Unlock graphic settings

[Franz Von G]

[please don't merge, or I will never receive an answer, and I don't want to throw 200 euro away for nothing]

In the demo, the max I can set the graphics it's at medium, the other options are greyed and I cannot choose them. I have a Vista64+Q6600 Quad Core 2.40+4gb ram+ATI3850HD. I was ready to buy a nwe card, when I discovered that a friend of mine, with an older pc, can play it at Ultra.

So, how can I unlock those graphics settings to try, and maybe don't waste money? I've tried from the settings file, but even if I lock it only for reading, the game still overwrites it...

[Wartz]

Did you increase the shader menu to maximum 3.0?

[lesterthenerd]

thats strange.. i mean i can run it maxed out with all settings on ultra and i have the same card and same amout of ram but a much weaker cpu (e5200) and running xp pro 32 bit.

[Skyline Pete]

As above, you need to be running in Shader 3.0 mode to get ultra level graphics.

[linuss]

As above, you need to be running in Shader 3.0 mode to get ultra level graphics.

Stange... I have it on 2.0 and have all ultra.

[antares24]

I dunno... I have an 8800 GTS, 2Mb RAM and Intel core 2CPU 6600@2.40GHz, I am running shader 3 and everything on ultra, no problems whatsoever.

Did you upgrade your gfx drivers?

yep, i downloaded the latest drivers from nvidia when i was downloading the demo from steam, just in case. They didn't change nothing, sadly.

Stange... I have it on 2.0 and have all ultra.

and i have it on 3.0 and can't set it over medium....meh i really don't understand this, a word from CA on this will really be helpful for the many that are in doubt over the issue of upgrading their systems or not.

[Maximus_96]

i cant get the shader above 2 or setting above medium.
i have an intel pentium d cpu 2.80 ghz
a memory of 1022 MB of RAM
my graphics card is a radeon x7000 series with 256 MB

[WonderWeba]

I have gf 8800 gts and...i tryed everything and still cant change my options look below, have new drivers, cpu i s good to and 2Gb ram , tryed edit file with settings but this doesnt work, dont think its my pc problem...

I have the XP PRO SP3/E6600 c2d @2.7ghz/Geforce 8800 GTS (320MB)/2GB DDR2

I can 't get Ultra selections, only high. I think it must have to do with the 8800's that have only 320MB VRAM. However, it is dumb to put arbitrary blocks, as people have been reporting that they can run Ultra with 8600 series cards. I get about 40-50fps average in land battles with everything on high (with shader 3.0 high) and 4xAA. I'm sure with units and textures on Ultra I would still get over 20 or 25fps @ 1680x1050

If necessary, I could even lower the res a bit to help out any shortage of VRAM. Bad choice by CA to implement an arbitrary configuration block.

[Franz Von G]

EDITED: So you have the set 3.0 to run on high/ultra? Otherwise you cannot choose them? thank you guys, I'll try.

[0ldboy]

I'm running shader 3.0 and trying to run ultra but as far as it will go is very high. Pain in the you know what.

[Franz Von G]

Mh, isn't there a way to unlock all those options, and let the player find its own settings? We have always done that, no need of a game that saves me from lagging if un-needed.

[0ldboy]

It's annoying yeh. But as far as I know there is no way to unlock them. Anyone else have an idea?

[Wartz]

What about hunting down the location of the ETW options file and see if you can set graphics to ultra manually?

[Franz Von G]

I tried, but still the game overwrites it when launched, even if I set them to "only read".
The problem is that my card has only 256mb, and even if it's better than a 3650x512 for example (taht can play on ultra), still the game forces me into medium settings...

[Ightenhill]

the game engine does not just look at the G card it seems... It seems to use some sort of algorithm to balance the card, the cards memory, VRAM, your processsor, your RAM maybe even the MB chipset etc to make its decision..

I doubt a 256mb card would go higher because it cant hold the textures

Granted though it seems to be tripping up in some cases

[driecken]

Interesting, I had no problems with this even on an older macbook pro when testing demo.

I think franz is correct, the game is using a performance assessment at one level or another to derive a base score as a means of equating maximum performance

[zachattack]

Yep, my 256 GFX card did the same. I thought it was just the demo being a but apparently not.

Good thing I'm upgrading, that's such .

[Franz Von G]

So there's no way to unlock them and try the highest settings, just to see how it runs?

[Iron Juggernaut]

This whole thing is strange. I don't know why CA felt the need to have restrictions on the graphics options we could use... let alone why they had the game automatically configure it.

I've said it before, my rig can run Crysis on high settings and Call of Duty: World at War on very high settings. Crysis gets an average of 25-35 FPS, and World at War can get up to 80 FPS. Now, I don't have the most spectacular machine in the world (GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8600GTS 256 MB; CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 +4200 processor rated at 2.21 GHz and clocked with a maximum speed of 6.30 GHz), but if it can produce high quality settings for Crysis and maintain a steady and decent FPS rate for it (Crysis is a much more demanding game in terms of requirements, BTW), then surely to god it could run ETW with no problem...

And you know what? The biggest reason why Crysis gets such a low FPS rate is because of poor coding by the devs. There are several mods out there that address this issue and change the inner files around, significantly improving FPS rates, and they still allow the game to stay beautiful.

I found that if I disabled the Steam Community and Steam Friends thingys under the settings browser, it took me only two and a half minutes to load a battle whereas it previously took five. I still say Steam has a big part in the poor performance, and my tests with SF and SC only strengthen my belief in this.

[Smikis]

This whole thing is strange. I don't know why CA felt the need to have restrictions on the graphics options we could use... let alone why they had the game automatically configure it.

I've said it before, my rig can run Crysis on high settings and Call of Duty: World at War on very high settings. Crysis gets an average of 25-35 FPS, and World at War can get up to 80 FPS. Now, I don't have the most spectacular machine in the world (GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8600GTS 256 MB; CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 +4200 processor rated at 2.21 GHz and clocked with a maximum speed of 6.30 GHz), but if it can produce high quality settings for Crysis and maintain a steady and decent FPS rate for it (Crysis is a much more demanding game in terms of requirements, BTW), then surely to god it could run ETW with no problem...

And you know what? The biggest reason why Crysis gets such a low FPS rate is because of poor coding by the devs. There are several mods out there that address this issue and change the inner files around, significantly improving FPS rates, and they still allow the game to stay beautiful.

I found that if I disabled the Steam Community and Steam Friends thingys under the settings browser, it took me only two and a half minutes to load a battle whereas it previously took five. I still say Steam has a big part in the poor performance, and my tests with SF and SC only strengthen my belief in this.

now now.. we will never believe in your 80 fps in world at war or 30 fps in crysis with yours setup.. what res are you playing 1024x7xx?