Tweak Guide

Complete Graphical Setting and Performance Guide

🗨 Introduction

This guide explores all possible performance and visual options that can be made both in game and outside of the game.

📺 Disabling Intro Videos

1. Open your Steam Library
   
   
2. Right click the game's title and select Properties...
   
   
3. On the General tab you'll find LAUNCH OPTIONS section.
   
   
4. Copy and paste this text into the box:
   

   -nostartupmovies

   
   
5. Close the game's Properties window and launch the game.

The intro movies should be gone now. You can enable them anytime by removing the text line in Launch options.

⚙ In Game Settings

The following three sections of this guide will explain and cover every option that can be altered from in game settings.

🖼 Game

This image shows the default in-games setting.

Show Skillshots

☑️ Checked by deafult.
📃Toggles Skillshot information appearing on-screen during comabat.

👉 I recommend to keep this option checked.

Show Weapon Hints

☑️ Checked by deafult.
📃Display on how to get the most out of weapons.

👉 I recommend to keep this option checked.

Show Interaction Hints

☑️ Checked by deafult.
📃Display hints on interactive objects in the world.

👉 I recommend to keep this option checked.

Enable Crouch Protection

🔲 Unchecked by deafult.
📃Enable assistance to avoid accidental crouching.

👉 I honesly have no idea what this option does, if this even does anything at all.

Cinematic Visuals

🔲 Unchecked by deafult.
📃Use more realistic post-process in game.

💡 When this is checked the overall game visuals are attempting to be more realistic, grim and more faithful to the original game realese. If unchecked, the games uses more vibrant colors and remaster visuals.

👉 I recommend to keep this option unchecked.

Camera FOV (Field OF View)

📃Adjust camera field of view.

👉 Change this to whatever you like, in-game maximum is 100. If you want more than 100 look below to .ini tweaks.

Aim Assist

☑️ Checked by deafult.
📃Enable assistance with aiming at enemies (sticky aim).

👉 I recommend to uncheck this option. Use only if you play with controller.

Aim Lock

☑️ Checked by deafult.
📃Snap to enemies when Aim is pressed.

👉 I recommend to uncheck this option. I am not sure what this option does either. Use only if you play with controller.

Show Blood/Gore

☑️ Checked by deafult.
📃Show or hide blood and gore.

👉 Personal choice, I prefer to keep this option checked.

🕹 Controls

This image shows the default in-games setting.

Crouch On Toggle

🔲 Unchecked by deafult.
📃 Choose between pressing and holding the crouch button to stay crouched.

👉 It’s probably better to check this if you are playing with controller.

Look Inversion

🔲 Unchecked by deafult.
📃 Invert the Y-axis when looking.

👉 I recommend to keep this option unchecked.

Sensitivity

📃 Tweak the speed at which you turn.

👉 Here you can adjust the sensitivity of your mouse / controller.

Keyboard & Mouse Setting

📃 Customize setting for keyboard and mouse.

👉 My personal recommendation is change the Run / Slide key from Space to Left Shift.

Mouse Smoothing

☑️ Checked by deafult.
📃 Toggle mouse smoothing

💡 Mouse smoothing is the interpolation of raw input data from the mouse in order to prevent jerky movement in low resolution mice.

👉 Personal choice, I prefer to uncheck this.

📹 Video

This image shows the default in-games setting.

Brightness

📃 Change the brightness of the game

👉 Adjust this to your liking before playing, you can see the effect immediately in the main menu 3D screen.

Full Screen

📃 Enable or disable full-screen mode.

👉 You can only choose between Fullscreen and Windowed mode. If you want to use Borderless Fullscreen you will need to use third party software such as Magpie[github.com].

VSync (Vertical Sync)

📃 Enable or disable vertical sync.

If you dont know what VSync is, here is a quick explanation:
💡Vertical sync synchronizes the output video of the graphics card to the refresh rate of the monitor. This can be good when applied to applications that have frame rates significantly higher than the monitor’s refresh rate as this relieves tearing of the image and results in smooth playback. While if the graphics card is outputting significantly lower frame rates than the monitor’s refresh rate, this can result to the video output having judder as the graphics card may miss the monitor’s refresh deadlines.

uhm so?
👉 This decision depends on your hardware. If you are experiencing screen tearing during your gameplay you should turn VSync ON. If you are facing input lag or a decreased frame rate, turn VSync OFF.

FPS Cap

📃Enable or disable FPS cap

👉 Can be set to None, 30, 60, 75, 100, 120 ,144, 165, 200 and 240. This setting is obviously disabled if you have VSync activated. You should only cap your FPS if you are starting to see screen tearing, possibly ghosting or other problems on your monitor image.

Postprocess Quality

📃 Set the quality of post-processing effects.
👉 Preferably choose the highest setting.

There are three options: Low, Medium and High.
Those options change whetever post processing lighting effects Light Shafts and Ambient Occlusion are enabled or not, those are the differences:

Quality Option	Light Shafts	Ambient Occlusion
Low	🟥 Disabled	🟥 Disabled
Medium	🟩 Enabled	🟥 Disabled
High	🟩 Enabled	🟩 Enabled

Note: You can change those options manually in .ini file 📄 StormSystemSettings.ini, search for AmbientOcclusion= LightShafts= and bAllowLightShafts=. You can set them to False (off) or True (on).

Texture Quality

📃 Set the texture quality.
👉 Preferably choose the highest setting. Options are: Low, Medium and High.

Motion Blur

💡 Motion blur is an visual effect that adds a blur like image to surroundings when player moves.
There are three options: off, Low and High.

👉 This effect can be somewhat annoying and I know many players like to disable it.

🔓 Outside of the game changes

The following sections of this guide will try to explain and cover all possible alterations that can be done outside of the game.

📄 INI Files Editing

Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition is based on the Unreal Engine 3.0, the remaster allows users to access a range of configuration variables and console commands. You can do this by editing your .ini files. The files are located here:

%USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Bulletstorm Full Clip Edition\StormGame\Config

⚠ Important: The config files are located in the Documents folder (link above), NOT in the game directory folder as people often mistakely think.

You can edit the files in Notepad or other code editor programs. I recommend getting a code editor if you dont have one, it will make the editing easier.

Visual Studio Code[code.visualstudio.com]

When you have a file opened use Ctrl+F to quickly find what are you looking for. Dont forget to save the file to apply the changes. And backup the files first if you are not sure what you are doing.

In case you break something you can always just delete all the files in the folder, the game will automatically create new ones upon the next game startup, this will put every in game setting to deafult.

I think many of those setting should have been accessible to change in game, but it is what it is.

📄 INI Files: Essentials

This section will cover all possible changes that should have been accessible from in game and are very safe to alter.

Anisotropic Filtering

📄 StormSystemSettings.ini

MaxAnisotropy=8

💡 Anisotropic Filtering (AF) is an effect that makes distant objects in games look sharper. It works by improving the appearance of textures viewed at a steep angle. Anisotropic Filtering is providing visual benefits with only a small performance impact.

👉 Here you can manually specify a particular sample rate for AF, from 0 which is no AF, to 16x which is the highest setting.

👉 Preferably choose the highest setting. MaxAnisotropy=16

👉 If you have Nvidia GPU set this to 0 and set AF trough NVIDIA Control Panel for better results (further in this guide).

Multisample Anti-Aliasing (MSAA)

📄 StormSystemSettings.ini

MaxMultiSamples=0
bAllowD3D9MSAA=False

💡 Anti-aliasing is a technique that smooths out the edges seen in images. This essentially makes the entire image sharper and more detailed, scaling down the rough edges in the process but not removing them entirely.

👉 MSAA is disabled by default, to activate you need to chnage bAllowD3D9MSAA from False to True. Then change the value of MaxMultiSamples from 0 to 2, 4 or 8 (max). This will make the game look way better but it will have a hit on your performance.

👉 Preferably choose the highest setting. If you are playing on old harware you might need to find an option that suits you best as this setting can drastically lower your performance.

Smoothed Frame Rate

There is a feature called Frame Rate Smoothing that is enabled by default and is capped on 62 frame rate. This feature should provide smoother gameplay. Users with a PC strong enough to maintain stable framerates above 60 may want to change or disable this.

📄 StormEnginne.ini
bSmoothFrameRate=True
MinSmoothedFrameRate=22
MaxSmoothedFrameRate=62

👉 You can increase the maximum number of frames. The preferred value should be your monitor refresh rate plus 2. For example, when using a 144Hz monitor the value should preferably be set to 146.: MaxSmoothedFrameRate=146

👉 Based on my own research I dont recommend to disable this.

📄 INI Files: Cinematic Effects

This section will cover cinematic camera effects that are enabled by default but can be disabled in files.

Depth Of Field

📄 StormSystemSettings.ini

DepthOfField=True

💡Depth of Field is the blurring effect you get when focusing on an object while zooming in.

👉 Similary to Motion Blur (which can be altered in game) this is an effect that many players dislike. Can be disabled by setting it to False.

Radial Blur

📄 StormSystemSettings.ini

RadialBlur=TRUE
AllowRadialBlur=True

💡Radial Blur is a common visual effect that manifests as a blur that radiates from the center outward. This blur happens when you run / slide.

👉 Another blur effect which many players dislike. Can be disabled by setting it to False.

Bloom

📄 StormSystemSettings.ini

Bloom=True

💡Bloom is the level of reflection off a surface when a light source in a game touches an entity. Enabling Bloom gives a more realistic visualization of how light works in a game. Any light source will emit more light, and any surfaces that the light from the source will give you an aura-like effect near the edges.

👉 Can be disabled by setting it to False.

Lens Flares

📄 StormSystemSettings.ini

LensFlares=True

💡When a bright light source is shining on the lens but not in its field of view, lens flare appears as a haze that washes out the image and reduces contrast.

👉 Can be disabled by setting it to False.

📄 INI Files: Even more tinkering

Better Shadows

📄 StormSystemSettings.ini

MaxShadowResolution=2048

👉 This setting can improve shadows quality. You can increase the value to 4096. Only a small difference you likely wont even notice.

Draw Distance

📄 StormSystemSettings.ini

MaxDrawDistanceScale=1.000000

👉 This setting affects draw distance. By increasing this you can avoid some texture/model pop-ups in game. You can increase it to something like MaxDrawDistanceScale=10.000000.

📄 INI Files: Field of View (FOV)

This section explains how you can further alter Field of View beyond whats can be achieved in game.

Field of View

📄 StormCamera.ini

DefaultCameraFOV=85
TargetingFOV=45

Change these values to the desired world and aiming FOV.

Scale FOV on Y-Axis

📄 StormEngine.ini

AspectRatioAxisConstraint=AspectRatio_MaintainXFOV

Change this line to:

AspectRatioAxisConstraint=AspectRatio_MaintainYFOV

👉 I actually never tried to alter this.

📄 INI Files: Turn HUD Off

This section will explain how to turn HUD off.

HUD can be turned off in .ini files. HUD (heads-up display) are all informations that are visually relayed to the player as part of a game's user interface.

📄 StormHUD.ini
In the first section of the code [StormGame.BSHUD] you need to change everything as shown in picture below.

📄 INI Files: Toggle ADS

This section will explain how to enable ADS on toggle.

ADS (Aim Down Sights) is a feature when the camera angle shifts to behind the weapons sights.

In Bulletstorm you can enable ADS by holding right click mouse button. With those changes below you will be able to enable ADS on toggle, meaning you will need to right click to enable ADS and then you will need to click again to disable ADS. This is similar to the Crouch On Toggle option in the Control menu.

📄 StormInput.ini

1) Open the file and find group [StormGame.BSPlayerInput].

2) Locate thiis line:

Bindings=(Name="BSBA_Target",Command="ButtonPress L2 | OnRelease ButtonRelease L2",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False,bIgnoreCtrl=False,bIgnoreShift=False,bIgnoreAlt=False)

3) Replace it with the following:

Bindings=(Name="BSBA_Target",Command="setbind RightMouseButton ToggleAimOn",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False,bIgnoreCtrl=False,bIgnoreShift=False,bIgnoreAlt=False)

If you wish to use a different button, replace RightMouseButton with an alternative keybind.

4) Beneath that line, insert the following three lines:

Bindings=(Name="ToggleAimOn",Command="ButtonPress L2 | setbind RightMouseButton ToggleAimOff")
Bindings=(Name="ToggleAimOff",Command="ButtonRelease L2 | setbind RightMouseButton ToggleAimOn")
Bindings=(Name="RightMouseButton",Command="ToggleAimOn",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False,bIgnoreCtrl=False,bIgnoreShift=False,bIgnoreAlt=False)

5) Save the file.

Note: This may break Charge Shot functionality.

🟩 NVIDIA Control Panel

In this section I will give you my recommended settings for NVIDIA Control Panel. This is for Nvidia users only. AMD users: You likely have similar options, but as I currently dont have Radeon GPU I cant really test it.

1) Open NVIDIA Control Panel (Right-click on desktop>Show More Options>Nvidia Control Panel.)
2) Select Program Settings
3) Select application Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition
4) Do the following changes:

Anistropic Filtering, 16x
Multi-Frame Sampled AA (MFAA), On
Texture filtering - Anistropic sample optimalization, Off
Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias, Clamp
Texture filtering - Quality, choose Performance or Quality (depends what you want)
Texture filtering - Trilinear optimization, On

📜 Sources

Unreal Engine 3 / UDK Documentation[docs.unrealengine.com]
PCGamingWiki: Unreal Engine 3[www.pcgamingwiki.com]
PCGamingWiki: Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition[www.pcgamingwiki.com]
Various comments and articles across the internet.
My own research.

📑Changelog

• April 2017 - Original realese of this guide, shortly after Full Clip Edition realesed.
  
• April 2023 - Guide was reconstructed from scratch with better formating, more details and informations.

[Dapper Skellington]

For some odd reason, using the MultiSample Anti-Aliasing fix makes my shadows green. Oh well, nice fixes anyway and the honorable commentator Inskipp taught showed how to fix the botched mouse and ADS sensitivity.

[Kweeb]

dang, It work in the Borderlands games though, lol

[Elorius]

@Kweebsters That setting change breaks the game for me

[Kweeb]

StormSystemSettings file

[Kweeb]

a up-scaling edit.

UpscaleScreenPercentage=True

ScreenPercentage=100.000000

put it over 100

[1_gun_mcgaran]

I cant get it full screen, please help

[Treynath84]

Disabled the wrong texture streaming by accident and everything except hair was black.
Fixed it though.
Thanks for the guide.

[bulletshowerr]

Monkey Royale: thanks! Do i need to set AllowRadialBlur at False too?

[bulletshowerr]

komenda przy pomorskie: 2 years too late but maybe usefull for others: you are looking in the wrong map. It is not your games directory but it is :\Users\<user name>\Documents\My games\Bulletstorm Full Clip Edition\StormGame\Config\:

[Monkey Royale]

You can also disable radial blur in the sytemsettings ini, for me all blurring is annoying so definitely a good thing to disable.