Config for increasing fps in dishonored. Test configuration and testing methodology

Unfortunately, Dishonored 2 has joined the list of failed PC versions of games. The mystical action game has so many equally mystical problems that not everyone can play it calmly. Players blame Dishonored 2 for its lack of any optimization, and you know, looking at the 54 percent user rating, it’s hard to believe that such a significant proportion of players have problems caused by their inability to configure the game. But the developers, meanwhile, think so, and have even released instructions for increasing productivity “for dummies.”

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So, what do the Arkane Studios employees advise us? Firstly, we would like to make sure that our computers meet the system requirements. There is no need to set the settings to “ultra” if the computer’s requirements barely reach the recommended ones. According to the creators of the game, only owners of computers with power significantly exceeding the recommended requirements will be able to play at the highest graphics settings. Secondly, we are recommended to install all updates for the operating system, update DirectX and install the latest video card drivers.

Preface

In this guide, I will help you clean all trash, which inhabits your computer, and I’ll also tell you how optimize the system generally. Everything I will tell you in this guide was used/used by me and has one or another positive changes for the computer. This guide was created for people who have weak pc, after this guide you will be able to run DIshonored 2 and Dishonored:Death the Outsider, possibly even higher average settings, although it all depends on the characteristics of your computer, this is inevitable. It's the same in general optimizes your PC, so even if your game can’t go the way you want, you will still be in the black, your computer will work much better and more stable than it was before. This guide will do the same useful for owners of medium and powerful PCs, everyone can find it here useful information. The manual itself is dedicated Dishonored 2, but it is also relevant for other games.

Comparison before and after changes

It is worth understanding that screenshots do not convey full sensations from the changes made.

Removing soap and grayness

Completely soap-free, adjustment, post-processing, no gray. All in one miracle installer.

Instructions:

Click download, then again download.

Download exe.file ReShade_Setup_[Version]

Let's go to the installer.

Click Select game to install or uninstall from

Indicate the location where the exe file of the game is located:
steam/steamapps/common/Dishonored 2 (or Dishonored:Death of the Outsider)

Note :
If after specifying the location nothing happens, poke DirectX 10+

Recommendation for presets :
I recommend installing three presets:
HDR, DPX, Levels(optional).
HDR don't touch.
Levels change the partition blackpoint t c 16 (default) to 4-8 .
Levels change the partition whitepoint c 235 (default) to 245-255
DPX change the partition Contrast With 100 (default) to 200-400

I would like to note that everyone different monitor brightness, so you may have to slightly tweak the settings of all three presets, but it will be easier to unscrew screen brightness on satisfactory level

You can also on one's own choose and customize other presets to suit your taste and style, I just suggest you optionally satisfactory option For majority.

A little about Dishonored:DOTO

Dishonored:Death of the Outsider is a game with truly phenomenal optimization, you can play it with peace of mind. It runs and works perfectly, much better than Dishonored 2. Accordingly, you can tweak many settings more freely and play for your own pleasure.

Don't forget to enter the following commands into your launch parameters:
"-high" And "+cvaradd r_skipfog1"

Note
"-high" - .

"+cvaradd r_skipfog1" - completely disables fog in the game.

Software

If you don't have one or the other components, the game will work worse or won't start at all. All are listed here components, which will be useful for DIshonored 2 and Dishonored:Death of the Outsider.

DirectX 11+
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 - Microsoft .NET Framework 4
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 (64-bit version)
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 (64-bit version)
Microsoft Visual C++ 2012
Microsoft Visual C++ 2013

Download from the official website of the manufacturer, that is, Microsoft

We optimize ourselves

Steam:

Launch options
Go to the game launch options on Steam and write " -high", save.

The processor will focus better on the game and add more resources to it for improved performance

Turn off fog:
Go to the game launch options on Steam and write "+cvaradd r_skipfog1", save. Productivity increases.

Completely disables fog in the game.

Note:
The team is also working on Dishonored: Death of the Outsider.

Task Manager:

Priority
After turning on the game, do not forget to set it high priority.

Let's go this way:
Task Manager - Details - DIshonored2.exe (or Dishonored:DOTO.exe) - Set Priority - High

After this operation, the computer better concentrate at the game. Although sometimes this function does not help or is harmful.

Background mode of programs
Sometimes, some programs even after closing, continue work in the background, through the task manager you can turn off such programs that waste computer resources.

Registry and swap file:

Registry
Press the button WIN(Where the WINDOWS window is) and the button R, write in the field regedit.

Let's go this way:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows NT/CurrentVersion/Multimedia/
SystemProfile/Tasks/Games

We are interested in the files:
GPU Priority
Priority
Scheduling Category

In CPU Priority we set the value 8
In Priority we set the value 6
In the Scheduling Category we write the word high

Through the registry we give the computer more priority during games. Can greatly improve performance.

Swap file
The swap file in general is very useful and can help you radically or not very much:
Let's go this way:
Control Panel - System - Advanced System Settings - Advanced - Performance - Advanced - Virtual Memory.

Depending on the amount of RAM:
512 MB RAM - average page file size: 5012-5012 MB
1 GB RAM - average page file size: 4012-4012 MB
2 GB RAM - average page file size: 3548-3548 MB
4 GB RAM - average page file size: 3024-3024 MB
8 GB RAM - average page file size: 2016-2016 MB
16 GB of RAM - no swap file needed.

Note:
Due to the fact that I don’t know how many hard drives you may have on your computer, I recommend putting down the required swap file on each hard drive in turn, then look at what has changed, if there are no changes, put it back default(by choice of system) and look further. In theory, you need to set swap file where the system or Steam is located, but for some reason everyone doesn’t care, everything goes differently, someone, on the contrary, needs a free disk, without a system and Steam on it.

Small but important:

Desktop visuals
All sorts of minor effects, which you don’t even notice can harm weak computer, trite by the fact that they work. The computer spends its resources on useless functions in the form shadows And mouse smoothing.

Let's go this way:
Control Panel - System - Advanced System Settings - Advanced - Performance.

Turn off everything, if you wish, leave Smoothing jagged screen fonts. You won’t notice a big difference, but the computer will give you performance in the game.

Folders on the desktop
I’m sure that some of you have folders sorted by category and in general everything is beautifully designed on your desktop, but let’s be honest, among those who read this paragraph, there will be people whose entire desktop is filled with icons and folders. All this loads the system, you know, create separate folders for programs; game icons; documents, etc.. And the desktop will be pleasing to the eye and the new resources received will also be useful to the computer.

Energy consumption
Your computer may simply not be usable all the energy which he possesses.

Let's go this way:
Control panel - power supply

Bet high performance, Computer performance will improve.

Disk C
You should clean thoroughly disk where the system is located, usually this drive C. It will become easier for the computer, since there are no more files and folders less, respectively productivity will increase slightly. Just don't get carried away, delete what no need or useless.

Browser and resources:

Browser
Do not use more than one browser, they always run in the background and consume computer resources, use only one browser.

Browser background mode
All browsers work in the background and most often are not displayed in task manager, I recommend turning off the background mode in your browser, but here it all depends on what browser you use, so you should already look for how to turn off the background mode, since there are a lot of browsers and the ways to turn off the background mode are different for everyone, sometimes slightly, sometimes radically.

Obvious to everyone, but worth mentioning:

Autostart
If you have programs or applications that can do without autorun, then disabling them will speed up the loading of the computer and desktop.

Included programs
Turn off all yours browsers, programs and other applications.

Unused programs
If you do not use within for a long time certain programs or applications, then delete them, or use them as intended. Since an overabundance of computer programs is not a joy.

Antivirus and viruses:

Virus
Yes, yes, you may have a virus that is just eating up your computer’s resources for its own needs, I recommend carefully checking your computer for viruses.

Antivirus and resources
Antivirus is certainly a useful thing, but here’s the catch: the antivirus needs resources to work with the computer. No, I’m not urging you to give up protecting your computer, but still I recommend watching it, what kind of antivirus do you have and how much does it consume of your RAM and CPU resources, look for an antivirus that has least resource consumption computer and at the same time powerful protection.

Video card:

Video card control center
I recommend getting into video card control center and remove it there unnecessary functions and slightly lower the settings, I would give instructions, but due to the fact that I don’t know what kind of video card you have: AMD or NVIDIA, then you will have to find out on the Internet the instructions for your control center for your video card AMD(or NVIDIA).

System unit

Manual computer cleaning
No matter how weak or powerful your computer is, you have to clean it from dust, at least once every two months, this improves the performance of your computer and increases its lifespan for you.

Stand
To help your computer collect less dust, I recommend provide him with a stand, high and wide, this reduces computer dust contamination.
The program itself shareware for 14 days, but it can be used only once, then it is not particularly needed.

Program for defragmentation hard drive, here you decide whether you need it or not, it removes unnecessary and empty folders, optimizes the disk structure. Some people complain about it, that the computer only got worse, but most say that the program is useful and helped them. Personally, I only used it once, so here you can decide whether you need it or not. It optimizes the overall performance of your computer as a whole, but I can’t be completely sure about in-game performance.

Advice :
If the disk with steam and system is under the category Fine, you don't have to use this program.

Tips for setting up the game

Windowed mode
The difference between windowed mode and full-screen mode is invisible to the eye, but Performance then improves in windowed mode, use it. Although sometimes FPS, on the contrary, may drop due to windowed mode, it's better here measure fps at window And full screen mode. You can also use windowed mode without border.

Interface
Turn off some interface elements or disable them completely, productivity will increase.

Field of view
It all depends on the monitor and your position in the chair. On 4:3 and 5:4 monitors, optimally 70-90 degrees. On monitors 10:9 and 20:19, optimally 110-120. Basically, this is an individual setting, but I don’t recommend overestimating it again, you will save resources, but at the expense of pleasure, you also shouldn’t underestimate it.

Vertical Sync
It brings benefit to some, harm to others., I recommend playing for a couple of minutes with and without vertical synchronization, then compare which is better for the game.

Adaptive resolution quality
I recommend putting quality or balance, as a last resort performance, but that’s if everything is really bad.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading my guide, now you can run Dishonored 2 and Dishonored:Death of the Outsider on a weak computer. Do not forget that your PC has become better functioning and has more computer resources than before, and has also been cleaned of debris.

If you have any problems or questions, tell me, I will help you and answer what interests you. Please provide an objective assessment management.

If you would like to support me:

Thanks in advance)

In the section UPD, additions or changes to important parts of the manual will be written.

UPD:12/25/2018 - In the UPD section, I will only write adding new important information. Changing inaccuracies in the text, as well as adding minor points, will not be included in the UPD section.
UPD:12/25/2018 - The section design has been completely changed We optimize ourselves, to a more pleasant and understandable one.
UPD:12/25/2018 - Information has been added to the section Tips for setting up the game.
UPD:12/27/2018 - Design has been completely changed most sections manuals.
UPD:01/01/2019 - Information has been added to the section We optimize ourselves.
UPD:01/02/2019 - A new section has been added, A little about Dishonored:DOTO.
UPD:01/02/2019 - The title of the manual has been changed from Dishonored - optimizing a weak PC for Dishonored 2 on Dishonored - optimizing a weak PC for Dishonored 2 + Dishonored:DOTO.
UPD:01/12/2019 - Information has been added to the section Removing soap and grayness.
UPD:01/12/2019 - A new section has been added, Comparison before and after changes.

There are many ways to improve the performance of games on a not-so-weak computer. Next, we will look at them in order from simple to complex and tell you what to do if Dishonored 2 is slow.

A simple solution to the brakes in Dishonored 2

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

Free up disk space

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

This is usually drive "C". This minimum reserve is necessary so that the system can create temporary storage of Dishonored 2 files, caches, and so on without any problems.

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

Disable unnecessary programs

Each program that runs in the OS takes up a certain percentage of RAM and loads the processor. It’s easy to verify this; just open the task manager using the Ctrl+Alt+Del key combination:

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

Disable overlays

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

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

Update video card drivers, download drivers for Dishonored 2

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

After installing the driver, you should restart your computer to eliminate the possibility of failures. It’s also worth considering that new drivers are no longer available for many older video cards.

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

Change power settings

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

This prevents your computer from reaching its full potential in Dishonored 2, so the first step is to open the Control Panel, which you can find by searching. Then you need to do the following:

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

Enable Nvidia Performance Mode

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

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

Next, you need to launch Dishonored 2 and make sure that everything is displayed correctly. If problems arise, instead of “Custom settings with emphasis on:”, select “Settings according to the 3D application”.

Disable Windows Effects

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

• Open "Explorer";
• In the window that opens, go to the “Visual Effects” tab;
• Check the box next to the “Ensure the best performance” option.

If necessary, you can select the “Special Effects” option in the last step. In this case, you can independently choose which effects to leave and which to disable.

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

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

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

For example, if a 4 GB “die” is installed in the system unit, that is, 4192 MB, you need to enter the number 2048 in the fields above. You can make the paging file larger, but this will not give any increase.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The greatest performance increase comes from changing these two parameters:

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

Each of these settings has different meanings. Some of them can make the image in Dishonored 2 unplayable, so you should try different combinations of values ​​that give a more or less tolerable playable image.

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

How to overclock your video card for Dishonored 2

Everything related to “overclocking” is aimed at increasing performance, but these are quite broad topics that are difficult to talk about in a nutshell. Moreover, this is always quite a risky business. If anything, we've warned you.

To achieve higher FPS in Dishonored 2, you can first try to overclock your video card. The easiest way to do this is to use the built-in software functions from the graphics card manufacturer.

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

If there is no program from the manufacturer, then you can always use a universal solution -. This is one of the best overclocking programs, it has many different settings.

But here you have to configure everything manually. First of all, you should increase the frequency of the video chip itself (“Core Clock”) and the frequency of the video card memory (“Memory Clock”). On the left are the basic values ​​for these parameters. The temperature and voltage increase are displayed on the right - these characteristics allow you to monitor the “health” of the video card.

As the frequency increases, the heating of the video card increases. If the temperature exceeds 85 degrees, then you should increase the fan speed (“Fan Speed”). If the temperature rises to 100 degrees, you should immediately stop overclocking, otherwise the chip may melt. Powerful overclocking requires water cooling, so frequencies should not be increased by more than 10%.

Overclock the processor

While “overclocking” a video card is quite possible right in Windows, in order to improve the performance of the processor and thereby increase the performance of Dishonored 2, you will have to go into the “BIOS”.

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

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

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

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

You need to change the multiplier gradually, increasing it by 2. After each change, you should restart the computer and carefully check the performance and temperature of the processor. If it gets above 80 degrees while playing, then you need to immediately turn off Dishonored 2, restart your computer, go into the BIOS and lower the Core Ratio value. Otherwise the processor may burn out.

based on Gigabyte solutions

Brief information about the game

• Release date: November 11, 2016
• Genre: First person action adventure
• Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
• Developer: Arkane Studios

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

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

And it’s even more convenient in the game to combine superpowers with different types of weapons, in some cases entering into battle, and in others avoiding open conflict - the choice is up to the player. Everyone will be able to choose a unique combination of abilities, weapons and equipment for themselves, and the game will react to every decision of the player and, depending on his actions, the outcome of tasks may differ. For example, the game world becomes darker if you resort to a more violent style of playing the game.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dishonored 2 itself was immediately liked by the players and left a pleasant impression - they appreciated all the improvements from the first part: more complex stealth missions, advanced adaptation of the main characters’ capabilities to the chosen gaming style, the implementation of the game world, as well as the artificial one that really changed for the better intelligence. Unfortunately, numerous technical problems with the PC version prevented the game from immediately receiving high marks from PC players in general, although the gaming press appreciated the game.

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

It’s interesting that if initially the HBAO+ (Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion) global shading simulation technique, which was introduced with the help of Nvidia, worked exclusively on GeForce video cards in the release game, then with the help of patches they made it work on AMD Radeon. And only now, after all the optimizations and fixes, the game has become what developers and players would like to see. So maybe there was no need to rush the PC release at all, faced with massive complaints about optimization flaws, but to release the game a couple of weeks after the console versions, refining everything that was not done well enough at first?

System Requirements

Minimum system requirements:

• CPU Core i5-2400 or AMD FX-8320;
• RAM capacity 8 GB;
• video card Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7970;
• video memory capacity 2-3 GB;
• 60 GB;
• Microsoft Windows 7/8.1/10;

• CPU Intel Core i7-4770 or AMD FX-8350;
• RAM capacity 16 GB;
• video card Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 480;
• video memory capacity 6-8 GB;
• free storage space 60 GB;
• 64-bit operating system Microsoft Windows 10;

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

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

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

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

Test configuration and testing methodology

The game Dishonored 2 is part of Nvidia’s marketing and technical program; it was through the collaboration of its developers with the Californian GPU manufacturer that the project now supports a pair of GameWorks technologies: HBAO+ and TXAA, which we will write about in detail later. It seems that this collaboration was not as active as the case with the recent game Watch Dogs 2, and we did not find anything special in terms of marketing.

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

Dishonored 2 doesn't have built-in performance testing, and there's no way to replay previously recorded gameplay. Therefore, as a test segment to measure performance, we chose a scene in the city of Karnaca, characterized by a large number of details and characters, the presence of a water surface with realistic reflections and other heavy effects. The selected scene has a long rendering distance and is one of the most demanding at the beginning of the game, although certainly not the most difficult overall. We measured the average frame rate of a chunk of gameplay using the Fraps utility, trying to make the test as stable as possible, with low variation in the resulting frame rate between runs. As a result, based on the numbers obtained in our test, it is quite possible to judge the level of performance in the game as a whole.

For a combat action game that sometimes requires very fast-paced action, a stable 60 FPS is very desirable, or at least about 40 FPS without frame rate drops below 30 FPS - we consider this performance to be minimally playable for Dishonored 2, which is confirmed by our experience. Well, for the most demanding players you will need to provide at least about 60 FPS. Lower frame rates in our performance test will result in a lack of fluidity in the game, where the response to player input becomes too sluggish. Also, when testing, you need to take into account that if immediately after the game was released it did not have an upper frame rate limit, like other games based on the id Tech 5 engine, then after all the patches an upper limit appeared - it is impossible to get more than 120 FPS in the game. This was done in order to avoid problems with the calculation of physics in the game, but it also affects comparative tests of high-performance GPUs.

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

Dishonored 2's video memory requirements are a bit of a challenge, as is common with modern games that often fill up more memory than is required to render frames. Game engine developers configure them to fill available video memory with textures and other resources, so video memory usage figures can reach higher values ​​than what is actually needed.

VRAM usage in the game reaches approximately 4 GB at medium settings in Full HD resolution, and exceeds 5.5 GB at ultra settings at the same resolution. Interestingly, the amount of video memory occupied does not depend much on the choice of rendering resolution; in 2560x1440 it reaches 6 GB, and in 4K it is approximately 6.5 GB. But these numbers are not entirely indicative, at medium settings it is quite possible to play on video cards with 2 GB, and at high settings - with 4 GB, the game simply fills up all the video memory with resources, as written above.

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

Impact of settings on performance and quality

Graphic settings in the game Dishonored 2 are changed from the internal game menu, which can also be called up during gameplay. Changing all graphic settings takes effect immediately and does not require restarting the application or exiting to the main menu, so adjusting the rendering quality in the game is very convenient. However, to do this you will have to display the FPS counter using third-party utilities or the Steam overlay.

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

Medium settings

High settings

Ultra settings

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

It is best to adjust the rendering quality and final performance to your requirements, based on your own feelings and FPS indicators. Moreover, the influence of some parameters on the resulting rendering quality with different settings in games is not always easily noticeable to the naked eye. Looking at the videos, it should be somewhat easier to notice different rendering quality corresponding to different levels of graphics settings:

Medium settings

Ultra settings

The difference between the values ​​of quality settings is best seen in dynamics, when differences in the quality of rendering of landscapes and objects, lighting and shading are clearly visible. This is most noticeable in the quality of shadows and lighting, as well as the presence of reflections and after-effects. In general, the settings in the game are well balanced, the lowest ones give the opportunity to play for owners of weak systems, and the maximum ones are suitable only for the most powerful video cards.

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

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

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

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

In the game, you can set both the FPS limit, below which the resolution will be reduced, and the rendering resolution as a percentage of the full resolution selected in the settings. For example, when choosing a high-quality adaptive rendering method, its resolution can be reduced to 85% of the screen resolution, in a balanced method - up to 75% of the full resolution, and up to 50% - in a high-performance method. If you absolutely do not have enough performance at the selected graphics quality, we recommend using this option.

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

Enabling HBAO+ is also nice because it causes a very small drop in performance - on our test system the difference in rendering speed was about 4-5%, which can be considered a completely acceptable price for a serious improvement in graphics quality. It’s interesting that upon the game’s release, enabling HBAO+ was only available on video cards based on Nvidia GPUs, and owners of Radeon video cards were forced to wait for subsequent patches that included the ability to enable the global shading simulation algorithm on AMD chips as well. We recommend that you always turn on HBAO+ if the performance is enough for you, because the visual difference is huge.

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

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

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

Settings Character Detail is responsible for detailing characters and weapon models, including depending on the distance from the camera to them - that is, it is the level of detail (LOD) setting. The higher the setting value, the less the models become simplified as the distance to them increases. At low settings, less complex character and weapon models are used at medium and long ranges. This setting has an average effect on performance - the difference between Very Low and Ultra is 6-7%, which can give you up to 4-6 FPS extra.

Parameter name Water Quality it also hardly needs a lot of deciphering; it is responsible for the quality of rendering of the water surface: the complexity of the shader and the detail of reflections on the water. The higher the value, the more realistic the water looks, using more complex shaders that include rendering of foam, reflections on water, reflections of varying detail, etc. Rendering speed depends on the amount of water in the frame; in our test, the difference between the minimum and maximum possible values ​​was less than 5%. In general, choose the quality of water according to your own considerations; it looks very good in the game, but does not affect the gameplay in any way.

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

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

Quality parameter Decal Quality responsible for details such as gunshot and sword marks on walls and characters. The higher the setting, the more of these detailed trails will be drawn on in-game surfaces at once, and the longer they will remain visible on screen. This setting has virtually no effect on performance, and only in tough combat can it have any significant effect on rendering speed.

Post-process Anti-aliasing- anti-aliasing settings. The game engine uses full-screen anti-aliasing exclusively through post-processing, while hardware multisampling (MSAA) does not work in the game. The user has a choice between three methods for smoothing the image using post-filtering: FXAA Low, FXAA High and TXAA 1X. The two FXAA methods differ in their anti-aliasing quality, with Low performing slightly better and TXAA 1X being the highest quality anti-aliasing method available in Dishonored 2.

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

All three anti-aliasing methods in Dishonored 2 cost virtually nothing in terms of performance, as they are purely lightweight post-processing effects. On mid-power video cards like the GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 480, enabling TXAA 1X only causes a performance drop of 1-2%, or a maximum of 3%. So we recommend that you definitely enable one of the anti-aliasing methods to suit your taste, and if you are not worried about a slightly greater decrease in clarity with very good anti-aliasing of the entire picture, then you should choose TXAA.

Next in the quality settings menu are options that you can choose to either enable or disable (Yes or No), and all of them are enabled in the High profiles and above, and disabled in the Medium and below. Settings package: Bloom, Camera Motion Blur, Depth of Field, Lens Flare, Volumetric Lighting And Light Shafts is responsible for the corresponding post-effects, and in the game you can only turn them on or off, and the rendering quality is not adjusted in any way. On our system, we did not find a big impact from turning them on; each of the disabled effects gives a maximum of 1-2 additional FPS - we leave them at your discretion, depending on your own preferences.

Well, there are two more remaining parameters: Rat Shadows And Bloodfly Shadows are responsible for turning on shadows for the corresponding living objects in the game, both shadows from them and shadows on them. These two settings also don't have a huge impact on overall performance in Dishonored 2 - on our powerful system we didn't find any noticeable difference at all between turning shadows on and off for rats and corpse wasps, so adjust this setting to your liking.

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

Performance testing

We tested the performance of four Gigabyte video cards based on Nvidia GeForce GPUs belonging to different price ranges and a couple of the latest generations of graphics architectures from this company. During testing, we used the two most common screen resolutions (1920x1080 and 2560x1440), as well as three preset settings profiles - Medium, High and Ultra.

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

Resolution 1920x1080 (Full HD)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resolution 2560x1440 (WQHD)

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

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

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

Pascal family of GPUs are even faster. True, the younger GeForce GTX 1060 solution is also only enough to ensure a simply smooth game - it showed a frame rate of 48 FPS on average, with a drop of at least 38 FPS. So on this video card you can even turn up some of the settings to the maximum level. Only the older model GeForce GTX 1070 came close to providing a stable 60 FPS, showing 67 FPS on average with drops to 53 FPS - this is a very good level of performance, close to ideal even from the point of view of demanding enthusiasts. But can it handle ultra settings?

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

Interestingly, the junior model of the Gigabyte video card, belonging to the current generation of Pascal architecture, showed a frame rate almost exactly as we required from it - 41 FPS on average with a minimum of 30 FPS. This is exactly within the minimum acceptable level according to our estimates, and shows that the GeForce GTX 1060 is capable of delivering smooth gaming even in the most demanding conditions. Well, the GeForce GTX 1070 with its 54 FPS on average, although it does not reach the level of ideal smoothness with at least 60 FPS, but provides more than decent comfort when playing.

So, while Dishonored 2 is surprisingly one of the more performance-intensive games on the graphics card, and does require a fairly powerful GPU, the recommended GPU system requirements for Nvidia graphics cards look surprisingly adequate, as the specifically recommended GeForce GTX 1060 model is just that. was able to provide the required smoothness and comfort at maximum settings in the two resolutions we tested.

Conclusion

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

By the way, the difference in scenes greatly affects performance. It happens that in most levels you get quite sufficient performance, but in some urban scenes, when too much of the level is visible, performance drops noticeably. At the same time, the frame rate is also unstable. It would seem that just now it was enough, but when you rotate the camera, FPS drops by almost half, causing jerks and increased delays. Many of these problems were observed using GPUs from both manufacturers and were resolved with patches, although not all. There are still noticeable drops in FPS during streaming when the game loads missing resources into video memory - usually this goes away in a second or two and is especially noticeable when there is insufficient video memory.

While Dishonored 2 isn't the most impressive game of our time, especially from a technological standpoint, it still looks better than the previous game in the series, with better quality textures, more detailed objects, complex shadows, and some of the most advanced algorithms and techniques like HBAO+ and TXAA . At the same time, it can be argued that even after numerous optimizations carried out in numerous patches, Dishonored 2 remains a rather demanding game on the system’s capabilities, requiring the use of at least video cards of the GeForce GTX 1060 or GTX 970 level for high settings.

And for ultra-quality images at high resolution, it will need something more - like a GeForce GTX 1070 or even a GTX 1080. Only such powerful solutions can handle maximum settings at a resolution of 2560x1440. Well, for the rest, we recommend the High settings level, especially since it differs from Ultra not so much. On game consoles, Dishonored 2 generally runs at rendering resolutions of Full HD or less at 30 FPS, while the graphic settings are much lower than Ultra. So the game really turned out to be very demanding on the power of the system specifically in terms of the GPU. Probably, part of this exactingness can be attributed to insufficient optimization, but the fact remains a fact.

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

As for CPUs, Dishonored 2 requires mid-range quad-core processors, but nothing more. During our research, our fairly powerful test processor was loaded with work at an average level of 40-60%, sometimes up to 70%, and this is above average, but the rendering speed never rested on the capabilities of one of the CPU cores or the entire processor, and has always been limited by the graphics processor. So the game needs a rather mid-level processor - not a top-end one, but a weak one won’t do either.

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

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

Guide from English user Semipalmated Plover

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

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

If you haven't purchased the game yet

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

Update your video card drivers

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

Link to nvivdia drivers - just enter the video card model and check whether an update is needed or not.

Link to AMD drivers - there is a program on the site that itself determines the video card model.

Patch

Unable to cope with the situation, gamers are pinning their hopes on a patch that should be released in the near future. As soon as the patch is published, we will definitely report it in the site news or in this article.

Disabling programs and lowering graphics settings

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

Other ways

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