Graphics tweaks and UI change guide
Elite: Dangerous is a stunning looking game by default, but that won’t stop us from tweaking it even further to make it look far better than it already does. This guide will show you how to tweak the graphics to make the galaxy even better looking!
If you’ve ever been out in the deep black exploring, you probably know that Elite is probably the best “screenshot emulator” up to date. Gorgeous vistas, huge asteroid fields around enormous gas giants, local stars shining behind many worlds you fly by, or simply above the horizon of a distant undiscovered moon you’ve just landed on…
If you have the hardware to run the game on maxed out settings, you can probably afford some extra tweaks to boost the graphics as well.
World textures
Each of the game presets targets a specific chunk of XML data inside GraphicsConfiguration.xml file. By simply changing those values, we can easily boost the overall visual quality of the planets we fly by – especially when viewed from up close.
The mentioned file is located in your game installation folder under: Elite Dangerous\Products\elite-dangerous-64 (it might be either in your Program files or under the steamapps folder). Do not edit this file without making a backup first. Some of the changes mentioned below can simply be pasted into the GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml file (located at %localappdata%\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Graphics) but some players reported not being able to get the changes to work that way – so let’s just stick to the original file inside the game folder.
Edit the file in a simple text editor like Notepad or Notepad++ (do not use MS Word or anything alike). Search for a chunk of code starting with <planets> which contains all the settings for the default game preset. We only want to edit the ultra setting so instead of the default texture size of 2560, type in 8192 to make the game use 8k textures. The preset chunk should look like this:
<Ultra>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_ULTRA;</LocalisationName>
<TextureSize>8192</TextureSize>
<AtmosphereSteps>6</AtmosphereSteps>
<CloudsEnabled>true</CloudsEnabled>
<WorkPerFrame>256</WorkPerFrame>
<TexturePoolBudget>100</TexturePoolBudget>
</Ultra>
Next up, is the quality of the galaxy background. Look for the <GalaxyBackground> tag just beneath the ultra preset we just edited, in the same file. Change the default 2k resolution to 4k. The preset chunk should look like this:
<High>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_HIGH;</LocalisationName>
<TextureSize>4096</TextureSize>
</High>
Use search/find or scroll down to the <Environment> section, and modify the ultra preset for the GalaxyBackground. By default it’s using the same level as the High preset so we’ll bump this one by a single value. Your chunk of code should look like this:
<Ultra>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_ULTRA;</LocalisationName>
<Item>
<Feature>GalaxyBackground</Feature>
<QualitySetting>3</QualitySetting>
</Item>
<Item>
<Feature>Planets</Feature>
<QualitySetting>3</QualitySetting>
</Item>
<Item>
<Feature>DamageDecals</Feature>
<QualitySetting>2</QualitySetting>
</Item>
<Item>
<Feature>SurfaceRocks</Feature>
<QualitySetting>2</QualitySetting>
</Item>
</Ultra>
Moving onto the <Envmap> part of the .xml file, bump the High preset texture size to 512. Your chunk of code should look like this:
<High>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_HIGH;</LocalisationName>
<TextureSize>512</TextureSize>
<NumMips>8</NumMips>
</High>
By changing the above mentioned values – you should see a noticeable increase in overall texture quality without any framerate issues as long as you have the hardware to support it. Just for comparison – I used these settings with my old GTX-770 OC, and I never saw any difference in framerate compared to vanilla Ultra settings. However, if you get random hickups or frame drops, try lowering the planet textures to 4k instead of 8k.
Shaders
Personally, I never use extra shader injection like SweetFX or ReShade because I have a good IPS monitor that displays amazing colors, and honestly – none of the presets ever fit my taste… But, a lot of people still do. I tried testing various types of shaders in Elite and most of them have issues starting up. Luckily, there’s EDFX that was designed with Elite in mind exclusively. You can get full info and download it from here. Just make sure to get the latest version and start the game via EDFX to make sure everything works.
As with all shader injectors – you will most probably have to tweak it a lot to your liking and to match your monitor color profiles.
Changing the FoV
Even though the game offers the FoV (field of view) slider inside the options menu, you can tweak it even further inside the Settings.xml file located in AppData\Local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Graphics folder.
Look for the FOV tags inside the mentioned file and edit the value to your liking. Just make sure not to boost it too high because it may cause strange camera behaviour.
Depending on the ship you're flying, after you boost the FoV, you might end up seeing more of your pilot. Wouldn't it be nice if you could tilt your default head position upwards and see more of the outside than just your feet and hands holding the controlls? Well - it's actually very easy. Open up the settings menu and go to Controls > Headlook Mode > Centre When Headlook Inactive and disable it. Now, you can just use headlook mode to position the camera however you want. Once you disable headlook mode - the camera will not reset.
Changing the UI color
And finally – we have the simplest mod that makes all of our cockpits awesome in just a few clicks… The default orange UI looks cool, and it actually feels nice in the majority of starter ships. It looks perfect on a rusty sidewinder, and it goes really nicely with the military Viper or a Cobra.
However – once you get into higher-tier ships, especially if you like to bask in the glory of the Empire like I do – you will want to change the orange color into something more fitting to the amazing clean/sleek lines of your ship.
To do so, open the GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml file inside your home directory under C:\Users\{USER}\AppData\Local (Windows) or Library\Application Support (OS X), and search for a folder named Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Graphics.
If you don’t have the mentioned file inside the Graphics folder – just create one yourself. The game uses whatever is inside to override the default settings. If you’ve seen someone with a cool UI, this is the file to paste the settings in. If you just want to try out different colors and mix/match your own – go to Arkku and copy/paste the code given after you tweak the sliders to your liking.
An example of a blue UI code looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<GraphicsConfig>
<GUIColour>
<Default>
<LocalisationName>Standard</LocalisationName>
<MatrixRed> 0.21, 0.29, 0.93 </MatrixRed>
<MatrixGreen> 0, 1, 0 </MatrixGreen>
<MatrixBlue> 1, 1, 1 </MatrixBlue>
</Default>
</GUIColour>
</GraphicsConfig>
I hope some of the tweaks were helpful and your Elite galaxy looks even better now.
Fly safe, and fly curiously o7
38 comments
Dude 27. August, 2019. at 22:52h
Changes work fine on my 2700x and 1060 6GB @ 1080p. No major lag and 60fps at Ultra.
Revan 17. August, 2019. at 20:32h
I did the following changes and whenever i went to graphics settings my anti aliasing, supersampling, and fx quality is grayed out. if i scroll over it (not click it) it un grays itself but if i leave graphics settings and go back its back to grayed out and does same thing where it ungrays when i scroll over it. i replaced file with a copy of original to get back to where i was before i edited anything and even tried to get original file from someone else but now its doing it with nothing in the xml file having been changed.
Charlusmagnus 02. August, 2018. at 07:33h
Thank you so much for your answer, Skipp. I play in Ultra settings and it is true that the textures seems a bit better, however on earth like worlds, the clouds still look very blurry and "textury" is it the same for you?
Thanks a lot and fly safe :)
Vinny 01. August, 2018. at 16:25h
@Skipp - I did it. It did not improve my poor HD graphics 4000 performance but the loadings are way shorter and sometimes (out space) I can even get 30 FPS. I reduced everey texture size I could but still no 30 fps at RES or Stations.
Skipp 30. July, 2018. at 07:20h
@Charlusmagnus - As far as I know, you won't see any major difference in planet textures unless you come really close. For example - low/med textures will have Earth-like worlds with blurry and muddy clouds while the tweaked version will have a much sharper texture. It should work.
Charlusmagnus 29. July, 2018. at 10:32h
Hey there, thanks for this tutorial!
I've been trying to modify the code lines in graphic configuration files but only the galactic background improves, not the planet textures. Any ideas?
Skipp 27. July, 2018. at 23:27h
@Vinny - that's actually a great question. Feel free to give it a try and post back the results. I do however think that setting the game on "low" already does this for you... like, it just tells the game to use the lowest res textures. But the rest of the stuff (galaxy detail and star rendering for example just might work)
Vinny 27. July, 2018. at 18:52h
Does anyone know if this could be used for downscalling the the textures so the game can run better on weak machines?
Gregory Nelson 23. July, 2018. at 03:28h
Ouch, my bad.
Skipp 02. July, 2018. at 18:15h
@Gregory Nelson - it says it's an example of a blue UI code, not the one on the screenshot above :)
Gregory Nelson 02. July, 2018. at 16:51h
Correction: Darn, still not getting through, but close. Basically the MatrixBlue section needs to be 100 under Red column and 0 for both the Green and Blue columns. Is this correct?
Gregory Nelson 02. July, 2018. at 16:49h
Darn, still not getting through, but close. Basically the UltraBlue section needs to be 100 under Red column and 0 for both the Blue and Green columns. Is this correct?
Gregory Nelson 02. July, 2018. at 16:45h
Darn, the formatting didn't make it through into my post. Let me see if this works...
0.21, 0.23, 0.93 " 0, 1, 0 " 1, 0, 0 "
"
"
"
Gregory Nelson 02. July, 2018. at 16:43h
Using the Elite: Dangerous HUD colour theme editor that you link to above, I think the color scheme I show below is the one you meant to demo in the screenshot. Looks assume! Once I get home from travel, I need to revisit this webpage and "update" my Elite Dangerous PC install to include these "improvements. Thanks for sharing this guide.
0.21, 0.23, 0.93
0, 1, 0
1, 0, 0
Oscar Freuler-Simons 17. June, 2018. at 11:22h
@Randy Olson Unfortunately I don't think you can. As far as I'm aware console will not let you access your files to tweak stuff like that, consoles tend to be a bit child-proofed like that. It's a bit stupid, and a part of the reason I don't like console manufacturers, alongside the shitty way they treat their customers.
Randy Olson 08. May, 2018. at 17:43h
Any chance some UI enhancements can be implemented into the Xbox version of the game? Pretty please?! :)
Bam 12. December, 2017. at 22:28h
The file now seems to live here
AppData\Local\Frontier_Developments\Products\elite-dangerous-64
or it does on my install.
quin 13. October, 2017. at 12:06h
my comment below was suppose to show < / fx >. thats the field I'm wondering about.
quin 13. October, 2017. at 12:06h
in the box for high settings. Is 3 the highest number I can put to increase these effects even more or have I entered in a variable thats not recognized?
Skipp 02. October, 2017. at 17:19h
@Godryc - sure. The game will ignore all the unsupported stuff anyway. It's a simple XML file
Godryc 02. October, 2017. at 15:40h
Odd. I have only two lines in that file (GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml ). Is it safe to simply add the paragraphs since I don't have the option to edit them since they don't exist?
Yeet 30. August, 2017. at 02:56h
Jk but federation>empire
Yeet 30. August, 2017. at 02:55h
Imperial fag
Skipp 09. August, 2017. at 18:24h
@Ben - that's very strange. I have a GTX970 and i get no such artefacts... I honestly don't know :(
Ben 08. August, 2017. at 21:50h
Hi,
I've changed the settings and am delighted with the effect! However, now when I jump, my holo me and in game HOTAS blur for about 3 seconds? I'm running gtx 1070 SSD so am wondering why this would affect? I've taken the MOD off and the blurring is no longer
Skipp 27. July, 2017. at 16:22h
@Dean Willis - ofcourse. The files are still there. I just double-checked on my installation and everything is where it was. You're probably looking in the wrong folder. Open your ED installation folder and look for: Products\elite-dangerous-64 or Steam\steamapps\common\Elite Dangerous\Products\elite-dangerous-64
Dean Willis 26. July, 2017. at 12:25h
Is this still possible. I've checked everywhere on my PC but these files simply don't exist. Checked on forums and online but can't find a recent version of this. Did it get blocked by Horizons or a later update?
Tencer 28. June, 2017. at 01:42h
@NLS the galaxy texture is not a traditional texture stored on the drive and used, its generated by the game each time you jump to a new system so when you increase the texture size you are telling the game to generate a higher resolution image just like setting resolution on a camera. hope this helps.
NLS 01. March, 2017. at 17:15h
Are you sure the changes are real?
I mean you change texture size without changing ACTUAL texture size (the actual graphic that makes the texture).
Skipp 17. October, 2016. at 19:48h
@CMDR Raidan - glad to be of help. o7
CMDR Raidan 15. October, 2016. at 15:15h
@skipp thanks for the settings! Looking good.
Changed the resolution and so far so good. V happy customer thanks!
CMDR Raidan 14. October, 2016. at 12:43h
GUI looks great, someone else has already asked for you to email them, but could you just post the settings? Thanks!!
Skipp 03. September, 2016. at 10:13h
@Kneejo - Yes, if you don't have the hardware to support the settings you should be careful with such high texture settings. I personally haven't seen any framerate changes on my current GTX970 - stable 60fps anywhere in the game.
Kneejo 03. September, 2016. at 02:04h
Be careful with the 8k settings, as they will introduce more stress on your machine, especially noticeable when jumping to another system, as this is the moment when the textures are loading for the system you are heading to. 8k had me almost crashing into a star, due to the hyperjump freezing up on me. If 8k is too high for your machine, you can also use the value 4096 or 4k to make it look better without too much framedrop in the jumps. The difference between 8k and 4k I didn't notice much, but it's better than the original 2k.
Tellarim 13. August, 2016. at 22:27h
Could you e-mail me the preset of the UI used in the last screenshot with the FDL? Those colors look awesome!
Roxx 08. August, 2016. at 17:47h
Thnx for the guide! Very handy
Sallcoxy 04. August, 2016. at 20:21h
Huh... I was never the coding type of guy and I easily get lost in those configuration files but I actually made this work! I feel proud of myself now :D
Captain Ooby 03. August, 2016. at 22:39h
This is useful! The UI change is something I've known about for a while, but I'm gonna test the textures boost right now, thnx!.