With GTX1080/Corei5 C:4-Th:4/8GB Memory

Resolution = 1920x1080
Render = 200%
AA = TAA
vsync = off
nvidia vsync adaptive = on


r.MaxAnisotropy=16

r.MaxQualityMode=1
// If set to 1, override certain system settings to highest quality regardless of performance impact

r.BlackBorders=1
// To draw black borders around the rendered image (prevents artifacts from post processing
// passes that read outside of the image e.g. PostProcessAA) in pixels.

r.MipMapLODBias=-5
// Apply additional mip map bias for all 2D textures, range of -15.0 to 15.0

sg.AntiAliasingQuality=3
sg.EffectsQuality=3
sg.PostProcessQuality=3
sg.ResolutionQuality=3
sg.ShadowQuality=3
sg.TextureQuality=3
sg.ViewDistanceQuality=3
// 0:low, 1:med, 2:high, 3:epic

Engine.ini:

Originally posted by eurogamer.net:

The re-engineering of Ethan Carter
and the move to Unreal Engine 4.

"Unreal Engine 3 enjoyed a long, prosperous life on last-gen following its 2006 debut, but the new UE4 has yet to hit its stride in the new console gaming era."

"Unreal Engine 4 is based upon a deferred renderer with a focus on dynamic lighting and physically-based rendering (PBR) - an approach completely at odds with the original design of Ethan Carter and the older UE3."

"While translating the original vision to UE4 was the primary objective, there are a number of additional visual benefits that come with the new engine. A new, much higher quality motion blur is used, resulting in smoother camera rotation and character movement. High intensity points of light, such as that of the sun, appear different as a result of the new lighting model. This produces a higher white point, which appears richer and more realistic in comparison to the original game. The sun peeking in through the windows of an old church now creeps in realistically through each of the small windows dotting the structure - a visual element completely missing in the original release. Foliage appears sharper and more defined in the distance, shadow fall-off is a little smoother and light-shafts appear more natural. In most areas, the changes result in a subtle, but appreciable bump in quality. "


https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-the-re-engineering-of-ethan-carter

Originally posted by Kestrel Hudson:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-the-re-engineering-of-ethan-carter

At my opinion the diffrence is quite sublte.

Originally posted by kosmokleaner.de:

http://www.kosmokleaner.de/ownsoft/UE4CVarBrowser.html

Originally posted by Farlight:

I found the way to make these changes persistent.

First go to that folder "%LOCALAPPDATA%/EthanCarter/Saved/Config/WindowsNoEditor/"
In this folder resides all the game data .ini files, then edit the Engine.ini file adding a new entry with whatever you want to change as shown below.[/script/engine.renderersettings]
r.LightShaftBlurPasses=0
...
r.BloomQuality=0

Save and launch the game. :)

Originally posted by Snorlax Is H4x:

If you lanch the "EthanCarter-Win64-Console.exe" in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux\EthanCarter\Binaries\Win64 you can open the console with `.
My current config:

r.LightShaftBlurPasses 0 (Greatly reduces the white distance fog)

r.LightShaftDownSampleFactor 0 (Default is 2; Seems to get rid of a blurring effect where light come through foliage)

r.BloomQuality 1 (Default is 5; Lowers bloom effect while leaving it on.)

r.SceneColorFringe.Max 0 (Gets rid of CA and weird blurring)

r.diffusecolor.Max .9 (Makes it slighly darker, can also use .95)

r.mipmapLODbias -1 (Makes far away textures sharper, but also will make the more "noisy".

DISABLEALLSCREENMESSAGES (Gets rid of the red text on screen)

ORIGINAL: http://i.imgur.com/8AmQIO7.jpg
TWEAKED: http://i.imgur.com/QcfDJcm.jpg

Originally posted by Haldi:

Originally posted by Afro:

is there a free cam command?

ToggleDebugCamera or somehow
And don't forget the "ShowHud"

Allows for some pretty neat stuff :D
http://sp.zhabite.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=518965201&fileuploadsuccess=1

Originally posted by Snorlax Is H4x:

Originally posted by Antares_16:

r.SceneColorFringe.Max 0 ( Chromatic Aberration )

That's a good one theres slight CA on the edges of the screen.

To fix the bloom I found:

r.BloomQuality 1
and
r.Bloom.Cross 1
also try
r.LightShaftFirstPassDistance .05
(1 is default an can go as low as .001 or you can turn it up if you want to play around)

Originally posted by eurogamer.net:

"Of course, on the flipside, other UE4 specific elements were tossed aside in favour of solutions preferred by the artists. Image quality is one such area. In its final form on PS4, Ethan Carter operates at a full 1920x1080 with a pass of FXAA anti-aliasing. The results are clean but lack temporal stability on distant objects. Thin rails, edges of static meshes, and complex patterns all exhibit noticeable flicker and shimmering while moving through the world.
Epic's built-in temporal AA solution is impressive but this was deemed too aggressive for the style of visuals on display in Ethan Carter, prompting the search for an alternative. FXAA and SMAA T2x were both considered and while artists preferred the latter option, performance was several times slower than FXAA, explaining its selection. In comparison, we utilised a combination of FXAA and 2x MSAA for the PC captures in this piece, delivering a more stable image overall."

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-the-re-engineering-of-ethan-carter

r.BlackBorders=1
To draw black borders around the rendered image (prevents artifacts from post processing
passes that read outside of the image e.g. PostProcessAA) in pixels.

Originally posted by ChaosBahamut:

Render Scale 200%.

If you can afford it. (actually, if you can, you're better off just using DSR/VSR instead and selecting 4k because setting Render Scale to anything above 100% removes lens flare)

If not, SMAA T2x or T-FXAA. Roughly the same, although SMAA T2x has slightly less blur. TAA is just way too blurry.

Originally posted by Patriot03:

I used to be a critic of TAA, but have come to love it otherwise I would recommend SMAA t2x. All the AA options are pretty cheap on performance on any resonably new/decent GPU imo.

TAA (Temporal anti-aliasing) does the best job at removing jaggies but introduces another level of blur that you might not like initially (like me) until I found out the next benefit of TAA and that is how it eliminates texture shimmering in the distance (like when you'd see patterns start to emerge on a brick wall at certain times). Don't confuse that with anisotropic filtering and what it does. This is designed to combat temporal aliasing.

SMAA is a pretty good method, I'd prefer it to FXAA but it simply won't eliminate as much jaggies as you might like. (t2x is similar but more powerful afaik)

FXAA is pretty old, and adds a blur to soften the edges. (I believe this one impacts performance the least)

Then you have Res scale (100% is native, 200% would be 4K downscaled) so it's super sampling, it produces very good results but at a very high performance impact as it internally renders the frames at significantly larger resolutions).

That being said there aren't too many to choose from so I recommend you simply enable each one and take a look around (use the steam overlay to enable an FPS counter if you'd like) and see for yourself which one you prefer.

PS: You can google "TAA/SMAA/FXAA" individually to get more information if you're interested in more technical details.

Originally posted by Patriot03:

Just my opinion

TAA, ofc adding Extra Res Scale on top of that is the best but that requires beefy hardware.

If you're not using TAA then you're not defeating Temporal Aliasing, if you simply compare them in game (Pretty sure a restart is not required but even if it is it's worth it to see for yourself).

Yes TAA adds blur but if you're at 2560x1440 it's not that bad. I refused to use it back in my peasantly 1080p days + I was ignorant about TAA being the best option because I had no idea what Temporal Aliasing even was until I noticed the awful Texture shimmering in basically every game that doesn't have TAA. I won't even buy games that don't have TAA now unless I know I can run it at 150% res scale to get somewhat acceptable visuals but I prefer having both when I can and if I can't due to performance then I need TAA at least.

Look at the texture shimmering on the ground as you move your screen, TAA takes care of that and ALL jaggies, also look at the light passing through the leaves as you move with and without TAA.

To me TAA makes games feel much more realistic if for no other reason than removing all that ugly shimmering + no jaggies to be found.

PS: Have done some testing and VSR/DSR seems to work well with this game + It looks stupid amazing at 4k VSR + 200% res scale but not a fan of 20-30 fps XD