Additional Visual Options

All essential info you need for what a file does is found in the short descriptions found in the Files tab. There's options for most niches and not just the files talked about in the main mod description below.

How to install: setup Mod Engine 2, then drag and drop files into the mods folder

How to uninstall: remove the files from your mods folder

Need more info? Prepare to ~~die~~ read, a lot:

All files have been tested with Patch 1.15, Patch 1.16 & Patch 1.16.1. Support is only provided for the latest version.

Report a bug if you notice one and you're sure it is a file from here causing said bug.

Mods Used In Screenshots:

Frame Generation & Super Resolution for ELDEN RING by huutaiii (Patreon only, free to download)
ELDEN RING photomode mod by Otis_Inf (Patreon only, paid mod)
Wearable Melina's cape (Second Eyepatch version) by ajandri

Special Thanks/Additional Credits:

fromsoftserve (helped me figure out how to start editing gparam files using WitchyBND!)
Vawser (for letting modders do many things such as this mod with Smithbox!)
silentverge (general support and helping me figure out some things in Smithbox!)
LastGodslayer (general support and gifting me ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN Deluxe Edition!)

Want to use files here for your own mod?

Sure. Credit me if you upload it here or somewhere else, linking back to my Nexus profile or this mod page.

Will you make a version of this for ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN?

Yes, check it out here.

Changes the Ray Tracing option in-game to only enable Ray Traced Shadows for all quality levels.

Framerates should be improved over the vanilla game ray tracing, due to the lack of ray traced ambient occlusion. If you're after higher framerate with some form of ray tracing enabled, check out the file below instead.

Changes the Ray Tracing option in-game to only enable Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion for all quality levels.

Framerates will be improved over the vanilla game ray tracing, due to the lack of the more performance heavy ray traced shadows. A good choice if you desire some form of ray tracing but can't take the performance hit of both of both ray tracing settings at once due to vanilla forcing both.

Tip: if you think ray traced ambient occlusion in ELDEN RING is too intense in certain areas or notice dark blobs that look unnatural at times, install the "Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion Dark Blob Mitigation" file as well, as it should help with this issue.

Applies a blur filter to most non-raytraced shadows in ELDEN RING for all shadow quality levels. If you prefer soft shadows over sharp shadows or want to somewhat emulate ray traced shadows, this is a good choice. There are four levels of blur to choose from, with level 1 being the least and 4 being the most blur.

Tip: the recommended choice is blur level 2 and should be the go to if you don't know what to pick, as you can increase/decrease afterwards.

Allows volumetric effects in ELDEN RING to render at a much higher quality when Volumetric Quality is set to "High" or "Maximum" over the vanilla settings. "Medium" is now the same as the vanilla "Maximum" quality and "Low" disables volumetric effects entirely for the novelty. Still images don't do this justice, as the improvement is much easier to notice when you play for yourself and compare the settings.

Tip: the "Maximum" setting with this mod installed is performance heavy! Selecting the "High" setting will run much better while still improving quality over vanilla's "Maximum" setting.

This mod is performance heavy, even on high-end hardware (with or without ray tracing enabled)!

If you intend to play with this mod with its higher quality settings and at high resolutions, I recommend downloading the Frame Generation & Super Resolution for ELDEN RING mod by huutaiii to use upscaling options and optionally enable frame generation.

Many settings have been adjusted at their highest selectable setting in favour of visual fidelity over performance, pushing things as far as possible before crashes occur. There are also several options to choose from, if you want to disable one thing but not the other, etc. (e.g. have RTAO only, RT shadows only, soft shadows, etc.)

In most cases, the setting before the highest (usually "High") now uses vanilla's "Maximum" quality values and the setting below (usually "Medium") now uses vanilla "High" setting values, so you can swap on the fly. This reduces the need to enable/disable the mod when you want to get back to normal and higher framerate gameplay in many cases.

I highly recommend taking the regulation.bin file from Beyond Maximum and running it through bardowastaken's mod, Grass Editor, to improve grass quality (you can just set everything to -1 and it should look better than vanilla and perform the same).

Level of Detail (LODs): All parameter values from the significantly better LOD restored 1.16 mod by MaleandFemale have been imported. Improves level of detail across the game and even increases the distance at which non-RT shadows are rendered. Has a large performance impact. Remove the regulation.bin file if you don't want these changes or notice issues.

Visual Effects: certain parameter values from the Elden Ring InfiniDetail mod by libretro have been borrowed to improve certain effects such as the glow filter, fur effect samples, etc. Check the Version 1.40 changelog for more specific details.

Motion Blur: changed "High" setting to use hidden Ultra value parameters. I am unable to tell the difference personally as motion blur always looks the same to me, but I haven't noticed any negative side effects.

Shadow Quality: "Maximum" setting now uses the highest possible settings before the game will crash on load. "High" quality is the same as vanilla "Maximum", "Medium" is unchanged and "Low" disables most shadows from rendering, for the novelty.

Lighting Quality: "Maximum" setting has had its render distance increased several times higher than vanilla (this may not result in several times the render distance, but it will be improved overall). "High" setting has had its render distance parameter value increased 2x and the "Medium" setting now renders at the vanilla "Maximum" distance. "Low" is unchanged.

Effects Quality: "Maximum" setting parameter values are all quadrupled over the vanilla "Maximum" setting, "High" setting parameter values are doubled over the vanilla and "Medium" setting now uses vanilla "Maximum" values. "Low" is unchanged.

Volumetric Lighting Quality: "Maximum" setting will now render volumetric lights at much higher quality with a heavy performance cost, "High" now uses settings that are in between vanilla Maximum and the new highest possible quality at a seemingly minimal performance cost, and "Medium" now uses vanilla Maximum settings. "Low" will disable volumetric effects entirely, for the novelty or to cover niche situations.

Reflection Quality: Reduced the amount of screen edge fade out for screen space reflections (SSR), allowing more of a reflection to appear near the edges of the screen. Additionally, SSR now displays higher fidelity reflections overall - in some areas this is hard to notice but in others it will be very apparent. Remove the "drawparam" folder if you dislike these fidelity changes and you'll have vanilla SSR but still keep the reduced screen edge fade.

Shader Quality: changed "High" setting to enable the "highPrecisionNormalEnabled" parameter the hidden "Ultra" setting uses. Honestly, I'm not sure what this parameter does (if anything) but I haven't noticed a negative effect of it being on yet.

Ray Tracing: "Maximum" has had its values adjusted to improve the sampling rate of the effects, to primarily address niche cases of spots in the game where RT artifacts can show up (ghosting, boiling, etc.). These can be unnoticeable/very hard to notice if you don't know what to look for or where to find them but the framerate cost is very noticeable (especially at 4K or higher). This is primarily meant for screenshotting, stick to "High" or lower otherwise!

"High" now uses vanilla Maximum settings and "Medium" now uses vanilla High settings. "Low" now sets ray tracing render distance to "0", effectively disabling it - doing this lets you effectively disable RT when you want more performance and re-enable RT when you want quality, without having to Quit to Menu like normal when RT is set to "Off" (this "trick" doesn't work with the "Off" setting, sadly).

I have done full game playthroughs with my mods but I am one person and will have naturally had different scenarios and experiences to you, meaning I may have not noticed a bug here or there. I cannot reasonably check the entire game and test every possible scenario. If something happens and you're sure it's a file from here causing it (with no other mods installed at all), report a bug.

Issue 1: Potential Crashes

All known crashes caused by the mod itself have been fixed in the most recent releases.

Report a crash if you find a reproducible one!

Issue 2: Global Illumination Flickering Issue

ELDEN RING has an issue on NVIDIA drivers (unsure if AMD/Intel have this issue) that can intermittently cause global illumination flickering on both unmodded and modded setups. Some mods may exacerbate the problem but are not the root cause of the problem and as such, some files here may increase the chance of the issue.

The issue primarily affects the exterior open world but it can affect interior locations rarely. Additionally, the issue appears more often in Shadow of the Erdtree DLC locations than it does in the base game.

Capping maximum GPU usage to around 95-98% can reduce the chances of it happening with ray tracing enabled or disabled, but it isn't a catch-all solution. Frame Generation & Super Resolution for ELDEN RING has a workaround built-in can help mitigate the issue and offers other potential solutions in the description, if you're willing to try them out.