GK2 Performance

Frame-rate options for Graveyard Keeper 2 (version 1.010), added to the game's own Settings menu under Graphics. Every option starts at Game (what the Graphics preset picks), so installing it changes nothing until you choose something. The options work with any preset: for example High with Fitted shadows. Hover over the ? beside an option's name for what it does.

The options

Shadows

• Game: the preset's shadows. On PC they reach 3000 units, though the camera only shows about 20.
• Fitted: the same soft shadows, reaching only as far as the camera shows. Should be faster and sharper.
• Console: the shadows the PS5 and Xbox Series versions use: simpler soft shadows, no lamp shadows.
• Hard: hard-edged shadows.
• Off: no shadows.

World resolution

• Game: Full on High, Medium and Low; Pixel art on Lowest.
• Full: the world drawn at your screen's full resolution.
• Pixel art: the world drawn at the game's pixel size and scaled up (a quarter of the pixels at 1080p, a sixteenth at 4K). The biggest saving for weaker graphics cards. As on Lowest, the camera follows you rigidly and the water is the simpler kind.

Pixel snapping: Game snaps the camera and your character to whole screen pixels, so the world moves in uneven pixel steps when you walk. Off lets them move smoothly between pixels: even scrolling, though pixel-art edges may shimmer a little while moving. Only with Full world resolution (Pixel art draws on the pixel grid anyway).

Ambient shading (the soft darkening in corners and under things): Game, Half res (same look, worked out at half resolution), Low, Off.

Lamps (torches, candles and other lights): Game, Real, No shadows (real lights that cast no shadows), Nearest (real lights, only the few nearest you with shadows), Faked (painted into a texture, cheaper).

FPS counter: frame rate and frame time in the top-right corner, to compare the options, and under it what the frames cost (draw batches, shadow casters, memory per frame; CPU and graphics card time when the game keeps them).

What helps the most

Measured on one PC (RTX 3070, 2560x1440 fullscreen, the Medium preset) in the village, the busiest place, each option on its own. Your PC will differ, but the pattern is a good start:

• At night the lamps are the big cost. Lamps: Faked nearly doubled the frame rate (+80%); it's most of what the Low preset saves. Lamps: No shadows and Shadows: Console each gave about +17%, and LampLightsPerObject = 2 about +11%. Lamps: Nearest only +5% (the lamps that cost are the ones on screen, which are the nearest anyway).
• By day: Shadows: Off +22%, Ambient shading: Off +10%, Hard or Console shadows about +7%, Pixel art about +6%.
• The High preset was about 15% slower than Medium. Fitted shadows made little difference on this PC.
• A weaker graphics card, or a 4K screen, should gain more from Pixel art and Ambient shading.

A good pick for that PC: Lamps: Faked and Shadows: Console, everything else on Game. Turn on the FPS counter to compare on yours.

The choices are kept in BepInEx/config/com.gk2perf.performance.cfg. Two more are only there: LampShadowCount (how many lamps keep shadows with Lamps Nearest) and LampLightsPerObject (how many lamps light one object in full detail; 0 is the game's 8).

If something looks wrong

Set that option back to Game. If shadows vanish near the top of the screen with Fitted, raise FittedShadowMargin in the config file. Each change writes what's in effect to BepInEx/LogOutput.log; include it when reporting a problem.

Works alongside GK2 Co-op.

Changelog

0.3.0

• Each of the mod's options in Settings has a "?" beside its name: hover over it for what the option and each of its values do, in the game's own tooltip (as GK2 Co-op's settings have).
• The Settings window fits on small and windowed screens: when it's taller than the screen, its options scroll (mouse wheel, or as the keyboard or gamepad moves through them), with a scroll bar beside them. Before, the six added options pushed the window off the screen.
• Lamps: new choice Nearest. Real lamps, but only the few nearest you keep their shadows (6, LampShadowCount in the config file).
• New config option LampLightsPerObject: how many lamps light one object in full detail. The game allows 8 on every preset, and each one draws the object again. 2 was about 11% faster at night in the village; the light is a little rougher where lamps overlap. 0 (the default) keeps the game's.
• The FPS counter has a second line with what the frames cost: draw batches, shadow casters, and memory allocated per frame.
• The README says which options helped most in a measured test (night and day, in the busiest place).

0.1.4

• New option, Pixel snapping: Off lets the camera and your character move smoothly between screen pixels instead of snapping to them, so the world scrolls evenly when walking (with the world at full resolution).

0.1.3

• The log also says how movement is timed (physics rate, whether the character is smoothed between physics steps, how the camera updates), and while you walk it measures how evenly the character and the camera move from frame to frame.

0.1.2

• Pixel art no longer turns the water white: it uses the simpler water, as the game does on Lowest (the detailed water needs the full-resolution drawing).

0.1.1

• The Settings window no longer shrinks the darkened backdrop behind it (only the panel is fitted to small screens).

0.1.0

• First test build: Shadows (Game, Fitted, Console, Hard, Off), World resolution (Game, Full, Pixel art), Ambient shading (Game, Half res, Low, Off), Lamps (Game, Real, No shadows, Faked) and an FPS counter, in the game's Settings menu under Graphics.