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Bulletstorm and you: how to get it to play nice with your PC

The PC version of Bulletstorm may ship like it's the bastard cousin of the …

We've gone into some of the problems with the PC version of Bulletstorm, but we're also enjoying the game so damned much we thought it would be a good idea to show you how to get it running smoothly. Whether you want to support a game that shipped so clearly aimed at consoles is up to you, but with a little time and effort you can do undo most of the damage inflicted on the PC version of the game.

Even though the game requires Games for Windows Live, it feels and acts like a console game by default. Let's fix that.

No matter how you buy the game, you'll need a Games for Windows Live account. There is nothing that can be done about it, and no service that lets you escape it. The game does not require an always-on Internet connection after checking in once and authorizing, and we tested this by yanking the network cable out of our gaming PC and playing through a level.

Turn this into a PC game

You'll want to undo the damage that consoles have done to this port. Go into the control options and turn off the aim assist. You have a mouse and keyboard, so you don't need it. There are multiple controls mapped to the same key, such as sprint and jump on the space bar, and the "R" button to use things and also to reload. If you'd like to split this items to different keys, you certainly can.

Also, if you notice your mouse controls feeling off, there's something you can do about that.

Mouse smoothing

Mouse smoothing has been turned on in Bulletstorm, and there isn't a way to change that in the normal menus. Here's how you can make the tweaks: first, find the configuration files under Bulletstorm/StormGame/Config on your computer. These are encrypted (with a simple polyalphabetic cipher, for those who care), but are very easy to open. According to the forums discussing the game, this was added directly after launch; the original files would be edited at will. Before you do anything, it's a good idea to make another copy of the files to be swapped in later, just in case you mess something up.

You'll need to grab an application called "BulletStormINIeditor.exe"—Google should help you with that. The mouse smoothing option is found in the "StormInput" file. Simply change the value of bEnableMouseSmoothing to "false." It's on by default, and this is the only way to remove it.

While Bulletstorm isn't a game of high precision, it is a fast-paced shooter that leans on your reflexes. Locking you into mouse smoothing was a bad, bad move.


If you'd like to adjust your field of view in the game, open the "StormCamera" file in the Config folder, and you'll see the default value is set to 85. We jumped it up to 120 to show you the difference. The higher the number, the more of the level you will be able to see—and the more distortion you'll experience.

The default setting of 85
The default setting of 85
Increasing the value to 120
Increasing the value to 120

Feel free to mess with the settings until you find something that works for you. This gives you a wider view of the level, but it also creates a sort of tunnel effect. It can also offer a competitive advantage online, but Bulletstorm only features co-op online play. You can argue this helps you a little too much on the online leaderboards, but a wider view won't give you a huge advantage if you don't know how to work together to begin with. Tweak away!


Unreal Engine 3 wants to keep your experience smooth, and thus locks you into a maximum framerate. To change this, open your "StormEngine" configuration file, and scroll down about one-fifth of the way down. If you would like to increase your maximum framerate, change the value of MaxSmoothedFrameRate as high you would like to go. If you'd like to turn this feature off completely, simply set bSmoothFrameRate to "false."

Most gamers will be just fine with the standard settings the game locks you into, but the ability to tweak the settings is always welcome.

This shouldn't be needed

It's unclear why such a light level of obfuscation was put between the players and the configuration files, especially when it took PC gamers minutes to get around it. You can argue about how many of these tweaks are necessary, but different people with different systems like and use different settings. This is not a competitive online game, why not keep it open?

Here's a likely answer: If you open the "StormAI" file you can do some fun things with the enemies and see some of the notes from the developers discussing balance. Bulletstorm has some very enjoyable combat, and by tweaking a few things with the enemy AI, you can make it much easier or much harder. Bonus: decrease the distance enemies can hear you and have fun sneaking up on all the deaf bad guys. You can also hurt their accuracy—or make them all sharpshooters.

Adrian Chmielarz is People Can Fly's creative director, and he told Ars that the encryption is there to "prevent people from cheating on Echoes and Anarchy Leaderboards," most likely by keeping them from adjusting certain aspects of enemy behavior or power. That's perfectly fair, but they left too many of the game's core settings locked behind the encryption—which is too weak to have kept anyone from the files for more than a few minutes anyway. "Possibly we should separate .ini files: some encrypted, some (visuals, mouse, etc.) open to rape," he continued via Twitter. "Oops, I mean edit."

We hope this short tutorial helps you enjoy the game a bit more, and if you have any tweaks that you found help performance, please share them in the discussion.

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Channel Ars Technica