How to clear the fog slightly, enhance the detail in the distance and sharpen the shadows – without performance loss.

Introduction

There is a global volumetric fog system in Elex. If it occasionally creates a beautiful lighting atmosphere in interiors, narrow areas and forests, it greatly disturbs the distant view in more open areas.

Since many mods or tweaks are only concerned with how to switch off the fog completely, I want to show you a way of reducing it in an appealing way without disabling it completely.

For the newly acquired distance view, there is then the possibility of increasing the LOD, i.e. the level of detail in the distance and the shadow range, which was not necessary with the extreme standard fog.

Ini tweaks

The changes take place in the “ConfigDefault.xml” file. It is located in the game folder

“…\Steam\steamapps\common\ELEX\data\ini”. First you should take a security copy of the file. Now open the original file with a text editor like “Notepad++”.

source of error: Don’t take the “ConfigDefaultNew.xml” file. It is better structured but it will be overridden every start of the game by the “ConfigDefault.xml” file.

• 
  

  First of all: change the fog

   

   

  Look for the segment “Fog”. (line 41)

  Now change the option you are using in the game. I use ultra. (line 45)

  Change the values “Depth” and “MaxViewRange”.
   

  What !! NOT !! to do: 1 – 128000.0f

  Most mods do this – remove the fog completely. Looks artificial and any atmosphere is lost.
   

  

  The changes between areas are very obvious now. The feeling of being in a dessert is lost.
   

  

  _____________________________________________________________
   

  My recommendation: 3 – 89600.0f

  The fog is farther afar but the transition is more smooth.
   

  

  The vibes of being in a dessert are not completely lost and the transitions between areas are not that ever-present.
   

  

  _____________________________________________________________
   

  So the values are:
   

  Depth

   

   

  MaxViewRange

   

   

  my recommendation

  3

  89600.0f

  standard values

  256

  6400.0f

  no fog mods

  1

  128000.0f

   

  After changing the values the row should look like this:
   

   

  <Ultra Depth="3" SizeFactor="8" MaxViewRange="89600.0f" ExpDistributionBias="256" />

   

   

  Because the fog is used for indoor areas also, the atmosphere of this areas suffer a bit.

  It is a Matter of taste if you are willing to sacrifice the look of indoor areas for a

  better distance view.

  More comparisons:

_____________________________________________________________

I can’t recommend using a higher value for “Depth” than 3 (e.g. 6).

Yes – the fog is a little bit closer again, the distance is clear as well and the indoor areas look a little bit better. But it introduces artefacts because of the low fog resolution.

• 
  

  More detail in the distance

   

   

  Now you can see further pop-ups and missing details are more obvious.

  Remedy can be achieved with this:
   

  In the same file the “Shadows” entry can be found. (line 34)

  Since someone who wants even better shadows should already have selected the ultra settings in the game, we change the entry “Ultra” (line 39) and there the values

  “TerrainShadowMapSize”, “DetailShadowMapViewRange”, “DetailShadowMapSplitFactor” and “DetailShadowMapSize”.
   

  TerrainShadowMapSize

   

   

  DetailShadowMapViewRange

   

   

  more detail

  4096

  40000.0

  standard values

  1024

  20000.0

   

   

  DetailShadowMapSplitFactor

   

   

  DetailShadowMapSize

   

   

  more detail

  0.03

  4096

  standard values

  0.08

  2048

   

  So it should look like this (of course in one line):
   

   

  <Ultra TerrainShadowMapSize="4096" TerrainShadowMapCount="4" TerrainShadowMapMaxDistance="800000.0" SoftShadows="true" SSAOQuality="3" StaticTerrainShadows="true" EnableShadows="true" DetailShadowMapViewRange="40000.0" DetailShadowMapSplitFactor="0.03" DetailShadowMapNearSplitFactorOverwrite="0.0f" DetailShadowMapSize="4096" DetailShadowMapCount="4" PerspectiveShadows="false" SmallObjectThreshold="0.05" SmallObjectFadeRange="0.05" ShadowDepthBias="8.0" DetailShadowMapFilterQuality="2" CachedShadowMapWidth="8192" CachedShadowMapHeight="8192" CachedShadowMapNodeWidth="8" CachedShadowMapNodeHeight="8" CachedShadowMapLevelDistanceRatio="1.0f" CachedShadowMapLevelSizeRatio="1000.0f" CachedShadowMapLevelCount="5" CachedShadowMapQuality="2" />

   

   

  In order to increase the LOD, now we go to the entry “SceneQuality” (line 211) and change “LoDFactor” from 1.0 to 10.0 in this line.
   

  SceneQuality

   

   

  more detail

  10.0

  standard value

  1.0

   

  Here, under “Scene” or “Vegetation”, there are some very promising entries.

  However, most of them simply don’t work, have a hard limit, or even do the opposite of what you’d expect. Increasing the value for “SpeedTree” can even cause some trees to disappear completely instead of showing more of them in the distance.

  On the other hand in terms of visibility from grass there is no point in increasing the value, etc. …
   

  Comparison image normal details <-> increased details:
   

  

  Here the electricity pylons can now be fully seen, the shadows in the proximity are sharper (behind the character), those under the tree on the left and the ballista in front as well. In addition, the mountain station and the large building on the right in the background also have shadows, the mountain range and generally rocks in the distance are shown in more detail and the vegetable stalks at the ballista are complete again. Overall, this also results in much fewer pop-ups when traverse through the world.

• 
  

  Performance

   

   

  With the reduced fog, higher resolution shadows and better details in the distance, the performance has even increased. At the same fps (~ 120fps capped) the GPU load has fallen, the RAM and VRAM are filled by a few hundred MB more.
   

   

  GPU utilization

   

   

  RAM

   

   

  VRAM

   

   

  original

  86 %

  6715 MB

  4353 MB

  enhanced

  79 %

  6840 MB

  4718 MB

 

Closing words

The gameplay of Elex II, which can already be found on Youtube today, promises that the extreme fog will not be found in the second part and that the interiors will still be well represented.

I find games with an open world most interesting when I can climb a hill, a mountain or a building and then look at my next destination from there and search the surroundings.

That’s why the extreme fog really bothered me when I started the game for the first time after leaving the mountain station in the first Elex. I didn’t even know which direction to turn first (apart from the fact that a character immediately offered his guidance) because I could hardly see anything interesting.

That’s why I looked for and found a way to change that four years ago. At that time, I later posted it in a forum, in which only members can see the pictures.

But I think that it is better here on Steamguides.

More players see it here and especially now that Elex II is at the door, one or the other wants to catch up on the first part and maybe benefit from my guide.

Otherwise, I archive it for myself so that I don’t have to search for or work out this information myself every time I dig out a game.

Just like I do with my other guides.

This is all about ELEX – How to Clear Fog + Shadow + LOD – [ini-tweaks]; I hope you enjoy reading the Guide! If you feel like we should add more information or we forget/mistake, please let us know via commenting below, and thanks! See you soon!