Dead Island for the PC actually allows some extended graphics options that are not available in the game menu.

The additional options include adding anti aliasing in Dead Island and improving shadows. Here, I will show you how to quickly find and edit your graphics settings, even improving them over the best available options in the game menu.

Solid Tip: This article can also be applied to the game’s audio settings. There are only a couple of options, though.

Editing the Video Settings

The extended graphics settings are installed to your documents folder. To find your video file, simply open any Windows folder view and type the following: %userprofile%\Documents\DeadIsland\out\Settings\Video.scr.

You will notice that this file has an extension of .scr and cannot simply be opened to edit.

To get it open, you can either rename it temporarily to an .ini or .txt file, or simply open up a text editor program and drag the file into it.

Sample of High Quality Graphics Settings

Update: Under the current version of the game, unfortunately, using a ShadowMapSize over 1024 causes a graphics glitch that is very annoying. Limit yourself to 1024/1024 for now.

improved shadows example

The Options That Matter

  • FSAA (full scene anti aliasing – defaults to off with a 0)
  • Filtering (“AnisotropicTrilinear” is the best)
  • ShadowMapSize (limit to 1024 due to bugs)
  • SpotShadowMapSize (limit to 1024 due to bugs)
  • MaterialQuality (0 to 3 lower is better)
  • FXQuality (0 to 3 higher is better)
  • FXFadeLevel (0 to 4 lower is better)
  • WaterQuality (0 to 3 lower is better)
  • GrassQuality (0 to 3 lower is better)
  • VSync (doesnt exist by default)
  • ShaderPath(0-6, use 5 if vid card is less than 3 yrs old)

Solid Tip: Your ShaderPath for PC should be 3 (shader model 3) or 5 (shader model 4). Pick 5 if you have at least a GeForce 8600GT or Radeon HD 2600XT.

Example of Video.scr File

 
Resolution(1920,1080)
Monitor(0)
BPP(24)
FSAA(16)
TexBPP(32)
TextureQuality("High")
Filtering("AnisotropicTrilinear")
Fullscreen()
Shadows("High")
ShadowMapSize(1024)
SpotShadowMapSize(1024)
Lightmaps()
GammaFloat(1.13)
MaxRefresh(60)
MaterialQuality(0)
FXQuality(3)
FXFadeLevel(0)
WaterQuality(0)
GrassQuality(0)
EnvQuality("FullDynamic")
ShaderPath(5)
VSync()
DisplayDeviceType(0,0.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000)

Simply save the file when you are done editing it and make sure it is called video.scr.

The game is sneaky and likes to overwrite your changes, so I recommend you right click the Video.scr file, select properties, then select the read-only attribute. This will keep the game from ruining your own settings.