User:SynthetikHD/TheWitcher2

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Check out The Witcher 3 Modding Guide


THIS GUIDE WAS WRITTEN FOR:
The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition on Patch 3.4

Version History

  • June 24, 2015
    • Addressed a bug caused by playing the tutorial
  • June 23, 2015
    • First version of guide started
    • First version of guide completed


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Introduction

Hello there. My name is Synthetik and if you have found this from the STEP forums you don't know who I am (check my post count and you'll know why). This is my first attempt at ever writing a guide and did so in about ~8 hours (I worked for 8 hours straight lol). I have shamelessly used the style of Rootsrat and used most of the code from his guide, so thanks to him and EssArrBee.

The main goal of this guide is to make your The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition look as good as possible while improving the overall balance of the game and fixing some minor bugs that appeared in the Enhanced Edition. The guide will stay true to the vanilla look and feel of the game and simply further enhance it. The graphical improvements/mods will cause somewhat of a FPS hit, on my machine the hit was quite negligible though, but most modern PCs that can already run The Witcher 2 on ultra should be able to use this guide no problem. If you are wondering if your computer can handle it, then see if your PC meets the recommended specs below. There's not really much more for me to say so, let's just get started!

Without the support of STEP, this guide would not be possible. If you would like to make a donation, that would be awesome! Do so with Paypal.

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ALL donations are applied to hosting expenses.

The Witcher 2 Modding

Overview

Recommended System Specs:

  • Processor: Intel or AMD Quad-Core
  • Memory: 4GB
  • Video Card: GeForce 260 (1GB) or Radeon HD 4850 (1GB)

My System Specs:

  • Processor: Intel Quad Core i5-4690K OC @ 4GHz
  • Memory: 8GB
  • Video Card: Radeon R9 290 (4GB)


This guide is separated into six sections:

  • INI Tweaking
  • Gameplay Mods
  • Graphic Mods
  • Fixes and Patches
  • ENB Setup
  • Finalizing


A few things to note beforehand.

It is advised to follow the guide in order it is written and to not skip any mods or steps. You should not have any mods installed prior to using this guide, so if you do, uninstall any mods you have or just completely uninstall the game and make sure there are no other files in your old install directory before reinstalling.

When copying or moving files or folders anywhere throughout this guide you should always: overwrite, replace, or combine when asked.

When you start to download the actual mods, the format of most STEP guides is used and is as follows:

Mod Title (Click to go to link)
  • Author: Mod Author
  • Version: Latest Mod Version
  • Installation: Tells you what file to download and succeeding instructions
Walk through of installing mod

Mod description


Now we can begin.


INI Tweaking

The Witcher 2 stores all of your graphic options in the user.ini configuration file.

Your user.ini is likely located at C:\Users\Name\Documents\Witcher 2\Config

The first thing we need to do is to delete your user.ini file if you already have one. You will not lose any game saves or anything else as it only stores your graphics settings. After you have deleted your user.ini, start The Witcher 2 and quit once you get to the main menu. Now start The Witcher 2 laucher and go to the options. Set your language and monitor settings how you normally would then tick advanced options at the bottom. Next set everything to ultra/enabled except for 'Texture Downscaling' and 'Dangling Objects Limit' which you should leave at None and Disabled. Click OK then launch the game again and quit once you get to the main menu.

Now is where the fun begins and we start to tweak the .ini settings to improve the graphics. Thankfully we will not have to open our configuration file in Notepad as we can download a tool to that will save changes for us. So now download the tweaker below.

The Witcher 2 Tweaker
  • Author: fallenzeraphine
  • Version: 1.1.5.78
  • Installation: Download the "Witcher 2 Tweaker" file. Follow these instructions:
Unzip the folder somewhere such as your desktop


Once you have it downloaded, start it and let it locate your User Settings folder if it needs to. Now we have a lot more options to tweak than before.
To make your game look as good as possible, change the settings in your tweaker to match the picture below except the settings outlined in black.


Note: You NEED to make sure your settings match the unoutlined settings below EXACTLY. If you are wondering why some settings are as they are, such as Ubersampling turned off, it is because they must be for the ENB to work, and the ENB adds a form of ubersampling anyways.


TW2 Tweaker Settings.jpg

Once you have done that, I will now explain how you should change the remaining settings outlined in black.

These settings are up to you..

  • Fullscreen Enabled: Keep at 1 if you play fullscreened. Keep at 0 if you play Windowed or Borderless Windowed.
  • VSync: Keep at 1 if you have screen tearing issues or a 60Hz monitor. Keep at 0 if you play higher than 60fps.
  • Screen Resolution: Keep at whatever your resolution is.


The final setting requires more explaining.

  • Texture Memory Budget: This number tells the game how much VRAM you want it to use from your available VRAM. I have 4GB of VRAM and I wanted the game to use 3/4ths of my VRAM, so I set it to use 3072(mb). I would set this number somewhere between 1/2 and all of your VRAM.

I am fairly sure that even with the high resolution texture mods you will download later, that the game does not use more than 2GBs of VRAM, so setting it to use more probably isn't necessary. Again, it is up to you to set this to what you want. I have put some common numbers here to help you.

  • 500mb: 512
  • 1GB: 1024
  • 2GB: 2048
  • 3GB: 3072
  • 4GB: 4096


Note: After applying the tweaks to your user.ini file, the options in The Witcher 2 launcher and in-game settings will say some settings are set to low or turned off etc. Do NOT change any settings from the launcher or in-game as they are not displaying your actual settings. The settings listed in The Witcher 2 Tweaker are your real settings and what they are set as.

Now we can start downloading and installing all the mods we need. Yay!


Gameplay

Full Combat Rebalance 2
  • Author: Flash
  • Version: 1.2
  • Installation: Download the "Witcher 2 Full Combat Rebalance 1_2 Latest Version" file. Follow these instructions:
Navigate to your game installation folder (\The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition) in the installer
Install just the main files as the other two options are not needed
Choose to activate all files when asked

The Full Combat Rebalance mod is an official mod created by one of the developers that completely revamps the combat in the game while also including some bug fixes and balancing tweaks.
The main goal of the mod was to increase Geralt’s responsiveness and mobility.


Dynamic HUD
  • Author: Presskohle
  • Version: 1.3
  • Installation: Download the "Dynamic HUD v1.3" file. Follow these instructions:
Navigate to \The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition\CookedPC
Unzip and copy the file into CookedPC

This mod makes the HUD fade out when out of combat, then fade in when in combat. This mod creates a much more immersive experience when in towns or exploring.


Market Price Mod
  • Author: Paul_NZ
  • Version: 1.2
  • Installation: Download the "Market Price Mod" file. Follow these instructions:
Navigate to \The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition\CookedPC
Unzip and copy the folders into CookedPC

This mod balances the buying and selling prices to make it more fair to the player. It reduces the 24:1 ratio between buy to sell prices to 5:1 as seen in the first game.


Zero Weight Mod
  • Author: raven4444
  • Version: 1.1
  • Installation: Download the "Zero Weight Mod" file. Follow these instructions:
Navigate to \The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition\CookedPC
Unzip and copy the folder into CookedPC

Unlike other RPGs such as Skyrim or Fallout, managing your items and your weight limit in The Witcher 2 is a lot more inconvenient than it needs to be. With no way to store items and the potentially long travel times between enemies and vendors, I highly recommend you download this mod.


Graphics

Better Texture Enviroment
  • Author: Jimmy High
  • Version: 1.3
  • Installation: Download the "Better Texture Enviroment" file. Follow these instructions:
Navigate to \The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition
Unzip and combine the folder with your CookedPC

This mod replaces almost all the environment textures in the game with high resolution ones.


High Resolution Weapons
  • Author: Jimmy High
  • Version: 1.3
  • Installation: Download the "High Texture Weapons" file. Follow these instructions:
Navigate to \The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition
Unrar and combine the folder with your CookedPC

Note: You must delete the following folders/files or you will experience graphical bugs
Navigate to \CookedPC\items\work\ and delete the remains_human_01 folder
Navigate to \CookedPC\items\geralt\geralt_signs\ and delete the yrdentrap.w2ent file

This mod is located under the same page as the previous mod however you must download the High Texture Weapons file instead. It replaces almost all the weapon textures in the game with high resolution ones.


Extreme Quality Flora
  • Author: EatChildren
  • Version: 1.0
  • Installation: Download the "Extreme Quality Flora" file. Follow these instructions:
Navigate to your Documents folder and open your Witcher 2 folder
Open the UserContent folder
Extract the folder from the downloaded file into the UserContent folder (The directory should look like this /Documents/Witcher 2/UserContent/extreme_quality_flora)

This mod increases flora rendering distance and eliminates grass pop-in.


Fixes and Patches

Extreme Quality Flora Compatibility Patch
  • Author: EatChildren
  • Installation: Download the compatibility fix. Follow these instructions:
Navigate to your Documents folder and open your Witcher 2 folder
Open the UserContent folder
Open the extreme_quality_flora folder
Extract the cook.hash file from the download into the extreme_quality_flora folder overwriting/replacing the original file

This patch allows the Extreme Quality Flora mod to be compatible with the Full Combat Revamp mod.


Grass Color Fix
  • Author: Diegog5
  • Version: 0.8B
  • Installation: Download the "Main" file. Follow these instructions:
Navigate to \The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition\CookedPC
Unzip and copy the folder into CookedPC

This mod fixes a bug from the Enhanced Edition causing the grass 2-4 feet around Geralt to become discolored.


Grass Color Fix for Vergen
  • Author: roggan
  • Version: 1.0
  • Installation: Download the "Grass color fix" file. Follow these instructions:
Navigate to \The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition\CookedPC
Unzip and copy the folder into CookedPC

This patch addresses an issue not completely fixed by the Grass Color Fix mod in Vergen.


No Intro Videos
  • Author: mupparna
  • Version: 1.3
  • Installation: Download the "Intro logo removal" file. Follow these instructions:
Navigate to \The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition\CookedPC
Unzip and copy the folder into CookedPC

This mod skips all intro videos except the logo by CD Projekt Red.


ENB Setup

Installing the ENB for The Witcher 2 is a bit more complicated than the previous mods, but well worth it. 

Go to http://enbdev.com/mod_witcher2_v0189.htm
Click download in the middle of the page (not the link at the top right)
Unzip and copy ONLY d3d9.dll from the folder \WrapperVersion\bin to \The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition\bin

Now we move onto the rest.

Requiem ENB
  • Author: Laptop Guy
  • Version: 1.0
  • Installation: Download the "Requiem ENB" file. Follow these instructions:
Navigate to \The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition\bin
Unrar and copy the folder into your \bin folder
Note: Leave the files in the folder! Simply drag the whole Requiem ENB folder into your \bin folder

This ENB is the mod what will make your jaw drop after seeing the difference from the vanilla game. It improves everything from the AA, colors, lighting, bloom, flares, and fog.


Finalizing

One last thing must be taken care of before you can start playing your game. Simply.. 

Start your normal Witcher 2 launcher (not the tweak launcher)
Click on Mods
Make sure all boxes are ticked and Save and Exit


NOTE: If you are playing The Witcher 2 through Steam, you must disable the in-game Steam Overlay. If you are not playing through Steam, ignore this, if you are.. 

Right click on The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition in Steam
Uncheck Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game


Now you're all good to go! You can now enjoy The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition..enhanced!


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Support, Feedback, and Credits

If you need support for the mod, ask via a forum thread on the STEP Community forums. Any questions, suggestions or any feedback should be posted there.


Credits:
Me, aka Synthetik - For taking all the time out of my day to write this.
EssArrBee, Neovalen and Rootsrat - For the guide style sheet.
EssArrBee - Once again for helping me start the guide.
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