Potato Graphics Mod - Massive FPS Boost

POTATO GRAPHICS MOD

A config pak that disables the rendering features that cost the most frame time in The Outlast Trials. It does not touch textures, meshes or game code. The whole thing is a 5 KB file.

VERSIONS

There are two downloads. Install only one.

Balanced (recommended)

Everything expensive is off, but the reflection environment stays on. The game keeps its normal brightness and your character is visible in the Terminal screen. This is the better trade for most people.

Ultra

The reflection environment is also off. This is the fastest version, but the game is noticeably darker and your character shows up as a solid black silhouette in the Terminal screen. Pick this only if you want every frame you can get.

WHAT IS DISABLED

• []Screen space reflections

  []Screen space global illumination

  []Volumetric fog

  []Distance field shadows and distance field ambient occlusion

  []Contact shadows and capsule shadows

  []Screen space ambient occlusion

  []Depth of field, motion blur, lens flare, light shafts, chromatic aberration

  []Foliage and grass density

  WHAT IS REDUCED

  • []Shadow maps to 128 px, one cascade, short shadow distance

    []Material quality to Low, detail mode to Low

    []View distance to 40 percent

    []Particle spawn rate to 25 percent

    []Texture streaming pool capped at 400 MB and locked to VRAM

    WHAT IS LEFT ALONE

    These cost almost nothing but make a big difference to how the game looks, so they stay at full quality:

    • []Texture resolution and mip bias, so textures stay sharp

      []Anisotropic filtering at 8x

      []Tonemapper and eye adaptation, so colour and exposure stay correct

      []Scene colour format, so there is no colour banding

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      INSTALL

      • []Close the game.

        []Copy zzzPotatoGraphics_P.pak into:

        <Steam>\steamapps\common\The Outlast Trials\OPP\Content\Paks\[]Start the game.

        UNINSTALL

        Delete zzzPotatoGraphics_P.pak from that folder. Nothing else is changed, so that is all there is to it.

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        NOTES

        DLSS

        If you use DLSS, try Balanced or Quality instead of Performance. This mod usually frees up enough headroom to afford a higher DLSS mode, and moving up a mode does far more for image sharpness than any sharpening filter.

        Load order

        The file name starts with z on purpose. Pak load order in this game is decided by the file name, and a later letter wins conflicts. Do not rename it.

        Both versions at once

        Both downloads use the same file name, so copying one over the other replaces it. That is intentional.

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        HOW IT WORKS

        The mod overrides Engine/Config/BaseDeviceProfiles.ini and adds console variables to the Windows device profiles. Device profile variables are applied at a higher priority than the in game quality preset, which is why the settings hold instead of being overwritten every launch.

        Adding a new config file does not work in this game. The engine only reads config files it already ships, so the existing one has to be overridden.

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        CREDITS

        Pak format research based on the community repak fork for The Outlast Trials by trumank.