Zombie video game enthusiasts have eagerly awaited the long-anticipated sequel,Dead Island 2, and fortunately,the game delivered, albeit with some caveats. While many PC players have already dived into the title through the Epic Games Store, a significant portion of Steam loyalists opted to hold off until it became available on their preferred platform. Luckily, the wait ended when the game wasofficially released on Steam on April 22.
This open-world zombie game exhibits respectable performance on the PC, yet there’s always room for enhancement. If you are looking for a guide that will help you squeeze out a little extra performance, you’ve landed in the right spot.
Dead Island 2offers the standard graphic settings you would expect from any good PC port. While the settings below may not provide a major performance boost, they are still very important to make the game look impressive.
When you boot the game,do NOT skip the shader compilation process. It happens at every launch but lasts only a few seconds. Opting to skip this process may result in shader compilation stutters, impacting your gaming experience.
Recommended Settings
Resolution
Determines the resolution and the aspect ratio of the game. Choose Native for the best visuals.
Native
Window Mode
Determines if the game uses the entire desktop screen or only a portion of it. Fullscreen may offer slightly better performance, but Windowed Borderless allows smoother Alt + Tab to desktop or other apps.
Windowed Borderless/Fullscreen
VSync
Determines if the game synchronizes the framerate to the display’s refresh rate. Turning it on will remove screen tearing but may increase latency, whereas, vice versa will occur when set to off.
On
Maximum Framerate
Cap the game’s framerate to the determined number. Turn it on to smooth frametime graph, and off to increase FPS.
Personal Choice
Field of View
Determines how much of the game world you will see on screen. Increase if the default option gives you a headache.
Motion Blur
Determines if the game applies a blur effect when the camera is moved. Only turn it on when you are playing on a very low framerate.
0
Unlike other zombie games,Dead Island 2performs admirably on the PC. However, there’s always room for improvement. Delving into the advanced settings is where you can steal some additional frames from your game. Generally, Effects and Shadows have the most significant impact on performance, but fine-tuning other settings might also provide you with a little boost here and there.
Anti-Aliasing
Determines if the game uses Anti Aliasing technology to smooth out edges.
Temporal AA High
View Distance
Determines at what distance the game will stop rendering objects. Choosing lower options will increase object pop-ins. Use Low if you are CPU-bound.
Ultra
Post Processing
Determines the quality of post-processing technologies like Chromatic Aberration, Motion Blur, Bloom, and more.
Medium
Textures
Determines the quality of textures in the game. No impact on performance if VRAM used is under the GPU VRAM limit.
Effects
Determines the quality of explosion and fire. Lowering it can improve performance in intense scenes.
Determines the quality of foliage like grass, trees, and bushes.
SSAO
Determine the quality of shadows around small objects. Shadows make these objects look grounded instead of making them look like they are floating.
Indirect Shadows
Determines the quality of indirect shadows. Make the game more realistic at the cost of a slight performance.
Shading Quality
Determines the quality of material and SSR. No impact on visuals was found in our testing.
Low
AMD FSR 2
Determines if AMD upscaling technology, FSR 2, is used or not. Turning it on makes the game look grainy but increases performance. Only utilize when Native has low performance.
Off
AMD FidelityFX Variable Shading
Determines if the game uses AMD Variable Rate Shading technology to create a shading rate image.
Additional Improvements
To further enhance your gaming experience, consider using mods and removing certain files. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it:
Add DLSS 2.0 Mod
Unfortunately,Dead Island 2doesn’t offer DLSS 2.0 support for Nvidia players. However, there’s a workaround available for those who prefer DLSS over FSR 2.0. Thanks to modderPotatoOfDoom1337, players can now access DLSS 2.0 through amod available on the NexusMods website. After downloading the required mod, follow these steps:
If you wish to uninstall the mod, simplydelete all three previously pasted DLL filesfrom the game directory.
Skip Intro Videos
You can decrease the time it takes to get into the world ofDead Island 2. All you have to do is delete or rename a few files and your game will swiftly take you to the main menu by skipping the intro videos. Here’s what you need to do:
