Over the past few weeks I've been loving the newest version of Space Engine. Unfortunately I am one of the users who is stuck with a weak laptop right now with a Intel HD 4000. Well through much tinkering with the Main and User configs I have boosted performance quiet a bit with little to no sacrifice when it comes to the fantastic visuals that Space Engine is known for. Anyway I hope this helps a lot of you. Includes all the bug fixes for Intel HD systems as well. Just copy paste these in the respective .cfg files.
Edit- I just refined this even further and I got rid of my user.cfg presets as they really don't do much compared to the main.cfg tweaks. Edit as of 3/5/15 - Found that increasing TRMaxImpostors by a factor of 2 (from 8 to 16) increases the performance of nebula and even evaporation trails to a smaller extent with almost zero visual impact. This will be probably beneficial to all users low end or not.
Main.cfg
////////////////////////////////////////////////// // SpaceEngine main configuration file // //////////////////////////////////////////////////
// display settings WindowSizeX 1280 // window width WindowSizeY 720 // window height WindowPosX 0 // window x position WindowPosY 0 // window y position Maximized true // start with a maximized window FullScreen 2 // 0 - window mode, 1 - fullscreen window mode, 2 - hardware fullscreen mode ChangeMode true // use fullscreen mode with custom display resolution ScreenResX 1280 // screen resolution (width) in the hardware fullscreen mode ScreenResY 720 // screen resolution (height) in the hardware fullscreen mode DisplayRefresh 60 // refresh frequency in the fullscreen mode AspectRatio 1 // aspect ratio for displays with non-square pixels
// OpenGL settings InitInShutterMode false // when changing to the hardware shutter stereoscopic mode, the engine should be restarted with this key set to true VSync 0 // vertical synchronization (0 - disabled, 1 - enabled, 2 - auto) AnisotropyLevel 0 // anisotropy filtering level (0 - disable anisotropy) LineWidth 2.0 // lines width DepthBufferMode 0 // Z-buffer mode (0 - standard, 1 - log in vertex shader, 2 - log in pixel shader) (remove cache to apply changes) ShipDrawMode 1 // use 1 for DepthBufferMode = 0, and 2 or 3 otherwise
// memory settings VideoMemoryStartupDetect false // detect size physical video memory (VRAM) at startup VideoMemoryDynamicDetect false // detect available amount of video memory (VRAM) in runtime VideoMemorySize 1024 // video memory size to use if VideoMemoryStartupDetect = false VideoMemoryMaxPercent 100 // max video memory consumption (percent) CacheSizeLandNode 10000 // limit on the number of terrain nodes in the memory (0 for auto, at least 4000 for LOD 0, 10000 for LOD 2) CacheSizeStarNode 50000 // limit on the number of star nodes in the memory (0 for auto, at least 20000 for center regions of the galaxy) CacheSizeGalNode 10000 // limit on the number of galaxy nodes in the memory (0 for auto, at least 10000 for dense regions of the Universe) CacheSizeGalaxySysModel 20 // limit on the number of galaxy subsystem models in the memory CacheSizeClusterStarModel 1000 // limit on the number of star cluster models in the memory
// interface settings GUIMode 2 // text info mode GUIMessageTime 2000 // splash message duration (milliseconds) GUIPlanThumbSize 120 // size of solar system browser thumbnails GUIHardwareCursor true // use hardware cursor or rendered by engine GUICursorSize 16 // textured cursor size GUIJournalSize 100 // maximum size of autopilot journal GUIBottomInfoHUD false // draw bottom HUD
// texture rendering settings TRMaxImpostors 16 // max number of impostors TRMaxSkyBoxes 1 // max number of skyboxes TRFloat true // use floating-point impostors (for HDR) TRImpResolution 0.500 // impostor resolution (fraction of window width) TRSkyResolution 0.750 // skybox resolution (fraction of window width) TRImpUpdateThreshold 0.005 // impostor update threshold TRSkyUpdateThreshold 0.0006 // skybox update threshold TRSkyMinFOV 20.0 // skybox min FOV TRSkyMaxStep 1e-7 // skybox max velocity (normalized on object's radius) TRFishEyeFaceResolution 1024 // fish eye skybox resolution TRLensFlareConvRadius 3 // "super" lens flare convolution radius
// atmosphere settings AtmoAnalyticTransm true // use analytic transmittance calculations (remove cache to apply changes) AtmoFixHorizon true // fixes artifacts at horizon (remove cache to apply changes) AtmoBottomOffset 0.0 // shift atmosphere down to fix artifacts at horizon (in units of atmosphere height)
// planets settings PlanetMipmaps true // use mipmapping for landscape textures PlanetTextureRes 128 // texture resolution (use only power of 2!) PlanetTextureBorder 1 // texture border PlanetSphereMeshLOD 5 // spherical mesh detail PlanetCubeMeshLOD 5 // landscape mesh detail PlanetRingsSubdiv 16 // planetary rings detail PlanetCloudsTerra 3 // max number of cloud layers for terrestrial planets PlanetCloudsGasGiant 7 // max number of cloud layers for gas giant planets PlanetDetailCraters 3.0 // approx. min radius of craters on terrestrial planets (kilometers) PlanetDetailTerra 0.01 // approx. per vertex detail on terrestrial planets (kilometers) PlanetDetailAsteroid 0.001 // approx. per vertex detail on asteroids (kilometers) PlanetDetailClouds 0.1 // approx. per vertex detail on clouds (kilometers) PlanetDetailGasGiant 1.0 // approx. per vertex detail on gas giant planets (kilometers) PlanetDetailSun 1.0 // approx. per vertex detail on stars surface (kilometers) PlanetDetailTexScale 16384 // scale of detail textures PlanetDetailTextures true // use detail noise textures (remove cache to apply changes)
// physics settings PhysicsTick 0.015 // physics iteration time (seconds)
// screenshots and other settings ScreenshotFormat "jpg" // screenshot format (jpg, png, dds, tga, tif) SkyBoxFormat "tga" // skybox export format (jpg, png, dds, tga, tif) JpegQuality 95 // jpeg compression quality RealTime true // use RealTime mode (velocity not depend on FPS) RealTimeFPS 24.0 // RealTime mode velocity calibration (FPS for video capture) ConvertRGBAtoPNG false // if true, any loaded RGBA or Grayscale images are saved in PNG format in the same directory NSplashImages 20 // number of splash window textures (data\textures\common\splash*.*)
// debug settings ShowGalaxiesOctree false // show catalog galaxies octree ShowCatStarsOctree false // show catalog stars octree ShowGalSysOctree false // show galaxy subsystems octree ShowPlanetsQuadtree false // show planets bounding boxes ShowGalaxiesBBoxes false // show galaxy model bounding boxes ShowNebulaeBBoxes false // show nebula model bounding boxes
// solution of the compatibility issues IgnoreCriticalCheck false // ignore checking of OpenGL version and support of critical extensions IgnoreShaderBinary true // disable binary shader cache IgnoreSyncObjects false // disable GL_ARB_sync PlanetHeightmapFormat 13 // format of the terrain heightmap textures: 13 - R32F, 16 - RGBA32F MipmapsMode 1 // mipmaps generation mode: 0 - disable, 1 - default OpenGL function, 2 - SpaceEngine function
// loading settings PreloadGalaxies true // preload nearby galaxy models PreloadShipTextures true // preload ship textures (do not render ship until all its textures get loaded) PreloadGenShaders 1 // preload procedural generator shaders: 0 - none, 1 - all PreloadDrawShaders 2 // preload renderer shaders: 0 - none, 1 - all, 2 - some LoaderBenchmark false // log loading/creating times LoaderMode 1 // loader mode: 0 - immediate, 1 - interleaved, 2 - asynchronous LoaderMulticontext true // use miltiple OpenGL contexts LoaderShadersAsync true // load shaders in asynchronous mode LoaderQueueSizeGPU 128 // size of loader request queue (landscape tiles) LoaderQueueSizeCPU 256 // size of loader request queue (all other resources) LoaderMaxTilesPF 2 // max landscape textures created per frame LoaderMaxTimePF 20.0 // max loading/creating time per frame (milliseconds) CleanMaxTimePF 20.0 // max memory cleaning time per frame (milliseconds) ReplaceDuplicateMat true // for import from OBJ: replace duplicate materials with existing ones LogTimeStamp false // print time stamp into se.log LogThreadStamp true // print thread ID into se.log
Also it is very important that YOU DO NOT compress the textures as this will cause SE to crash when entering the Sol System and do not use fast landscaping as this can cause errors in the atmospheres of Earth and Mars. Also turn off comet tails/evaporation trails as this is the biggest hit to performance and there is no way to improve the performance with the tails on (Aside from using a custom shader)
Cheers and enjoy your cosmic adventure!
Edit here are a few examples of what the config looks like
Thank you very much, the_nerervarine. I just had to register to drop a quick thank you. Your config basically solved all my problems. Out of the box, space engine's displacement was all over the place, completely broken on my weak intelhd4000 laptop. I'd still get occasional hiccups, but it's mostly smooth now. Awesome!
Thank you very much, the_nerervarine. I just had to register to drop a quick thank you. Your config basically solved all my problems. Out of the box, space engine's displacement was all over the place, completely broken on my weak intelhd4000 laptop. I'd still get occasional hiccups, but it's mostly smooth now. Awesome!
Can you PLEASE Explain how to add those text in... I have no clue
Go to where ever your SpaceEngine0.972 folder is located and go to SpaceEngine0.972/Config and open the main.cfg file as a text document if it's not already set as such and delete all the text and replace it with the text provided in the spoiler section of this thread.
I have many of my own tweaks that I have altered to my own taste, and I don't want to paste over them - can you indicate which edits in particular you have made?
@Destructor1701 These are the most important setting changes I think...
VideoMemoryStartupDetect false // detect size physical video memory (VRAM) at startup VideoMemoryDynamicDetect false // detect available amount of video memory (VRAM) in runtime VideoMemorySize 1024 // video memory size to use if VideoMemoryStartupDetect = false
TRMaxImpostors 16 // max number of impostors
PlanetTextureRes 128 // texture resolution (use only power of 2!)
Hope this helps!
Added (08.04.2015, 15:39) --------------------------------------------- Also a heads up, I will NOT make a performance configuration for the upcoming v9.7.3 as I just built a new rig that obliterates Space Engine
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