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Saturday, February 6, 2016

American Truck Simulator Performance Optimization Guide




     The Steam Store description goes like this: "Experience legendary American trucks and deliver various cargoes across sunny California and sandy Nevada. American Truck Simulator takes you on a journey through the breathtaking landscapes and widely recognized landmarks around the States."

So what's up with the poor optimization of the game? I mean, it's not really eye candy, not even on ultra, and when you have to go in the cities the FPS dips all the way to 15-20 or lower if you have the bad luck to rain in the same time.

What can I do to resolve my Performance Issues you might ask? Well there's no straight answer, there never is, but here all the graphical options will be explained in order for you to achieve the best experience possible.

In-Game Options:

Fullscreen mode => Run your game in fullscreen or windowed. No impact on performance.

Brightness => Really?

Resolution => The bigger the number, the better the image quality is and vice-versa.

Refresh Rate => No impact on performance.

Vertical synchronization => Disabled for no FPS Limiting. 
                                              Enabled for 60 FPS Limiting. 
                                              Economy for 30 FPS Limiting.

Scaling => 100% the image is rendered at the Resolution you have chosen above. Under 100% will gain FPS but make the image very blurry and going above 100% will lose FPS.

Antialiasing (MLAA) => On for a less jagged image. Off for more FPS.

High Dynamic range (HDR) => Kills FPS, but adds Post Process Effects.

Depth of field (DOF) => On is not that noticeable. OFF will gain a few FPS.

Sunshafts => Does not really impact performance.

Color enhancement => Does not impact performance.

Reflection detail => Medium for a good balance between quality and performance. High if you can afford the FPS drop, Low is not really recommended.

Vegetation detail => Grass and trees quality. Medium for a good balance

Grass density => Medium or Low. On High the FPS drops too much.

Shadow quality => I recommend High or Medium. Ultra kills FPS and Low takes away from the immersion.

Shadow texture size => How jagged do you want your shadows to look? Lower = FPS gain.

Weather quality => High or Ultra. In case you see your FPS drop too much while it is raining (IN-GAME) Lower this option.

Mirror quality => Medium is good enough, though you might have trouble seeing at night.

Mirror distance => Medium-High is good, Ultra is better. Mirros kill FPS, as the game needs to render even more images.

Texture quality => High. This kills FPS, but between High and Medium there is no real FPS gain. Low is just too much of a quality compromise.

Anistropic filtering => 100% as it does not affect performance.

Traffic headlights => You need this ON to see other vehicles at night.

Secondary vehicle lights => Turn the night into day with this option.

Light visibility ranges => High to see further, Medium works too, but low is just too low.

Pedestrians => Off for the FPS gain, you can't run them over anyway.


Other tweaks:

In steam set launch options and there type:
-mm_pool_size 1000 (4GB RAM)
-mm_pool_size 800   (3GB RAM)
-mm_pool_size 1500 (8GB RAM)