Risen 2: Tweaks & Tuning

Which .ini values should I use on a Radeon 6850 / Phenom 2 X4 PC?

I think HiddenX's ones should be ok for your Rig (i.e reducing the pop-in without killing framerate too much). Perhaps raise the small values a bit if your PC can handle it ?

Mine i.e (I ended up setting even more extreme values increasing my mins and pushing medium and large values further) are more of a brute force approach and bring the framerate quite a bit (30 fps min) down on a core i7960 ATI 5870 (somewhat better than yours)… I just can't stand NPCs i.e popping into existanse a few "meters" away
(I also double the Roi value on G3 usually )

Originally Posted by JonNik
Mine i.e (I ended up setting even more extreme values increasing my mins and pushing medium and large values further) are more of a brute force approach and bring the framerate quite a bit (30 fps min) down on a core i7960 ATI 5870 (somewhat better than yours)… I just can't stand NPCs i.e popping into existanse a few "meters" away
(I also double the Roi value on G3 usually )

I think some of your issues are ATI related. I played with the default high settings, and the only pop-in I ever saw was some minor world objects and foliage at a distance. I never saw an NPC pop in during my entire playthough.

I am not sure we are talking about the same thing.

Npcs will spawn (become visible) at the distances indicated in the .xml from the protagonist. That has nothing to do with the graphics card.

Other issues (like the geometry seeming to pop a bit as you come close) I am not so sure…

I agree your graphics card shouldn't have anything to with that, but I'm at a loss to explain why you're seeing NPCs pop in at a few meters away. I can honestly say I never witnessed that in 40+ hours of play.

That is what I meant about not talking about the same thing

I did not imply that NPC's flicker in and out of existence or pop in as close to the protagonist as say the balloon plants.

But when you have a larger viewrange (i.e going downhill from the jungle towards the plantation or from the jail tower towards the starting harbor in Tacarigua) the distance in which NPCs spawn may be noticeable if it is in example 50-100 ingame meters to 300-500 i.e (very gross estimates, my final values iirc are :
NPC_Small="6500.0"
NPC_Medium="9500.0"
NPC_Large="11500.0")

This is probably less of an issue in this game that has less expansive vistas than G3 i.e. But even so I find that it enhances immersion very nicely if I can see NPCs and creatures in the distance moving among the grasses (in addition to making my pet peeve going away).

Really, if your system can handle it I cannot see why you wouldn't do those tweaks. They enhance the game quite a bit imo…

What you originally said seemed pretty clear. You stated that NPCs were popping in at a "few meters". Perhaps a bit of unintended exaggeration?

With view distance set at the highest level in the menu, and no ini tweaks, NPCs are visible from a good distance. I can actually see them appear if I'm looking hard enough, but the length is far enough that I rarely notice it.

Anyways.. it's no big deal. I think some people are a little overly concerned with relatively minor details in this game. I've been having too much fun playing to even bother messing with addtional tweaks. The only thing I did was increase the speed of the Y-axis for my mouse.

Originally Posted by JDR13
What you originally said seemed pretty clear. You stated that NPCs were popping in at a "few meters". Perhaps a bit of unintended exaggeration?
.

Guilty as charged I do that some times to get a point across as you might have noticed.

Originally Posted by JDR13
With view distance set at the highest level in the menu, and no ini tweaks, NPCs are visible from a good distance. I can actually see them appear if I'm looking hard enough, but the length is far enough that I rarely notice it.

Its all a matter of tolerances. If I can change it in a game I will not hesitate…

Originally Posted by JDR13
Anyways.. it's no big deal. I think some people are a little overly concerned with relatively minor details in this game. I've been having too much fun playing to even bother messing with addtional tweaks. The only thing I did was increase the speed of the Y-axis for my mouse.

I believe the initial tweaking proposed by HiddenX is indeed necessary to enjoy the game imo. Distances were way too conservative and it was noticeable and distracting…

What I am doing on the other hand is overkill but I like fooling around a bit with that stuff before starting to play (when I eventually manage to get around to it ).

I do procrastinate a bit too much on this one but that has nothing to do with how the game looks (rather fine) or performs…

Originally Posted by JonNik
I believe the initial tweaking proposed by HiddenX is indeed necessary to enjoy the game imo. Distances were way too conservative and it was noticeable and distracting…

I can assure you that isn't true, because I'm enjoying the game just fine.

Nothing wrong with tweaking it further though if you're more sensitive to certain things than other people.

When you settle on your favourite tweaks JonNik, please post them here!

Sure, but I would actually need to start playing in earnest (i.e see them working for a significant part of the game) before I can recommend them…

Thanks for the helpful posts. The popin was winding me up. lol. Anyone know how to disable DoF? never like it any game i play.

You can disable DoF in the game menu but it will occasionally turn itself on (presumably after cinematic).

Anyone know how to tweak the in-game HDR? I find it way too dark most of the time, especially in the middle of the day. Annoying! I know it has some kind of HDR because when I look at the sun it has an effect to it (also when I look away). Experimenting around with values for brightness, contrast and gamma just messes up the colours and looks terrible. There must be a way to tweak HDR to be able to actually see something for a change.

Haven't found a way to tweak HDRI yet but I did change the SunAngle parameter to 60 (from 30). I think the jungle looks great that way and overall looks more natural. Other effects include (but might also be placebo):
- HDRI works better for whatever the reason
- day is longer
- night sky is darker

I'd love to turn off HDR and especailly SSAO. It could be done in Risen 1 and I'm sure the game uses the same engine, so it's gotta be possible somehow.

Doesn't look to me like it's using SSAO to be honest.

Fix for the morphing vegetation released:

http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum…1#post18929976

Tested and works fine Glad i've waited to play this game.

Very nice! will check it out tonight. Thanks vurt.

I just get a warning message trying to install: "Could not open and modify ConfigUser.xml". Some files and folders do get created in %localappdata%\Risen2\Config but that's about it. Any ideas?

Originally Posted by hwfanatic
I just get a warning message trying to install: "Could not open and modify ConfigUser.xml". Some files and folders do get created in %localappdata%\Risen2\Config but that's about it. Any ideas?

You may have to manually allow write access to the folder and files in it?