Hello fellow Grim Dawners.
I am trying to compile a list of tricks to improve performance under Windows 10 mostly, although it can be applied to other Operating Systems too.
Let’s go.
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Turn lighting to LOW. This is a proven no-brainer.
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If you are running a cpu with a lot of cores/hyperthreading (like my Intel i7), set cpu affinity to only EVEN cores, that is, 0, 2, 4, 6, 8… I can finally play without having to disable hyperthreading in BIOS. To easily do this use a tool like RadeonPro (on AMD cards) or use this nice tool. It will make changes accordingly when DG is running.
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If you are running the built-in AV Windows Defender, set an exception for the Grim Dawn folder or, if you are running Steam like me, and are confident, put an exception to the whole STEAM folder. It will make a world of difference, honest. If running another different AV solution, check to see if there is a “game mode” or set an appropiate exception.
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[optional] If you are sensitive to screen tearing, disable VSYNC and Triple Buffering from ingame options but force VSYNC in your graphic card control panel. It’s advisable to create a profile for Grim Dawn and do this from there. nVidia cards newest drivers have got a nice option called FAST VSYNC that doesn’t enable it per se, but make tearing disappear. If you are worried by your card running hotter, you may just use regular VSYNC plus a frame capper. You need some tool for this: nVidia Inspector, Riva Tuner, RadeonPro. etc. I am not sure but it seems Triple Buffering isn’t working at all (at least for my AMD card).
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[optional] Again, if you are sensitive to latency/lag, you could try disabling write combining (uswc). It will make things go a little slower (although not in raw frames), but everything will run smoother. To do this, run this app; choose ADD KEY and reboot. Easy, isn’t it?. If you don’t like the results, run it again, REMOVE KEY and reboot.
That’s all for now folks. Happy gaming with awesome GD.