Deep Rock Galactic – Next Generation Graphics Guide

An Unreal Engine 4 tweaking guide to achieve next generation graphics and improved performance in Deep Rock Galactic; global illumination, screen space reflections, and more all included and tested.

Introduction

This guide will go over editing the INI file to achieve next generation graphical effects (such as screen space reflections, global illumination, and more), as well as much improved performance with very little to no change graphically. There will also be tested pre-configured INI files available for download (see below).

Comparison Screenshots

  • Left = On
  • Right = Off

Comparison 1

Comparison 2

Comparison 3

(Side note: Ignore some of the distortion artifacts, it’s a side effect of getting the images aligned)

Pre-Configured INI File Download

So, have I convinced you through the screenshots? The download link is just below, as well as a quick Q&A for common questions.

Pre-download Q&A:

Q: Can I use this mod online?
A: Yes! It’s totally safe online, and in non-modded lobbies.

Q: What’s the performance impact of this mod?
A: It’s quite well optimized, but may have 5 – 15 percent performance impact with the non-performance version. However, the performance version can even gain FPS over the base game!

Q: Is it easy to uninstall?
A: Yes! To uninstall, just delete the INI file. A fresh INI will be generated on startup.

Still not convinced, or want to tweak it yourself? I explain each of the tweaks and their effects below.

Tweak Explanations

Screen Space Global Illumination

r.SSGI.Enable=1 - Enables the global illumination effect.
r.SSGI.HalfRes=1 - Lowers the rendering resolution of the global illumination by half the screen resolution. Saves a lot of performance at the cost of very slight graphical quality.
r.SSGI.LeakFreeReprojection=0 - Combats color leakage at the cost of performance, negligible impact.
r.SSGI.Quality=3 - How many rays are used in the calculation of the global illumination.

Screen Space Reflections

r.SSR.Quality=3 - Whether to use screen space reflections and at what quality setting. 1-4, low, medium, high, very high. High enables glossy reflections, very high has non-noticeable graphical improvement for a heavy performance impact.
r.SSR.HalfResSceneColor=1 - What resolution to use for the SSR rendering. Heavily improves performance at the cost of slight visual quality impact.
r.SSR.MaxRoughness=1 - The cutoff point for SSR. Higher means more objects are affected by SSR, but lower performance. In this case, setting it to 1 means there should be no cutoff, and every object should be slightly affected by SSR.
r.SSR.Temporal=1 - Whether or not to use TAA for the SSR. Can cause a bit of ghosting, but the alternative is a lot of aliasing.

TAA Tweaks

r.DefaultFeature.AntiAliasing=2 - What type of AA to use. 0 = none, 1 = FXAA, 2 = TAA
r.TemporalAACurrentFrameWeight=0.03 - Blending between the current frame and previous frame, lower = more ghosting but less aliasing, and vice versa.
r.TemporalAASamples=8 - Sample count of the TAA, higher = more jittering but less aliasing.
r.PostProcessAAQuality=6 - Quality of the AA.
r.TemporalAACatmullRom=1 - Uses a higher quality filter instead of blurrier gaussian filter.
r.TemporalAAPauseCorrect=1 - Holds onto render targets longer preventing reuse. Negligible.
r.TemporalAAFilterSize=1 - The size of the TAA filter. Higher = more blurriness, less aliasing. Setting it too low may cause artifacting.
r.TemporalAA.R11G11B10History=1 - Uses more lighting data to enable higher quality TAA.

Performance Tweaks

r.ScreenPercentage=80 - Render resolution scale. In this case, it will render at 80% resolution.
r.TemporalAA.Upsampling=1 - Enables a much higher quality TAA upsampling technique, enabling near-native image quality at much lower render resolutions.
r.TemporalAA.Algorithm=1 Algorithm to use for TAAU, 0 = Gen 4 TAAU, 1 = Gen 5 TAAU (an experimental algorithm that can have upscaling quality improvements).
r.TemporalAAUpsampleFiltered=1 - Use filtering to fetch color history during TAAU. Disabling this makes TAAU faster, but lower quality.

Note that this will override the in-game resolution slider.

Sharpening Tweaks

r.ToneMapper.Sharpen=0.9 - Lower quality sharpening filter. Setting too high can cause artifacts.
r.TemporalAASharpness=1.4 - Sharpens the image before TAA.
r.TemporalAADynamicSharpen=1.8 - Dynamic modern sharpening.

Note that while this is compatible with the in-game sharpening, it may cause over sharpening. Experiment with different settings and see what you like.

Helena Stamatina
About Helena Stamatina 1520 Articles
I love two things in life, games and sports. Although sports were my earliest interest, it was video games that got me completely addicted (in a good way). My first game was Crash Bandicoot (PS1) from the legendary studio Naughty Dog back in 1996. I turned my passion for gaming into a job back in 2019 when I transformed my geek blog (Re-actor) into the gaming website it is today.

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