Ultra HD Settings for Modern PCs (updated)

Want to see Borderlands 2 in way higher detail than a console can show you? Look no further.

Welcome

Want to play Borderlands 2 again (or for the first time) with the best visuals your PC can possibly give you? Look no further. I have compiled a massive series of visual quality increases by manually editing the Engine and Lightmass settings for the game.

Please note that you will need to view this guide in a full browser (not the Steam overlay browser) to be able to download the linked files.

v2 update - I highly recommend anyone using my original files to download the new settings I have posted. There are no changes to the visuals, but I have corrected a memory budget overrun that could occur in Dragon Keep which caused poor performance and loot to fall through the world.

Links

The modified settings can be downloaded here[drive.google.com] (google drive link). It is a ZIP archive containing two files: WillowEngine.ini and WillowLightmass.ini. These files need to go in the following folder:

My Documents\My Games\Borderlands 2\WillowGame\Config

You may wish to make backup copies of the two files in case you want to revert later (but why would you?).

Additionally, I also highly recommend the use of an SMAA injector. I use this[mrhaandi.blogspot.com] one on the ULTRA preset.

FAQs

Q. What do these settings do beyond what I can set in the game menu?
A. A lot. In addition to a healthy chunk of supersampling and tesselation, LOD sizes for most visuals have been substantially increased (resulting in much more crisp textures and objects). I have also modified the lightmass settings to take full advantage of the capabilities of the Unreal 3 lighting engine; static and dynamic lighting are calculated using a MUCH more complex data set (resulting in a much prettier game).

Q. Why is FXAA disabled in these settings?
A. FXAA is a blunt routine. It was designed to provide a fast method to smooth out a relatively low-fidelity picture. I found in testing the new high-fidelity settings that FXAA actually interfered visibly with many of the more subtle visuals. I highly recommend an SMAA injector as a replacement; I have provided a link to the one I use above.

Q. Why is PhysX set to low?
A. This is purely for compatibility purposes for people with high end AMD GPUs. If you are running a Geforce, by all means turn it up to High.

Q. V-Sync is enabled in these settings. Why is that?
A. Since Borderlands 2 does not provide an easy way to cap its framerate at the monitor's native refresh rate, I left V-Sync enabled by default for people who own an adaptive sync monitor (Freesync or G-SYNC). If you do not have an adaptive sync monitor, or if you have used another method to limit the game's framerate, you may wish to disable V-Sync.

Q. Will these settings cause the game to run slowly?
A. No*. While this game is known to have occasional problems with stuttering, the settings I have altered place little to no additional load on the CPU; they are largely working the GPU harder. My rig is not a beast; I am running a Ryzen 5 2600X and a Geforce GTX 1660 Ti. Any modern CPU with a GTX 1060 or better should run a constant 50+ FPS (usually 100+) with these settings.
*Unless you have a low-end GPU.

Q. Why don't the shadows look much better than default?
A. The Unreal 3 engine, when rendering in DirectX 9 mode, calculates dynamic shadows mostly using the CPU. Since the game is already heavily CPU-limited, I didn't push them much beyond the default settings (although I did improve them a bit).

[RockandStoner]

@lordbean are the settings still available on google drive? the URL isn't active currently.

[UMeffert]

I'm also facing the same issue as Edu8000.
Here is the solution that fixed the issue for me:

1. Make sure your launcher doesn't automatically detect video settings.

2. Copy over Lordbean's files and start Borderlands 2 normally.

3. Change the resolution to your screen's native and change one setting, I chose to put PhysX to High then save and exit Borderlands 2.

4. Copy Lordbean's WillowEngine.ini file to an empty folder as we are now going to edit it.

5. Now open the WillowEngine.ini file in your Config folder and scroll all the way to the bottom of the file.

You should find two headings: [IniVersion] and [AppCompact], copy everything below them to Lordbean's ini file and then search in Lordbean's file for StartupResolution and change both the values to your monitor's.

6. Copy the now the edited WillowEngine.ini file into your config folder and start up Borderlands 2 and it should work now.

[lordbean]

I'm not honestly sure what would cause a settings reset besides the resolution being considered invalid - the launcher doesn't even touch the files for me (I still go through it every time I open the game). The only other possibility I can think of is if it was the first time starting the game on a fresh install, it might reset itself if you pasted my config in before launching the game. If that wasn't the case, I'm at a loss.

[Edu8000]

@Alternative Covfefe - Its the resolution I always use

[lordbean]

@Edu8000 - no, that shouldn't be the case. Sounds like something may have happened to cause a reset in the settings on your machine. Does your monitor support 1080p (1920x1080) resolution?

[Edu8000]

In the menu settings V-sync is set to off when I applied your settings, and also some settings, like the anisotropic filtering are set to 4x and the resolution is on 640x480, is that supposed to happen?

[lordbean]

@qu3x^ - I'll admit, I probably should put some comparison screenshots up. Honestly, I'm lazy. People will either try it as is, or they won't.

Regarding anti-aliasing - I'm not sure what was unclear about "personal preference"?

As for loading times? I didn't see any difference between the load times for the default lightmass settings, and the configuration I've arrived at. None whatsoever.

Regarding foliage, let me spell it out: manually editing the foliage draw distance is BAD. For most people out there, that will cause the launcher to reset their settings to the defaults the next time they start the game. (Power users will have disabled the launcher, but not all gamers are power users.)

If you don't see the benefits of editing the lightmass settings, then you haven't actually even tried using my presets. Kinda seems like you're really just here to take a dump all over things.

If you keep posting half-baked arguments, I'm just gonna start deleting your posts.

[Q I | I X]

@Alternative Covfefe
The tool I linked does enhances foliage draw distance.
http://i.imgur.com/UrG5kh8.png

The comfort of having a tool is ppl can tailor the game to their specs. I wasn't saying that your files won't increase any draw distances or such. This guide is bad because its lacks of comparision screenshots and you not pointing out exactly what sets it apart from the vanilla game. I also don't see the true benefits in editing WillowLightmass.ini since you only increase loading times for barely noticeable details.

As for the AA topic if you bring up "U L T R A" something something in your headline and cheap out with another flawed shader based AA technique even tho the game supports driver forces SSAA or/and SGSSAA you are not talking ultra anymore. The base requirements for that game were a 512MB of VRAM. Every half decent Card of today will drive that game with 2x SSAA regardless in 1080p.

[Q I | I X]

Other then that touch up your guide with screenshots. Maybe provide different presets and if you only provide raw configs upload them to paste bin instead of gdrives for easy inspection. If that doesn't help at all at least steal cleverly from this link: https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Borderlands_2

[lordbean]

@qu3x^ - My modifications are more comprehensive than the tool you linked. It doesn't touch the lightmass settings at all, and additionally it does some things that will cause a headache (messing with the foliage draw distance and/or the number of bullet decals will cause the launcher to reset your config files).

I can pretty much guarantee you'll get better visuals out of this guide's ini files than anything you can make with that tool.

As for SMAA, it's a personal preference; I simply recommend it because it doesn't draw too many extra system resources and looks way better than FXAA to my eyes.