# Note before playing XF is so much better than FZero already Artstyle is more basic but he gets more mileage out of it. It's less invented fun and more real mechanics fun --- # Some more graphics nerding out I'll do some XF now. Ambiant occlusion is a big no, it'll add itself up over lights and make them dimmer. Broken. Global lighting, same, it has a cutoff distance, so it's pointless, only overkill goes decently far enough, but that one kills the frames no matter what and destroys frame pacing. Ok bro. I can't. Volumetrics aren't touching the framerate on the lowest resolution but I can FEEL the latency being added. UGHHH. I swear I'm not crazy. If this game had Nvidia Reflex it might help things perhaps. Or not. And I swear it makes things more smeary too Like gee, wtf. Am I crazy ?? Even at 720p 4:3 0.5x res it still feels like there's a slight difference. I guess what I'm experiencing really is just that the les GPU util the faster a frame is done since there are less things to do, and hence, the faster you'll have the frame on screen. ?? Well, I mean, so long as you're hitting the framecap it should be fine no ? Since it's a set cadence. Unless that volumetric option really is adding a frame of delay for processing. 4:3 is too cropped, can't see where you turn. 21:9 is very wide, actually because it adds the black bars up top but keeps the same vertical FOV it looks like it's zoomed out, which makes it feel slower and more controllable, but conversely you get a less intense sensation of framerate. 16:9 I think is the perfect middle ground because you get the full 240hz movement vertically, no unzoom, and you still get enough vision of turns ahead as well as the ability to sight see a bit. Well y'know what, yeah, put the game back on 0.75x res, cuz that's the default and it somehow looks just right. On 1080p 21:9 (the correct 21:9) it looks good and crisp, and still runs at about 65-70% GPU util at a stable 240lows. And like, I suppose having the maximum FOV available is good. You can just get yourself closer to the screen to undo the unzoom, and you'll have periferal vision stuff. Makes it way less nauseating too, having the context and also having it move less on screen physisically. But then again, for the wow factor of 240hz, having it take the whole screen / having the image not unzoomed makes it move faster and feels more… nauseating ? I guess. That might be the whole appeal. Idk. So yeah. 21:9 is probably the thing that made me fall in love with how good the game looks. It's more immersive cuz there's more of the world to immerse yourself in. You feel more present and things don't feel like they move as sporadically. It just feels more stable, more grounded, you can better maintain a sense of space while playing, and navigate easily. Either way, I will show it to Tomo in 21:9 no questions asked. Well… was it really in 21:9 that I played through the new maps though ? Oh yeah yeah no it was ok. But I guess seeing more of the road ahead is good in a way though, since it's bigger on screen, the same distant part of the road feels closer. But again, just get closer to the screen bruv. Also it's not like you're running in a resolution limit here, you're running this around 720p anyways so you can always just up the resolution a bit if you get closer and actually need more detail. And yeah, speaking of increasing details, you can bump the res multiplier from 0.5 to a little bit more when cropping the top and bottom like this, which makes for a sharper image and less chances for tomo to complain. Then again Cloud fucking Lacus, even at 0.75 it lags. Ugh, it's those darn fucking volumetrics. Even on the first map, at 1080p 21:9 0.5rez it still has inconsistent 240lows But hey, it's not toooo bad. And like, other maps might be better about this. But damn what crispness costs am I paying to keep volumetrics and 240hz working together. Yeah well, at least even on cloud Lacus, at 1080p 21:9 0.5x res I get not too bad 240lows. So yeah, sure, I'll take that. Also volumetrics is a go. So maps looks proper. Ehh, bump it to 0.75 res. Getting 160 fps isn't the end of the world in a sense, and to have enough clear text in the menus that Tomo won't yell at me, I'll be ok. Plus, like, yeah, some of the text REALLY can't be read at all cuz it dissapears between the pixels, and I'll want to show him a bit of the lore too. Y'know. So it's not a compromise that is able to be made here. Whereas, getting lower frames on *some* maps is ok. Also mind you, the starting line will never reach 240fps like this so yeah. --- # Gameplay notes The game has invisible walls that prevent you from getting stuck in annoying ways and ragequit You'll just bump the wall, lose speed, and get funnelled in. ^be924d ==I remember being bad at Cloud Lacus==, and bumping into every turn. It took me a while to get the hand of slowing down before a turn. Especially cuz in such a game slowing down is a sin. Then I played the tutorials. And while after, right now, I can drift confidently through it, which I didn't even know was a mechanic until recently. Bro, for real though, can there be a cooler game than XF ?? Like, I can't imagine a concept that would be more fun rn. Without starting to delve into bespoke illogical mechanics to just add complexity arbitrarily. It's like, the most complex game for the least amount of weird invented mechanics. It always makes you wonder and accept new mechanics because you can't rule them out as "invented complexity" yet, and when you understand them you see that they are indeed based on real stuff. The game isn't trying to push you out of its own volition, it actually does it's best to make IRL mechanics approachable. And when you master the game more, you also get to learn about IRL which makes you love the game for the pattern matching it made you do. ^82c3f0 He's gotten so much better at that race track design like sonic games does. Like a roller coaster ride of set pieces. ^52b700 --- # Ideal settings recap ~~Recap, for me for max FPS potential 1080p 21:9 0.5res~~ For when I need more crispness / for Tomo, same but ==0.75 res==. ==All settings as in the benchmark preset 1== ~~Except volumetrics turned on now. Cuz it's crucial to the look.~~ Nevermind, easiest way to get the FPS back to smooth is to kill volumetrics, plus that gets rid of that extra latency / blur that idk where it's coming from and its bugging me. So that's really all that needs changing. ==For the pretty looks / for Tomo, volumetrics. For when I want fast 240hz, turn off volumetrics.==