Good computer? Want to tweak? This makes the game look better by far

[Indique]

Here's something that may help some of you get more out of the game if you find the graphics a little too bland (like shadow/tree distances, etc). Your computer does need to be strong enough to handle it. Test it and see if it works for you. If you need more info, post a message here and I'll reply when I can to help.

Basically, you need to change game settings through the command console. To do this, first, go into your game directory (which would be usually in C:\program files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\Two Worlds - Epic Edition), and create a file like Set.txt

In this file, add these lines and save it:

Engine.AlphaFadeNear 1500
Engine.AlphaFadeFar 3000
Engine.DLandAFade 1500
Engine.DLandFarClipp 7000
Engine.DLandFarClippOBJ 7000
Engine.DLandFogFarScale 120000
Engine.FarPlane 2500
Engine.LOD0 3200
Engine.LOD1 6400
Engine.LODblend 1066
Engine.SFarRng 1600
Engine.GFadeNear 1400
Engine.GFadeFar 1600
Engine.GrassDisp 28
Engine.GrassQ 0.4
Engine.GrassRandomizer 0
Engine.AutoDOFTolerance 0.6

Once you're in the game, press tilde (~) next to the '1' key to open up console. In here, type "@Set.txt" (without the quotes) and press enter. You'll need to do it twice for some reason for all settings to be accepted (you can open tilde and press up arrow to repeat the previous line again and press enter).

Do this when standing on a mountain where you can see far enough and you'll see the difference. Shadows will be much further away, trees won't pop in so much while walking, and the game will look so much better. Using fraps, my FPS is around 45-50, which is more than enough for me, and the game looks soooo much better.

I haven't run into problems so far, but sometimes I get graphic glitches, but strangely, less than if I don't do this.

And yes, you have to run the command every time you start the game. I know there is another way to load it, but I've found it's unreliable, especially since you have to load it twice to apply all settings. And don't worry, if it doesn't work well for you, just reload the game, it's not a permanent change (hence needing to do it each time you load the game if you do like it).

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General info:
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If you want more info on individual options and what they do / how to tweak them, you can test them in-game individually, or you can ask me. Here's a repeat above but with some info on each line (don't use this in the text file, it's just here for info, use the above instead):

Engine.AlphaFadeNear_<- affects trees popping in etc, it's when near renders and far
Engine.AlphaFadeFar_____renders should fade (too high, and you get fog / detail loss)

Engine.DLandAFade____<- too high, distant lands look small, too low, and distant lands
_______________________are too big (1500 seems best)

Engine.DLandFarClipp____<- When to start clipping land details
Engine.DLandFarClippOBJ_<- same, but for objects
Engine.DLandFogFarScale_<- higher is less fog, I like the fog, but not too much, so
__________________________I increased it a bit

Engine.FarPlane__________<- I don't remember exactly, but it's a draw distance,
_________________________ it can cause bad glitches if too high, depending on other
_________________________ values (it was capping at 2500 at one point, I left it there)

Engine.LOD0_____________<- Level of detail distances, the borders where they stop
Engine.LOD1_______________(higher is better)
Engine.LODblend_________<- This is supposed to be about 1/3 of the difference above

Engine.SFarRng__________<- Shadow draw distance, but too high and quality is lower
_________________________(higer number = further shadows, but more pixelated)

Engine.GFadeNear________<- Grass fade, the near and far borders (if too high, closer
Engine.GFadeFar____________grass disappears, giitches)

Engine.GrassDisp_________<- This affects grass quality. I played around with it, these
Engine.GrassQ______________three gave the best results, imo
Engine.GrassRandomizer


Engine.AutoDOFTolerance__<- I like Depth of field, but reduced it from 0.44 default
__________________________(lower = more DOF)


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EDIT - I tweaked my values above somewhat to fix issues and make it look better, so it will probably lower framerates too much for some people. If that is the case, here are some values to try to modify and hopefully find a balance to keep graphics acceptable and FPS up. I haven't tested these values yet, but it gives you an idea what to change if you need to raise FPS:


Engine.AlphaFadeNear 900
Engine.AlphaFadeFar 1800

Engine.DLandAFade 500
Engine.DLandFarClipp 5000
Engine.DLandFarClippOBJ 5000
Engine.DLandFogFarScale 110000

Engine.FarPlane 2400

Engine.LOD0 2400
Engine.LOD1 3200
Engine.LODblend 275

Engine.SFarRng 1300

Engine.GFadeNear 1800
Engine.GFadeFar 2000

Engine.GrassDisp 28
Engine.GrassQ 0.4
Engine.GrassRandomizer 0


I'll edit these values above soon with better values for increased FPS (for highest quality, see the values at the top)

[Indique]

Yes, the game is not top-of-the-line, but if you're like me and just like the gameplay and appreciate this game, you'll appreciate these changes. :P

[CrackeR]

I bought 1 and 2 in a package deal and i have to say i just cant get past the LAME voice acting, or lack of!!!! I've moved on to TW2 and wow what an improvement! They used professional voice actors and improved greatly on the graphics...

[Indique]

yes, I agree, lol :D I have both games as well, and played tons of TW2. I find TW1 a classic, and appreciate the changes that I did graphically, but agree that the voice acting leaves the game a little dry, haha :)

[Revelator]

i like both two worlds :-)

[Indique]

I will mention that this has worked wonders for me, but strangely enough, it affected the videos in-game (which are rare, there are only 6 in the whole game). When a video plays, if I miss it, I either go into the game folder to play them (there's a folder appropriately called 'video", and you can play them with any ole' player by the looks of it)., or reload a save prior to the video without loading my file above, and the videos work. Not sure why it affects them. The graphics are so much better with my tweak though. It's very touchy on tweaking, since increasing ranges either reduce quality (shadow), or cause glitches the further you add range. I found a balance (for my system, anyhow).

Also, if you use quicksave, I strongly suggest manually saving often without quicksave, as it glitched for me twice, deleting the original quicksave leaving me with a much older manual save. Don't rely on autosave either as there are only 3 of them, and it doesn't always save in the minutes you specify (every 10 minutes, but this doesn't happen for me). So manual save instead so you don't end up really frustrated half way into the game.

I'm almost done the game, and soon to replay Two Worlds II (which I also never finished). I can't seem to get through a whole game the past several years, lol. Finally trying to finish a few instead of leaving them unfinished :P

[Smoker]

bump

[Drkchaos]

Used your settings they do make the game look heaps better thanks

[Indique]

glad it helped ^.^

[Penasus Erectus]

You should make a guide. Thanks for this.

[[V]es[L]o]

I've just installed the game to play it again. Then found this. Sadly, it doesn't work for me giving a simple "Cannot open file Set.txt" error. Any ideas? I have the file saved in the folder with the game, exactly like described in the OP.

[Indique]

check your file name in the folder again. Is it by chance "Set.txt.txt"? Remove the .txt and try again. You might have put the extension twice (the extension is usually hidden, and you might have added it on top of what is already in place - the file extention is the same as what is listed in "Type" column, so it should say "Text Document", and the name should only be "Set" IF you have file extensions hidden, otherwise, you'll see "Set.txt").

If it says it can't find the file, and the file is correctly in the game's directory, chances are there's a spelling error or extra characters somewhere, so it can't find the file.

[Y Ddraig Ddu]

What a wonderful guide! Thanks!

[InconspicuousBlackVan]

Just stumbled upon this. Good to know that we can improve the visual quality with engine commands. Thanks.

Here are my insights:
AlphaFadeNear and Far - don't go much above 1500 and 3000. Once you go too far, terrain will start to look funny at the edges of the screen. First, clear separation lines will start to appear and if you go even higher, tears in the world will start to appear.

DLandFade - I honestly find this best at 0. Seems to make even the most distant objects always be there and no fading/popping in of trees etc.

FarClip and FarClipOBJ - DON'T go above 5000. That seems like the max the engine can handle without issues. Anything above, I get strange behavior, mainly when there are big elevation differences and water is included. Higher value is fine for most of the game, but I like consistency more.

FarPlane - 2500 indeed seems like the cap and it doesn't do anything too visible.

LOD0 and LOD1 and blend - honestly doesn't seem to do anything at all. Either it is broken or doesn't work. I still get visible quality swaps, especially on character models even when I put in extreme values.

SFarRng - recommend keeping this at least as high as your AlphaFadeNear value

And if you need to gain more FPS, just disable Anti-Aliasing. Once I turned that off, I barely noticed a difference in FPS after making the changes.

EDIT:
One thing I noticed. The shadow gets blurred if the camera is aligned with the sun and the object casting the shadow. The higher you make the SFarRng value, the more severe this blur effect is. Might have to do something with lens flares and what not, but it is pretty annoying. Even at the default value which is 800, it gets blurred but at anything past 1000, it becomes a completely blurry mess whenever you get near that angle. The lower SFarRng is, the less blurred it gets but that also reduced the range of the shadow rendering. Would be great if there was some command that could deal with this.

[Tengrism]

I tested your options, and the game looks awesome. Our hero would comment it like this: oooo, much better!!! xD

[tekhedd]

Well, now that the thread has been necroed and bumped by someone else, I can safely respond that I actually quite like the voice acting.