Dying Light: The Beast – The Ultimate Advanced Graphics Guide

Welcome, Survivor. While Dying Light: The Beast features a stunning and graphically intensive world, many PC players have been left frustrated by the game’s surprisingly limited in-game graphics menu.

Critical options for fine-tuning shadows, disabling motion blur, or adjusting post-processing effects are nowhere to be found, making it difficult for players on both low-end and high-end systems to achieve their desired balance of performance and visual quality.

But what if we told you that a hidden, far more powerful settings menu exists? Buried within the game’s configuration files is a single document that gives you direct access to the engine’s graphical settings, allowing for a level of customization that goes far beyond what the in-game options provide.

This guide is your complete, step-by-step walkthrough on how to find and edit this secret file. We’ll explain what the most important commands do, provide a fully optimized configuration for players on low-end PCs, and even show you how to enable the game’s hidden, experimental ray tracing features.

Disclaimer: This guide involves editing the game’s core configuration files. While this is a common practice in PC gaming, it can be risky if done incorrectly. Always back up your original files before making any changes as described below. Incorrect edits could potentially cause bugs or prevent the game from launching. Proceed at your own risk.

Finding and Editing the Secret ‘video.scr’ File

The key to unlocking the game’s true graphical potential lies in a single file called video.scr.

Step 1: Locate Your Settings Folder

First, you need to navigate to the folder where the game stores your user-specific settings. This is located in your “Documents” folder, not the main game installation directory. The exact path is:

C:\Users\<Your-Username>\Documents\dying light the beast\out\settings\

Simply replace <Your-Username> with your actual Windows username.

Step 2: Back Up Your Original File!

This is the most important step. Before you make a single change, right-click on the video.scr file, select “Copy,” and then right-click in the same folder and select “Paste.” This will create a backup copy. If you ever want to revert your changes or if something goes wrong, you can delete your modified file and rename the copy back to the original.

Step 3: How to Open and Edit the File

The .scr file extension is not a standard text file, but it can be opened with any text editor.

• The Standard Method: Right-click on video.scr, select “Open with…”, and choose Notepad.
• The Easy Trick: A simple trick to make editing easier is to temporarily rename the file. Right-click video.scr and rename it to video.txt. This will allow you to open and save it in Notepad with a simple double-click. Just remember to rename it back to video.scr when you are finished with your edits.

The Command List Decoded: The Most Important Settings

Once you open the file, you will be greeted by a long list of commands. While many are self-explanatory, here are some of the most impactful ones you can change to affect your performance and visual quality.

• Upscaler(i) and Upscaling(i): These are the most important settings for performance. Upscaler lets you choose your upscaling technology (1=DLSS, 2=FSR2, 3=FSR3, 4=XeSS), while Upscaling sets the quality mode (0=Performance, 1=Balanced, 2=Quality, 3=Ultra Quality).
• ShadowsQuality(i) and ShadowMapSize(i): The in-game menu lacks detailed shadow controls, but here you have full power. ShadowsQuality can be set from 0 (basic) to 4 (ray-traced), and ShadowMapSize determines the resolution of the shadows. Lowering both of these can provide a massive FPS boost.
• MotionBlur(i), FilmGrain(i), ChromaticAberration(i): These are common post-processing effects that many players prefer to disable for a cleaner image. Setting the value for each of these to (0) will turn them off completely.
• LodMultiplier(i) and GrassQuality(i): These are powerful tools for players on low-end systems. LodMultiplier controls the level of detail of distant objects (a value of 50 will cut the detail in half), and GrassQuality can be lowered to reduce the density of foliage, which is often a major performance hog in open-world games.

An Optimized Config for Low-End PCs (100+ FPS)

For players who want a quick and easy performance boost, here is a community-tested configuration designed to provide a high frame rate on mid-to-low-end hardware while maintaining a decent and playable image quality. You can copy this entire block of text and paste it into your video.scr file, completely replacing its current contents.

CRUCIAL WARNING: If you use this custom config, DO NOT touch the in-game graphics settings menu! Opening the in-game menu and applying any changes will cause the game to automatically overwrite all of your manual edits and revert the video.scr file to a default state.

RendererMode("d3d12")
WindowMode(2)
Resolution(1920,1080)
!FSR(f)
ExtraGameFov(20.00)
!DisableDWM(i)
!RT_AO()
!RT_SS()
!RT_Lit()
!RT_GiDif()
!RT_GiSpc()
AsyncCompute(1)
DRS(0)
FPSLimiter(0)
FPSTarget(144)
Upscaler(3)
Upscaling(2)
TextureQuality("Low")
GammaFloat(1.00)
ShadowsPreset(0)
ShadowsQuality(0)
ShadowMapSize(256)
SpotShadowMapSize(256)
FrameRate(0)
!Vrr()
LatencyReduction(0)
GrassQuality(0)
MotionBlur(0)
MotionBlurQuality("Low")
MotionBlurIntensity(0.00)
Bokeh(0)
GlowGlare(0)
GlowStreaks(0)
LensFlare(0)
SSSSQuality(0)
ChromaticAberration(0)
FilmGrain(0)
ColorGrading(0)
AntiAliasing(1)
FogQuality(0)
ReflectionsQuality(0)
ScreenSpaceShadows(0)
SpotShadowsQuality(0)
AmbientOcclusion(0)
AmbientOcclusionQuality(0)
ColorBlindMode(0)
GpuFxQuality(0)
VoxelGiQuality(0)
!OptSpotsCastShadows(i)
LodQuality(0)
LodMultiplier(50)
!AnisoOptOut()
AnisoOptMaxAnisotropy(4)
FrameGeneration(0, 0)
VirtualShadowMaps(0)
HdrOn(0)
SmartGIQuality(0)
Version(2)

BONUS: How to Enable Hidden Ray Tracing (Experimental)

The most exciting discovery within the video.scr file is that the developers left in the commands for ray tracing, even though it is not an officially supported feature. For players with powerful PCs who want to experiment, you can enable these features manually.

1. Open your video.scr file.
2. Scroll to the very bottom of the file.
3. Copy and paste the following lines:RT_AO(1) RT_SS(1) RT_Lit(1) RT_GiDif(1) RT_GiSpc(1)
4. Save the file and launch the game.

The (1) enables each respective feature (Ambient Occlusion, Soft Shadows, Flashlight, and Global Illumination). Be warned that this is highly experimental and stability is not guaranteed. It will have a massive impact on performance. If your game becomes unstable, you can disable individual features by changing their value from (1) to (0).

By using this advanced guide, you now have the power to tune Dying Light: The Beast to your exact specifications. Happy tweaking!

By Гарик КалХавал

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