Sure, you could configure Crysis 3 using the in-game options menu, but real pros update their volumetric water shadows in real time. EA has sent Gamefront a full list of the console commands available for the GPU-bothering FPS. The commands can be modified during singleplayer sessions by accessing the console - either through the tilde key in the US, or the collection of largely pointless punctuation in the same spot on Brit-based keyboards. (It's the key above Tab, wherever you happen to live.)
Along with the commands are instructions on how to edit them. For the most part, you're better off editing the .cfg files in Crysis 3's root directory. But if you're looking for a quick change, each one will work in the console. For instance, you can remove all the visual clutter for screenshots by enabling the following:
r_colorgrading 0 (Removes the black and white color grading)
hud_hide 1 (Removes hud)
r_drawnearfov 2 (Toggles weapon visibility)
The full list is below. It's absolutely massive. As a reward for those who make it to the end, I've embedded a video of some sloths in a bucket. Alternatively, read our Crysis 3 review to find out if you'll want the game these commands command.
Game
Field of View
CVar: cl_fov
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
The vertical field of view in degrees.
This controls several individual FOV controls that you can tweak manually if you prefer:
cl_FOV – The main field of view
r_DrawNearFOV – the field of view for nearby objects (held weapon, etc)
pl_movement.power_sprint_targetFOV – The field of view while power sprinting
Default Value: 60
HUD Bobbing
CVar: cl_bobhud
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Controls the amount of bob hud which is applied.
Default is 1.0
HUD Canvas Adjustment
CVar: hud_canvas_width_adjustment
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Multiplayer only. Multiplies the width of the HUD's virtual canvas in cases where it may overlap monitor boundaries in multi-monitor setups. NOTE: before this multiplier is applied, the HUD clamps itself to a 16:9 res.
Default is 1.0
Hud Hide
CVar: hud_hide
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
If this cvar is true the HUD will be hidden from view completely.
Suitable for screenshots or very immersive play. NOTE: This feature is not fully supported, and this cvar value might need to be reset in game, e.g. on loading a save.
Default is off (hud visible)
Music Volume
CVar: s_MusicVolume
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Controls the volume of Music, in the range from 0.0 to 1.0.
Default is 1.0, full volume.
SFX Volume
CVar: s_SFXVolume
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Controls the volume of SFX, in the range from 0.0 to 1.0.
Default is 1.0, full volume.
Dialog Volume
CVar: s_DialogVolume
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Controls the volume of Dialog, in the range from 0.0 to 1.0.
Default is 1.0, full volume.
Max FPS Limit
CVar: sys_MaxFps
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Limits the frame rate to specified number.
A value of 0 means no limit.
Default is 0
Input
Toggle Crouch
CVar: cl_crouchToggle
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Makes the crouch key work as a toggle.
Default is on
Toggle Zoom
CVar: cl_zoomToggle
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Makes the zoom key work as a toggle.
Default is on
Mouse Smoothing
CVar: i_mouse_smooth
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Set mouse smoothing value, also if 0 (disabled) there will be a simple average between the old and the actual input.
(1.0 = very very smooth, 30 = almost instant)
Default is 0.0
Mouse Acceleration
CVar: i_mouse_accel
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Set mouse acceleration, 0.0 means no acceleration.
Default is 0.0
Mouse Acceleration Max
CVar: i_mouse_accel_max
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Set mouse max mouse delta when using acceleration.
Default is 100.0
Mouse Sensitivity
CVar: cl_sensitivity
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Sets mouse sensitivity.
Default is 30.0
Graphics Features
Particle Collisions
CVar: e_ParticlesObjectCollisions
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Controls what objects particles will collide with.
Default Value: Static (Low/Medium), Dynamic (High/Very High)
None: No particle collisions at all.
Static: Particles tagged for collisions will interact with static objects.
Dynamic: As with Static, but dynamic objects also.
Particle Motion Blur
CVar: e_ParticlesMotionBlur
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Enables or disables motion blur effect on fast moving particles.
Default Value: Off (Low/Medium/High), On (Very High)
Force Soft Particles
CVar: e_ParticlesForceSoftParticles
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Forces all possible particles to use soft intersections with geometry – increases the cost but will all but eliminate hard edges on particles.
Default Value: Off (Low/Medium/High), On (Very High)
Tessellation
CVar: e_Tessellation
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Enables or disables DX11 ALL tessellation.
Default Value: Off (Low/Medium/High), On (Very High)
NOTE: Currently not tweakable in the latest build of the game.
Will be tweakable soon.
Water Ocean Tessellation
CVar: r_WaterTessellationHW
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Enables or disables DX11 tessellation for the ocean water surface.
Default Value: Off (Low/Medium/High), On (Very High)
Pixel Accurate Displacement Maps
CVar: r_SilhouettePOM
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Enables or disables the Pixel Accurate Displacement Mapping (VERY GPU intensive).
Default Value: Off (Low/Medium/High), On (Very High)
Real-time Global Illumination
CVar: e_GI
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Enables or disables real-time Global Illumination.
Default Value: Off (Low), On (Medium/High/Very High)
Real-time Volumetric Cloud Shadows
CVar: r_FogShadows
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Enables or disables Real-time Volumetric Cloud Shadows.
Default Value: Off (Low/Medium), On (High/Very High)
Volumetric Water Shadows
CVar: r_FogShadowsWater
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Enables or disables the Real-time Volumetric Shadows underneath water.
Default Value: Off (Low), On (Medium/High/Very High)
Screen-space Reflections
CVar: r_SSReflections
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Enables or disables the Screen-Space reflections effect on glossy or reflective materials.
Default Value: Off (Low/Medium/High), On (Very High)
Depth of Field
CVar: r_DepthOfField
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Enables or disables the depth of field blur effect.
Default Value: OnNOTE: Currently not tweakable in the latest build of the game.
Will be tweakable soon.
Explosion Blur
CVar: g_radialBlur
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Enables or disables the radial blur effect applied after an explosion.
Default Value: On
Color Grading
CVar: r_ColorGrading
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Enables or disables the artist controlled color grading post-processing effect.
Default Value: On
Graphics Tweaking
Sharpening
CVar: r_Sharpening
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Controls the level of the post-processing image sharpening filter.
Higher values give more sharpening, but too high values will create artifacts
A value of 0.0 is off
Default Value: 0.25
Chromatic Aberration
CVar: r_ChromaticAberration
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Controls the level of the post-processing chromatic aberration.
A value of 0.0 is off
Default Value: 1.5
Filmgrain
CVar: r_HDRGrainAmount
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Controls the level of film grain applied to the final image to help alleviate artifacts from lack of colour precision in 32-bit colour displays.
A value of 0.0 is off
Default Value: 0.0
Bloom amount
CVar: r_HDRBloomRatio
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Controls the level of bloom used to simulate over-bright areas of the screen
Default Value: 0.15
Bloom threshold
CVar: r_HDRBrightLevel
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Controls the brightness level threshold used to compute bloom
Default Value: 1.0
Ambient Occlusion Method
CVar: r_ssao
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Chooses the ambient occlusion method
Default Value: SSAO (Low/Medium/High), SSDO (Very High)
None: No ambient occlusion is used.
SSAO: Screen-space Ambient Occlusion.
SSDO: Screen-space Directional Occlusion.
Texture Pool Size (MB)
CVar: r_TexturesStreamPoolSize
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Sets the size of VRAM that is available in a pool for texture streaming.
Value is in Megabytes, and may be clamped based on the amount of video memory detected
Default Value: 192 (Low), 384 (Medium), 512 (High/Very High)
Shadow Timeslicing
CVar: e_GsmCache
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Saves GPU performance by updating distant shadows less often.
Default Value: On (Low) Off (Medium/High/Very High)
Shadow Casting Light Scale
CVar: e_ShadowsResScale
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Controls the resolution of shadow maps used for individual shadow casting lights.
Value is an arbitrary multiplier, so doubling this will double the resolution of each light
Default Value: 3.4 (Low/Medium/High), 40 (Very High)
Tessellated Shadow Cascades
CVar: e_ShadowsTessellateCascades
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Determines how many shadow cascades to apply tessellation for.
A setting of 0 disables tessellation in all shadows.
Default Value: 1
NOTE: Currently not tweakable in the latest build of the game.
Will be tweakable soon.
Shadow Pool Size
CVar: e_ShadowsPoolSize
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Sets the size of the shadow pool render target – increased size produces more resolution available for, and fewer artifacts in shadow casting lights (NOT including the sun). Value should be a power of 2 (128, 256, …)
If the pool is too small to fit the minimum size for the shadow casting lights, the GPU will thrash and performance will be severely impacted
Default Value: 2048 (Low/Medium/High), 4096 (Very High)
Sun Shadow Map Size
CVar: e_ShadowsMaxTexRes
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Sets the size of each sun shadow cascade – increased size produces more resolution available for sun shadows.
Default Value: 512 (Low), 1024 (Medium/High/Very High)
Global Illumination Timeslicing
CVar: e_GICache
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Sets the number of frames to cache GI results for before regenerating
A value of 0 disables all caching and regenerates GI every frame
Default Value: 7
Global Illumination Iterations
CVar: e_GIIterations
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Sets the number of iterations to perform when calculating Global Illumination
A higher number will reduce bleeding and lengthen the light propagation distance
Default Value: 10
Tessellation Distance Limit
CVar: e_TessellationMaxDistance
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Changes the distance in metres where tessellation will stop applying to objects
Default Value: 30
Tessellation Triangle Target Size
CVar: r_TessellationTriangleSize
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
The length of a triangle edge in pixels to aim for when tessellating.
Default Value: 8
Grass Instance Animation Distance
CVar: e_MergedMeshesInstanceDist
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Distance fudge-factor where interactive grass instances will stop animating.
Default Value: 4.5 (Low/Medium/High) 8.0 (Very High)
Grass Instance Max Distance
CVar: e_MergedMeshesViewDistRatio
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Multiplier controlling where chunks of interactive grass instances will disappear in the distance.
Default Value: 50
LOD distance ratio
CVar: e_LodRatio
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Controls how close objects drop to lower Levels Of Detail. A higher number means a longer distance before this drop happens.
Default Value: 4 (Low), 6 (Medium) 20 (High), 40 (Very High)
View distance ratio (General)
CVar: e_ViewDistRatio
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Controls how close objects will stop rendering in the distance.
Default Value: 25 (Low), 35 (Medium) 100 (High/Very High)
View distance ratio (Vegetation)
CVar: e_ViewDistRatioVegetation
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Controls how close vegetation will stop rendering in the distance.
Default Value: 21 (Low), 31 (Medium) 100 (High/Very High)
View distance ratio (Detail)
CVar: e_ViewDistRatioDetail
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Controls how close certain objects marked as 'detail' by artists will stop rendering in the distance.
Default Value: 19 (Low), 24 (Medium) 100 (High/Very High)
Miscellaneous
Skip Intro Movies
CVar: g_skipIntro
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Skips the introduction movies that play before the main menu at game boot.
Default Value: Off
Fullscreen window mode
CVar: r_FullscreenWindow
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
When enabled, selecting 'fullscreen' in the menus will use a window that fills the screen, allowing easy alt-tab.
Windowed mode will behave as normal.
Default Value: Off
Disallow Fullscreen Pre-emption
CVar: r_FullscreenPreemption
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
When enabled, Pop-ups such as instant message windows and other focus-stealing windows will not minimise the game.
Default Value: On
Force Output Monitor
CVar: r_overrideDXGIOutput
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Gives the number of display to use when creating the game window. 0 is the default/primary monitor and 1, 2, etc are displays after that. Allows you to create the window on a different monitor from your primary monitor (e.g. a TV or other external display)
Default Value: 0
Multi-GPU Support
CVar: r_MGPU
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Determines Multi-GPU support in engine.
Default Value: Autodetect
Disabled: No multi-GPU support.
Forced: Multi-GPU support is force-enabled.
Autodetect: CryEngine auto-detects whether or not to enable Multi-GPU support.
Hardware Gamma Level
CVar: r_Gamma
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Changes the hardware gamma level. Affects desktop as well.
Default Value: 1.0
Internal Occlusion Culling
CVar: e_CoverageBufferReproj
Recommended to be placed in autoexec.cfg
Controls the internal occlusion culling. You shouldn't need to modify this cvar, but if you encounter any popping with rapid moving, experiment with disabling this.
Default Value: On
Game Network Port
CVar: g_blaze_gamePort
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
The network port games connections will be made on.
Enable Blaze VOIP
CVar: net_blaze_voip_enable
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Toggles whether Blaze VOIP is enabled or not.
Default Value: On
Enable Blaze VOIP PTT
CVar: net_blaze_voip_enable_ptt
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Toggles whether Blaze VOIP Push-to-talk is enabled or not.
Default Value: On
Enable Blaze VOIP
CVar: net_blaze_voip_playback_volume
Recommended to be placed in system.cfg
Sets the Blaze VOIP playback volume, in the range 0.0 to 1.0.
Default Value: 1.0 Full volume
...Phew. Here's your reward.
