Witcher 2 Engine Fix 0.11.0

Sharper sun shadows if you want them, plants that hold their detail further away, and a faster start. Extract the zip into the game folder, over the old version. The ini in the zip replaces yours, so note your changes first.

New

• Shadow quality. A new row in Options > Graphics (Vanilla, High, Ultra), also Ctrl+Shift+F10. The hard line in the shadows on the ground 10-14 m ahead of Geralt is where the sun's sharpest shadow zone ends. High and Ultra move it out until it no longer shows and sharpen the shadows, for more video memory. It switches live, with a pause of 2-3 s. Vanilla is the default, so nothing changes until you pick a level. [shadows] enabled=0 removes the feature.
• Plants keep their detail further away. The distance where a plant turns into a flat picture now follows the Draw distance level: high 1.5x, ultra 2x, extreme 3x, vanilla the game's own. After changing level, load a save to see it. Tune it with billboard_scale in [preset.*]; 1 is the game's value.
• Faster start. Most of an idle wait of about 11 s while the sound system loads is gone: main menu after 6.5 s instead of 16 s on the machine measured. [startup] fast_start=0 restores the wait.
• Faster save previews. About ten times faster: 165 saves took 2.9 s, now under 0.3 s. [saves] light_previews=0 restores the game's way.

Changed

• The Draw distance row and the ini say Vanilla for the game's own values. An older ini's baseline still works.
• The preset text no longer shows at startup, where it could float over the launcher or the desktop.

Tested

Steam 3.5.0.26 and GOG 3.5.0.26g, Windows 11, both with DXVK.

Not measured yet: the frame rate cost of High, Ultra and the plant distances. If you lose frames in dense forest, lower billboard_scale in [preset.extreme]. Without DXVK, High and Ultra add to a 32-bit process that is already short of memory, so use them with DXVK.

Full list: CHANGELOG.md