Guide. How to "beautify" the graphics in the INI file?

[vito74m]

Welcome.
As we can all see the game looks really nice (especially in the rain) what about improving certain aspects of the game a little? Let's check it out!

The first thing you need to do is locate the file "hardware_settings_config.xml" , you will find it in [C:\nYourUserNameDocumentsMy Games_GRID Legends_hardwaresettings].
For editing, I recommend using the free program "Notepad++"
Ok, now we open the ["hardware_settings_config.xml"] file for editing. Please don't worry it is impossible to damage the game this way :)

After opening the file, we look for the appropriate stitches and edit them as described below.

probably the most important change is:
Line 25: <lod_quality lodBias="0.2" crowdLodBias="1.25" /> for weaker PCs I recommend [lodBias="0.5" ] These two options significantly improve the range of drawing 3D models for the environment (mainly trees) and for crowds.

Line 26: <volumetric_lighting closeLightMarchingEnabled="true" lightSamples="8" sunSamples="16" /> Here we will improve the amount of artificial and natural lights generated.

Line 27: <screen_space_reflections iterations="128" /> We increase the amount of reflections in the screen space. (Wet pavements, lights at night, etc.).

Line 29: I recommend turning [lensFlare="false"] off permanently because these "flares" look like hexes from the game "civ 6" on the screen ;)

Line 30: <shadows enabled="true" skyShadowMapSize="4096" worldShadowMapSize="4096" nightShadowMapSize="4096" nightShadowSourceCount="6" spotShadowMapSize="2048" crowdInShadows="true" />
In the shadows section, we change those settings you see above.

Line 31: <particles enabled="true" distanceScale="1.25" rate="1.0" high="true" />
Here we slightly increase the range of visibility of such fx as dust, smoke fog, etc.

Line 32: <crowd quality="high" globalDensity="1.75" grandstandGlobalDensity="1.25" />
We are increasing the size of the crowds. Previously, we had already set the crowd to load earlier and shading to work on it.

Line 33: * <vehicle_reflections cubeMapScale="4.0" dashMapScale="4.0" />
We only changed these 2 options to improve the resolution of reflections on cars.
This option is for STRONG PC, high performance costs, semi quality reflections gain.

READY!
Now we MUST save the changes, close Notepad++
PPM-click on the [hardware_settings_config.xml] file and set the Read-only file in the properties. Check the box. Save and you're done.
In game, DO NOT go into detailed graphics settings, just play....

[Simfan 2018]

Thank you so much for this valuable information !

[ihatemaself]

put this on the guides page, my man.

[Batguano]

Just a quick correction/observation:

Where you have the info on the particles:
"Line 31: <particles enabled="true" distanceScale="1.25" rate="1.0" high="true" />"

The distanceScale is inverse-proportional, like the LOD Bias settings (lower is greater distance). You can check these by creating a bunch of settngs for LOW, MED, HIGH, ULTRAHIGH.

In UltraHigh and High, the distancScale is 1.0, in Med 3.0

I have is set to 0.5 on a 6800 xt/5800x and it runs locked 60fps at 4k.

I do turn down the crowd settings (not seeing a big visual difference) because I remember they ate the FPS in other Codie games.

I run them at Med/Low settings and basically double the Ultrahigh LOD settings (halve them, lower better) in everything else.

[El Jefe]

These settings make a huge difference. Looks fantastic in 4k 60fps. With v-sync off, it will bench around 130 fps so I cranked the view distance and crowds up a bit more since I have some room. Just for reference, this is on a 10900k & rtx 3080 12g. Thank you for these settings, much better experience!

[Gordola]

This makes a very nice difference, thank you very much for figuring this out and sharing. I recommend this to all players of Grid Legends, its a great fun game that can look that much better with these few tweaks, thanks again ti Vito74m!

[Doctor Hades]

I think this is a great looking game overall, certainly not cutting-edge but it has a nice visual style that makes the races all the more enjoyable. I have been a lot of this since I got my new 1440p QD-OLED HDR monitor a few weeks ago.

The only real complaint I have with the visuals are the short shadow draw distance with can be noticeable on the buildings and especially the trees on certain tracks, where the shadowing literally draws in turning the light green featureless trees into more detailed ones with shading about 20 feet in front of the car. It is quite jarring and not something I would have expected to see on the highest graphical settings.

Is there any way to improve this by pushing out the draw distance or is this built into the game and cannot be tweaked?

[= Jean =]

If you can, provide a screenshot of how it looks with this.

[Zero McDol]

*Shrugs* I just use reshade; works on almost all of my games. I appreciate the settings though and will adjust a few things for the game.

[Quick☢420™]

I just reinstalled and came across this, it works and looks better for sure. It easy enough to back up the file and have at it. Not gonna bother posting screenshots, just do it!