Natural Selection 2 Guide

Fixing messed up graphics settings off-game in Natural Selection 2 for Natural Selection 2

Fixing messed up graphics settings off-game in Natural Selection 2

Overview

If something went wrong when you configured your graphics settings in Natural Selection 2 and you can’t get back into the game to fix it, here is a possible way to remedy that by simply editing a textfile.

Disclaimer

Apply anything described in this guide at your own risk.

Prerequisites

The content of this small guide was tested on Natural Selection 2 running on WIndows 7 Professional 64-bit but should be applicable to other windows versions.

The Problem

The graphics settings of your Natural Selection 2 installation are flawed and the game does not start any more. You need a simple way to repair these settings without having to start the game or reinstalling it.

I found this problem twice in posts by players who couldn’t reenter the game after changing their graphics settings in-game. One time, wrong resolution settings caused the game to not start anymore. In the other case, activating OpenGL caused the game to stall at startup.

The Fix

To fix the corrupted graphics settings you can edit the (plain text) file “system_options.xml” in “%USERPROFILE%AppDataRoamingNatural Selection 2” with your favorite texteditor (%USERPROFILE% stands for e.g. C:UsersYOURNAME). On different Windows versions this path may need to be adapted.

“system_options.xml” contains, among some other things, many important graphics options. Here is a list of some options you could try to change:

  • <display>…</display> : Display-number (0,1,….). 0 is default.
  • <device>…</device> : OpenGL, D3D9, D3D11
  • <x-resolution>…</x-resolution> : Choose resonable values here
  • <y-resolution>…</y-resolution> : Choose resonable values here
  • <window-mode>…</window-mode> : fullscreen,windowed, fullscreen-windowed

The entries <device>D3D11</device>, <x-resolution>1600</x-resolution>, <y-resolution>900</y-resolution> and <window-mode>windowed</window-mode> will make Natural Selection 2 use DirectX11 at a resolution of 1600×900 pixels in windowed-mode if that is possible on your machine.

Here is the content of my “system_options.xml” located in “C:Users****AppDataRoamingNatural Selection 2” to give you an idea what to expect in it:

<options> <graphics> <display> <display>0</display> <x-resolution>1440</x-resolution> <bloom>false</bloom> <anisotropic-filtering>true</anisotropic-filtering> <window-mode>fullscreen</window-mode> <atmospherics>true</atmospherics> <fov-adjustment>0.000000</fov-adjustment> <shadows>true</shadows> <y-resolution>900</y-resolution> <display-buffering>0</display-buffering> <ambient-occlusion>off</ambient-occlusion> <anti-aliasing>false</anti-aliasing> <particles>high</particles> <quality>1</quality> </display> <reflections>false</reflections> <texture-streaming>true</texture-streaming> <infestation>minimal</infestation> <decallifetime>0.260000</decallifetime> <device>D3D11</device> </graphics> <system> <runs>39</runs> <build>259</build> </system> <soundVolume>10</soundVolume> <sound> <output-device>Default</output-device> <input-device>Default</input-device> </sound> <voiceVolume>14</voiceVolume> <physics> <gpu-acceleration>true</gpu-acceleration> </physics> <musicVolume>10</musicVolume> </options>

If your problems were caused by any of these settings, you might be able to rescue your installation.

Have Fun with the game!

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