If you are experiencing mixed results even when running Shift 2: Unleashed at max settings and aren’t satisfied with the results, you can follow the Shift 2 Unleashed Tweaks guide below to tweak things as you like.
First portion of the guide is geared towards people with high end PC’s and tries to tweak the game to provide stunning visuals and performance. Second portion will guide you how you can tweak the game to your specific needs and PC.
Note. If you are experiencing lag, stuttering gameplay and less than inspiring visuals, you would surprised by the results after doing exactly what this posts says.
Step 1
Get the latest drivers. For ATI Cards, get 11.3 driver version and install it.
Step 2
Now change the following settings to the specified variables in your video card control panel and in-game settings.
Note. ATI Cards Perspective, you will need to change the specific settings on nVidia control panel for the same variables, works great. Also this is geared towards high end graphics card, who end up receiving the short end of the stick.
Shift 2 Unleashed Tweaks
SmoothVision HD Anti Aliasing
4x, Choose Edge Detect in drop down box, and use the application settings and enable it.
SmoothVision HD Anisotropic Filtering
Use the application settings and enable it.
Tessellation
Use the application settings and enable it.
Catalyst AI
High Quality; Change the setting depending on which card you use but, don’t enable the Surface Format Optimization; it may cause gray graphics on cars.
Mini Map Detail Level
High Quality; Change the setting depending on which card you use.
Wait For Vertical Refresh
Off
Anti Aliasing mode
Super Sample AA, again use it if your card supports it, may be you will do better with this lowered.
Open GL Settings
Check Triple Buffering, check this setting with specific in-game settings as well, for optimal game performance and stunning visuals.
Final Thoughts
Resolutuion -1920×1080
If you have 20in or less monitor use 1280×1024.
Window Mode – No
You can enable it if you want to play in windowed mode.
Texture Resolution – High
Texture Filtering – High
V-Sync – No
This is a most causes about 20 to 30 FPS loss enabled.
Anti Aliasing – Off
Won’t much difference.
Motion Blur – Off
Disable it for improved performance.
Reflection Quality – High
Car Detail – High
Track Detail – High
Shadow Detail – Low
It doesn’t really matter, which level of shadow details you use.
Now that, we are done with graphics tweaks that can be done using the software, there is a way you can edit the in-game variables the game uses to display the graphics. Tweaking these variables can get you play the game even on the average PC’s. How you can do that ? is exactly what I will try to explain the in this portion.
Go to your Documents/Shift 2: Unleashed folder, you will find a file called ‘graphicsconfig.xml‘ here. This is the configuration file the game uses to display the graphics and which settings the game should run on your PC. Basically it has all the variables that can be tweaked to improve graphics and performance on your machine.
Open this file with a notepad and you will see something like this:
– <Reflection>
<class name=”BRTTIRefCount” base=”root class” />
– <class name=”BPersistent” base=”BRTTIRefCount”>
<prop name=”Name” type=”String” />
</class>
– <class name=”GraphicConfigData” base=”BPersistent”>
<prop name=”Mode” type=”Fct” />
<prop name=”Vsync” type=”Fct” />
<prop name=”AntiAlias” type=”Fct” />
<prop name=”Windowed” type=”Fct” />
<prop name=”TextureFilter” type=”Fct” />
<prop name=”TextureResolution” type=”Fct” />
<prop name=”Brightness” type=”Fct” />
<prop name=”CarDetailLevel” type=”Fct” />
<prop name=”TrackDetailLevel” type=”Fct” />
<prop name=”ShadowDetailLevel” type=”Fct” />
<prop name=”MotionblurLevel” type=”Fct” />
<prop name=”EffectsDetailLevel” type=”Fct” />
<prop name=”EnvmapDetailLevel” type=”Fct” />
</class>
– <data id=”0xEA8080″>
<prop name=”Name” data=”” />
<prop name=”Mode” adapter=”0″ width=”1280″ height=”1024″ antialias=”0″ refresh=”85″ />
<prop name=”Vsync” vsync=”1″ />
<prop name=”AntiAlias” antialias=”2″ />
<prop name=”Windowed” windowed=”0″ />
<prop name=”TextureFilter” texturefilter=”1″ />
<prop name=”TextureResolution” textureresolution=”2″ />
<prop name=”Brightness” brightness=”10″ />
<prop name=”CarDetailLevel” cardetaillevel=”2″ />
<prop name=”TrackDetailLevel” trackdetaillevel=”1″ />
<prop name=”ShadowDetailLevel” shadowdetaillevel=”3″ />
<prop name=”MotionblurLevel” motionblurLevel=”2″ />
<prop name=”EffectsDetailLevel” effectsdetaillevel=”2″ />
<prop name=”EnvmapDetailLevel” envmapdetaillevel=”2″ />
</data>
</Reflection>
You can change these settings with ‘1’ being lowest setting for a particular variable and ‘3’ being the highest setting. Everything is self explanatory, only thing left for you is to follow the hit and trial method to find a setting that gives you performance at the lesser cost of visuals.
Note. If you are applying or tweaking the game-settings using this config file, do not go into the in-game video settings menu. High in-game not necessarily is registered as ‘3’ in config file.
Which is pretty obvious from the first portion of the guide. If you have a high-end PC that fully supports the recommended settings, try running the game at max settings with ‘3’ allotted to all variables in configuration file.
