Hi

Now that you and I share a deep spiritual connection:

Lots of settings in the graphics menu don't do much, so this guide explains what they do and suggests presets that you can use to have the game looking good and running as fast as possible.

A high framerate (FPS) makes all the difference in how well you play (also ping, but that's not really something you can control).

You should try to achieve at least 60 FPS in a game like Minigame Madness.

If you can go higher than that, good for you! Playing at very high framerates (120+) will lower input delay and help you react faster even if your display can only output 60 FPS. The problem with going higher than 60 means you will get screen tearing, a distracting effect which splices frames due to a mismatched framerate.

The fix for screen tearing is to enable Vsync, but this has its own problems!

Vsync will synchronize your game and your display so that you get zero screen tearing (yay!)

The problem with this is that it limits your framerate to your montior's max, usually 60 FPS (nay...)

It also introduces more delay, which can slow your reaction time (awww).

That means it’s decision time!

Option 1: Enable Vsync and play at your monitor’s refresh rate. This gives you the most fluid and smooth image, but may not be as responsive.

It might be worth it to increase some graphics options if you can still maintain your monitor’s limit! In the words of Enrico himself: “Why not live a little?” Good graphics are fun!

Option 2: Disable Vsync and cope with the screen tearing. On the plus side, you’ll have more responsiveness and the capacity to run at even higher framerates by lowering some settings. This could potentially give you a small competitive advantage over Vsync players.

Anyhow, it’s time to start actually talking about GRAPHICS settings now.

Here are the settings I play the game with:



I play like this because everything that has been set to Lowest does not add much to the game.

Normal shadows give you an advantage in certain minigames.

Normal Shaders use most of the effects from Highest settings while still running fast.

Crowd density cripples FPS and doesn't add anything worthwhile.

And finally, Highest anti-aliasing has the lowest amount of visual defects and does the best job.

If this works for you, you don't need to read the rest of the guide.



Here is a second preset which gives you even more FPS:





This maintains shadows and Anti-aliasing while setting everything else to the lowest.

Shadows give you a gameplay advantage and Anti-Aliasing reduces annoying artefacts while not lowering performance that much. UE4 is very reliant on some form of AA so you should always have it on.

If this works for you, you don't need to read the rest of the guide

If you want more FPS, FidelityFX will give you more FPS in GPU-bound scenarios.

FidelityFX lowers the game's resolution, and then uses a filter to try and upscale it back to your native resolution. Since you're playing at a low resolution, your GPU can output a higher FPS. If your CPU is the one lagging behind, then this will do next to nothing for you.

Generally, you will not notice a difference for anything above 77% as long as you have Anti Aliasing set to Highest.

Anti-Aliasing helps FidelityFX look better, so it is always good to use Highest if you want to use FidelityFX.



If you don't trust me for some reason, here's a comparison at 34% of 1080p



Highest is objectively better and you cannot change my mind. The extra performance from Lowest is usually insignificant unless you're super super desperate.

You're real brave for choosing to read this section of the guide.

We are going to do a deep dive into every graphics setting in the graphics section so that you become an expert by the end of this.

youll also win every game !! (not guaranteed that you will win every game)

TEXTURE QUALITY DOES NOTHING AND ITS USELESS
(set it to lowest, you might as well)
moving on...

Effect Quality does something!

This mostly controls the density of particle effects.

The most obvious thing that this affects is the confetti in the lobby.


Notice how Highest adds more confetti in the air

This will lower your FPS when any effect like this is present onscreen, like the smoke from the bullets in Blazing Bullets. This also affects the amount of confetti when someone wins a minigame.

It might be worth it to set this to Lowest if you’re using FidelityFX, as this will give your CPU more headroom and potentially multiply your FPS.

Foliage Quality controls the density of grass.

This will lower your FPS in minigames like Explosive Exchange and Sumo Shamble which both feature grass.

Higher settings will use more detailed models as well as more copies of that model.
Look for the extra blades of grass when the Highest setting is in use.

This is not something you're going to be paying attention to during gameplay, so you should have this at lowest unless the lack of grass bothers you (it’s totally possible). In that case, Normal or High will be enough.

Shadow Quality controls the resolution of shadows cast from light sources in-game.

Since shadows are used constantly throughout the game, this has a permanent affect on your FPS.


You should have shadows set to "Normal" to help with minigames like Frantic Forces and Blazing Bullets.

In Blazing Bullets, the shadows can warn you of a oncoming bullet, giving you an advantage. This image shows what I mean.


On "Low" shadows are still not drawn under every object and can be too blurry to represent the object. "Normal" fixes these issues while running the fastest.

Shader Quality controls various post effects, like ambient occlusion and bloom.

This setting layers on some extra little effects to make the graphics pop out a little more.


Notice the extra shadowing (ambient occlusion) around my mub, the boxes, and the details in the door.

This option will also permanently lower your FPS as this is used everywhere.

Another important note is that "Low" uses most of the effects in "Highest" while running faster, which is why it is why I chose it over "Lowest". The Normal setting adds in a subtle bloom effect seen in the screenshot which can look real nice.

Anti-Aliasing Quality controls the type and strength of Anti-Aliasing.

This is a very important effect. The technique used by Minigame Madness is called Temporal Anti-Aliasing. It runs super fast and usually does an excellent job of blending pixels together at the cost of mild blurriness, but the implementation in UE4 is excellent.

Here is the previous comparison that shows off what AA does, at 34% of 1080p.



Another thing to note is that some shader effects break a little on Lowest Anti-Aliasing. Ambient occlusion becomes very dithered and distracting rather than pleasing.

I noticed zero difference in performance and Highest looks wonderful, so you should always use "Highest" for the smoothest pixels.

Preview Quality controls the quality of the Mub on the bottom left and the Mubs on profiles.

The difference between lowest and highest cannot be represented through screenshots because on higher settings, the preview becomes a moving 3D model rather than a static model (maybe just an image?)

Setting this to "Lowest" will give you a wild FPS boost at no visual cost since you won't be spending your games staring at your Mub, and there's no difference in the sharpness or lighting of your mub. This is essentially free FPS for those playing on higher settings. I see no reason to set this anything higher than Lowest due to how subtle it is.

Crowd Density controls how many NPC Mubs are present during minigames.

If you get very low FPS on Disco Disorder compared to other minigames, setting the crowd density to "Lowest" should fix that. The Mubs in the background are surprisingly taxing to render, and they do not alter gameplay at all. Just like with the preview, you will not be staring at them while playing.


Even if they just jump around, you seriously can’t skip these guys when it comes to performance. You should at least lower this a little bit. Lowest might not be necessary. But it could mean the difference between maintaining that Vsync limit or not.

View Distance affects how eagerly the game will use low quality models at close/far distances.

This settings enables the use of blockier, worse models at a distance to save on performance. Lower settings would use these worse models closer to the camera, therefore saving even more performance. This is called a Level of Detail system (LoD).

This is used on VERY few models in-game. The only three examples I ever saw were the Bomb in Explosive Exchange, the rocks around the interior of Chaotic Chambers, and the game's grass. The Lowest setting was still alright and did not make my eyes bleed. Try Normal if you play with a nigher foliage setting.

You can set this to Highest to guarantee high quality models, but Lowest honestly doesn’t change much and can give you a bit more FPS. But since this affects so little, it does not matter that much compared to other things.

There exists a second section of graphics options with more effects that you fiddle with. It looks a little something like this:



I personally turn everything down to zero as I find all of these to be annoying. Motion blur is a distracting effect and causes a huge loss in clarity when you're moving rapidly.

Film grain makes the game look a little fuzzy and noisy. It is meant to enhance texture detail but it is too exaggerated by default. 40% would be a more reasonable value if you want to have it enabled. 60% is my personal max for motion blur if you want to use that too, because it can help low framerates like 30 FPS look nicer.

Screenshake is another distracting effect that can throw you off at 100%. 30% is more reasonable and still effective at doing what it intends to do.

Screenshake does exactly what it sounds like. This will shake your screen when something big happens.

This can be seen in Frantic Forces every time the crates are thrown up and after an explosion in Explosive Exchange.

My recommended setting is 30% or Off since this can disorient you and throw you off your game.

Motion Blur Amount controls how much to blur the environment when your camera moves quickly.

In the comparison below, I was moving my camera from left to right very quickly and running the game at 120 FPS.



You can easily see why most people turn motion blur off. However, as I said earlier, it can help you cope with low framerates by somewhat masking the perceived choppiness of the image. 60% or Off are my personal recommendations.

Film Grain Amount controls how much artificial camera grain to add to the image.

Controlled amounts can have a very nice effect, but 100% is way too much. See for yourself.You may have to zoom in to see the difference in these screenshots, but it is way more obvious in actual gameplay.



40% or Off are my recommendations once again.

I am a nerd

Uprate this guide if you liked it

ok bye