Make Alien Isolation look amazing – 4K/8K shadows, reflections, detail and more

Shiny!

It’s great what can be achieved with some simple file editing. Alien Isolation can be super enhanced with these settings.

Back into the /DATA/ENGINE_SETTINGS.XML to make some great looking changes which were tested by community members. First up he has unlocked 4K/8K Shadows which look pretty nice. Change the settings to:

<Setting name=”ShadowMapResolution”>
<!– resolution in pixels. –>
<Quality name=”1K” int=”1024″ precedence=”1″/>
<Quality name=”2K” int=”2048″ precedence=”2″/>
<Quality name=”4K” int=”4096″ precedence=”3″/>
<Quality name=”8K” int=”8192″ precedence=”4″>
<DefaultRequirements>
<WindowsExperienceIndex type=”GPU” value=”7.6″/>
</DefaultRequirements>
</Quality>
</Setting>

Nice stuff but there’s more, and I think the most impressive is definitely the Enhanced Planar Reflections which I think look great. Not everyone will like the reflections but I think they improve the atmosphere. The suggested change is:

<Setting name=”Planar Reflections”>
<Quality name=”Off” int=”0″ precedence=”1″/>
<Quality name=”High” int=”3″ precedence=”2″/>
<Quality name=”Very High” int=”6″ precedence=”3″/>
<Quality name=”Ultra” int=”9″ precedence=”4″/>
</Setting>

If the level of detail (LoD) diminishing depending on the distance away from an object is annoying you, then that detail popping can be removed with some setting tweaks. According to testers, a setting of 2.0 should stop this happening. To change this edit…

<Setting name=”Level of Detail”>
<Quality name=”Ultra” float=”2.0″ precedence=”4″/>
<Quality name=”High” float=”1.75″ precedence=”3″/>
<Quality name=”Medium” float=”1.5″ precedence=”2″/>
<Quality name=”Low” float=”1.0″ precedence=”1″/>
</Setting>

As Tim pointed out in his analysis piece, Alien Isolation utilises vertical FOV.  AngelGraves13 decided to experiment and found that “cut it off at 85 FOV, which would be 55 vFOV since anything higher cuts off Ripleys body” is optimal. Therefore the recommend FOV settings are:

<Setting name=”Field Of View”>
<Quality name=”70″ float=”43.0″ precedence=”1″/>
<Quality name=”75″ float=”47.0″ precedence=”2″/>
<Quality name=”80″ float=”51.0″ precedence=”3″/>
<Quality name=”85″ float=”55.0″ precedence=”4″/>
</Setting>

Some great tips there and it’s worth playing around with the Alien Isolation settings to see what you prefer. Make sure you backup the file first before trying anything just in case. Now for a couple of videos to demonstrate: