Right to start this guide off, this is going to be my attempt to explain how to run the old engine for maximum FPS and quality. It is possible to get more frames out of the old engine and get pretty decent AA (anti-aliasing) without artifacting (like hotbar artifacting that can be present when forcing via the Nvidia panel).
UPDATE I have tested all setting in screenshots and tested them to ensure no performance regression for the new DGvoodoo2 2.84.1. All below setting can be used with 2.84.1 that would my recommendation.
Please note that mirroring all of settings incidentally to my screenshots gives the most optimal performance, it best only to change a setting if it causing issues. The number 1 issue I see when troubleshooting directly with people is that have missed some settings or not mirrored the screenshots.
as teaser here is example of how looks with Voodoo running 2.83.1 with below settings/Reshade/AutoHDR
UPDATED (13/10/2024)
Since I have written this guide, the author of DGVoodoo2 has continued development. with version 2.83.2 the specialized shader issue which was root cause of alot ICC/Legacy of xan and LE mission area stutter and under 10 fps issues. Has been rewritten or removed. Making large portion of guide irrelevant. So I have trimmed the guide to make more managable
As an example of the potential performance, I can see a steady 80 FPS in AI event raids with more than 60+ people on screen, where before I might see 2-0 40 FPS even in the old engine. This is with decent modern hardware (5800x3D, AMD 6800xt).
So first, why did I bother writing this guide? Aren’t there other video guides up?
Originally you need to use version 2.78.2 to get ideal performance without massive issue in ICC, LE Area and LoX. This was because all version afterwards had specialized shaders forced on which affect the mentioned above area greatly. You not used a version below 2.78.2 because of FPS bug that report double fps back to GPU driver.
Since the release of 2.83.2 this has been simplified greatly, I will now only show setting for 2.83.2 that I have tested for quite awhile now. There still benefit in the guide has there a lot optimization you can make DGVoodoo2 and can even be stacked with AOPP
I found a lot of these settings with hundreds of hours of testing and relogging.
First, here is a screenshot of what the game can look like with proper settings and Reshade on top.
All these settings in the screenshots were taken in DirectX 12 mode. DX12 mode is where all extra FPS can be found and my setting aim to stabilize DX12
The DirectX 11 mode is okay but doesn’t provide the same FPS increase. DIRECTX 12 CAN DO 100 FPS in ICC with an average CPU. Also worth noting, when you open the snippet for the screenshot, a lot of FPS overlays stop reporting. I included the below with the in-game counter to show ICC FPS.
ICC can be the place where frames go to thrive, not to die!!
Here is 2 screenshots of the old engine running with no tweaks or Nvidia panel tweaks (AMD in my case).
The below is the end result of my tweaks:
The below is my Reshade settings (HDR optional, I don’t have it on that often):
Sadly I can’t post ini here due file incompatibility
First, you must navigate to the DGvoodoo2 website (Downloads - Dege's stuffs) or the githb Releases · dege-diosg/dgVoodoo2 (github.com).
once there download DGVoodoo2 version 2.83.2 We need this version because older version use a specilzed shader that can reduce FPS down single digit in ICC, Lox and LE areas. the only older version without this issue is 2.78.2
Once downloaded and extracted to your preferred location, you simply need to drag and drop all files in the MS–>x86 folder into your AO installation main folder (the contents only, not the folder). Also, copy and paste the Control Panel and Control Panel Config files into your AO installation (this just keeps the config nice and clean).
Once you have done this, open the Control Panel exe in the AO installation, and it should bring up a program where we will need to change some settings (the DGvoodoo2 Control Panel). I will provide screenshots for those changes below and brief reasoning as to why, but before that, you must right-click on a blank space near the tab and click “show all tab configuration options” (something worded to that effect).
Now for the main settings, there are 3 main tabs we care about here: the General, the DirectX, and the DirectX Ext tabs. Please see the following settings for each.
General settings:
The important one on this tab is the DirectX 12 selection. It is the only wrapper option that gives multi-core enhancement as this is built into DirectX 12. Using DirectX 11, I found, gave no measurable performance increase by comparison. DirectX 11 also broke some monitoring overlays like RTSS. As a point of comparison, see below:
DirectX 11 ICC: 30-50 FPS
DirectX 12 ICC: 80-100 FPS
DirectX settings:
There are a few key settings here. The first is if you are using anisotropic filtering of any kind, use the “force filter only if not point sampled.” This will stop some weird transparent fringing at the edge of windows. Another key setting is VRAM. Set it as high as your GPU allows, ideally 4096MB of VRAM. Then the last is “Fast Video Memory Access.” This just helps FPS and smoothness of gameplay. Disabling mipmapping also helps with poor quality textures, but I personally didn’t see much of a change; it might just be my system.
DirectXExt Tab:
Please note before going forward that if you DON’T do the DirectX Ext tab settings, you will experience extreme stutter in a few zones like Mitaar, ICC, and LE Mission Hub. This is a critical section of the guide.
To access the Direct Ext tab, you will notice there is an empty space where other tabs are. Right-click here. You should get a dropdown that presents you with 2 options. One will default all settings, and the other will show the hidden tabs. Please show hidden tabs, then make changes as the guide shows below. If do not see all tab then you missed this step
Below is a screenshot of the tab that enables the DirectXExt tab:
Now, this is the big boy tab where the most critical changes happen. First, ensure that “dithering,” “depth buffer,” and “N-Patch Tessellation” tabs are set to “App Driven.” I found this gives the best performance without affecting the colors or graininess of textures. Ensure the “Max VS Count Register” is set to 256. This is another big performance setting, though you will only really notice it in high load scenarios like big AI events.
One last tab that must be adjusted if you are having instant crashes upon clicking EXE. Called General Ext tab play close attention to presentation Mode.
If you followed all the above, you should see notable FPS improvement, particularly in ICC, and increased use of cores if you have a newer CPU. One major upside of this is that now the old engine is running as DirectX 12, we can run Reshade. With the settings I linked above, I get very close in feel to the new engine.
Hope this was helpful in ironing out some quirks of DGvoodoo2 and helping anyone who updated to newer versions, only to get a worse experience.
Also, ensure when you next boot into Anarchy Online, hit settings, and under the visual tab and rendering device, ensure you see DGvoodoo in the name, that is good indicator it is running and you haven’t missed a file.
On a side note I tried this on new engine to see if I could optimize the game a bit but sadly directx12 will instant crash the new engine and directx11 which i got working does not show performance increase.
If this was helpful let other know so they can get the best out of it.
I have also got AOPP and Window AUTO HDR running too for even further FPS increase but I don’t know long term stability so left those out for now.