Risen 2 Dark Waters - RTX ON - 2022 Graphical Upgrade

This is a collection of graphical and gameplay mods/tweaks I found essential to anyone playing "Risen 2 - Dark Waters" in 2022.

In short, the use of this guide should provide your game with upscaled textures, performance fixes, gameplay fixes and RTX graphical improvements using ReShade software.


The RTX mod used in this guide is very performance heavy and recommended to be used on newer high-end systems (further tweaking of ReShade settings may be required by user to achieve optimal results).

It's important to note that Ray Tracing support IS available for Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB cards and up, but with less ray casting done by the card compared to RTX series cards with dedicated RTX cores. On GTX 10 series cards Ray Tracing is processed by using regular cuda cores instead of dedicated RTX cores. The performance hit is certainly there and heavier on cards that have lesser cores to spread the load. Although you might get playable frame rates, even running ray tracing on lower settings instead of Ultra with a GTX 1070, 1080 or 1080Ti could end up severely hurting your FPS.

Tested with the following at 4K (3840x2160) resolution:

CPU: Intel Core i7-8700K
GPU: GeForce RTX 2080 DUKE 8G OC
RAM: 32GB
OS: Windows 10

Performance: 25-30 FPS




I am not the creator of any of the mods/fixes found in this guide, all rights go to their original creators sourced below.
I cannot be held responsible for any loss or damage that may arise as a result of the use of this guide, use at your own risk.

UPDATED: 05/03/2022

Getting Started

Install a fresh copy of Risen 2 - Dark Waters and run the game at least once making sure to customize the video and graphical settings to your liking (you will still be able to modify these settings after modding).

High Resolution Textures

Visit the following link: https://www.nexusmods.com/risen2/mods/2?tab=files
Download both "1.0" and "Patch 1.3" files listed.




1. Extract both archives to a folder on desktop and find the three files named "images.00", "images.p01" and "ConfigDefault.xml".

2. Rename the file named "images.00" to "images.p00"

3. Copy both files "images.p00" and "images.p01" into your game directory's "complied" folder.
Path should be: C:\Steam\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Risen 2\data\compiled

4. Copy and replace the file "ConfigDefault.xml" into your game directory's "ini" folder.
Path should be: C:\Steam\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Risen 2\data\ini



Mod created by NeffO76, uploaded by NathanielBonnett, installation suggested by ApophisGoauld

Removing 2GB RAM Usage Limit

To avoid game crashes we will now remove the 2 GB RAM usage limit.

Visit the following link: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/large-address-aware.112556/
Download the file named "laa_2_0_4.zip"




1. Extract the archive to a folder on desktop, find and open the file named "Large Address Aware".

2. Click on the "..." button to browse, find and click your game executable file named "Risen2.exe".
Path should be: C:\Steam\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Risen 2\system

3. Make sure to check-off the box enabling the use of more than 2GB RAM, and click "Save".





You may require Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 or newer for this to work, I personally did not need it. Visit the following link if you need it: https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/download/details.aspx?id=21
Download and run the file and remove the 2GB RAM limit again through the menu by following steps 1-3 in this section.


Installation suggested by ApophisGoauld

Mouse Sensitivity Fix

Navigate to your game directory's "ini" folder and open the file named "ConfigDefault.xml" in Notepad
Path should be: C:\Steam\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Risen 2\data\ini

Look for the following two values:

SensitivityX="1.0f"
SensitivityY="1.0f"

And modify them to the following:

SensitivityX="0.4f"
SensitivityY="2.0f"

Once done press "File" and click "Save"




If you ever let Steam verify the integrity of the game files for Risen 2, the ConfigDefault.xml will be redownloaded and you will have to make these changes again".


Installation suggested by Mild Bobby Sauce

Installing ReShade

Visit the following link: https://reshade.me/
Download the file by clicking on "Download ReShade 5.1.0" and copy the file "ReShade_Setup_5.1.0" to desktop.




Run the file named "ReShade_Setup_5.1.0" and follow along with the photos and instructions below:




Find and click your game executable file named "Risen2.exe".
Path should be: C:\Steam\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Risen 2\system

























Proceed to launch the game.
Once it has done loading you should get a notification at the top of your screen showing ReSahde has installed, press "Home" key to bring up the menu or to make it go away.




Press "Skip".

Tweaking ReShade - RTX ON

Now we will get RTX working in ReShade.

Due to legal reasons I cannot post where you can find this ReShade RTX mod for free.
Visit the creator's Patreon here if you want to buy the mod: https://www.patreon.com/mcflypg

Once you have this RTX mod, close the game if its running and open the RTX mod folder.
There are two sub folders located in there named "Shaders" and "Textures".
In order to install it, copy and replace both folders to path: C:\Steam\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Risen 2\system\reshade-shaders

Proceed to launch the game, once in-game bring up the ReShade menu by pressing "Home" key and match the presets listed below.


To enable Ray Tracing support and achieve similar results, match these same settings.

In ReShade, check-off the following:

✔️Bloom [qUINT_bloom.fx]
✔️Tint [Sepia.fx]
✔️Debanding [qUINT_deband.fx]
✔️DELC_Sharpen [qUINT_sharp.fx]
✔️Lightroom [qUINT_lightroom.fx]
✔️MXAO [qUINT_mxao.fx]
✔️SSR [qUINT_ssr.fx]
✔️Levels [Levels.fx]
✔️RTGlobalillumination [qUINT_rtgi.fx]
✔️Vibrance [Vibrance.fx]




Some options were turned off for certain scenery and screenshots, it may be necessary to further tweak these settings to achieve optimal results.


As mentioned above, Ray Tracing support IS available for Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB cards and up, but with less ray casting done by the card compared to RTX series cards with dedicated RTX cores.
On GTX 10 series cards Ray Tracing is processed by using regular cuda cores instead of dedicated RTX cores. The performance hit is certainly there and heavier on cards that have lesser cores to spread the load. Although you might get playable frame rates, even running ray tracing on lower settings instead of Ultra with a GTX 1070, 1080 or 1080Ti could end up severely hurting your FPS.

Those who do not have a RTX series card can still try to make use of the graphical fidelity this Ray Tracing guide offers. If performance becomes a big issue you can disable "RTGlobalillumination [qUINT_rtgi.fx]" and you should still benefit graphically.



Save often in Singleplayer especially before the end of every level as the game may tend to crash when loading a new level. To work around this, reboot game, load saved file, complete mission ending and only enable Reshade effects once game and new level has loaded successfully.

I am personally using a newer version of the RTX mod but I have tested with multiple and visuals are nearly if not identical.

RTGI/Ray Tracing/Global illumination ReShade mod by Marty McFly/Pascal Gilcher, GTX/RTX Ray Tracing info by Rene from TechJunkies

Screenshot Album

[[DBH].Whismerhill.{SSgt}]

This seems like a nice guide overall
HOWEVER
technically this has nothing to do with RTX at all
it's a shader hence why it runs on all cards that can run such shaders
and no AFAIK it doesn't use RT cores on graphics cards at all

also it imitates RTX but it's not ray traced at all, since reshade doesn't have access to the whole game 3D scene
but instead only "sees" what the player sees