Well, I know I said AP didn't have as many bugs as I thought. Guess I have to fall back upon that. Due to the modding thread I was browsing the APEngine.ini, I made an interesting discovery.

All advanced graphic options were on "true" even if I had disabled them in the game. I figured this was due this section being unused though, still, for certainty I started AP.

 

Sure enough all ingame settings set off. I changed the resolution to 1280x800 (to test some stuff) then existed the game and re-opened the APEngine.ini.

And sure enough, all options were on FALSE now.

 

More testing did indeed confirm that the = true and false parameters in the APEngine.ini and ingame statistics didn't match UNLESS I did a resolution change (no, "apply" and stuff didn't work), and then don't made tweaks afterwards.

 

If the functions in APEngine.ini (which make sense) would be a factor used in the game, and the 'off', 'on' options in the menu meaningless because they could match the .ini settings not, this could explain why many people would have stuttering even with low graphics... they still use the highest!

 

Any other people willing to see if they see the same disrepency in APEngine.ini and the ingame mentions?

Are the effects definitely not taking, or are they just not showing in the menu? I trashed my ni file last time and had to start over (long story short - trying to get my head round the AA/AF issues). Some of the changes definitely work without changing res (eg motion blur).

They show "off" in the ingame menu (advanced screen, not motion blur, although I notice if you turn it off then load a game it's still on anyway...) but "on" in the .ini.

And indeed, shutting them off in the ini made my game run faster (and look worse).

I can confirm this worked for me, too. Lowering the resolution one click actually disabled dynamic shadows and solved almost all my performance and gameplay problems.