What is SSAO?
 

In advanced settings, SSAO - what does this do?

Ok, thanks. And is this worth having enabled? Performance killer?

you will see no big deal in the graphics
almost none:cool:
but you will see a big difference in performance
i live it OFF as i have everything else on highest:-)

It is a shading algorithm and it is basically there to provide depth to your textures. In other words, it is a resource hog and you won't see much difference unless you're close up.

so if we tick it in the menu..is it enabled or off?

If you check the box it is turned on and you take a big performance hit.

many thanks:)

Its a thing that uses a whole bunch of system resources and gives you very little to show for it in return :)

It does give a good graphical effect when implemented correctly. I have it activated in Just Cause 2 and it makes a noticable difference especially on the grass and trees.

The problem with Clod's SSAO is its completely unoptimised. There is also the issue of what method of SSAO they are using. There are two different methods of doing it, one method is optimised for Nvidia cards. This is called HBAO which stands for Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion. The other method is called HDAO or High Definition Ambient Occlusion and this is for ATI / AMD cards. The reason there are two seperate methods for each card is because SSAO relies on the GPU only to do it.

Alot of games that use SSAO like Just Cause 2 or Stalker COP allow you to choose either method. I know on my system with Just Cause 2 that there is a massive improvement in performance when I use the HDAO SSAO with my ATI card.

In any case you think Clod being an Nvidia-sponsered game it would use the HBAO SSAO method that was friendly with Nvidia cards but even then its clearly not optimised.