Latency or Low FPS Issues: A Guideline to Improving your Gameplay

Since we've seen a lot of these lately, I thought I'd summarize a bit and offer some links that helped me.

For a basic breakdown on what Lag is rather than low fps, this webcomic shows an excellent summary.

Solutions for PC & Linux are below. If you use a console;

- your max framerate is 30 FPS

- Your network is limited by XBL or PSN

- I encourage you to get this game on PC instead

If your issue is teleporting opponents or people complaining/votekicking you because of high ping;

• set your Chivalry Server filter to show servers that are <100 ms; You really need less than 100 for this game

• check that nobody in your house is streaming/downloading

  - bribe them to stop if they are
  
  - [set your router to prioritize your computer ](http://www.howtogeek.com/70659/how-to-give-your-computers-network-traffic-priority-with-dd-wrt/) (not all routers are capable)
  
  - set a bandwidth limit on your family/roomate's devices/applications when they're not looking (don't make it too low or they'll get suspicious)
  

• is your wifi slow because all your neighbours are on the same channel as you? Change your router's wifi channel

  • seriously, why are you on wifi; use a cable instead and your router will usually prioritize it automatically

  • using a cable and turning off your wifi also seems to improve your framerate (lower processor load, see below for more on framerate improvement)

If your issue is that your game feels choppy and slow to respond, you likely have low FPS. Your target FPS is 60. If you have a High Framerate Monitor (120Hz or 144Hz), your target is 120 (max in-game is 120).

General Solutions for Low FPS & PC

• check your framerate in-game by using a console command; press ~ (located beside the 1 key), then type stat fps, then hit Enter

  • green values are good, red is bad

• use a better computer; check your performance here or see below to make your computer perform better

• ensure the game is using your actual video card instead of a motherboard's onboard video processor (link is for NVIDIA, but you can search for your card)

• use canned air to blow dust out of your computer's housing; this is causing your system to overheat and slows down performance

• reduce your Ragdoll count in the Configuration - Video menu; drop it down to 2 or 3 for better performance

• turn off Bloom, Light Shafts, Depth of Field, and Motion Blur, Vignette, and Vertical Synch settings

  - Vignette will reset to **On** unless you modify the config file;
   Locate the **UDKSettings.ini** file under **C:\User\Libraries\Documents\My Games\ChivalryMedievalWarfare\UDKGame\Config** and change **bEnableVignette=True** to **False**, then Save the file
  

• reduce your overall settings to medium, low or off (experiment to find the best framerate for your system)

• reduce your video resolution (to avoid stretched image, use the same aspect ratio your current monitor uses)

  - you may have to create a new display resolution for the game to detect it; use your graphics card's control application to create a custom video resolution (as stated above, use the same aspect ratio as your maximum resolution for best results)
  
  - Example: 1920x1080 (HD) is the same aspect ratio as 1600x900, 1366x768, or 1280x720
  

• if you're still having trouble, you can edit your configuration files for better performance; follow this guideline for best results NOTE: If you wish to uncap your framerate to 90 or 120fps, you must turn off Vertical Synch

• You can also try the Runescape Settings for Chivalry

• Some game maps are not optimized and your frames may be reduced (large maps or maps with lots of water will likely affect this)

• large numbers of players on-screen may also cause dropped frames; playing on servers with higher than 24 players may cause framerate issues (Reddit and F|C servers typically have 32 or 40 player limits)

Low FPS - Linux

From u/Kevinismus; I'd like to add a solution for my fellow Linux-users who have got NVIDIA graphics cards: After turning down the graphics quality in Chivalry's menu (including the resolution), you may notice that the changes are not applied (i.e. there is no difference in terms of frame rate). In order to fix this problem, you have to set your system's display resolution manually (for example from 1920x1080 to 1280x720) via NVIDIA X Server Settings. Afterwards, you can start Chivalry, recheck the graphics settings and enjoy the game. FYI: I'm using Linux Mint 17 Xfce (x64).

From u/CuddlyNeedle: Improve Linux FPS

I hope this helps out someone; I had to tweak quite a bit to hit 60FPS, but my gameplay and overall experience improved immediately.

Also available on Steam. Please rate my guide if this helped you.

R

Edited multiple times for formatting.