Dead Island sequel looking pretty awesome!

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I know a lot of guys are sick of the zombie genre, but not me.  I really liked the first 3rd of Dead Island and this sequel, Dying Light looks to have taken what worked in Dead Island and improved upon it.  Looks legitimately intense, especially at night.

[-budd-]

Killing zombie's never gets old to me, too much night of the living dead when i was young i guess.

[Tuna]

But I got the weezies that time we played Dead Island.. don't know why some games do that to me and others don't.

Tried Dead Space from the Humble Bundle last night, and I felt sick.. oh well.. wish I'd had known ahead of time could've given away the key.

[Tpek]

Actually Riptide is the sequel to Dead Island. This must be the Sequel ^ 2 :P

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

We don't talk about Riptide.  It never existed.  >:(

[Nefaro]

But I got the weezies that time we played Dead Island.. don't know why some games do that to me and others don't.

Tried Dead Space from the Humble Bundle last night, and I felt sick.. oh well.. wish I'd had known ahead of time could've given away the key.

Same. 

Even despite that, I couldn't quite get into Dead Island.  Maybe it was too console-style actiony for my tastes.

[Tuna]

But I got the weezies that time we played Dead Island.. don't know why some games do that to me and others don't.

Tried Dead Space from the Humble Bundle last night, and I felt sick.. oh well.. wish I'd had known ahead of time could've given away the key.

Same. 

Even despite that, I couldn't quite get into Dead Island.  Maybe it was too console-style actiony for my tastes.

I thought maybe the 3rd person was causing my nauseousness with Dead Space, but didn't see a way to turn it off.. I really seem to get with Valve games like Half Life 2.. Team Fortress...

I'm fine with Left 4 Dead.. Battlefield Franchise.. Call of Duty (haven't played or owned Black Ops yet)

Arma, I'm fine as long as I don't wear my track IR.. not sure I like that for infantry anyways..

[Darkspire]

That why VR never took of when it should have done, to much chance of a very small percentage of the folks who do get 'the weezies' bringing up lawsuits, my friend has the same problem, first noticed with Wolfenstein (the original) and has not touched or can watch a FPS since, real shame, I was kind of hoping we would be at the neuromancer stage of computer tech by now.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/19/video-games-makes-me-sick

Darkspire

[Nefaro]

But I got the weezies that time we played Dead Island.. don't know why some games do that to me and others don't.

Tried Dead Space from the Humble Bundle last night, and I felt sick.. oh well.. wish I'd had known ahead of time could've given away the key.

Same. 

Even despite that, I couldn't quite get into Dead Island.  Maybe it was too console-style actiony for my tastes.

I thought maybe the 3rd person was causing my nauseousness with Dead Space, but didn't see a way to turn it off.. I really seem to get with Valve games like Half Life 2.. Team Fortress...

I'm fine with Left 4 Dead.. Battlefield Franchise.. Call of Duty (haven't played or owned Black Ops yet)

Arma, I'm fine as long as I don't wear my track IR.. not sure I like that for infantry anyways..

There is an FOV mod that kinda delays the onset somewhat. 

I copied some of the tips on how to change FOV and some graphics settings I didn't like, for which there were no in-game switches:


I had hoped there was a [Spoiler] BBcode command active here, so that could be toggled from hide to show, but the 'code' one will have to do.

Code Select Expand


These are inside the Users\#name\My Documents\Dead Island\out\Settings\Video.scr file (use Notepad):

**Graphics Settings

Change Video.scr (notepad) in Docs\ folder:
-add Vsync() to list
-Filtering("Anisotropic")
-ShadowMapSize(2048)
-SpotShadowMapSize(2048)  - or even (4096)
-MaterialQuality(1)  - or 0 which is lowest
-FXFadeLevel(0)
-WaterQuality(0)
-GrassQuality(0)
-ShaderPath(5) for Shader 4.0  (3) for Shader 3.0
-Save & change the file to "Read Only"


**FOV***

Open the Steam install location for Dead Island, open Data0.pak file with 7-zip or WinRAR.
  In 'Skills' folder, extract 'default_levels.xml' to a new 'Skills' folder in the Docs\Dead Island\Out\data\skills folder.  Edit it in Notepad.

-find 'CameraDefaultFOV and change the later value (v=) from 62.5 to whatever .. 82.5? 80? 90?


Save and make read only(?)


___Other Tweaks____________


Improving Performance :

*SSAO

- SSAO is otherwise known as ambient occlusion and works full time the background rendering for mainly shadows. It's a resource hog, and generally designed for upper end gaming computers. It was invented by a lead tech over at the CRYSIS department, and has been incorporated into many games since. On lower rigs, disabling this can improve game speed dramatically. Locate your DI>out>Data>Scripts>varlist_ssao.scr file. Inside you will find a value marked 1.0, to disable SSAO simply change this value to zero and save the file.

*Bloom

- Bloom lighting function's as a overbright filter for light sources and helpers inside the game. Generally, it's used to amplify light anywhere there is lighting inside the game. For Dead Island, mainly the sun, fx and helpers. Disabling this will cause ambient lighting to take over primarily, and lessen brightness in a lot of ways, but visually will not impair the game terribly different unless inside a heavily lit area. Locate your DI>out>Data>Scripts folder and find varlist_glow.scr, change all the values inside to 0.0, disabling light bloom for a moderate FPS boot.

*DOF

- Depth of field is primarily used for distance rendering, and gives the visual affect of a blurred distanced viewpoint. For Dead Island, this mainly occurs in act 3 and during running sequences when the player is nearly out of stamina. It has a light affect on the game 100% of the time no matter where you are, and can be disabled for a minor FPS boost. DI>out>Data>Scripts>varlist.dof.scr AND dof.def.di.scr files. Inside these change all values to zero to disable.

***Blur***

- This is arguably the worst implementation of Blur on a game. Dead Island is notorious for overly blurry sequences and actions. Used mainly for fast turning on the camera, weapon swings, knockdown animation, and a few more, it is a big hindrance on a older system and lots of people despise using it. To disable : DI>out>Data>Scripts> then find the following files:
---varlist_blur_camera_motion.scr (change values to 0)
---varlist_blur_motion.scr (change values to 0)
---varlist_blur_radial.scr (change values to 0)
---varlist_blur.scr (change all values to 0)
this should provide a large FPS boost in action packed sequences.

**********

*Desaturate

- Desaturate works hand in hand with DOF, usually rending far objects and trees in a pale, less vibrant color. This works by actively scanning distance radius set with a filter, and can use some system resources as well. I personally prefer this off, as it gives vibrant colors in the distance, however disabling it will sometimes give a slight boost. DI>out>Data>Scripts>varlist_desaturate.scr and change all values to 0.

*Fog

- Fog function's in the distance 24/7 while the game is running. Whether your inside or out, unless in a specific zone (sewers for example) in tight spaces with no real view distance, fog is always on, and suprisingly can give a good boost to FPS if disabled. This will take away distance visual affects' some, but were just going to lower or kill the opacity. NOTE : We will only be changing the last line in this file, please don't mess with gradient's, they are a totally different function. DI>out>Data>Scripts>varlist_fog_layers.scr. In this file scroll to the very bottom and find (VarFloat("f_fog_opacity", 1.0)), you will want to change this too 0.0 to disable, or even lessening it to 0.5 or 0.3 will improve performance. Fog takes a big hit mainly on outside areas.

*Engine Rendering

- Engine rendering is the major toll on the CPU and GPU for most games, including Dead Island. Rendering will create distance trees, objects, shadows, terrain and more. Lessening this on older systems will make a major performance hit, at the cost of giving a shorter viewspan in game. Do be careful, this is a very important file and can shut down your game if done incorrectly, and give bizarre gameplay visuals. First let's navigate to the EngineCounters.scr file located inside the DI>out>Data folder. It will look something like :
//icntr - integers
//fcntr - floats

sub main()
{
icntr(0, "DP", 300, 500);
icntr(1, "Rendered objects", 350, 500);
icntr(2, "Prerendered objects", 500, 1000);
icntr(3, "Trees", 200, 300);
}
Now in this file, most is self explanatory. Trees will be the max trees the engine is rendering, objects of course will be game objects such as clutter, destroyables and all manner of things. Prerendered objects usually are dynamic, and as such are many thing's in Dead Island. Set these to a forgiving level to speed up performance. I've set mine to the above and have some visual loss, but not great and gotten a good jump in FPS off it. Now for the next step. Navigate to DI>out>Data>QuickAccessVariables.scr. Open this file and your going to see almost the same thing again. It's important to keep these two files synchronized, so what you put in EngineCounter's, be sure to match the MIN in QuickAccessVariables file. Don't worry about the Maximum here, there is no need to change it, it will refer itself to your Engine Counters file later.

*Shadows

- Shadows take
a tremendous toll on older video cards. Usually, these are the culprit behind laggy gameplay, and require quite a bit of processing power. There are quite a few way's in Dead Island to tweak your shadows to an acceptable level while still gaining some FPS. DI>out>Data>Scripts>Performance.scr. Inside this file you'll find some very important switches.
VarFloat("f_lighting_range", 5000.0)
VarInt("i_shadows_sun_on", 1)
VarInt("i_indoor_on", 0)
VarFloat("f_alpha_test_value", 0.0)
VarInt("i_clouds_shadows_on", 1)
VarInt("i_lighting_sun_on", 1)
VarInt("i_render_reflection_on", 0)
VarInt("i_out_buffer_on", 1)
VarVec4("v_terrain_uv_scaleoffset", [1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0])
VarInt("i_terrain_shd_cull_on", 1)
VarInt("i_simple_shadows_on", 0)
IN this instance, you can enable simple shadows by changing the value from 1, to 0. This will give a blurry shadow look on the ground and improve speeds. Alternatively, you can also navigate to DI>out>Data>Settings>Quality/Performance/Balanced.scr files and open them as well. Find ShadowMapSize vairable, and set this to a lower number in integers of 64>128>256>512>ect. Doing this will keep nice looking shadow's, but use less rendering power on them increasing FPS.

*Postprocesses

- Post processes usually deal with dynamic enviroments, and can include dynamic weather, affects and more. Disabling these can have a visual impact on the game during weather event's, and mainly on any FX that happens on screen such as explosions. There are quite a few tweak's that you can adjust here depending on your computer that can help speed up gameplay. Let's go over some. First navigate to your DI>out>Data>Settings>Quality/Balanced/Peformance.scr files. Open whichever one you'd like to edit. It should look something like this :
Resolution(1024,768)
BPP(24)
FSAA(0)
TexBPP(32)
TextureQuality("High")
Filtering("Anisotropic")
Fullscreen(1)
Shadows("High")
ShadowMapSize(256)
Lightmaps()
GammaFloat(1.00)
MaxRefresh(100)
MaterialQuality(0)
FXQuality(4)
FXFadeLevel(2)
WaterQuality(0)
GrassQuality(0)
EnvQuality("Static")
ShaderPath(2)
Postprocess("Simple")
VerticalSync(1)
Now on this list, Postprocess can be set to "Simple", or "Normal". Simple will help speed up FPS in some situations while disabling most of a dynamic enviroment effects, and in conjunction you can tweak the EnvQuality from "Static", to "RareDynamic" or "Dynamic". What this does in essence is compliment each other, so try to keep them close in setting for full affect. Static will take away your dynamic gameplay, Raredynamic will incorporate the essentials, and dynamic will allow for rendering of complete dynamic functions such as weather as a instance. Also here you will notice some hat switches for quality, FX, and Textures. Changing these can also increase FPS while lowering visual quality. Note the guidelines in the top of the file and find what setting is best for you. Lowering or adjusting your resolution can also increase gameplay speeds. This will allow you to create your own three default setting's for your own computer that work best. Alternatively, you can also edit your DI>out>Settings>Video.scr to do most of the same function's. This file is static however, and will be constantly on. NOTE : Shaderpath is determined by your graphics card, contained in another file inside the Data directory, changing it will have no affect at this time.

NOTE : There are a few way's to do some of the thing's listed above, and I will add more to this list as time goes on, however I tried to mention only the easier of the ways so that most users here can edit them with ease.
NOTE : All changes suggeted here can be done by opening the files with NOTEPAD.


[Tpek]

We don't talk about Riptide.  It never existed.  >:(

Would you mind at least to tell me what's wrong with it (that wasn't wrong with the original)?

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

The latter stages of the original fell apart once you started getting powerful firearms and fantasy melee weapons with fire and electricity.  It lost the sense of danger and urgency that you got in the initial stages because the zombies no longer feel like a threat.  Riptide starts off handing you all the best weapons in the game and it's basically just you slaughtering your way through wave after wave of zombies.

[Tpek]

The latter stages of the original fell apart once you started getting powerful firearms and fantasy melee weapons with fire and electricity.  It lost the sense of danger and urgency that you got in the initial stages because the zombies no longer feel like a threat.  Riptide starts off handing you all the best weapons in the game and it's basically just you slaughtering your way through wave after wave of zombies.

I remember that's how the original felt straight away.

It was originally lauded as a zombie-survival sim, but just ended up being FPS-style Diablo like Borderlands.

[Nefaro]

It was originally lauded as a zombie-survival sim, but just ended up being FPS-style Diablo like Borderlands.

It was pretty light on the RPG side of things too.