegaBYTES per second, and the average song is anywhere from 3-10MegaBYTES in size.)
¤ GB: Gigabytes - 1024 Bytes is 1GB
¤ OS: Operating System - The actual Graphical User Interface environment that your system runs allowing you to interface with your computer.(Windows, Linux, Unix, Ubuntu, MacOS)
¤ RAM: Random Access Memory - These are the rectangular shaped sticks protruding from your Mobo - Ranging greatly in size from 32MB each to 128GB each (and soon 1TB[Terabyte - a thousand GB]) in size. Your computer's OS sends random information from programs to these to be stored temporarily so that they can be called on faster than if they were still on your hard drive. Typically RAM will store information such as Hit Points, Mana, Casting Range, Casting Speed, Speed of Movement, Swim-States, location of your player on an X,Y,Z axis, and so on. This is why memory editing is the preferred method for hackers.
¤ VRAM: Video Random Access Memory - The RAM that's on your GPU - NOT your Mobo.
¤ FPS: Frames Per Second (This is the actual amount of frames being rendered on your screen at once that create a "moving picture" based off graphic elements that are drawn on the screen one after another. The higher your FPS the smoother your gameplay experience will be.)
¤ VSYNC: Vertical Sync - Every monitor has a maximum amount of hertz that it can render at. VSYNC basically locks your amount of frames rendered to this limit so even if your GPU is capable of rendering 120 FPS or HZ then you will still only render 60 if that's all your monitor can display.)
¤ HZ or Hertz: (Think of one hertz as a single frame - 60hz is 60 frames. Most standard LED/LCD Flat Panel monitors render at a max of 60.)
¤ Core Speed: You'll see me referencing this a LOT. When referring to it I'll say either GPU, or CPU Core Speed - This is the speed in GHz that your CPU/GPU operate at.
¤ Latency: Essentially the "traditional" method of determining lag in the later mentioned form of MS - The higher this is, the worse your connection is, and the longer it takes to send/receive a signal (for example spell cast) to/from the server back to/from your computer.)
¤ TPS: Ticks per Second - TPM is a "rate" at which the server calculates environment variables, such as mob spawning, NPC movements etc. I'm unsure as to what the max TPS is for the server environment in this game, but for form of elaboration a Minecraft server has 20 TPS.
¤ NPC: Non-Playable Character - Can be Hostile, Neutral, or Friendly depending on the flags set per faction in the database.
¤ DB: Short for Database. A large collection of hundreds to thousands of tables containing information specifying variables within the game. 99.9% of player/NPC information, such as individual character design, NPC loot, NPC HP/Mana/casting time/Scripts for boss fights/etc. is stored within these tables.
¤ Core: The actual server itself. Commonly the "core" of a server is referencing the actual scripts that are comprised to make the core operating environment, hence the name "Core." It does not directly reference ONE script, but thousands of pages of code of hundreds to thousands of scripts operating together to make the "Core."
¤ Mob: Hostile enemy NPC.
¤ MS: Milliseconds - The "Traditional" method of determining your latency (Described above) to the server.)
¤ Ping: Ping is another way of saying "Latency" (I honestly don't know which term I will use later in the guide, so I figured I would cover both, just in case.)
¤ Texture Bit: This is the resolution of a texture (256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, or 2048x2048 are the only sized utilized by this game.) This does NOT mean you can't run at 4k Resolution, or 1440p, This is just the maximum size of the texture used on armor, ground textures, etc.
¤ LOD: Level of Detail: A scale of calculation in which the core of the engine will calculate distance of a texture or mesh from the player's location. In doing so, depending on relative location of the player, the object's mesh, and texture will lose quality to alleviate system resources as you get further away, and vice-versa when you get closer it - will gain detail.
¤ MipMap: Mip Mapping is a technology that allows game programmers the ability to specify texture values based on settings without generating a new texture. Occasionally this technology can cause issues with textures flickering into one another if the core isn't coded properly. It's a rare issue, but I've encountered games where it happens (Rift.) This is also NOT to be confused with texture CLIPPING, where the edges of two textures meet, and for whatever reason don't blend properly. Mip-Mapping is also utilized in game engines to create LOD objects that have varying levels of detail as you get closer, or further from them instead of just being "high quality" all the time and using more resources.
¤ Mesh: A mesh is basically your "skeleton." Grey in color, and basic in shape a "mesh" is a place-holder of sorts - The texture gets displayed onto it, and if it's tessellated the tessellation appears during the visual queue for the texture, postfx are applied afterwards. They're commonly called "milk-shapes" because that's pretty much how they look in appearance.
¤ Bloom: Bloom is a PostFX that allows light to "Bleed" so if for instance you were staring at the sun through a window in game the sun would "bleed" light onto the walls on the inside right on the edge of the window to give it a sort of "realistic glare."
¤ Post-Processing: A.K.A. PostFX, or Post effects - When a game is "displayed" on your screen it all starts with a mesh, then a texture gets applied to it. From there the lighting engine places shadows based on calculations of where the light should shine from based off of relative location of the light source. After that the post-processing engine will generate elements such as bloom (bleed-lighting), HDR (Advanced Coloring Hueristics), SSAO, HBAO+, Anti-Aliasing, Tri-linear Filtering, etc.
¤ Pixel: A pixel is a square or circular "dot" that allows illumination through your screen - One of many of these comprises an image on your screen.
¤ Voxel: A voxel is a triangular based shape that is joined with thousands of others to create a mesh for objects, players, clothing, hair, etc. These triangles constitute an array to create a 3-dimensional object that forms a mesh, and has a texture applied to it. More commonly referred to as a "polygon" when discussed. Voxels are the reason we need Anti-Aliasing due to their shape.
¤ DOF: Depth of Field: This is a Post-Processing Effect that enables the game to calculate (somewhat) intelligently how far distant objects are from the camera's perspective and blur them. Essentially it's an "Out of Focus" effect similar to how a picture would look if focused on an object up close with the background being blurred out due to not being in focus. Apparently people think this makes the game seem more realistic. I'd have to disagree with that, but to each their own.
¤ AA: Not to be confused with Alcoholic's Anonymous - AA stands for Anti-Aliasing which is the technological advancement that allows pixels being displayed to sample information from pixels surrounding them, allowing them to "blend" together by re-sampling them so they appear less jagged and "voxel-like" (Triangular, in case you didn't read above.)
¤ Pop-In: This is where NPC's, Fences, Rocks, Carts, or other "objects" with textures just "pop" onto your screen instead of fading in like they're supposed to at varying levels of detail as you get closer (see mip-map above)
¤ Shadow Striping: This is another problem that gamers face occasionally depending on the core the game runs on, and unfortunately this game not only has shadow striping issues, but texture interlacing issues as well. Shadow striping is EXACTLY what it sounds like in that a shadow gets displayed but instead of being smooth as it should be the post-processing engine within the core overlays them in a manner that appears "striped" instead of smooth.
¤ Texture Interlacing: A video scanning method for displaying textures in a way so that alternate lines form one sequence - or in this case, alternate textures form one - Occasionally, on lower end post-processing engines this will appear as "striping" as well, but it's just a graphical glitch.
I'm sure there's more that I talked about either in the guide, or even in the key-notes section that some of you may want more information on. If you aren't too scared to ask me, then feel free to, otherwise, simply utilize our good friend Mr. Google to obtain any relevant information you may desire regarding the subject.
Now that you've gained intelligence in the field of Consumer Computer Electronics, and Information based Transmissions as well as a little developer knowledge on how games work let's begin with our guide, shall we?
Show Spoiler
¤ Full Screen: This is the best mode to run this game in. Windowed, and Windowed Fullscreen will not only lock your frames per second to your vertical sync, but they'll also cause your frame rates to drop drastically.
¤ FullScreen Windowed: If you absolutely HAVE to run a "windowed" mode of the game, then this is it. It will impact your frames per second less than windowed mode will, since it won't be drawing anything in the background from your desktop, but it will still draw graphic elements that pop up like facebook notifications, etc.
¤ Windowed: Avoid this, honestly. it has absolutely no benefit, nor purpose (See Cropping Section)
Show Spoiler
Run this at the highest option available. Remember however, that the more pixels you force the game to render the more it will take a toll on the core, and VRAM of your GPU. In the "Cropping" discussed later, you'll see why you don't have to lower this for better FPS like you would in 99% of other games.
Show Spoiler
This is purely VRAM, and HDD/SSD based - You'll want to match your settings accurately based on hardware
Low: These are (From what I can tell) 256x256bit Textures - Great for 1GB and under VRAM GPU's
Medium: These are (From what I can tell) 512x512bit Textures - Great for 1.5-2GB VRAM GPU's
High: These are (From what I can tell) 1024x1024 bit Textures - Great for 2-12GB VRAM GPU's
Ultra: These are (From what I can tell) 2048x2048 bit Textures - Great for 3-12GB VRAM GPU's
Show Spoiler
¤ Optimized Mode: Optimized Mode is a "fancy" way of saying a LARGE percentage of Shader options have been disabled to optimize the game for low-end users
¤ Very Low: Very low is optimized with a more enriched post-processing effect added to it. It still lacks bloom, hdr, and many other features like lens blur, but it does look MUCH nicer than "Optimized."
¤ Low: Low adds a little bit more view distance, and also further distance on effects, grass density, etc.
¤ Medium: This is where you're really going to be hurting if you're not running at LEAST a 2GB VRAM card with decent clock speeds and decent bit rates on your GPU (512 or higher)
¤ Slightly High: I honestly couldn't tell much of a difference between this and Medium, but that may just be because at this point of writing this guide my HD7950 decided to die, and I had to start using my HD6850. Higher resolution shadows as well.
¤ High: A MASSIVE increase in LOD, Blur, Bloom, HDR, and other effects. Higher resolution shadows as well.
¤ Very High: A LARGE increase in the amount of SSAO that is put onto the screen. Higher resolution shadows as well.
Show Spoiler
¤ Anti-Aliasing: (Allowable on every mode except optimized) Explained in the Key-Notes Section - Will cause performance hit of about 15-50%
¤ SSAO: (Allowable on every mode except optimized) Explained in Key-Notes Section - Will cause performance hit of 0-5%
¤ Depth of Field: (Allowable on every mode) - Explained in Key-Notes Section under "DOF" - Will cause varying performance hit depending on total system configuration.
¤ Show Blood: (Allowable on every mode) - I honestly don't care if I see blood, I know I'm hitting the mob >.<
¤ Show blood on display: (Allowable on every mode) This splatters blood onto your camera or "screen"...why would you want this? It's not an episode of Boondocks.
¤ Screen Filter: (Pointless, really) Allows you to specify certain "filters" to display like sepia, negative, etc...again...why would you want this?
High-End Mode: Still HIGHLY experimental (and temperamental)This is a combination of existing Post-FX we've seen, and others that they're working on implementing but have NOT perfected in any way, so it will DRASTICALLY affect your performance.
¤ "Crop Mode": (View-port) - This allows you to create a section of the screen where the game, and all of it's action, and glory is NOT rendered. This means you can run 1080p without it scaling to match the size of your monitor. Meaning it displays across less pixels; which in turn means it takes LESS performance to render 1080p. Plus it's kind of cool to have HP, map, quests, etc. outside of the game environment. Makes them a LOT easier to see.
¤ Upscale (Downscale): A HORRIBLE option in my opinion. It allows you to downscale the visual resolution so while you're still rendering at 1080p you can set the pixel granularity or "quality" to be lower meaning less detail is rendered into each pixel even though you still render the same amount of pixels. See, I told you it was stupid.
¤ Remove Others lanterns: (I always enable it, dynamic lighting is resource heavy, especially when you've got 50 people causing dynamic lights around you in town![;)]()
)
¤ Option below Upscale is: (Disable Other Player's Effects): If you're not running anything higher than what I've classified as a "Mid-Range System" below then I suggest you check this option to disable their spell effects or you're going to suffer when someone is casting, or fighting next to you, or on your screen.
¤ Option below "Remove others Lanterns" is: "Enable ONLY your effects": I'm not honestly sure what the discernible difference between this and "Disable other players effects" is, but I'm GUESSING that it disables spell effects from NPC's? (god, that would be IGNORANT - How else would we know what they're casting?)
¤ Camera Effects: These are purely CPU, and GPU Core speed based - The faster and more powerful your GPU, and CPU the better you can run with these. Low to mid end systems want these disabled. I disabled every single one that I could. I didn't care for them. It's a matter of personal preference.
¤ Photo Filter: NONE - This is a DirectX Overlay on EVERYTHING rendered which means it has to be rendered twice, - cuts on resources (but only when a screenshot is taken.)
¤ Gamma and Contrast: ( I totally use them to cheat when I need an impromptu lantern ^_^) Use these to adjust the brightness, and darkness of shadows, and the overall image itself.
Show Spoiler
====================
Game Window Settings
Full Screen
====================
Screen Resolution
Whatever your max is...
====================
Texture Quality
Low
====================
Graphic Quality
Optimized Mode: Best option, honestly.
Very Low: You may be able to get away with it...
====================
Advanced Graphics Options:
Anti-Aliasing: OFF
SSAO: OFF
Depth of Field: OFF
Show Blood: OFF
Show blood on display: OFF
Screen Filter: OFF
High-End Mode: OFF
"Crop Mode": I'd recommend setting this to a respectable "view port" so that you can gain FPS on your system...You'll need it, and it won't make your game look like crap.
Upscale: OFF
Remove Others lanterns: Checked
Disable Other Players Effects: Checked
Enable ONLY your effects: Up to you, maybe someone will figure out what it does...
Camera Effects: OFF
Photo Filter: OFF
-----------------Low-Mid Systems (Single, Dual, or Triple Core CPU's * 4-6GB RAM * 2GB VRAM)-----------------
Show Spoiler
Game Window Settings
Full Screen
====================
Screen Resolution
Whatever your max is...
====================
Texture Quality
Low: Recommended
Medium: You can get away with slightly higher textures but you won't hit 60FPS
====================
Graphic Quality
Optimized Mode: Optional with more performance
Very Low: Recommended
Low: Optional with less performance
Medium: Optional with less performance
====================
Advanced Graphics Options:
Anti-Aliasing: Optional, but your GPU's Core Speed will make the biggest difference here alongside it's VRAM
SSAO: Same as above
Depth of Field: OFF
Show Blood: OFF
Show blood on display: OFF
Screen Filter: OFF
High-End Mode: OFF
"Crop Mode": Due to having more VRAM and consequently probably having faster core speeds on your GPU you can afford a smaller viewport restriction than Low-End Users.
Upscale: OFF
Remove Others lanterns: Checked
Disable Other Players Effects: Checked
Enable ONLY your effects: Up to you, maybe someone will figure out what it does...
Camera Effects: OFF
Photo Filter: OFF
Show Spoiler
Game Window Settings
Full Screen
====================
Screen Resolution
Whatever your max is...
====================
Texture Quality
Low: Not Necessary
Medium: Optional
High: Should work fine for you.
Ultra: Optional for Single-Monitor Gamers, but Eyefinity, and Surround View - Wouldn't do that if I were you. not even if you have a second monitor.
====================
Graphic Quality
Optimized Mode: Completely unnecessary
Very Low: Completely unnecessary
Low: Optional
Medium: Optional and probably closer to recommended
Slightly High: Not Recomended.
====================
Advanced Graphics Options:
Anti-Aliasing: Optional, but your GPU's Core Speed will make the biggest difference here alongside it's VRAM
SSAO: Same as above
Depth of Field: OFF
Show Blood: OFF
Show blood on display: OFF
Screen Filter: OFF
High-End Mode: OFF
"Crop Mode": Due to having more VRAM and consequently probably having faster core speeds you probably don't need to use this, but you can if you want.
Upscale: OFF
Remove Others lanterns: Checked
Disable Other Players Effects: Checked
Enable ONLY your effects: Up to you, maybe someone will figure out what it does...
Camera Effects: OFF
Photo Filter: OFF
Show Spoiler
Game Window Settings
Full Screen
====================
Screen Resolution
Whatever your max is...
====================
Texture Quality
Low: Unnecessary
Medium: Unnecessary
High: Optimal
Ultra: Will hurt your performance some, more than likely. Do not run with multiple monitors.
====================
Graphic Quality
Slightly High: Recommended
High: Optional, small performance hit
Very High: You can probably get away with this too depending on your settings
====================
Advanced Graphics Options
Anti-Aliasing: CRANK IT UP! 2-4x is PLENTY (unless it's just off, or on...in which case LEAVE IT OFF since they don't specify what method it uses.)
SSAO: Enabled
Depth of Field: Up to you, shouldn't hurt you too bad at all.
Show Blood: Up to you, shouldn't hurt you too bad at all.
Show blood on display: Up to you, shouldn't hurt you too bad at all.
Screen Filter: OFF
High-End Mode: OFF
"Crop Mode": I'd recommend setting this to a respectable "view port" so that you can gain FPS on your system...You'll need it, and it won't make your game look like crap.
Upscale: OFF
Remove Others lanterns: Checked
Disable Other Players Effects: Checked
Enable ONLY your effects: Up to you, maybe someone will figure out what it does...
Camera Effects: OFF
Photo Filter: OFF
Show Spoiler
I honestly don't even know why you're reading this other than to find a reason to knock me, or just gain knowledge, but you can run this game completely maxed out, it's that simple.
Show Spoiler
**New information regarding this**
Apparently during the CBT2 people found out that you can be in game while you edit this configuration file, and reload it forcefully from within the game. I'm not sure if this still works, but to do so, simply open chat, then type /reloadGameOption
then hit enter and it should reload it...
1. Navigate to your "documents" folder on your root (where your operating system is - Typically c:/) drive.
2. Then navigate to the "Black Desert" folder.
► This location is in an area such as this: "C:\Users\Test\Documents\Black Desert" (On Windows 7)
3. Next open the file labeled "GameOption.txt" with your text Editor. I use Notepad++ ( A Developer Favorite, as it has thousands of plugins, and Syntax Highlighting which is useful for developers, and noobies alike. - If you want syntax highlighting on a configuration file, simply select "Batch" under the "Languages" option)
4. Locate the following Variables within the file:
► postFilter
The default for this SHOULD be "1" no matter what you set your settings to in game. Setting this to "0" (Without the quotes) should remove a LOT of the post effect filters even from "optimized" settings. This may cause textures to be far too bright, or dark. Setting Gamma/Contrast values to different levels will alleviate that, but it will probably make things FAR too nasty looking to enjoy. Should only be used as a last result until testing, and tweaking is done.)
► characterEffect
I am presuming that this is the spell/swing effects that are emitted when your character performs skill actions. Disabling this WILL give a pleasant boost during combat (presuming it works) but it will make combat VERY bland and probably cause a lot of players to lose desire for the game, so this is purely optional. If you want to disable these effects set it to "0" (Without the quotes.)
► dof
Depth of Field (Discussed earlier, in the KeyNotes Section) Disabling this will give a minute performance increase. Set to "0" to disable it (Without the quotes.)
► hitFxWeight
The default value for this in my configuration file was "100.0" Using prior knowledge on how integer values like this work I'm ASSUMING that the minimal value for this is 0.1 and the maximum is 100.0 (Think Percentage.) Due to this, you can set any number of values in-between to adjust how hard the hit animations are from 0.1 to 50.5, or 75.9, so on. Just make sure you don't pass 100,0 and that you ONLY have one digit behind the decimal in whatever value you choose. My best guess at this point is that a respectable amount would be 50.0 to give a minimal impact on performance, but still retain some of the "flashiness" that the game has.
More information will be provided when I discover it. Enjoy, folks!
I spent over five hours designing this guide to be not only as thorough as possible, but also as user friendly as possible. I went into details that most other guides never have, and attempted to elaborate on every element that I could to make sure that you have as complete an understanding as possible of not only THIS game, but many others that you play. I did this because I believe that knowledge is open source, and because there is no better way to learn than to have someone willing to take the time to educate you. I realize that there are those out there that know some of these things. If you feel as if I'm attempting to "under-mind" you or anything please know that I'm not. I broke things down into lay-man's terms to make them as easy to understand as possible for EVERYONE. Not a single individual.
A LOT of work went into this guide, and making sure that every possible angle was as detailed as possible without being TOO lengthy, and turning into the EXTREME wall of text that it could have been, so some elements have been shortened, and as such may not sound "100% accurate" but I assure you that they're still as detailed as they need to be.
**KEYNOTES**
In this guide you will find several abbreviated words, or utilized terminologies - Below is a key of what they mean for those that may not know. I'd suggest everyone read this as there is a LOT of information within the section that details a LOT of things regarding games from an ACTUAL game developer's perspective. (Yes, I'm a game developer.)
¤ GPU: Graphics Processing Unit - Video Card.
¤ CPU: Central Processing Unit - Your actual computer processor (For Example: Intel Core I7 920 Extreme or AMD Phenom II x6 1100T, so on.)
¤ PSU: Power Supply Unit - A box within your computer that transforms the energy current within your home plug sockets into a usable wave form for your computer, and distributes power accordingly to components within it, to prevent over-voltage and fires (most of the time.
)¤ VRM: "Voltage Regulation Module's" are tiny chips on your motherboard that assist your PSU in turning the 12 volt signal into a smaller one usable by your processor (somewhere around 1.5Volts) so as to keep it from over-volting and frying itself.
¤ Mobo: Motherboard - The absolute core component of your entire "rig" (Computer) - Without it the CPU would have no way to communicate with the Northbridge, Southbridge, GPU, HDD's/SSD's, or RAM
¤ HDD: Hard Disk Drive - The traditional method of storing data on a computer since the '70s. These drives are thicker in style (about 25MM - The same as a typical computer fan's thickness) and have moving steel cylindrical platters within them that are negatively charged with electronic ions. As the disk spins a special reading head (similar to a record player) driven by ferrite magnets (The strongest known natural magnet on the planet) that is capable of moving across the disks at thousands of times per second reads, and writes information using electrical charges. While traditional and "more reliable" for data storage than an SSD (also more recoverable in case of accidental deletion, formatting, or partition deletion) HDD's do have a nasty down side.
Due to the fact that they have moving platters being read by a tiny head they're subject-able to damage from being moved/dropped/jolted around and also have MUCH slower read, and write times than SSD's, and are typically not the best decision for games like this due to the amount of texture information CONSTANTLY being loaded in the background (unless they spin at approximately 10000RPM or more. - You will know if you have one of these high performance drives because they get so hot that they have to have a nice big heatsink built onto them that nearly doubles their thickness.) HDD's store information in random locations, and as such need to be "Defragmented" to re-align the data in a more "seek-friendly" manner to make gameplay more smooth when loading multiple textures/objects in a single scene.
¤ SSD: Solid State Drive - These drives are different than HDD's in the fact that they have NO moving parts, and operate on an electron-based transmission whereas data is stored in a binary manner, and in a straight line starting from the back to the front. (Whether the Electron is a "1" (Charged, or "alive") or a "0" (Uncharged, or "Dead." Reference Tim Robbins in "Anti-Trust" when he says the famous line "This business is binary, you're a one or a zero. Alive or dead") Due to them having no moving parts and being based off memory architecture HIGHLY similar to that of a RAM module (stick) they don't NEED heatsinks, but users can opt for them if they're daring enough to crack them open, and use VRM Heatsinks on the memory modules. SSD's also do not benefit highly from defragmenting, and have actually been known to have been corrupted by the process simply because of the method they use to store information.
¤ RPM: Rotations Per Minute - This is literally what it sounds like. Think of an arrow rotating in a circle. Every time the arrow points up it has made one rotation.
¤ MB: Megabyte - a Megabyte is 100 Bytes
¤ Mb: MegaBIT - Not to be confused with MegaBYTES - A MegaBIT is a calculation of transmission, NOT size. In each BYTE there are 10 Bits, however there are two that are reserved for the start, and stop of each BYTE'S transmission that aren't used. Ergo 10Mb is actually 1,250 MegaBytes per second, not 10 as one would presume.
To put it further into Perspective Internet Providers advertise speeds in excess of 16Megabits per second. The average consumer thinks "Cool, that means I can download 3 songs in a second." This is WRONG. 16Mbs means you can download approximately One song per second and a half since your actual download speed is in the range of 2.04 MegaBYTES per second, and the average song is anywhere from 3-10MegaBYTES in size.)
¤ GB: Gigabytes - 1024 Bytes is 1GB
¤ OS: Operating System - The actual Graphical User Interface environment that your system runs allowing you to interface with your computer.(Windows, Linux, Unix, Ubuntu, MacOS)
¤ RAM: Random Access Memory - These are the rectangular shaped sticks protruding from your Mobo - Ranging greatly in size from 32MB each to 128GB each (and soon 1TB[Terabyte - a thousand GB]) in size. Your computer's OS sends random information from programs to these to be stored temporarily so that they can be called on faster than if they were still on your hard drive. Typically RAM will store information such as Hit Points, Mana, Casting Range, Casting Speed, Speed of Movement, Swim-States, location of your player on an X,Y,Z axis, and so on. This is why memory editing is the preferred method for hackers.
¤ VRAM: Video Random Access Memory - The RAM that's on your GPU - NOT your Mobo.
¤ FPS: Frames Per Second (This is the actual amount of frames being rendered on your screen at once that create a "moving picture" based off graphic elements that are drawn on the screen one after another. The higher your FPS the smoother your gameplay experience will be.)
¤ VSYNC: Vertical Sync - Every monitor has a maximum amount of hertz that it can render at. VSYNC basically locks your amount of frames rendered to this limit so even if your GPU is capable of rendering 120 FPS or HZ then you will still only render 60 if that's all your monitor can display.)
¤ HZ or Hertz: (Think of one hertz as a single frame - 60hz is 60 frames. Most standard LED/LCD Flat Panel monitors render at a max of 60.)
¤ Core Speed: You'll see me referencing this a LOT. When referring to it I'll say either GPU, or CPU Core Speed - This is the speed in GHz that your CPU/GPU operate at.
¤ Latency: Essentially the "traditional" method of determining lag in the later mentioned form of MS - The higher this is, the worse your connection is, and the longer it takes to send/receive a signal (for example spell cast) to/from the server back to/from your computer.)
¤ TPS: Ticks per Second - TPM is a "rate" at which the server calculates environment variables, such as mob spawning, NPC movements etc. I'm unsure as to what the max TPS is for the server environment in this game, but for form of elaboration a Minecraft server has 20 TPS.
¤ NPC: Non-Playable Character - Can be Hostile, Neutral, or Friendly depending on the flags set per faction in the database.
¤ DB: Short for Database. A large collection of hundreds to thousands of tables containing information specifying variables within the game. 99.9% of player/NPC information, such as individual character design, NPC loot, NPC HP/Mana/casting time/Scripts for boss fights/etc. is stored within these tables.
¤ Core: The actual server itself. Commonly the "core" of a server is referencing the actual scripts that are comprised to make the core operating environment, hence the name "Core." It does not directly reference ONE script, but thousands of pages of code of hundreds to thousands of scripts operating together to make the "Core."
¤ Mob: Hostile enemy NPC.
¤ MS: Milliseconds - The "Traditional" method of determining your latency (Described above) to the server.)
¤ Ping: Ping is another way of saying "Latency" (I honestly don't know which term I will use later in the guide, so I figured I would cover both, just in case.)
¤ Texture Bit: This is the resolution of a texture (256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, or 2048x2048 are the only sized utilized by this game.) This does NOT mean you can't run at 4k Resolution, or 1440p, This is just the maximum size of the texture used on armor, ground textures, etc.
¤ LOD: Level of Detail: A scale of calculation in which the core of the engine will calculate distance of a texture or mesh from the player's location. In doing so, depending on relative location of the player, the object's mesh, and texture will lose quality to alleviate system resources as you get further away, and vice-versa when you get closer it - will gain detail.
¤ MipMap: Mip Mapping is a technology that allows game programmers the ability to specify texture values based on settings without generating a new texture. Occasionally this technology can cause issues with textures flickering into one another if the core isn't coded properly. It's a rare issue, but I've encountered games where it happens (Rift.) This is also NOT to be confused with texture CLIPPING, where the edges of two textures meet, and for whatever reason don't blend properly. Mip-Mapping is also utilized in game engines to create LOD objects that have varying levels of detail as you get closer, or further from them instead of just being "high quality" all the time and using more resources.
¤ Mesh: A mesh is basically your "skeleton." Grey in color, and basic in shape a "mesh" is a place-holder of sorts - The texture gets displayed onto it, and if it's tessellated the tessellation appears during the visual queue for the texture, postfx are applied afterwards. They're commonly called "milk-shapes" because that's pretty much how they look in appearance.
¤ Bloom: Bloom is a PostFX that allows light to "Bleed" so if for instance you were staring at the sun through a window in game the sun would "bleed" light onto the walls on the inside right on the edge of the window to give it a sort of "realistic glare."
¤ Post-Processing: A.K.A. PostFX, or Post effects - When a game is "displayed" on your screen it all starts with a mesh, then a texture gets applied to it. From there the lighting engine places shadows based on calculations of where the light should shine from based off of relative location of the light source. After that the post-processing engine will generate elements such as bloom (bleed-lighting), HDR (Advanced Coloring Hueristics), SSAO, HBAO+, Anti-Aliasing, Tri-linear Filtering, etc.
¤ Pixel: A pixel is a square or circular "dot" that allows illumination through your screen - One of many of these comprises an image on your screen.
¤ Voxel: A voxel is a triangular based shape that is joined with thousands of others to create a mesh for objects, players, clothing, hair, etc. These triangles constitute an array to create a 3-dimensional object that forms a mesh, and has a texture applied to it. More commonly referred to as a "polygon" when discussed. Voxels are the reason we need Anti-Aliasing due to their shape.
¤ DOF: Depth of Field: This is a Post-Processing Effect that enables the game to calculate (somewhat) intelligently how far distant objects are from the camera's perspective and blur them. Essentially it's an "Out of Focus" effect similar to how a picture would look if focused on an object up close with the background being blurred out due to not being in focus. Apparently people think this makes the game seem more realistic. I'd have to disagree with that, but to each their own.
¤ AA: Not to be confused with Alcoholic's Anonymous - AA stands for Anti-Aliasing which is the technological advancement that allows pixels being displayed to sample information from pixels surrounding them, allowing them to "blend" together by re-sampling them so they appear less jagged and "voxel-like" (Triangular, in case you didn't read above.)
¤ Pop-In: This is where NPC's, Fences, Rocks, Carts, or other "objects" with textures just "pop" onto your screen instead of fading in like they're supposed to at varying levels of detail as you get closer (see mip-map above)
¤ Shadow Striping: This is another problem that gamers face occasionally depending on the core the game runs on, and unfortunately this game not only has shadow striping issues, but texture interlacing issues as well. Shadow striping is EXACTLY what it sounds like in that a shadow gets displayed but instead of being smooth as it should be the post-processing engine within the core overlays them in a manner that appears "striped" instead of smooth.
¤ Texture Interlacing: A video scanning method for displaying textures in a way so that alternate lines form one sequence - or in this case, alternate textures form one - Occasionally, on lower end post-processing engines this will appear as "striping" as well, but it's just a graphical glitch.
I'm sure there's more that I talked about either in the guide, or even in the key-notes section that some of you may want more information on. If you aren't too scared to ask me, then feel free to, otherwise, simply utilize our good friend Mr. Google to obtain any relevant information you may desire regarding the subject.
Now that you've gained intelligence in the field of Consumer Computer Electronics, and Information based Transmissions as well as a little developer knowledge on how games work let's begin with our guide, shall we?
=====================================================================================================================
Game Window Settings
Game Window Settings
¤ Full Screen: This is the best mode to run this game in. Windowed, and Windowed Fullscreen will not only lock your frames per second to your vertical sync, but they'll also cause your frame rates to drop drastically.
¤ FullScreen Windowed: If you absolutely HAVE to run a "windowed" mode of the game, then this is it. It will impact your frames per second less than windowed mode will, since it won't be drawing anything in the background from your desktop, but it will still draw graphic elements that pop up like facebook notifications, etc.
¤ Windowed: Avoid this, honestly. it has absolutely no benefit, nor purpose (See Cropping Section)
Screen Resolution
Run this at the highest option available. Remember however, that the more pixels you force the game to render the more it will take a toll on the core, and VRAM of your GPU. In the "Cropping" discussed later, you'll see why you don't have to lower this for better FPS like you would in 99% of other games.
Texture Quality
This is purely VRAM, and HDD/SSD based - You'll want to match your settings accurately based on hardware
Low: These are (From what I can tell) 256x256bit Textures - Great for 1GB and under VRAM GPU's
Medium: These are (From what I can tell) 512x512bit Textures - Great for 1.5-2GB VRAM GPU's
High: These are (From what I can tell) 1024x1024 bit Textures - Great for 2-12GB VRAM GPU's
Ultra: These are (From what I can tell) 2048x2048 bit Textures - Great for 3-12GB VRAM GPU's
Graphic Quality
**NOTE** Selecting each of these "modes" will change settings in the section under "Advanced Graphics Options" automatically, so make sure anything you don't want isn't checked off below in the Advanced section.
**NOTE** Selecting each of these "modes" will change settings in the section under "Advanced Graphics Options" automatically, so make sure anything you don't want isn't checked off below in the Advanced section.
¤ Optimized Mode: Optimized Mode is a "fancy" way of saying a LARGE percentage of Shader options have been disabled to optimize the game for low-end users
¤ Very Low: Very low is optimized with a more enriched post-processing effect added to it. It still lacks bloom, hdr, and many other features like lens blur, but it does look MUCH nicer than "Optimized."
¤ Low: Low adds a little bit more view distance, and also further distance on effects, grass density, etc.
¤ Medium: This is where you're really going to be hurting if you're not running at LEAST a 2GB VRAM card with decent clock speeds and decent bit rates on your GPU (512 or higher)
¤ Slightly High: I honestly couldn't tell much of a difference between this and Medium, but that may just be because at this point of writing this guide my HD7950 decided to die, and I had to start using my HD6850. Higher resolution shadows as well.
¤ High: A MASSIVE increase in LOD, Blur, Bloom, HDR, and other effects. Higher resolution shadows as well.
¤ Very High: A LARGE increase in the amount of SSAO that is put onto the screen. Higher resolution shadows as well.
Advanced Graphics Options:
¤ Anti-Aliasing: (Allowable on every mode except optimized) Explained in the Key-Notes Section - Will cause performance hit of about 15-50%
¤ SSAO: (Allowable on every mode except optimized) Explained in Key-Notes Section - Will cause performance hit of 0-5%
¤ Depth of Field: (Allowable on every mode) - Explained in Key-Notes Section under "DOF" - Will cause varying performance hit depending on total system configuration.
¤ Show Blood: (Allowable on every mode) - I honestly don't care if I see blood, I know I'm hitting the mob >.<
¤ Show blood on display: (Allowable on every mode) This splatters blood onto your camera or "screen"...why would you want this? It's not an episode of Boondocks.
¤ Screen Filter: (Pointless, really) Allows you to specify certain "filters" to display like sepia, negative, etc...again...why would you want this?
High-End Mode: Still HIGHLY experimental (and temperamental)This is a combination of existing Post-FX we've seen, and others that they're working on implementing but have NOT perfected in any way, so it will DRASTICALLY affect your performance.
¤ "Crop Mode": (View-port) - This allows you to create a section of the screen where the game, and all of it's action, and glory is NOT rendered. This means you can run 1080p without it scaling to match the size of your monitor. Meaning it displays across less pixels; which in turn means it takes LESS performance to render 1080p. Plus it's kind of cool to have HP, map, quests, etc. outside of the game environment. Makes them a LOT easier to see.
¤ Upscale (Downscale): A HORRIBLE option in my opinion. It allows you to downscale the visual resolution so while you're still rendering at 1080p you can set the pixel granularity or "quality" to be lower meaning less detail is rendered into each pixel even though you still render the same amount of pixels. See, I told you it was stupid.
¤ Remove Others lanterns: (I always enable it, dynamic lighting is resource heavy, especially when you've got 50 people causing dynamic lights around you in town
)¤ Option below Upscale is: (Disable Other Player's Effects): If you're not running anything higher than what I've classified as a "Mid-Range System" below then I suggest you check this option to disable their spell effects or you're going to suffer when someone is casting, or fighting next to you, or on your screen.
¤ Option below "Remove others Lanterns" is: "Enable ONLY your effects": I'm not honestly sure what the discernible difference between this and "Disable other players effects" is, but I'm GUESSING that it disables spell effects from NPC's? (god, that would be IGNORANT - How else would we know what they're casting?)
¤ Camera Effects: These are purely CPU, and GPU Core speed based - The faster and more powerful your GPU, and CPU the better you can run with these. Low to mid end systems want these disabled. I disabled every single one that I could. I didn't care for them. It's a matter of personal preference.
¤ Photo Filter: NONE - This is a DirectX Overlay on EVERYTHING rendered which means it has to be rendered twice, - cuts on resources (but only when a screenshot is taken.)
¤ Gamma and Contrast: ( I totally use them to cheat when I need an impromptu lantern ^_^) Use these to adjust the brightness, and darkness of shadows, and the overall image itself.
=====================================================================================================================
Suggested Settings for the lazy ones
(although I'll never understand your type...How can you not want to learn?)
(although I'll never understand your type...How can you not want to learn?)
-----------------Low-End Systems (Single, Dual, or Triple Core CPU's * 4GB or less RAM * 1GB or Less of VRAM)-----------------
**NOTE** If you have less than 1GB of DEDICATED VRAM you may not even be able to PLAY this game. I do not have a system with less, so I can't tell you. Try and find out.
**NOTE** If you have less than 1GB of DEDICATED VRAM you may not even be able to PLAY this game. I do not have a system with less, so I can't tell you. Try and find out.
====================
Game Window Settings
Full Screen
====================
Screen Resolution
Whatever your max is...
====================
Texture Quality
Low
====================
Graphic Quality
Optimized Mode: Best option, honestly.
Very Low: You may be able to get away with it...
====================
Advanced Graphics Options:
Anti-Aliasing: OFF
SSAO: OFF
Depth of Field: OFF
Show Blood: OFF
Show blood on display: OFF
Screen Filter: OFF
High-End Mode: OFF
"Crop Mode": I'd recommend setting this to a respectable "view port" so that you can gain FPS on your system...You'll need it, and it won't make your game look like crap.
Upscale: OFF
Remove Others lanterns: Checked
Disable Other Players Effects: Checked
Enable ONLY your effects: Up to you, maybe someone will figure out what it does...
Camera Effects: OFF
Photo Filter: OFF
-----------------Low-Mid Systems (Single, Dual, or Triple Core CPU's * 4-6GB RAM * 2GB VRAM)-----------------
Game Window Settings
Full Screen
====================
Screen Resolution
Whatever your max is...
====================
Texture Quality
Low: Recommended
Medium: You can get away with slightly higher textures but you won't hit 60FPS
====================
Graphic Quality
Optimized Mode: Optional with more performance
Very Low: Recommended
Low: Optional with less performance
Medium: Optional with less performance
====================
Advanced Graphics Options:
Anti-Aliasing: Optional, but your GPU's Core Speed will make the biggest difference here alongside it's VRAM
SSAO: Same as above
Depth of Field: OFF
Show Blood: OFF
Show blood on display: OFF
Screen Filter: OFF
High-End Mode: OFF
"Crop Mode": Due to having more VRAM and consequently probably having faster core speeds on your GPU you can afford a smaller viewport restriction than Low-End Users.
Upscale: OFF
Remove Others lanterns: Checked
Disable Other Players Effects: Checked
Enable ONLY your effects: Up to you, maybe someone will figure out what it does...
Camera Effects: OFF
Photo Filter: OFF
-----------------Mid-Range Systems (4CPU Cores * 4-8GB RAM * 2-3GB VRAM)-----------------
Game Window Settings
Full Screen
====================
Screen Resolution
Whatever your max is...
====================
Texture Quality
Low: Not Necessary
Medium: Optional
High: Should work fine for you.
Ultra: Optional for Single-Monitor Gamers, but Eyefinity, and Surround View - Wouldn't do that if I were you. not even if you have a second monitor.
====================
Graphic Quality
Optimized Mode: Completely unnecessary
Very Low: Completely unnecessary
Low: Optional
Medium: Optional and probably closer to recommended
Slightly High: Not Recomended.
====================
Advanced Graphics Options:
Anti-Aliasing: Optional, but your GPU's Core Speed will make the biggest difference here alongside it's VRAM
SSAO: Same as above
Depth of Field: OFF
Show Blood: OFF
Show blood on display: OFF
Screen Filter: OFF
High-End Mode: OFF
"Crop Mode": Due to having more VRAM and consequently probably having faster core speeds you probably don't need to use this, but you can if you want.
Upscale: OFF
Remove Others lanterns: Checked
Disable Other Players Effects: Checked
Enable ONLY your effects: Up to you, maybe someone will figure out what it does...
Camera Effects: OFF
Photo Filter: OFF
-----------------Mid-High Systems (4CPU Cores * 4-8GB RAM * 3-4GB VRAM)-----------------
Game Window Settings
Full Screen
====================
Screen Resolution
Whatever your max is...
====================
Texture Quality
Low: Unnecessary
Medium: Unnecessary
High: Optimal
Ultra: Will hurt your performance some, more than likely. Do not run with multiple monitors.
====================
Graphic Quality
Slightly High: Recommended
High: Optional, small performance hit
Very High: You can probably get away with this too depending on your settings
====================
Advanced Graphics Options
Anti-Aliasing: CRANK IT UP! 2-4x is PLENTY (unless it's just off, or on...in which case LEAVE IT OFF since they don't specify what method it uses.)
SSAO: Enabled
Depth of Field: Up to you, shouldn't hurt you too bad at all.
Show Blood: Up to you, shouldn't hurt you too bad at all.
Show blood on display: Up to you, shouldn't hurt you too bad at all.
Screen Filter: OFF
High-End Mode: OFF
"Crop Mode": I'd recommend setting this to a respectable "view port" so that you can gain FPS on your system...You'll need it, and it won't make your game look like crap.
Upscale: OFF
Remove Others lanterns: Checked
Disable Other Players Effects: Checked
Enable ONLY your effects: Up to you, maybe someone will figure out what it does...
Camera Effects: OFF
Photo Filter: OFF
-----------------High-End Systems (6-64 CPU Cores * 8-256GB RAM * 4-12GB of VRAM)-----------------
I honestly don't even know why you're reading this other than to find a reason to knock me, or just gain knowledge, but you can run this game completely maxed out, it's that simple.
-----------------Freshly discovered tweaks-----------------
**NOTE** These tweaks will edit the game's configuration files, and will require them to be set to "read only" so that they're not editable by the game client anymore. As a result, NO OPTIONS that you change in game after setting this to read only will work. (They'll work temporarily until you shut down the game, then they'll revert to the settings within the file, not the ones you chose in game. As a result of this, this portion of the guide comes at the end, so that you've already (hopefully) made what changes to the in-game graphics that you wanted to. IF you change something in game, and want it to stick then first you will have to remove the read only flag, then change what options you want to, and afterwards you MIGHT have to change the values back to what you wanted, and set it back to read only. As I don't have "palyable" internet (using my phone's 3g atm so my latency is too high to even stay logged into the game for more than a brief second.)
**New information regarding this**
Apparently during the CBT2 people found out that you can be in game while you edit this configuration file, and reload it forcefully from within the game. I'm not sure if this still works, but to do so, simply open chat, then type /reloadGameOption
then hit enter and it should reload it...
1. Navigate to your "documents" folder on your root (where your operating system is - Typically c:/) drive.
2. Then navigate to the "Black Desert" folder.
► This location is in an area such as this: "C:\Users\Test\Documents\Black Desert" (On Windows 7)
3. Next open the file labeled "GameOption.txt" with your text Editor. I use Notepad++ ( A Developer Favorite, as it has thousands of plugins, and Syntax Highlighting which is useful for developers, and noobies alike. - If you want syntax highlighting on a configuration file, simply select "Batch" under the "Languages" option)
4. Locate the following Variables within the file:
► postFilter
The default for this SHOULD be "1" no matter what you set your settings to in game. Setting this to "0" (Without the quotes) should remove a LOT of the post effect filters even from "optimized" settings. This may cause textures to be far too bright, or dark. Setting Gamma/Contrast values to different levels will alleviate that, but it will probably make things FAR too nasty looking to enjoy. Should only be used as a last result until testing, and tweaking is done.)
► characterEffect
I am presuming that this is the spell/swing effects that are emitted when your character performs skill actions. Disabling this WILL give a pleasant boost during combat (presuming it works) but it will make combat VERY bland and probably cause a lot of players to lose desire for the game, so this is purely optional. If you want to disable these effects set it to "0" (Without the quotes.)
► dof
Depth of Field (Discussed earlier, in the KeyNotes Section) Disabling this will give a minute performance increase. Set to "0" to disable it (Without the quotes.)
► hitFxWeight
The default value for this in my configuration file was "100.0" Using prior knowledge on how integer values like this work I'm ASSUMING that the minimal value for this is 0.1 and the maximum is 100.0 (Think Percentage.) Due to this, you can set any number of values in-between to adjust how hard the hit animations are from 0.1 to 50.5, or 75.9, so on. Just make sure you don't pass 100,0 and that you ONLY have one digit behind the decimal in whatever value you choose. My best guess at this point is that a respectable amount would be 50.0 to give a minimal impact on performance, but still retain some of the "flashiness" that the game has.
More information will be provided when I discover it. Enjoy, folks!