Cyberpunk doesn't load custom ini files or is overriding settings within them

[LlyrLumen]

First post but long time lurker. I've been playing CP since launch and spent most of that time NOT playing the game but messing with the files to change things to my tastes, mostly graphics related. So before I learnt how to use WolvenKit and mod the game, I spent a while just changing settings with an ini file placed in config/platform/pc and over the years I tweaked and changed it as CDPR added more RT/PT settings themselves.

Well, over the last say 6 months, I guess also when Phantom Liberty released, I continued to mess with those settings but I had this feeling recently that none of the values I was entering, specifically for reGIR, reSTIRGI, SHARC and RTXDI were being honoured. It became apparent to me when I set extremely high values for them that I know from previous experience with my 4090 (I run a 5090 now) dropped it to it's knees with <1fps was now buttery smooth. I know they made some huge leaps with RT/PT which improved visuals and fps remarkably but setting reGIR to 4096 lights with 1024 build and shading candidates and reSTIRGI spatial samples to 24 should of not only crippled my GPU it should of blown it up completely. So after sometime I came to the conclusion that my ini file, or the settings in it, were no longer being loaded by the game or they were being overriden in some way. I incorrectly attributed this to a mod issue but I just ran another test to rule out any other mod or thing that might be a cause and what I did was completely empty my r6 mods/tweaks folder, my archive/mod folder and my cet/mods folder. revert my cache back to vanilla. In my ini file I set my reGIR, RTXDI, SHARC and reSTIRGI values at ludicrously high numbers, like completely irrational values I know will drop fps completely at best, crash the game at worse...and I increased some other raytracing settings also...basically put in values that I know for a fact will kill a GPU dead, even my 5090.

So, when I started a new game as a nomad, game fades in and V wipes away the mirror as usual, fps is high and game is smooth, looks fine. With those settings that was clearly not normal. So I put the ini tweaker (by manualEnhancer) into CET and started a new game with it loading the ini on game load and as expected it took around 10 seconds for the game to fade in and after 15 seconds V still hadn't wiped the mirror off...FPS was completely crushed. Also had significant boiling which is a result of the reSTIRGI settings

So it seems to me that the game itself is ignoring either these specific settings, or ini files completely as they only seem to take effect if I force them on load through the ini tweaker. I'm sure this wasn't the case a couple of game versions ago...I know CDPR made changes regarding RT/PT to improve visuals/framerates (and removing/ignoring the ray/bounce settings completely) but I didn't expect that would mean ignoring/overriding custom settings completely...which has lead me to incorrectly blame someones mod for it.

I don't suppose anyone here has come across the same issue of the game not loading ini files anymore? Specifically related to RT/PT settings? I cannot and have not found or heard of anyone mentioning this on nexus, reddit or discord.

 

[SpookyFX]

First post but long time lurker. I've been playing CP since launch and spent most of that time NOT playing the game but messing with the files to change things to my tastes, mostly graphics related. So before I learnt how to use WolvenKit and mod the game, I spent a while just changing settings with an ini file placed in config/platform/pc and over the years I tweaked and changed it as CDPR added more RT/PT settings themselves.

Well, over the last say 6 months, I guess also when Phantom Liberty released, I continued to mess with those settings but I had this feeling recently that none of the values I was entering, specifically for reGIR, reSTIRGI, SHARC and RTXDI were being honoured. It became apparent to me when I set extremely high values for them that I know from previous experience with my 4090 (I run a 5090 now) dropped it to it's knees with <1fps was now buttery smooth. I know they made some huge leaps with RT/PT which improved visuals and fps remarkably but setting reGIR to 4096 lights with 1024 build and shading candidates and reSTIRGI spatial samples to 24 should of not only crippled my GPU it should of blown it up completely. So after sometime I came to the conclusion that my ini file, or the settings in it, were no longer being loaded by the game or they were being overriden in some way. I incorrectly attributed this to a mod issue but I just ran another test to rule out any other mod or thing that might be a cause and what I did was completely empty my r6 mods/tweaks folder, my archive/mod folder and my cet/mods folder. revert my cache back to vanilla. In my ini file I set my reGIR, RTXDI, SHARC and reSTIRGI values at ludicrously high numbers, like completely irrational values I know will drop fps completely at best, crash the game at worse...and I increased some other raytracing settings also...basically put in values that I know for a fact will kill a GPU dead, even my 5090.

So, when I started a new game as a nomad, game fades in and V wipes away the mirror as usual, fps is high and game is smooth, looks fine. With those settings that was clearly not normal. So I put the ini tweaker (by manualEnhancer) into CET and started a new game with it loading the ini on game load and as expected it took around 10 seconds for the game to fade in and after 15 seconds V still hadn't wiped the mirror off...FPS was completely crushed. Also had significant boiling which is a result of the reSTIRGI settings

So it seems to me that the game itself is ignoring either these specific settings, or ini files completely as they only seem to take effect if I force them on load through the ini tweaker. I'm sure this wasn't the case a couple of game versions ago...I know CDPR made changes regarding RT/PT to improve visuals/framerates (and removing/ignoring the ray/bounce settings completely) but I didn't expect that would mean ignoring/overriding custom settings completely...which has lead me to incorrectly blame someones mod for it.

I don't suppose anyone here has come across the same issue of the game not loading ini files anymore? Specifically related to RT/PT settings? I cannot and have not found or heard of anyone mentioning this on nexus, reddit or discord.

I cannot say I completely get 100% of what you are saying, but I know I always READ ONLY my "tweaked" ini files for moding games because many games try to override them in general for various reasons.

 

[LlyrLumen]

Hmm, actually sometimes I do that aswell (I had to explicitly for Witcher 3) but never thought to do this as up until one or two versions ago my inis would work as is. I'll actually try and read only the file and see if it makes a difference

 

[ZockMon]

Providing my findings here if OP is still curious or anyone happens to come across this in the future:

• Operating under the assumption we’re talking about .ini files in [CP77FOLDER]/engine/config/platform/pc
• While setting an ini file to read-only can be required if you want ini edits for certain games to be honored by those games, and may even be required for some of 2077’s files in other folders (although I don’t know of any off the top of my head), I can confirm it is not required for ini files in this folder
• Regardless of how many ini files you have (i.e., 1 or >1), how you have them named, or how you have their contents formatted, I recommend doing the following to check what values the game is actuallyusing/honoring (note - I don’t think this will tell you whether the value is valid / is actually doing anything):
  • Open up the CET overlay
  • Go to the CET console
  • Enter the following command: print(GameOptions.Get('group', 'option'))
  • Where group is the name of the section header (the words inside [ ] ) in your ini file, and option is the name of the GameOption in that section you want to know the value of
• Through my testing, I was unable to confirm whether or not ini files follow the same naming hierarchy .archive files do, so I erred on the safe side and compiled all of my desired values into one ini file. In this file I was also sure to do the following, as these things may affect whether or not the game honors your desired values:
  • Combine sections (“GameOption Groups”) and de-duplicate GameOption values within, such that I only had one instance of each unique GameOption in the file
  • Cross-referenced each GameOption and Group I included in my ini file with https://rootpunk.com/gameoptions to be sure:
    • they even existed and were spelled correctly
    • that the value I used for each was in the right format (e.g., integer vs boolean vs float)
    • that the GameOption was actually used in the version of 2077 I was running (GameOptions with a value of “N/A” are not used by the vanilla game in those versions of 2077)
• Again, not sure how much of that is actually required, but I do at least know all the values I enter are honored by the game