The Haunted: Essential Tweaks

[Squishpoke]

Hello all,

tl;dr is at bottom

Here is a collection of valuable tweaks I've come across in the configuration files.

Field of View
What is it? Field of view basically boils down to "how much peripheral vision do you have?" In real life, humans have about 90 degrees of FOV. Increasing it higher gives you the benefit of seeing more, but at the cost of a fishbowl vision. Smaller values give you "telescope" vision where everything seems a lot closer. Personally I prefer high FOV because lower FOV gives me headaches. Fishbowl-heads, unite!

How to change FOV:
1) Go to your Documents folder. You can do this in Windows 7 by click on Start, and then Documents on the upper right of the pop-up menu.
2) In your Documents folder, go to the My Games folder. Look for the-haunted-hells-reach folder and go inside.
3) Go to UDKGame, and then Config. Within the Config folder, there is a UDKGame.ini file. Right click on it, and select "open with". Choose notepad to open this file.
4) Press CRTL F on your keyboard, type DefaultFOV and press enter. You should see a section that looks like this:

[HauntedGame.TH_CamMode_Default]
DefaultFOV=75

[HauntedGame.TH_CamMode_Aimed]
DefaultFOV=65

[HauntedGame.TH_CamMode_Sprinting]
DefaultFOV=90

[HauntedGame.TH_CamMode_Monster]
DefaultFOV=75

The first setting is your normal FOV. The second setting is when you are aiming, the third is when you are sprinting, and the fourth is when you are a monster in multiplayer. I recommend these values for enhanced gameplay:

[HauntedGame.TH_CamMode_Default]
DefaultFOV=110

[HauntedGame.TH_CamMode_Aimed]
DefaultFOV=90

[HauntedGame.TH_CamMode_Sprinting]
DefaultFOV=120

[HauntedGame.TH_CamMode_Monster]
DefaultFOV=110

Motion Blur
What is it? It is basically a method that blurs your surroundings when you move or aim around. On paper, it seems to be great for smoothing choppy gameplay. In practice, however, it slows down the game, and the benefits you get from smoothing frames are nullified by low FPS. It's generally preferable to achieve higher FPS rather than fancy blur effects.

How to turn it off:
1) Go to your Documents folder. You can do this in Windows 7 by click on Start, and then Documents on the upper right of the pop-up menu.
2) In your Documents folder, go to the My Games folder. Look for the-haunted-hells-reach folder and go inside.
3) Go to UDKGame, and then Config. Within the Config folder, there is a UDKEngine.ini file. (NOTE the different file name!) Right click on it, and select "open with". Choose notepad to open this file.
4) Press CRTL F on your keyboard, type SystemSettings and press enter. You should see a section that looks like this:

[SystemSettings]
bUseMaxQualityMode=False
StaticDecals=True
DynamicDecals=True
UnbatchedDecals=True
DecalCullDistanceScale=1.000000
DynamicLights=True
DynamicShadows=True //and so on, so forth.

5) Under this [SystemSettings] section, look for

MotionBlur=True

and change it to

MotionBlur=False

6) Important: To save this setting when you are done editing UDKEngine.ini, you must right click the UDKEngine.ini file, and select properties. In the properties window, put a tick mark in the box that says read only and press Apply, then OK.

Depth of Field
What is it? Probably the worst thing that was ever invented for video games, in my opinion. It's basically something that randomly blurs things so that the video game is supposed to replicate "movie focus" or "the human eye focusing on something". There is only one problem with this, however: your eyes are already freaking doing the work for you! You can focus on whatever you want at will, and with Depth of Field on, you'll just manage to get a headache from looking at blurry textures because the game thinks you are supposed to look at something else.

Furthermore, Depth of Field puts more strain on your computer, which can cause poor performance. Might as well turn it off, then!

How to turn it off:
1) In the same UDKEngine.ini file under [SystemSettings], look for

DepthofField=True

and change it to

DepthofField=False

2) Set file to read-only if you are done with tweaking.
3) Enjoy playing crisper, cleaner game that doesn't feel like you need glasses.

Fog
What is it? Fog is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. Fog begins to form when water vapor condenses into tiny liquid water droplets... why are you still reading this? You should know what fog is.

How and why should I turn it off? Personally, I keep the fog on because some maps (like that one castle map) looks really awesome with all the fog coming in during the chronostone failures. But, I suppose if you want a more competitive edge, you can turn it off and be a total LAMER.

1) In the same UDKEngine.ini file under [SystemSettings], look for

FogVolumes=True

and change it to

FogVolumes=False

2) Set file to read-only if you are done with tweaking.


OneFrameThreadLag
What is it? Basically, it's a fancy computer resource gimmick thing. Here is all you need to know about it:

When it is turned ON, you have better framerate, but there is a chance that your mouse movements may feel floaty or sluggish.

When it is turned OFF, you lose some framerates, but on the upside you get better mouse responsiveness.

So, if you are having trouble aiming in the game, try turning OneFrameThreadLag off.

How to turn it off?
1) In the same UDKEngine.ini file under [SystemSettings], look for

OneFrameThreadLag=True

and change it to

OneFrameThreadLag=False

2) Set file to read-only if you are done with tweaking.


Bloom
What is it? Basically, it makes light behave realistically by being extra shiny and occasionally overwhelm/disfigure darker areas. Some people don't like it 'cause it makes it hard to see in some cases.

How to turn it off:
You know the drill. Go under UDKEngine.ini and look for

Bloom=True

and set it to

Bloom=False

And don't forget to set your file to read only when you are done!

Mouse Smoothing
What is it? It's a special piece of software that "smooths" your mouse movement. Sounds good on paper, but in practice it slows down your mouse input, and you may get input lag with your mouse. Turning this off should be mandatory in all games!

How to turn it off:
1) Go to UDKInput.ini, located in Documents/My Games/the-haunted-hells-reach/UDKGame/config/UDKGame.ini
2) Look for

bEnableMouseSmoothing=true

and change it to

bEnableMouseSmoothing=false

3) Be sure to save your changes.

Bonus Tip

To improve raw mouse input in games,

1) Click on your Start button on your desktop, and type "mouse" in the search box and press enter. (If you are on XP or lower, you may have to search for "mouse" in the Control Panel".)

2) Next, click on the Pointer Options Tab.

3) The slider under pointer speed must be set to exactly halfway (6 ticks out of 12). Why, do you ask? Well, if you set to to a different setting, Windows does some really poor mouse speed calculations that makes your cursor skip pixels. In video games, we call that "terrible".

4) UNTICK "enhance pointer precision". It actually does the OPPOSITE. Basically, windows thinks that "mouse precision" is "mouse acceleration", which are pretty much polar opposites in my opinion. In video games, we call mouse acceleration "the worst thing since Hitler was born".

5) Press OK and you are done! If you feel like you mouse is too fast or too slow at the default mouse speed (6/12), then you might want to invest in a gaming mouse with customizable DPI. DPI affects your sensitivity much better than whatever it is that Windows does.

tl;dr

Documents/My Games/the-haunted-hells-reach/UDKGame/config/UDKInput.ini

bEnableMouseSmoothing=false

Documents/My Games/the-haunted-hells-reach/UDKGame/config/UDKGame.ini

[HauntedGame.TH_CamMode_Default] //fov when normal
DefaultFOV=110

[HauntedGame.TH_CamMode_Aimed] //fov when aiming
DefaultFOV=90

[HauntedGame.TH_CamMode_Sprinting] //fov when sprinting
DefaultFOV=120

[HauntedGame.TH_CamMode_Monster] //normal fov for playing as monster
DefaultFOV=110

and

Documents/My Games/the-haunted-hells-reach/UDKGame/config/UDKEngine.ini

[SystemSettings]
MotionBlur=False
DepthofField=False
FogVolumes=False //disables cool looking fog effects
OneFrameThreadLag=False //Improves mouse input at expense of FPS. I recommend "true" by default.
Bloom=False

IMPORTANT: To save UDKEngine.ini file changes, set file to read-only.