KickStarter Kingdom Come: Deliverance - Dan Vavra's medieval chad simulator

[Paul_cz]

Very, very useful. RTSS is literally the single most important gaming program for me, the only one I find indispensable. Once you get addicted to the perfect smoothness of scanline synced FPS to display Hz, there is no going back. I refuse to even play something that isn't perfectly smooth now.

Is it worth using if I have RTX2080Ti and play on plasma 60hz TV with a controller? I have my games running at vsynced 60 always, but I never knew about this scanline/fastsync stuff.

 

[aweigh]

Is it worth using if I have RTX2080Ti and play on plasma 60hz TV with a controller? I have my games running at vsynced 60 always, but I never knew about this scanline/fastsync stuff.

Since you already play v-synced 60fps/60hz, using fast sync + scanlinesync won't make it any smoother. It will be mostly the same in terms of smoothness. However scanlinesync will give you a lot less "input lag" and this is pretty noticeable, with the downside slightly higher GPU usage. Your gpu should handle that with ease, tho.

Personally I've started using fast sync + scanline sync set to '1' now in any game that I would have normally used regular vsync before, with the only times i don't are when it's a REALLY demanding game, like kingdom come deliverance, and I absolutely cannot spare any extra GPU power, so in those games I just use regular vsync.

 

[agris]

aweigh very informative post about RTSS scanline sync, I had never heard of that before. Thanks for writing it up.

Question though: for those of us without g-sync or free-sync enabled monitors/TVs, is s-sync adjusting the display's refresh rate to match our sub-60 FPS? Or if we can't hold a stable 60 fps, is the best bet to use the half-refresh 30 fps solution you outlined above?

 

[aweigh]

aweigh very informative post about RTSS scanline sync, I had never heard of that before. Thanks for writing it up.

Question though: for those of us without g-sync or free-sync enabled monitors/TVs, is s-sync adjusting the display's refresh rate to match our sub-60 FPS? Or if we can't hold a stable 60 fps, is the best bet to use the half-refresh 30 fps solution you outlined above?

- Scanline sync can't dynamically change the display Hz, which is what gsync does. It accomplishes the same goal that default vsync does, syncing the game fps to the display refresh rate, except it uses a different method that produces less input latency. You can get a really autistic breakdown of it in blurbusters forum, but for us end-users this is the salient point.

You can actually use scanline sync to manually move a tear line (i.e. the actual screen tear) as well by inputting different numbers in the field, but I rarely bother with that, which is why I use the combo of fast sync + scanline sync, so that fast sync takes care of the screen tearing. (Fast sync also doesn't introduce any lag because it isn't real vsyncing, i.e. fast sync does not sync game fps to display refresh).

- You don't have to use half of 60hz if you can't hold 60fps, you can change your display's resolution and refresh rate to anything you want. You can play a game at 1080p50Hz synced to 50fps, or 1080p 52Hz synced to 52fps, or 1440p 47Hz synced to 47fps.

I think it's much better to play a demanding game at 1080p50Hz synced to 50fps than to go half-refresh on 60Hz and be stuck in 30fps. But hey, that's just me. If for whatever reason you absolutely refuse to change your display refresh, then yes the only way is to half-refresh and you're stuck at 30fps, if you want "synced" smoothness... but 30fps produces a lot of judder and image-doubling which is why when you pan the camera left and right at low fps everything seems to "smear" and bleed and double. I can't stand that shit so I prefer to lower my resolution's refresh rate to the game fps I want to target instead of halving it.

EDIT: I forgot to say, another option is OVERCLOCKING the display refresh rate and THEN halving it. For example, If i am playing something really demanding and I can only maintain an average of 40fps, then I can OC my monitor to 80Hz (that's as far as it will go), and use Half-Refresh then.

 

[agris]

aweigh so RTSS will let us downclock our display's refresh rate? I assume this is why you use batch files to launch your game: lower refresh rate to X, then set RTSS s-sync to lock rendering into X FPS.

 

[Bad Sector]

aweigh thanks for the info, though sadly i have an AMD GPU. It does have an "enhanced sync" mode but i haven't noticed any difference in games with it. In any case, i do not mind tearing - i've got used to it long long ago to the point i do not even notice it (unless the game also has framecapping itself and somehow forces the tear right into the middle of the screen - Wolfenstein 2009 was the last game i remember doing that though) and after updating my drivers to the latest version, it seemed to fix microstuttering.

AMD's new drivers certainly have a ton of functionality (the global in-game overlay is great), though one thing i miss from Nvidia's drivers is the ability to limit the maximum prerendered frames to its smallest value. This increases GPU usage but also lowers input lag and is practically necessary with some games. Apparently AMD used to have such an option at the past but removed it - it also used to be accessible via the registry for a while but it doesn't seem to have any effect on my GPU.

 

[aweigh]

aweigh so RTSS will let us downclock our display's refresh rate? I assume this is why you use batch files to launch your game: lower refresh rate to X, then set RTSS s-sync to lock rendering into X FPS.

Choosing a lower refresh rate is not related to RTSS, tho, it's a normal windows feature. At least with Nvidia, in the control panel, you can create a "custome resolution" and input any refresh rate you want, though I should note that for me Windows 10 already came with a default "50Hz" 1080p resolution already made, no need from me to make a custom one.

And yes, that's why I launch games through batch files. Some games I launch at 55Hz, some at 60Hz, some at 50Hz, etc. The most demanding game by far on my rig is Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, which is the one I had to think up the trick of overclocking the display refresh to 80Hz and then going Half-Refresh to play at 40fps, due to how outrageously demanding the game is in terms of performance. Making an actual 40Hz 1080p custom resolution was out of the question, as anything below 50Hz and you start feeling the pain of low refresh such as slow mouse cursor (translates to slow camera in-game), etc.

The gsync/freensyc tech dynamically changes your display refresh Hz to match the current game fps at every single game update, meaning that if your game is at 67fps, then it keeps the monitor at 67Hz, and if something happens in-game and the fps suddenly drops to 38fps, then it will also keep the display refresh in lockstep and bring it down to 38Hz; that way it achieves perfectly synced game fps to display Hz and it alwayts feels "smooth", and you don't see any stuttering regardless of the fps fluctuating.

It's neat tech. Amusingly enough gsync and freesync monitors get marketed all the time on the strength of "it's 144hz!!", but if the person using it is on a mid-range GPU and their games are always hovering between 40-60fps, they will never see anything above 60Hz. Most people don't realize this.

EDIT: Funny story about that, I actually had to settle for using the pirated version of Dragon Quest 11 even though I bought it off Steam because the Steam version doesn't let you rename the game executable, and since the game exe has spaces in it I couldn't use it with my DisplayChanger2 batch files to call the game. I tried doing tons of different things, putting quotes, etc, but nothing worked, so had to torrent the game and then rename that version's exe. Thankfully in this particular case there was never any necessary patching done so it's fine to use the cracked version, but it's something that annoyed me.

aweigh thanks for the info, though sadly i have an AMD GPU. It does have an "enhanced sync" mode but i haven't noticed any difference in games with it. In any case, i do not mind tearing - i've got used to it long long ago to the point i do not even notice it (unless the game also has framecapping itself and somehow forces the tear right into the middle of the screen - Wolfenstein 2009 was the last game i remember doing that though) and after updating my drivers to the latest version, it seemed to fix microstuttering.

AMD's new drivers certainly have a ton of functionality (the global in-game overlay is great), though one thing i miss from Nvidia's drivers is the ability to limit the maximum prerendered frames to its smallest value. This increases GPU usage but also lowers input lag and is practically necessary with some games. Apparently AMD used to have such an option at the past but removed it - it also used to be accessible via the registry for a while but it doesn't seem to have any effect on my GPU.

According to a quick google AMD's Enhanced sync seems to do mostly the same thing that nvidia's fast sync does; a combo of enhanced sync + rtss scanline sync should produce the desired effect of synced game fps to display Hz without the input lag of regular vsync.

 

[cvv]

aweigh very informative post about RTSS scanline sync, I had never heard of that before. Thanks for writing it up.

Question though: for those of us without g-sync or free-sync enabled monitors/TVs, is s-sync adjusting the display's refresh rate to match our sub-60 FPS? Or if we can't hold a stable 60 fps, is the best bet to use the half-refresh 30 fps solution you outlined above?

I don't have the freesync stuff either but I found in many games it helps to limit FPS in my card app (Radeon Adrenaline in my case, I'm sure Nvidia has that option too). I usually set it between 40 and 80 FPS, that's plenty enough. It helped a bit in KCD and it made RDR2 playable (the stuttering without limited FPS was intolerable).

 

[Lyric Suite]

To be honest i'm not sure i'm getting what you are saying.

Doesn't Freesync adjust the refresh rate of the monitor to match the frame rate?

Furthermore, given how much the framerate in the game fluctuates, how is this going to work? The game goes happily above 60 fps only to drop below 40 in town. Am i supposed to freeze the framerate to the lowest value and then proceed from there?

 

[Tigranes]

I've fired this up again after playing until Monastery at release version. I've just got past the tutorial and done the Woman's Lot.

The game has its flaws, and notably it is a very slow plodding experience, but that also gives it its greatest quality in my view: a truly immersive environment finally putting truth to the overhype cliche. Nitpicks over specific details aside, it really nails the feeling of being there from architecture, to clothing, to natural landscape. It just delights me immensely to start off in Henry's cozy but simple wood cabin, have the townsfolk marvel at the unique beauty of the swordpiece, the absolutely terrorising contrast of the fully armoured Cuman warrior to the villagers, then reach Talmberg and spot the intricate medieval wall paintings, even the one prayer room with the kind of wall painting very much like what I had seen in a couple of preserved medieval cloisters I've visited IRL.

Not sure if I have time to get very far but I'm trying out the better combat mod (I played 40+ hours at release without a very clear understanding of combat mechanics, even less of brawling), infinite saves (Schnapps was fine the first play, happy to do this for subsequent plays as I don't plan to reload on bad results), and a couple of minor stuff like herb pickup.

Woman's Lot was a cool little DLC, and again Warhorse are good storytellers - reinforcing themes around the Miller as the mischievous figure in the village, for example. And this shot in-game was absolutely stunning - the smoke-heavy sky was like something out of older pixel art games, and then there's the sense of being alone in the pitch black night (the cutscene lights it up a lot more) watching the innumerable torches go past, scrambling for supplies in the dark forest and suddenly a couple of the torches are far too near, and you snuff out your own and heel your dog only to spot that familiar Cuman helmet between the trees not fifty paces away. Great moments.

 

[agris]

aweigh i use 12noon’s display changer as well (as a way to set the resolution in which IWD EE renders), you can have spaces in file names- you just need to enclose the entire path, plus file name and commands, in quotations marks. “G:\aweigh stuff\game file.exe” same with display changer and the command line options.

 

[agris]

Great shot Tigranes , Smejki you guys should use that

 

[Tigranes]

I got that one off the internet and I think it's a promo shot - but I was looking at that exact angle in-game after the cutscene, and it looked even better because of the darkness.

 

[Carrion]

I just wish there was a way to give those two idiots a proper slap in the face and stop behaving like morons.

there is an option to hire them for Pribyslavitz if you own "From the ashes" dlc.

The DLC actually makes it worse, since those inbred idiots refuse your job offer until they've gone through with their moronic, suicidal, morally abhorrent plan. My Henry is a master at persuasion who could pay those miners' wages ten times over, yet you can't just share your wealth with your "buddies", nor can you convince them of their stupidity. You can offer the guys a steady job and brand new homes, yet they're too busy robbing innocent people of their livelihood to even consider that. There's really no satisfying way of finishing that quest: either you become a lowly bandit or betray your old pals and lead them to their deaths. You can also get extra asshole points for fucking over the single other guy who actually tried to talk some sense into those two cretins.

I wonder if the quest was supposed to have other solutions but ended up being chopped and streamlined, as it's already pretty complex as it is.

Woman's Lot was a cool little DLC

Actually, the best part of the DLC is yet to come.

 

[deuxhero]

Tigranes
That shot is ruined by giving you a bard potion, which when used shows the the background is... less than amazing.

 

[aweigh]

you just need to enclose the entire path, plus file name and commands, in quotations marks. “G:\aweigh stuff\game file.exe” same with display changer and the command line options.

Yeah, I tried that but it didn't work, though I suppose then that means the problem wasn't with DC2; regardless it didn't work for me. I originally assumed it was DC2 that didn't like the spaces or quotes, but you are right that it isn't DC2, but it still didn't work.

The other option I researched later is one can use an offline Steam emulator to launch their games offline by fooling your legal steam game into thinking it's connected to Steam, that way it wouldn't be able to demand to re-download a renamed executable and allows you to use the legal files of the game. I don't need this anymore though as I'm done with Dragon Quest 11, but it's something to keep in mind for future incidents.

 

[aweigh]

Doesn't Freesync adjust the refresh rate of the monitor to match the frame rate?

Precisely. Gsync/freesync dynamically changes the display Hz to keep it synced with the game FPS at every game update, i.e. the display's Hz will change every single time the game FPS does. This means that you don't need to worry about having 40fps on 60hz breaking the synchronization, it will always be synched (and thus "smooth") and free of stutter because it will always be changing the Hz to match the FPS.

Furthermore, given how much the framerate in the game fluctuates, how is this going to work? The game goes happily above 60 fps only to drop below 40 in town. Am i supposed to freeze the framerate to the lowest value and then proceed from there?

On a no-gsync display, yep, that means you'd ideally cap it to 40fps/40hz (or 80hz and use half-refresh), though obviously 40fps sucks is not "ideal", but yes you have the correct assumption here. This is a NON-gsync display though, because the entire point of gsync/freesync is that you wouldn't need to work with the lowest value; the display refresh will simply adjust itself every time the game fps changes so it will always remain synced regardless of FPS fluctuation.

But yes, on a regular display set, to avoid FPS fluctuations that would cause stutter by de-syncing the game fps and the display Hz, you would indeed be working with the lowest game FPS value as the target. It's the best way to eliminate stutter and micro-stutter and keep the game fps synced to the display Hz.

 

[aweigh]

I've fired this up again after playing until Monastery at release version. I've just got past the tutorial and done the Woman's Lot.

The game has its flaws, and notably it is a very slow plodding experience, but that also gives it its greatest quality in my view: a truly immersive environment finally putting truth to the overhype cliche. Nitpicks over specific details aside, it really nails the feeling of being there from architecture, to clothing, to natural landscape. It just delights me immensely to start off in Henry's cozy but simple wood cabin, have the townsfolk marvel at the unique beauty of the swordpiece, the absolutely terrorising contrast of the fully armoured Cuman warrior to the villagers, then reach Talmberg and spot the intricate medieval wall paintings, even the one prayer room with the kind of wall painting very much like what I had seen in a couple of preserved medieval cloisters I've visited IRL.

Not sure if I have time to get very far but I'm trying out the better combat mod (I played 40+ hours at release without a very clear understanding of combat mechanics, even less of brawling), infinite saves (Schnapps was fine the first play, happy to do this for subsequent plays as I don't plan to reload on bad results), and a couple of minor stuff like herb pickup.

Woman's Lot was a cool little DLC, and again Warhorse are good storytellers - reinforcing themes around the Miller as the mischievous figure in the village, for example. And this shot in-game was absolutely stunning - the smoke-heavy sky was like something out of older pixel art games, and then there's the sense of being alone in the pitch black night (the cutscene lights it up a lot more) watching the innumerable torches go past, scrambling for supplies in the dark forest and suddenly a couple of the torches are far too near, and you snuff out your own and heel your dog only to spot that familiar Cuman helmet between the trees not fifty paces away. Great moments.

What's the gameplay like in Woman's Lot? I'm curious about this since I read she won't be doing any fighting.

And I agree about the game's cinematic qualities and attention to detail. On the danger of exaggerating, I honestly think the cutscene where Henry talks with his Father as they are forging the sword is the single-best video game cutscene I have ever seen throughout my 30 years of playing vidya, and the following attack by the Cuman's only bolsters it. The people who think Kojima shit is "cinematic" need to look at what the devs accomplished with this game because it blows away anything that hack ever did. Beyond being merely entertained I actually felt something stirring in me, emotionally, and I can't remember the last time a game did that without resorting to cheap manipulative tactics.

 

[Tigranes]

Just like the other noncombat questing in the main game. You walk around talk to people, explore. With KCD there's rarely any dramatic moments within dialogue choices themselves, or a really controversial / unusual action you can take - I find the emphasis is more on how well they harmonise their scripted storytelling with emergent gameplay situations in the open world.

There is a little bit of sneaking gameplay that isn't anything special but I enjoyed it. And again it's the story foil around it that is done so well to set up the tension.

At the risk of mild spoiler, it's only because the landscape is so 'realistic' that you appreciate viscerally how you are passing the boundaries of the town and of civilisation, into the woods, which is spacious enough to bore you a little and so emphasise the expanse, and then you start to hear strange sounds, and when danger hits, you are slow to draw your bow, you don't get a targeting reticule, getting hit seriously disorients you... all of that helps turn a regular "guard quest" into a different experience.

I don't think the DLC is hugely different from the main game, really. But apparently there is more content to come later on it?

 

[Lyric Suite]

Doesn't Freesync adjust the refresh rate of the monitor to match the frame rate?

Precisely. Gsync/freesync dynamically changes the display Hz to keep it synced with the game FPS at every game update, i.e. the display's Hz will change every single time the game FPS does. This means that you don't need to worry about having 40fps on 60hz breaking the synchronization, it will always be synched (and thus "smooth") and free of stutter because it will always be changing the Hz to match the FPS.

Furthermore, given how much the framerate in the game fluctuates, how is this going to work? The game goes happily above 60 fps only to drop below 40 in town. Am i supposed to freeze the framerate to the lowest value and then proceed from there?

On a no-gsync display, yep, that means you'd ideally cap it to 40fps/40hz (or 80hz and use half-refresh), though obviously 40fps sucks is not "ideal", but yes you have the correct assumption here. This is a NON-gsync display though, because the entire point of gsync/freesync is that you wouldn't need to work with the lowest value; the display refresh will simply adjust itself every time the game fps changes so it will always remain synced regardless of FPS fluctuation.

But yes, on a regular display set, to avoid FPS fluctuations that would cause stutter by de-syncing the game fps and the display Hz, you would indeed be working with the lowest game FPS value as the target. It's the best way to eliminate stutter and micro-stutter and keep the game fps synced to the display Hz.

Well, that being the case, the stuttering i had had nothing to do with the refresh rate, all the more since it "fixed" itself by erasing the config files of this game without changing any graphic setting.

Guess it was a bug with the game cause by who knows what.

 

[Wunderbar]

What's the gameplay like in Woman's Lot? I'm curious about this since I read she won't be doing any fighting.

Woman's Lot consists of two parts: Theresa's story and Johanka's story.
Theresa's is like KCD prologue, but longer - script-heavy and restrictive. A lot of trial & error moments in the latter half where you had to avoid or stealth-kill cumans.

 

[RK47]

Eh, that sounds not very fun.
I hate the scripted stuff in this game.

 

[Wunderbar]

Second half (Johanka's story) is pretty great.

 

[Paul_cz]

There's really no satisfying way of finishing that quest: either you become a lowly bandit or betray your old pals and lead them to their deaths. You can also get extra asshole points for fucking over the single other guy who actually tried to talk some sense into those two cretins.

The headcanon solution that I did was steal from Talmberk but leave my own money there, thus finishing the quest and then hiring the two morons without actually stealing. It is a somewhat lame workaround, but eh who cares.

 

[Carrion]

The headcanon solution that I did was steal from Talmberk but leave my own money there, thus finishing the quest and then hiring the two morons without actually stealing. It is a somewhat lame workaround, but eh who cares.

What a LARPer.

(I actually did the same, heh.)

Second half (Johanka's story) is pretty great.

It's probably my favorite quest in the game. It starts out as a series of fun little quests that turns into something much bigger later on, with some hard-hitting C&C that takes all of your previous decisions and even some other side quests into account. Even the setup to the quest is pretty unique, and it explores some themes I don't remember seeing in games before. KCD has many ambitious and creative quests, but this is the one where it seems they had the time and resources to properly polish it and fully realize their vision.