FIFA 15 Graphics Optimization

[riesscar]

Greetings,

I have been testing out various graphics settings for FIFA 15 (PC) and have arrived at what I consider to be the best combination of in-game and driver-level graphics settings... and a little help from two mods.

*Note*

These settings are applicable to those who have a relatively powerful Nvidia GPU and a rudimentary understanding of how to change driver settings.

Goals:

- To remedy the pervasive aliasing in FIFA. The native 4x MSAA is simply not sufficient to deal with the geometric and transparency aliasing in the game; therefore, it is necessary to force additional enhancements through the Nvidia control panel.

- To enhance the graphics of the game without the use of shader injectors (i.e. Sweetfx). While I find such post-processing shaders to be great in theory, I find the implementation to be tedious... and - more importantly -- they lead to artifacts and micro-stuttering in-game (at least they all did for me).

- To find a balance between optimization and overkill.

Before I begin, please be aware that I went through a lot of trial and error before arriving at the following configuration. It was actually quite an educational endeavor, as I learned about the limitations and functionality of modern anti-aliasing, AF filtering and Ambient Occlusion techniques. I therefore am aware that I may have some superfluous tweaks, and some of the effect I observe could be the ol' placebo... so, please don't hesitate to correct or disagree with any of my suggestions.

These settings are pretty demanding, so if you cannot achieve +100fps with all in-game settings maxed out, you may experience frame rate issues.

1) Set the game to run at high quality rendering, and set MSAA to 4x.

2) Download a program called Nvidia Inspector. Launch the program, and launch the application profiles (google it if you don't know how). Navigate to FIFA 15 in the drop-down menu. Next, click the green '+' button and navigate to your FIFA 15 .exe in the installation folder in order to assign it to the profile. In this software, we can enable advanced AA and other graphical enhancements, but it is here that was the most misguided before doing my homework.

I used to think that's could just choose some extra AA settings and apply them, yet I never noticed any improvements. It turns out that the reason for this is that with DX11 games (of which FIFA 15 is one), it is necessary to utilize compatibility flags in order to instruct the driver as to how the AA, AF or AO should be implemented.

Although there are many such profiles available online and within the Nvidia Inspector (which I will refer to as NI from now on), flags for FIFA 15 were nowhere to be found. I decided to test just about every profile and setting I could, and I finally found working flags and effective settings.

Starting from the top, the settings are:

Ambient Occlusion compatibility --------- 0x00110000 (Titanfall)
Antialiasing compatibility ----------------- 0x00100000 (Far Cry 2)
SLI compatibility bits (should be already selected)

Preferred refresh rate -------------------- Highest available if you've got a 120-144hz monitor, or just leave it and cap the fps at 60 if you've got a 60hz display
Vertical Sync Tear Control --------------- Adaptive (I have a G-sync monitor, so I'm just assuming this would be optimal)
Vertical Sync ------------------------------ Force on

Antialiasing - Mode ----------------------- Enhance the application setting
Antialiasing - Setting --------------------- 8xQ [8x multisampling]
Antialiasing - Transparency MS ---------- Enabled
Antialiasing - Transparency SS ---------- off/multisampling
Enable MFAA ------------------------------ On

Anisotropic filtering mode --------------- User defined/off
Anisotropic Setting ---------------------- 16x
Texture Filtering - Negative LOD bias -- Clamp
Texture Filtering -Quality---------------- High Quality

Ambient Occlusion setting -------------- High Quality
Ambient Occlusion usage --------------- Enabled
Power Management Mode -------------- Prefer maximum performance

That's it! Now hit apply, and close the program.

3) Go into your Nvidia Control Panel, and navigate to Adjust Desktop Color settings. Increase the digital vibrance of your primary display (this is a personal preference thing).

4) Finally, download two mods online: Fidel's FIFA 15 LOD Tweaker Tool & Mortal's Ultra PostFX for FIFA 15(Google them). First, extract Mortal's UltraPFX mod into your FIFA 15 install folder, overwriting any files that are already there. Then, install the LOD Tweaker tool according to the instructions, and then use the app to select 'ultra' graphics. Once it regenerates the files and you've closed the program, navigate to FIFA 15 install folder ----> Data -----> Fifarna ----> lua----> settings.lua (open with notepad). Edit Line 38, by changing the '1' to a '0' ... right after "PostFX_MotionBlur".

That's It!!!!

Keep in mind that if you have other mods installed, you will need to regenerate the db after adding or removing files... oh, and only move the postfx.lua file within Mortal's mod if you have other mods installed, as overwriting the 'data_startup.bh' file will negate the already installed mod and break your saved career if you've got one going.

I hope that you all find these settings to be as excellent as I do, and please let me know if you'd like clarification or if you feel that I am misguided in any way.

EDIT:

Here are some screenshots (sorry for the lack of variety, but I am exhausted)

Still Not Perfect Though ;(

Regards,

Carson

 

[Munross]

This definitely improved the graphic quality of my Fifa 15, thank you very much for sharing it with us!

 

[ferrarienzo]

what about amd cards?

 

[bulkan]

this is a very useful information, tip. having more fun with my fifa 15. the game quality has been increased.
thank you so much.

 

[V.K]

ATI Radeon please

 

[riesscar]

what about amd cards?

ATI Radeon please

My main rig is equipped with Nvidia, so the majority of testing and know-how I possess is with GeForce drivers; however, I have an r900 in a build. I'll do a little testing with the AMD equivalent of Nvidia Inspector called Radeonpro and see if I can force some graphical enhancements through it this weekend.

AMD's AA method - MLAA - is apparently compatible with more DX11 games than MSAA, so hopefully it will be easier to find optimal settings. For those who want to try it out, get radeonpro and see if AA, AF and AO can be implemented without much trouble.

Carson

 

[riesscar]

this is a very useful information, tip. having more fun with my fifa 15. the game quality has been increased.
thank you so much.

No problem... I'm glad that it helped!

Carson

 

[steven2212]

Very nice method, i will try, can you tell me which card did you use? And did you get 60 fraps all the time ? Thank you !

 

[riesscar]

Very nice method, i will try, can you tell me which card did you use? And did you get 60 fraps all the time ? Thank you !

I am running 2x GTX 980's in SLI (although only one card is used due to FIFA not supporting SLI). I probably should've posted my specs, because I don't know if 600 series or lower will support MFAA.

With regard to FPS, by setting the frame rate to 'highest available' the 60fps cap is circumvented. This is only advantageous if you have a 120-144Hz display, though. Ideally, you want your fps and refresh rate to be in sync (i.e. 60hz/60fps -- 120hz/120fps -- 144hz/144fps). When your fps and flicker rate are not in sync, it causes tearing... it is this issue that V-Sync is used to remedy, by locking your fps to 1/2 or 1/1 your refresh rate.

I use a 144hz monitor with G-Sync, which is a new technology by Nvidia that dynamically adjusting your display refresh rate and fps to keep them at a 1:1 ratio. With the settings outlined above, my FPS was at ~125fps during gameplay, and it dropped to ~100fps during cut scenes (animated scenes like booking, replays, etc...). The GTX 980 is a top tier card, though, so I don't know what kind of FPS hit might be incurred by a weaker card.

I have a GTX 660ti in another system, so I can test. If your FPS drops too far, try lower values (x8 or x4 Anisotropic Filtering, disabling Ambient Occlusion, etc...).

Carson

 

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[a L E x _ 1 O]

Thanks thanks thanks bro Now this game is amazing with these settings

 

[riesscar]

Thanks thanks thanks bro Now this game is amazing with these settings

My pleasure, I'm glad that it helped!

Carson

 

[FifaLife]

i have been playing FIFA 15 since few days and right away i notice the difference between FIFA 14 & 15,obviuosly 15 is better but not a major difference.
The only problem m facing is with graphics of the field/pitch

http://ust.chatango.com/um/v/o/vortex89/img/t_1.jpg

http://ust.chatango.com/um/v/o/vortex89/img/t_0.jpg

 

[wortex]

I didn't use the 2 mods you suggested but it already looks very good for me and i can play with higher fps now. Thank you

 

[riesscar]

No problem! Glad it helped.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[wortex]

FPS

Installed new drivers, reapplied settings in nvidia inspector but seems that fps is capped again. MSI afterburner shows fps at 140+

 

[riesscar]

Installed new drivers, reapplied settings in nvidia inspector but seems that fps is capped again. MSI afterburner shows fps at 140+

After reinstalling drivers, your driver settings are reverted to defaults. After you reselect the settings as outlined in the OP, you must again hit the green + button at the top in order to navigate to the FIFA 15 .exe. After doing so, hit apply.

The setting that circumvents the fps cap is refresh rate... make sure you've set it to highest available.

Let me know if you have issues, and I'll take a look when I get home.

Carson


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[riesscar]

I said awhile back that I would try to achieve similar results with an AMD card, so I thought I'd share my results. I cannot verify these settings with as much certainty, because I could only test the graphics on a 720p HDTV.

Unfortunately, AMD's software equivalent of Nvidia Inspector -- RadeonPro -- is not as useful and simply doesn't offer nearly the same number of AO and AA profiles. That being said, Catalyst Control Center offers more options than Nvidia CP does. Therefore, I'll give two setting configs: one with Catalyst CC and one with RadeonPro.

CCC:

These enhancements are easy to apply and improve graphical fidelity, but not nearly to the degree that NvidiaInspector does.

Open CCC, select preferences, and choose 'advanced view'.
Navigate to the 'Gaming' tab and click 'Add'.
Navigate to the games .exe and select it. Override the default profile when prompted.
Select the game and then choose the following options:

Anti-Aliasing Mode ----- Enhance application settings
AA Samples ------------ Enhance application settings
Filter -------------------- Edge Detect
AA Method ------------- Adaptive Multisampling
Morphological Filtering - On

Anisotropic Filtering Mode -- Override application settings
AF Filtering Level ------------ 16x
Texture Filtering Quality ------ High Quality
Surface Format Optimization- On
Wait for Vertical Refresh ----- Always on
OpenGL Triple Buffering ---- Off

Tessellation Mode ----------- AMD optimized
Maximum Tessellation Level- AMD optimized

Now click 'Save'.

I will post the RadeonPro settings later this evening.


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[jeetmusic]

than bro for sharing these settings..i've started playing in True HD and can i say it's amazing

 

[klear]

I'm using the Nvidia settings and it's improved my gaming experience a great amount.

Many thanks for sharing.