Just about the only issue I have with the game is that it sometimes starts up in windowed mode. This is fixed by shutting it down and restarting it, but it can take some tries before it works. Are there any settings or anything I can do to make it start up in full screen more assuredly?
The only thing I see in the OP that comes close is to run it in borderless windowed mode. I might try that and see how it works.
As to your question- the achievement system in Origin as related to Dragon Age: Inquisition- which is relative to this forum and current game. As to the Keep system, it wasn't designed as simply just a "game state import system"- it's also a reporting system based on current achievements, etc. Otherwise, there would be two buttons- Import and Export- and it wouldn't display any sort of progress reporting at all, IMO.
Thank you for the clarification! 
It's true that the Keep needs more work before it can be considered a reliable repository of our world states, especially since I haven't yet seen it display my current progress through Inquisition. That being said, I really like the fact that you can tweak your world state in case you've made a decision at some point that you weren't quite happy with afterwards. The Keep has proven functional for me thus far and hopefully it will get only better as the series goes on! 
Since latest patch my performance has literally plummeted. Three 980 GTX, and although there is scaling in certain areas, places like the Hissing Wastes there is literally no scaling what so ever, and I'm getting around 45-50fps at 1440p in this area and some others with or without SLI on a 5960 @ 4.4ghz.
Not sure how this has happened, however I've tried several different SLI bits that have been suggested, none improve the scaling. 80 hours in and have had little trouble besides a small portion of areas with adverse performance, but now the game runs considerably worse.
I don't think there is anything I can do but either roll back, wait for the game to be patched yet again or wait for Nvidia to roll out a new driver.
Really breaks up the immersion in games like this having issues this far in, really frustrating.
Wow, that is quite the machine you have there! 
Unfortunately, I don't have an SLI system myself, but I do know that scaling usually diminishes if you go for more than two GPUs and if not for that. Nevertheless, your system is so powerful that you should be able to brute-force your way through everything you throw at it, so 40-50 fps is really not what you would expect from it. To make matters worse, Nvidia have confirmed that it's now BioWare's responsibility to fix the SLI-associated artifacts and to improve SLI performance within the game, so you're possibly looking at a long wait until it will hit the top of their priority list. 
Just about the only issue I have with the game is that it sometimes starts up in windowed mode. This is fixed by shutting it down and restarting it, but it can take some tries before it works. Are there any settings or anything I can do to make it start up in full screen more assuredly?
The only thing I see in the OP that comes close is to run it in borderless windowed mode. I might try that and see how it works.
That happened to me as well a few times, though I'm still not sure what exactly caused it. It wasn't a problem for me though, because simply clicking on the window made it fullscreen once again. Does this not work on your end? 
Yes, I had a feeling that's the case since the scaling was there and now it isn't. So although Nvidia aren't exactly well known for understanding the end users needs, I'd have to agree with them on this one. It's something that Bioware have done to the game engine, so naturally it's their responsibility to fix it.
Yes, I had a feeling that's the case since the scaling was there and now it isn't. So although Nvidia aren't exactly well known for understanding the end users needs, I'd have to agree with them on this one. It's something that Bioware have done to the game engine, so naturally it's their responsibility to fix it.
Precisely, and judging from the myriad reports of crashing, freezing, stuttering and generally poor performance, BioWare have modified the engine quite a lot. Only time will tell if they can fix the mistakes they made along the way. 
Well yeah first open world game on fb was expecting it to be so much worse. Hopefully for the next installment they go for tweaks, ironing out issues, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. 
Don't get me wrong the game did run pretty well, especially for some of the visual fidelity and textures. But going backwards after 1 or 2 patches is inexcusable, especially when there are so many people complaining of the same issues.
This is honestly one of my favourite games of all time, but having it suddenly crippled 80 hours in definitely turns that smile upside down. Fix it soon please Bioware
That happened to me as well a few times, though I'm still not sure what exactly caused it. It wasn't a problem for me though, because simply clicking on the window made it fullscreen once again. Does this not work on your end?
No, once it happens I have to quit and restart. It happens perhaps 1/10 startups or even less, so it's not a big issue but just annoying - and a bit odd at that.
Usage is just appalling. Around 40%.
So my mage has lost all her face paint which I assume is the same as losing scars bug.
Anyway to get this back? Either from re-entering CC on PC or by restoring the original code that was created when making the character?
So my mage has lost all her face paint which I assume is the same as losing scars bug.
Anyway to get this back? Either from re-entering CC on PC or by restoring the original code that was created when making the character?
No, I don't think that will be necessary since the solution is simply to have your Mesh Quality set to "High" or above!
Ok ladies and gentlemen, after several good hours of mounting my new SSD, improving the cable management inside my case a little bit, installing Windows 8.1 Pro (x64) and what looked to be 100+ updates for it, re-installing my system's drivers, DA:I and all of the necessary redistributables, However, I decided to be cheeky this time and set every graphical setting to max, except for Texture Quality (Ultra) and MSAA (Off).
I was expecting my framerate to plummet and vary like crazy on these settings, which I would then follow with a little laugh and sigh, and then go back to the settings I used before, which were a mixture of High and Medium. None of the above happened.
My last save placed me in Skyhold and to my amazement the in-game framerate counter gave me a locked 60 even when turning around and walking through the court room with all the NPCs there. Sure, there were some minor frame drops (i.e. 1-2 frames) in a few matching areas (e.g. the war table when zooming into a territory), but I've basically gained close to maximum settings at the same framerate I was getting on Windows 7 (x64).
I will investigate further, but this feels nothing short of amazing!
Verrenus - that's great and I admit that I am slightly envious. I didn't want to upgrade to Win8 and doing all the hassle just for DA:I seems a bit much. But good to know that it's running great!
Another thing: can someone walk me through the SweetFX installation process? I somehow thought that I had installed it successfully but I just fiddled around with it and nothing changes so I think it was my imagination only, lol. I have never used SweetFX before (except for in Skyrim, I think), so I am kind of clueless. I'm on Win7 64bit.
I downloaded the SweetFX Configurator program (Vers 1.3.3.), extracted it to its own folder, started it up, pointed it to the DA:I folder and loaded Cookie's preset. I have SweetFX files in the DA:I folder now, but it seems as if DA:I is ignoring them. Do I need to run the configuration program in the background or do something else to get it to running? I'm not running Mantle
ETA: Fiddling around some more, maybe I did get it to work after all. Is there an easy way to check it? The SweetFX configurator's hotkey for switching it on/off doesn't seem to work.
ETA 2: Okay, got it! The stupid SweetFX Configurator fails to write the key bindings into the settings.txt, I added them manually and can switch it on and off now - now I can see the difference, heh.
Verrenus - that's great and I admit that I am slightly envious. I didn't want to upgrade to Win8 and doing all the hassle just for DA:I seems a bit much. But good to know that it's running great!
Another thing: can someone walk me through the SweetFX installation process? I somehow thought that I had installed it successfully but I just fiddled around with it and nothing changes so I think it was my imagination only, lol. I have never used SweetFX before (except for in Skyrim, I think), so I am kind of clueless. I'm on Win7 64bit.
I downloaded the SweetFX Configurator program (Vers 1.3.3.), extracted it to its own folder, started it up, pointed it to the DA:I folder and loaded Cookie's preset. I have SweetFX files in the DA:I folder now, but it seems as if DA:I is ignoring them. Do I need to run the configuration program in the background or do something else to get it to running? I'm not running Mantle
ETA: Fiddling around some more, maybe I did get it to work after all. Is there an easy way to check it? The SweetFX configurator's hotkey for switching it on/off doesn't seem to work.
To be honest, the whole process did take me about 6 hours in total because I am extremely careful when manipulating things inside my case so that I don't render my rig useless by mistake. A large part of that time also involved installing all of the programs again, moving the libraries from my SSD to my HDD, tweaking the Metro UI to be as non-intrusive as possible and simply getting used to the new OS.
That being said, I'm really happy I finally took the time to make the move, since it feels like a genuine improvement over Windows 7 after you sort out the Metro UI and Start Menu to your tastes. To anyone who is willing to switch to Windows 8.1, I would say just do it. Buy a cheap key from Reddit like I did (I got Windows 8.1 Pro (x64) for 25$, for instance), set aside a few hours of free time one day and make the change. I certainly don't regret it in the slightest!
As for SweetFX, I personally would recommend uninstalling SweetFX Configurator and be as lean as possible with applying SweetFX to your installation folder. If you want to run Cookie's preset, just delete all of the current SweetFX files in your DA:I folder (to make sure your start fresh), download K-putt's version of SweetFX and from the unpacked archive only put the following back into your DA:I folder:
- SweetFX folder
- 64-bit dxgi.dll
- SweetFX_preset.txt
After that, download Cookie's preset in your DA:I folder, rename it to "SweetFX_settings.txt" and you'll be golden, that's all there is to it! To test if it actually works in-game, you will need to press the Insert key, not Scroll Lock like for the official version of SweetFX!
One of these days I need to switch to Win8 if only because Win10 will be free if you own it... I have to install my husband's PC over christmas, though (he gets a shiny new SSD ), so I'd rather not fiddle with two PCs at the same time. 
Maybe DA:I's performance with Win7 improves with further patches, too. One can hope. (I have to add that it runs really nicely now, so I'm not complaining! Just to know that it could run even BETTER....!)
As for SweetFX, I personally would recommend uninstalling SweetFX Configurator and be as lean as possible with applying SweetFX to your installation folder. If you want to run Cookie's preset, just delete all of the current SweetFX files in your DA:I folder (to make sure your start fresh), download K-putt's version of SweetFX and from the unpacked archive only put the following back into your DA:I folder:
- SweetFX folder
- 64-bit dxgi.dll
- SweetFX_preset.txt
After that, download Cookie's preset in your DA:I folder, rename it to "SweetFX_settings.txt" and you'll be golden, that's all there is to it! To test if it actually works in-game, you will need to press the Insert key, not Scroll Lock like for the official version of SweetFX!
Thanks, I'll do that - it works now but there is a preset that crashes DA:I so something is not working right. Dunno why I thought I needed that configuring tool, it seems really easy doing it manually.
Is there a preset that makes the colors pop more AND sharpens the image? I like Cookie's preset because the picture stops being blurry, but KPutt's preset makes the colors pop nicely... ack.
One of these days I need to switch to Win8 if only because Win10 will be free if you own it... I have to install my husband's PC over christmas, though (he gets a shiny new SSD
Thanks, I'll do that - it works now but there is a preset that crashes DA:I so something is not working right. Dunno why I thought I needed that configuring tool, it seems really easy doing it manually.
Is there a preset that makes the colors pop more AND sharpens the image? I like Cookie's preset because the picture stops being blurry, but KPutt's preset makes the colors pop nicely... ack.
Yep, I don't know if this applies to other games apart from DA:I just yet, but it really does run better on Windows 8.1, that much is clear to me now! Definitely don't fiddle with two PCs at the same time because they are very fickle creatures. I myself am still in the process of optimising my Windows 8.1 installation since even though I installed it from scratch yesterday, it would seem that Windows Update might have run into some trouble that is now giving me problems like high CPU usage for no apparent reason. Sigh... fiddling with PCs is both a blessing and a curse - when you get it right, it's incredibly satisfying and rewarding, but when you get it wrong, even slightly, it can take you ages to figure out how, where and when it occurred and how you might make it right again. 
If a preset crashes DA:I, check the "log.txt" file that SweetFX automatically creates in the same folder. It will tell you exactly why it crashed and what caused it. I know for a fact that for K-putt's version of SweetFX you need to use Notepad++ whenever you want to modify "SweetFX_settings.txt", otherwise any modification you make using regular Notepad will just cause your game to instantly crash back to desktop upon starting, with the "log.txt" file saying that you have unrecognised characters in your settings file. I don't know the whole explanation behind this behaviour, but it doesn't hurt for you to know this now, since it gave me quite a bit of headache before K-putt himself told me to use Notepad++ with his presets.
For Cookie's preset to make the colours pop like K-putt's one, all you need to do is open Cookie's "SweetFX_settings.txt" file with Notepad++ and change the following parameters in the "Vibrance settings" area:
#define Vibrance 0.17 to 0.25
#define Vibrance_RGB_balance float3(0.8, 0.70, 1.00) to (0.2, 0.2, 0.8)
That should do it! Please report back if you have any problems and we'll take care of them, no worries!
I actually turned K-Putt's vibrance up to 0.27 a bit just because it felt it needed a tiny kick. But I have an IPS monitor with crazy awesome colors so I might be in the minority of vibrance settings. The RGB balance values make me nervous to adjust because I feel like those are set specifically to fit the game maybe?
I actually turned K-Putt's vibrance up to 0.27 a bit just because it felt it needed a tiny kick. But I have an IPS monitor with crazy awesome colors so I might be in the minority of vibrance settings. The RGB balance values make me nervous to adjust because I feel like those are set specifically to fit the game maybe?
That's exactly right, the RGB balance values are different for every game, based on their individual base colour scheme. That being said, there's nothing stopping you from tweaking them, since they will just affect DA:I, not your whole PC, and with SweetFX it's so easy to revert back to any setting you had before even while running the game, so don't be afraid to tweak anything you feel does not suit your tastes!
That's exactly right, the RGB balance values are different for every game, based on their individual base colour scheme. That being said, there's nothing stopping you from tweaking them, since they will just affect DA:I, not your whole PC, and with SweetFX it's so easy to revert back to any setting you had before even while running the game, so don't be afraid to tweak anything you feel does not suit your tastes!
Ya that is totally true. I guess I'm just paranoid about making it looking weird and then getting used to it haha.
Also do you find a particular ingame graphics setting that really kills your FPS? I use GeForce Experience to set the graphics settings to a lot of my games (I've gotten lazy over the years) and I get around 50-60 fps in just about everywhere but would love a solid 60.
@Verrenus
That's great. Amazing 8.1 makes that kind of difference!
You know a lot of people crap on Win 8 because of the whole metro UI. But if you can get past that (I literally never use it) its really a nice snappy quick operating system. Especially the boot up times!
Ya that is totally true. I guess I'm just paranoid about making it looking weird and then getting used to it haha.
Also do you find a particular ingame graphics setting that really kills your FPS? I use GeForce Experience to set the graphics settings to a lot of my games (I've gotten lazy over the years) and I get around 50-60 fps in just about everywhere but would love a solid 60.
I played for quite a few hours last night and ended up turning Effects Quality and Shadows Quality from "Ultra" to "High". The crazy effects were hitting my framerate during combat, while shadows are generally a massive resource hog in every game. I will try to bring Effects Quality back to "Ultra" though, since setting it any lower than that makes all effects look really pixelated.
As a side note, GeForce Experience doesn't aim to give you a solid 60 FPS using its recommendations, but rather 40 or even 30 FPS! Because of this, I only use its suggestions as guidelines and always tweak them up and down based on my own experiences with the game. I will report back to see if I manage to find a combination of settings that doesn't compromise on quality but eliminates unnecessary resource hogging!
@Verrenus
That's great. Amazing 8.1 makes that kind of difference!
You know a lot of people crap on Win 8 because of the whole metro UI. But if you can get past that (I literally never use it) its really a nice snappy quick operating system. Especially the boot up times!
It really does make a world of difference and outside of gaming it feels much more robust and snappier than Windows 7 ever was! All you need to do to make Windows 8.1 really usable is to install a start menu (e.g. Classic Shell, Start8, etc. - I personally use Start8), set it to boot directly to desktop and voila, you instantly have a better OS that has the same functionality as you were used to! I couldn't believe it was so fast and easy to make it work and even look just like Windows 7. For reference, this article describes everything in more detail!
Thanks for the SweetFX help, you guys are AWESOME!
Now that I knew where to look I tweaked the file a bit - only increasing the vibrance changed nothing for me, so I also fiddled a bit with the tonemap settings.
So now I use Cookie's preset, but have changed the following values to match KPutt's. Well, and I put a lot more saturation in, heh:
Tonemap settings
#define Gamma 0.98
#define Exposure 0.0
#define Saturation 0.4
#define Bleach 0.0
#define Defog 0.4
#define FogColor float3(0.01, 0.03, 0.0)
Vibrance settings
#define Vibrance 0.27
#define Vibrance_RGB_balance float3(0.2, 0.2, 0.8)
It's really colorful now, lol, I guess one could knock the saturation down a bit but... I like it.
It's true that the Keep needs more work before it can be considered a reliable repository of our world states, especially since I haven't yet seen it display my current progress through Inquisition.
They haven't turned on the DA:I section in the Keep yet, likely because they're still trying to figure out how to allow us to set DA:I values without it completely breaking imports into DA:I. If they didn't plan ahead, it's probably become a bit of work to adjust the back end to account for imports that have values not relevant to imports into DA:I (aka, anything that will be in the DA:I section).
Updated the OP with a download link for the DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010), without which most games - including DA:I - cannot even start on a fresh OS install due to missing .dll files (e.g. D3DCOMPILER.dll)!
Ok ladies and gentlemen, after several good hours of mounting my new SSD, improving the cable management inside my case a little bit, installing Windows 8.1 Pro (x64) and what looked to be 100+ updates for it, re-installing my system's drivers, DA:I and all of the necessary redistributables, However, I decided to be cheeky this time and set every graphical setting to max, except for Texture Quality (Ultra) and MSAA (Off).
I was expecting my framerate to plummet and vary like crazy on these settings, which I would then follow with a little laugh and sigh, and then go back to the settings I used before, which were a mixture of High and Medium. None of the above happened.
My last save placed me in Skyhold and to my amazement the in-game framerate counter gave me a locked 60 even when turning around and walking through the court room with all the NPCs there. Sure, there were some minor frame drops (i.e. 1-2 frames) in a few matching areas (e.g. the war table when zooming into a territory), but I've basically gained close to maximum settings at the same framerate I was getting on Windows 7 (x64).
I will investigate further, but this feels nothing short of amazing!
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