Remove the fog and get much nicer graphics

This guide will tell you how to remove the fog and therefore how to make the graphics of Elex look a lot better.

Introduction

At first, Elex' graphics don't look very impressive. I figured it was because of the constant fog, which blurs the whole view. So I went looking for a way to reduce the fog or to remove it altogether. When I stumbled upon a way to disable the fog, simply by changing a few values in a configuration file, I was amazed at how much better the game looks.

To each his own, of course. Some people may prefer the fog as it casts a veil of mystery across the game world, but I didn't like it. When the fog is lifted, you clearly see that Elex' graphics aren't perfect (which is most likely why the devs opted to go with the fog), but I do think the graphics and Elex' world look a lot better without the fog.

Screenshots

Before:



After:



Before:



After:



Before:



After:



Before:



After:

How to do it

1. Close Elex

If it's running, you need to close the game first.

2. Find the file ConfigDefault.xml

By default, it's in the following folder on the drive your Steam games are installed to:

\Steam\SteamApps\common\ELEX\data\ini\

Note: if you like to play things safe, you may want to make a backup of ConfigDefault.xml by copying the file to any other location on your computer before going to the next step.

3. Edit the file

Right-click the file ConfigDefault.xml and select 'Edit' from the dropdown menu.

4. Look for the 'fog' section of the file

Press Ctrl + F to open the search bar and enter the word 'fog'. Press the Enter key. This will take you to the relevant section of the file. It looks something like this (your values may vary, depending on the Fog Quality and View Distance you have selected in the game's options menu, but it doesn't matter, really):

<Fog Quality="High">
<Low Depth="96" SizeFactor="12" MaxViewRange="4800.0f" ExpDistributionBias="256" />
<Medium Depth="128" SizeFactor="12" MaxViewRange="4800.0f" ExpDistributionBias="256" />
<High Depth="192" SizeFactor="12" MaxViewRange="6400.0f" ExpDistributionBias="256" />
<Ultra Depth="256" SizeFactor="8" MaxViewRange="6400.0f" ExpDistributionBias="256" />
</Fog>

5. Change a few values

You need to change 8 values. I marked them in bold:

<Fog Quality="High">
<Low Depth="1" SizeFactor="12" MaxViewRange="128000.0f" ExpDistributionBias="256" />
<Medium Depth="1" SizeFactor="12" MaxViewRange="128000.0f" ExpDistributionBias="256" />
<High Depth="1" SizeFactor="12" MaxViewRange="128000.0f" ExpDistributionBias="256" />
<Ultra Depth="1" SizeFactor="8" MaxViewRange="128000.0f" ExpDistributionBias="256" />
</Fog>

So change whatever value you see after "Depth =" to 1 four times, and change whatever value you see after "MaxViewRange=" to 128000 four times.

6. Save the file and run Elex

Close the file. When asked whether to save the changes or not, press 'Yes'. Start the game. Be awed.

Final note

I tried playing around with the values a bit, especially to try and get a very slight fog in the far distance only, but I never achieved any setting that looked better than having removed the fog entirely. But if you find values for the fog that you think other players may want to try out, don't hesitate to post them in the comments section below!

[Cyanmurder]

It looks good on my end with the fog, everything set on ultra setting. It looks too vanilla without the fog, like a cartoon game.

[kris.aalst]

You say 'The first time, fog quality was set to low'. After removing or reducing the fog by following the steps in this guide, you shouldn't change any of the fog settings in the game because any changes will completely overwrite the new values you entered in the ConfigDefault.xml file.

When I first played Elex I had a pc from about 12 years ago with an Nvidia 960 GPU and such. But it ran like a charm. Now I have a much better pc and I still like to remove the fog (also in Elex 2, by the way) just to open up the world (visually).

[Lil C]-[ew C]-[ew is ☂д☂]

Hmm....well I'll give a try later because at the second time I'd try the perfomance started clunky as heck and stuttred very bad with fog quality on low and still present in the game. The first time, fog quality was set to low but fog was still present with no effect.
Restored by now the original file and going to leave it be because even though followed everything told here. The fog was not removed at nearest range.

By the way are these parameters you changed on yours. Are they for low ending PC rig? My gpu detected to high preset but my cpu is weak. Adjusted the graphic settings to high-medium with many filters off. If wiping the fog in the game will that increase the perfomance?

[kris.aalst]

No, just change the values in the file ConfigDefault.xml and save. Check whether or not your changes were saved by opening ConfigDefault.xml after you did every step in the guide. Make sure to save the file after altering it; don't 'save as...' and then save with a different file name. Also, make sure the game isn't running while you change ConfigDefault.xml.

Er... that's pretty much all I can think of right now. Good luck!

[Lil C]-[ew C]-[ew is ☂д☂]

Didn't change a bit for me. Do I need to make read-only in the attributes to get it working?

[kris.aalst]

@wishIwasabear Thanks a lot for sharing! The next time I fire up Elex I'll definitely try your settings.

[Kuma]

This was the sweetspot for me, still has fog but it is further away.
Depth="5" SizeFactor="8" MaxViewRange="16400.0f" ExpDistributionBias="256"

[Humpenstilzchen]

Thanks for creating and sharing this guide! My game now looks much better and I enjoy the increased view distance.

[kris.aalst]

Jouchebag has an interesting tip: "I used UltraDepth at like 3 or 5 or something or other for just a bit of edge fog." I'll try this out on my next playthrough; might be just what I'm looking for as mentioned in the 'Final note' section of the guide.

[manegarm]

I removed the fog, like your guide demonstrated and I came to realize some things:

- The game has unfortunately pretty bad "far-away" textures and models, which got concealed by the fog.
- Points of Interest are too visible in the landscape and seeing them too clearly from far away takes something away for me.
- Grass and other objects are just loaded in, if you are in the nearer vicinity, so the world in the distance looks at some places pretty empty without the fog.

So I played a littlebit around with the Ini, since the complete removal of the fog was not perfect for me either and I have two favourite Ini settings now.

Favourite No1: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2087989494
Depth="6" MaxViewRange="128000.0f"


Favourite No2: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2087989897
Depth="3" MaxViewRange="128000.0f"