There can be a very large difference in visual quality depending on the game. Bethesda games like The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Fallout 3 have really quite big visual differences after messing with the config files. For example in Oblivion i remember trippling the texture resolution of water and ground tiles, the result was obviously much sharper textures.
However, over do it and you can crash your game (most often done by increasing texture/shadow sizes to much and thus running out of RAM) and introduce visual artifacts.
As to the OP's question, i may take a look at it in a while - i've done things like this a few times with several games. Tweak Guides usually make guides on these kind of things too.
It's a good game though, some of the weapons are great. The game runs perfectly fine for me too, not a problem.
edit:
Right, here on the things that caught my eye. Don't blame me if they screw your game up, and i'm not positive what effect they'll have. But using some logic and a little past experience this is what i came up with:
The on on the left is the original, the one on the right is what i would change it to (Double the numbers is the safest bet).
1)
bAllowMatureLanguage=FALSE -- bAllowMatureLanguage=TRUE
Well thats just self explanatory
2)
TerrainMaterialMaxTextureCount=16 -- TerrainMaterialMaxTextureCount=32
Just reading it i'm guessing this controlls something to do with textures (more is nearly always better when it comes to textures, so this could have a positive effect.
3)
TerrainTessellationCheckDistance=4096.0 -- TerrainTessellationCheckDistance=8192.0
I know tesselation is a relatively new thing, i'm not quite sure what this will do. But try it. You may find in this case halving 4096 will give you a better result than doubling it.
4)
MinDesiredFrameRate=35.000000 -- MinDesiredFrameRate=20.000000
The theory here is the game always tried to stay above 35fps, so by lowering the desired framerate, it may up the graphics quality in certain aspects - who knows..
5)
MotionBlur=False -- MotionBlur=True
Obviously this is down to personal taste.
6)
UseHighQualityBloom=False -- UseHighQualityBloom=True
High quality Bloom can't be a bad thing. Unless HDR is currently being used ? hmm. Try it out and see.
7)
FogVolumes=False -- FogVolumes=True
May give some nice effects that are currently disabled. The brain inside me thinks this may give volumetric fog effects
8)
MaxMultisamples=1 -- MaxMultisamples=4
Major performance killer, but what the heck.
9)
MinShadowResolution=1024 -- MinShadowResolution=2056
MaxShadowResolution=1024 -- MaxShadowResolution=2056
Sexy smooth shadows ! (may give visual artifacts, as i keep saying, just try it)
10)
bEnableVSMShadows=False -- bEnableVSMShadows=True
bEnableBranchingPCFShadows=False -- bEnableBranchingPCFShadows=False
These 2 really are a wild guess. They may give some nice new shadow effects, or they may do nothing, or totally stop your game from working.
11)
Hopefully by totally deleting this from the config file you'll get rid of any annoying startup movies.
[FullScreenMovie]
StartupMovies=2K_logo
StartupMovies=Gearbox_logo
StartupMovies=NVidia
StartupMovies=Loading
SkippableMovies=2K_logo
SkippableMovies=Gearbox_logo
SkippableMovies=Attract
SkippableMovies=NVidia
Ofcourse, make sure you backup your config files and make a new save each time you make a new alteration. Take that as a warning.
However, over do it and you can crash your game (most often done by increasing texture/shadow sizes to much and thus running out of RAM) and introduce visual artifacts.
As to the OP's question, i may take a look at it in a while - i've done things like this a few times with several games. Tweak Guides usually make guides on these kind of things too.
It's a good game though, some of the weapons are great. The game runs perfectly fine for me too, not a problem.
edit:
Right, here on the things that caught my eye. Don't blame me if they screw your game up, and i'm not positive what effect they'll have. But using some logic and a little past experience this is what i came up with:
The on on the left is the original, the one on the right is what i would change it to (Double the numbers is the safest bet).
1)
bAllowMatureLanguage=FALSE -- bAllowMatureLanguage=TRUE
Well thats just self explanatory
2)
TerrainMaterialMaxTextureCount=16 -- TerrainMaterialMaxTextureCount=32
Just reading it i'm guessing this controlls something to do with textures (more is nearly always better when it comes to textures
, so this could have a positive effect.3)
TerrainTessellationCheckDistance=4096.0 -- TerrainTessellationCheckDistance=8192.0
I know tesselation is a relatively new thing, i'm not quite sure what this will do. But try it. You may find in this case halving 4096 will give you a better result than doubling it.
4)
MinDesiredFrameRate=35.000000 -- MinDesiredFrameRate=20.000000
The theory here is the game always tried to stay above 35fps, so by lowering the desired framerate, it may up the graphics quality in certain aspects - who knows..
5)
MotionBlur=False -- MotionBlur=True
Obviously this is down to personal taste.
6)
UseHighQualityBloom=False -- UseHighQualityBloom=True
High quality Bloom can't be a bad thing. Unless HDR is currently being used ? hmm. Try it out and see.
7)
FogVolumes=False -- FogVolumes=True
May give some nice effects that are currently disabled. The brain inside me thinks this may give volumetric fog effects
8)
MaxMultisamples=1 -- MaxMultisamples=4
Major performance killer, but what the heck.
9)
MinShadowResolution=1024 -- MinShadowResolution=2056
MaxShadowResolution=1024 -- MaxShadowResolution=2056
Sexy smooth shadows ! (may give visual artifacts, as i keep saying, just try it)
10)
bEnableVSMShadows=False -- bEnableVSMShadows=True
bEnableBranchingPCFShadows=False -- bEnableBranchingPCFShadows=False
These 2 really are a wild guess. They may give some nice new shadow effects, or they may do nothing, or totally stop your game from working.
11)
Hopefully by totally deleting this from the config file you'll get rid of any annoying startup movies.
[FullScreenMovie]
StartupMovies=2K_logo
StartupMovies=Gearbox_logo
StartupMovies=NVidia
StartupMovies=Loading
SkippableMovies=2K_logo
SkippableMovies=Gearbox_logo
SkippableMovies=Attract
SkippableMovies=NVidia
Ofcourse, make sure you backup your config files and make a new save each time you make a new alteration. Take that as a warning.
