Crysis 3 Tweak Guide

[Page 2] General Settings



To access the full suite of in-game settings, launch Crysis 3 and select the Options item on the main menu. The main graphics-related options are covered in detail later in this guide. First we examine the general gameplay, audio and control options in this section. None of these settings has any impact on performance.



Game


Game Difficulty: This setting appears at the start of the singleplayer campaign, and subsequently if you access the Options menu while a game session is paused. However once you set a difficulty level at the start of a new campaign, from that point onward you can only select a lower difficulty level during gameplay. The five difficulty levels in order of easiest to hardest are: Recruit, Soldier, Veteran, Supersoldier, and Post-Human Warrior. The key differences as difficulty rises are:


  • Enemies become more challenging, as they will have increased awareness and accuracy, and more of them will fire at you at any one time. Basically the Artificial Intelligence (AI) will become more realistic as difficulty is increased.
  • If you reach critical health, at lower difficulty levels the AI will reduce their attack to give you a few seconds to recover; at higher difficulty levels this mercy period is shortened to almost no time at all, as they keep up the pressure on you.
  • At Supersoldier and Post-Human Warrior difficulties, the crosshair is removed, any aim assistance is disabled, and your health regeneration rate will be reduced.

    • Zoom, Crouch, Sprint Toggling: These three settings relate to the way in which certain actions are activated and deactivated. If toggling is set to Yes, the relevant action (zooming, crouching, or sprinting) will occur when you press the appropriate button or key, and stay in effect until you again press the same button or key. If set to No, the relevant action will only occur so long as you hold down the button or key; the moment you let go, that action stops.


    Crosshair: This setting determines whether your weapon crosshair is displayed. If set to Disabled, no crosshair is shown, which can make aiming harder, unless you aim down your weapon's sights. If your game difficulty is Supersoldier or Post-Human Warrior, a crosshair will not be shown regardless of this setting.


    Subtitles: If set to Yes, text subtitles will be shown at the bottom of the screen for spoken dialogue.


    HUD Bobbing: By default, the Heads Up Display (HUD), which contains the various informational elements overlayed on the screen, such as health, ammo and minimap, will move around as your player moves. The degree to which this HUD bobbing occurs can be controlled with the slider. Higher values increase the bobbing, lower values reduce it, and a value of 0 disables it, leaving a static HUD.



    Sound


    Music, Sound FX, Dialogue Volume: These sliders control the level of in-game background music, sound effects such as gunfire and explosions, and spoken dialogue respectively. Adjust to suit your taste, as it has no performance impact.



    Safe Area


    Using the arrow keys on your keyboard, you can adjust the screen area within which the in-game HUD and associated messages are shown. Shrinking the safe area will result in a smaller HUD that is closer to the center of the screen; expanding the safe area will move the HUD elements towards the outer edges of your display.



    Controls


    The Controls section of the settings allows you to select the type of input hardware you are using and remap your control assignments. Settings of note here include:


    General: If the Invert Y Axis option found here is set to Yes, pushing your mouse forward will make your character aim down, and moving your mouse back will make him aim upwards. If set to Off, the arrangement is reversed.


    Keyboard: If using a keyboard, selecting this option will let you view key mappings under five different categories: Movement, Combat, Nanosuit, Vehicles and Multiplayer. Make sure to go through all of these sections and adjust the command mappings as necessary.


    Mouse: The Mouse Sensitivity slider determines the level of responsiveness of the mouse to your movements. The further to the right the slider, the more responsive the mouse will feel. If your mouse movements feel laggy, even after raising Mouse Sensitivity, there are several other things you should check:


  • If your framerate falls below around 25-30 FPS at any time, particularly during heavy combat, or in large outdoor areas, you will start to notice reduced input responsiveness. You will need to adjust your graphics settings to raise your minimum FPS.
  • If the in-game V-Sync setting is set to Yes, or you have Vertical Sync set to On or Adaptive in the NVIDIA Control Panel, it can contribute to a less responsive feel to mouse movements. See the V-Sync setting later in this guide for more details.
  • See the mouse-related variables in the Advanced Tweaking section. Note that by default, mouse acceleration and mouse smoothing are already disabled in Crysis 3.

    • Aside from the issues above, also consider that while a very high Mouse Sensitivity can improve the feeling of responsiveness, it can also reduce overall accuracy.



    On the next page we begin our look at the various graphics-related settings in Crysis 3.