A Hat in Time: Quality & Performance Presets

[MayorBryce]

I've been hard at working changing configurations, and I've finally created some configs I'm happy with.

Presets

• Performance Mode
  • Boosted framerate from 30fps to 60fps.
  • Increased the graphic fidelity of some settings.
  • Disabled some graphical effects for a better experience and performance.

Spoiler: All Performance Mode Changes

This is primarily for people who wish to fine-tune their settings.

• Boosted Framerate to 60fps, from 32fps (found in SwitchGameEngine.ini).
• Boosted MinShadowResolution to 128, from 65.
• Boosted ShadowFadeResolution to 128, from 96.
• Enabled DynamicLights.
• Enabled bAllowParticleShadows.
• Enabled bAllowParticleShadowsOnNonPlayers.
• Disabled DepthOfField.
• Disabled Bloom.
• Enabled bAllowLightShafts.
• Disabled MotionBlur.
• Enabled AmbientOcclusion.
• Enabled AllowRadialBlur.
• Enabled Anti Aliasing, Level 0.

• Quality Mode
  • Locked framerate to 30fps
  • Majorly increased the graphic fidelity of nearly all settings.

Spoiler: Quality Mode Screenshots

Spoiler: All Quality Mode Changes

This is primarily for people who wish to fine-tune their settings.

• Locked Framerate to 30fps, from 32fps (found in SwitchGameEngine.ini).
• Enabled bEnableForegroundShadowsOnWorld
• Boosted DetailMode to 1, from 0.
• Boosted MaxDrawDistanceScale to 1.2, from 0.7.
• Boosted MaxAnisotropy to 16, from 8.
• Boosted MinShadowResolution to 256, from 65.
• Boosted ShadowFadeResolution to 256, from 96.
• Boosted MaxShadowResolution to 1024, from 256.
• Boosted MaxWholeSceneDominantShadowResolution to 1024, from 256.
• Boosted ShadowTexelsPerPixel to 2.0, from 0.5
• Enabled EnableCSM.
• Enabled DynamicLights.
• Enabled bAllowParticleShadows.
• Enabled bAllowParticleShadowsOnNonPlayers.
• Enabled bAllowDetailShadows.
• Disabled DepthOfField.
• Enabled bAllowLightShafts.
• Disabled MotionBlur.
• Enabled AmbientOcclusion.
• Lowered PPDownSampleFactor to 1, from 2.
• Enabled AllowRadialBlur.
• Enabled bAllowAntiAliasing, Level 2.
  • Enabled bAllowPostprocessMLAA.
• Enabled bAllowHighQualityMaterialEffects.

• Quality Mode (Uncapped)
  • All the improvements of Quality Mode, but the framerate is set to 60fps. No Nintendo Switch system, including Mariko, can hit 60fps in all areas with this preset (specifically Mafia Town). However, areas like the Spaceship, Time Rifts, etc. will hit 60 there.

FAQ
What kind of Overclock do I need?
It's highly recommended to boost CPU and Memory to the max, and in the case of the Quality preset, GPU maxed out. A Hat in Time is primarily CPU bound, so you'll need the CPU horsepower to get 60fps in performance mode. Quality Mode also requires high GPU overclock to maintain this.

Is this Online Safe?
While you should configure your overclock settings in an EmuNAND, in case of risk of corrupting your SysNAND, these patches are 100% online safe.

How do I install this mod?
Extract the atmosphere folder to the root of your SD card.

I want to use the other preset!
Download the other preset, then extract the atmosphere folder to the root of your SD card. If prompted, overwrite any files.

Menus/The Title Screen/Background Elements are missing the blur!
This is because I disabled Depth of Field. It can be renabled if you like with a slight performance loss; however, I found it cleaned up the image nicely with it disabled.

Motion Blur?
Again, I found this cleaned up the image disabling it. It can be renabled at any time.

Is this for Erista or Mariko?
Performance will be better on Mariko, but from my testing of downclocking my OLED, both Performance and Quality mode should work at their target framerates.

Is there a 1080p version?
Resolution is hard coded into the game. You cannot adjust the resolution without some other sort of cheat.

What about Splitscreen?
Ditto.

Fine-Tuning The Mod
Since this isn't everyone's cup of tea, I've created the presets above. However, if you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of the improvements, here's how.

Spoiler: Fine-Tuning the Mod

The Switch port of A Hat in Time uses three files for setting configuration.

• SwitchEngine.ini
  • This houses the framerate of the game. Note that FPSLocker, while it can affect the framerate, will crash the game on boot. All the other settings are unimportant, and editing them will likely crash the game.
• SwitchGame.ini
  • There isn't any settings of note in here.
• SwitchSystemSettings.ini
  • This is where the majority of the graphics settings.

Since SwitchSystemSettings.ini is where all the graphics settings are, let's go through each of them one by one.

• bDeferSaveGameSaving
  • Default value: True
  • I believe this prevents the game from saving until you get to a loading screen. I haven't done much testing on this one.
• UseVsync
  • Default value: True
  • It's vSync, what do you expect.
• bEnableForegroundShadowsOnWorld
  • Default value: false
• bAllowMeshParticleInstancing
  • Default value: true
• DetailMode
  • Default value: 0
  • Controls the detail level of various things, like grass. Has a signficant GPU cost.
• MaxDrawDistanceScale
  • Default value: 0.7
  • Determines how far to draw objects before they start loading it.
• SplitscreenMaxDrawDistanceScale
  • Default value: 0.8
  • Since AHiT does not allow splitscreen on console versions, this settings has no impact.
• MaxAnisotropy
  • Default value: 8
  • Controls anistrophic filtering.
• MinShadowResolution / ShadowFadeResolution / MaxShadowResolution / MaxWholeSceneDominantShadowResolution
  • Default values: 65 / 96 / 256 / 256
  • Controls shadow resolution. I believe MinShadowResolution is used for distant shadows, MaxShadowResolution for close up shadows, and ShadowFadeResolution is for edges. I'm not sure what MaxWholeSceneDominantShadowResolution does.
• ShadowTexelsPerPixel
  • Default value: 0.5
  • Controls the Shadow Texels per Pixel.
• bEnableCSM
  • Default value: False
  • Enables Cascade Shadow Maps, which allows higher quality shadows at the expensive of GPU performance.
• bAllowWholeSceneDominantShadows
  • Default value: True
  • Used primarily for large towers or objects like the reverse waterfall in Mafia Town. Disabling this removes these shadows, causing weird shadows in places there is supposed to be shadows.
• bAllowPreShadow
  • Default value: True
• bUseConservativeShadowBounds
  • Default value: True
• DynamicLights
  • Default value: false.
  • Enables dynamic lighting.
• bAllowParticleShadows
  • Default value: false.
• bAllowParticleShadowsOnNonPlayers
  • Default value: false
• bAllowDetailShadows
  • Default value: false
• DepthOfField
  • Default value: true.
• AdvancedDepthOfField
  • Default value: false.
• Bloom
  • Default value: true.
• bAllowLightShafts
  • Default value: false.
• MotionBlur
  • Default value: true.
• AmbientOcclusion
  • Default value: false.
• PPDownSampleFactor
  • Default value: 2
• MotionBlurSamples
  • Default value: 13
• bAllowMotionBlurScreen
  • Default value: True
  • As far as I can tell, disabling this does the same thing as disabling MotionBlur, so both must be on to enable Motion Blur.
• bAllowPostprocessMLAA
  • Default value: false.
  • Enables MLAA.
• AllowRadialBlur
  • Default value: false.
• Distortion
  • Default value: true.
• bAllowAntiAliasing
  • Default value: false.
  • Enables AA.
• MaxAntiAliasingQuality
  • Default value: 0.
  • Controls AA quality level. bAllowAntiAliasing must be set to true to work. 0 allows AA, but higher values like 1 or 2 can provide higher quality AA.
• LensFlares
  • Default value: True
• bAllowHighQualityMaterials
  • Default value: False
  • Enabling this crashes the game once the title screen is reached, likely because the HQ textures might not be present.
• bAllowHighQualityMaterialEffects
  • Default value: False
  • Enables high quality effects. This can be enabled without crashing the game.
• TEXTUREGROUP_World, etc.
  • Control LOD settings.
  • Changing the TEXTUREGROUP settings will crash the game, but I haven't done extensive testing on all the values, so there may be some that don't crash the game.
  • Values are: MinLODSize, MaxLODSize, LODBias, MinMagFilter, MipFilter

Changelog:
v1.0.0: Initial Release.
v1.0.1: Fixed a serious performance bug in "The Big Parade" caused by having the GraphicsMode set to 2. It's been lowered to 1 in the Quality preset. This change does not affect the Performance preset.

 

[MayorBryce]

Update to v1.0.1. Fixed a serious performance bug in "The Big Parade" caused by having the GraphicsMode set to 2. It's been lowered to 1 in the Quality preset. This change does not affect the Performance preset. If you have v1.0.0 of the quality preset, it's highly recommended to update.