09 July 2014

Spec Ops: The Line - Essential Tweaks

Here are the tweaks I applied to the Steam version of Spec Ops: The Line. Whenever I install a new game, it takes some time to find all the essential tweaks necessary to run the game flawlessly. This post is just a collection of the most important tweaks, all in one place, as they work for me to get almost always 60 FPS while reducing system heat as much as I can without sacrificing to much visual quality.

System Setup

I run the game on a PC with the following components and drivers:

I installed only the Graphics Driver, the HD Audio Driver and the PhysX System Software and left the other drivers unchecked. I always choose a custom installation when updating my drivers, which provides the option to enforce a clean installation.

The tweaks require you to edit the files SREngine.ini and SRInput.ini which can be found in the folder located at:

C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents\My Games\SpecOps-TheLine\SRGame\Config

Those files are encrypted and have to be decrypted before you can edit them. Download the tool from here and extract the three files contained in the archive directly into the configuration folder mentioned above, so they are located side by side with all the *.ini files.

Just drag-and-drop the *.ini file you want to edit over the Gibbed.SpecOpsTheLine.IniDecrypt.exe file before you start editing it and drag-and-drop the same file over the Gibbed.SpecOpsTheLine.IniEncrypt.exe when you are done editing it.

Startup Tweaks

Watching advertisement videos over and over again is very annoying and time consuming. Hence it's best to disable as many of them as possible. In the file SREngine.ini find the section [FullScreenMovie] and prepend a semicolon to the following lines, make them look like this:

;StartupMovies=legal
;StartupMovies=ESRB_Screen
;StartupMovies=legal_logo_screen
;StartupMovies=UnrealLogo
;StartupMovies=2KLogo
;StartupMovies=YagerLogo
;StartupMovies=2KDemo_Warn
;StartupMovies=StartupMovie

Performance Tweaks

The most important tweak to boost FPS and reduce overall system heat is to disable depth of field. I gained a reduction of total GPU heat of 3 degree. In the file SREngine.ini find the section [SystemSettings] and adjust the value of the following property as shown below:

DepthOfField=False

Control Tweaks

If you play with a keyboard and mouse you may notice some kind of mouse acceleration when moving your mouse too fast. To improve aiming with the mouse I just disabled smoothing. In the file SRInput.ini find the section [Engine.PlayerInput] and adjust the value of the following property as shown below:

bEnableMouseSmoothing=false

That's it. I hope you enjoy playing Spec Ops: The Line without having low FPS, high GPU heat or aiming issues.

Logged Off: Harmlezz

Tweak Sources

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