Every fix you need to make BioShock Infinite run infinitely better

You’ve had some time to dive sky-hook-deep into BioShock Infinite, and while you’re undoubtedly thrilled that Ken Levine and Irrational Games are back on the BioShock bandwagon, you might not be thrilled by some of the PC version’s more pressing issues. From a smaller field-of-view, to random choppiness regardless of PC’s specs, to an overly sensitive mouse, the game is not without its annoying faults. Luckily, you can manually fix most of them, and it isn’t too difficult to do so.

Fix the overly sensitive mouse

The default option for the mouse sensitivity is the second lowest choice available, and the mouse flies around too fast to stop and smell  Columbia’s roses. Unfortunately, dropping the mouse to the lowest choice available makes it too slow (at least for many of use). Now, you can muck around for an hour (like some of us did) adjusting your mouse sensitivity through your gaming mouse’s proprietary software, then combining that with the in-game slider. Or you can just edit a config file.

You can edit the ranges of the slider, so you can more precisely alter the speeds:

• Head over to %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Games\BioShock Infinite\XGame\Config\
• Open the file XUserOptions in a text editor of your choice
• Search for the phrases MinMouseLookSensitivity and MaxMouseLookSensitivity
• By default, the minimum will be set to 0.100000 and the maximum will be set to 4.000000
• Make the minimum setting a smaller number — reports around the web have suggested somewhere around 0.05
• Make the maximum setting a smaller number — reports have suggested as drastic of a drop as down to 1.0
• As an added bonus, shut off mouse acceleration, and you won’t have the feeling that something is “just off” when you swing the camera around

Now, each tick on the slider will be a more precise change, and you may not have to combine the sensitivity with third-party software.

Widen the field-of-view

You may not notice it at first, but the field-of-view in Bioshock Infinite is actually a little tight. The FOV option only changes the view by around 15%, but with a simple config edit, you can extend the field.

• Head over to %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Games\BioShock Infinite\XGame\Config\
• Open the file XUserOptions in a text editor of your choice
• Search for the phrase MaxUserFOVOffsetPercent
• Change the 15.000000 number to 100

Now, when you start the game, your slider will extend the FOV further than before.

Disable the annoying intro videos

After a long day of work you want to sit down and play some BioShock, not sit through a bunch of company logos. They only take around a minute (if that) to get through, but they’re annoying regardless. Luckily, you can disable them, and get right into the game after you start it up.

• Head over to %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Games\BioShock Infinite\XGame\Config\
• Find the XEngine.ini file
• Search for the [FullScreenMovie] phrase
• Search for the phrases: StartupMovies=2KLogoSweep720p2997, StartupMovies=IrrationalLogoTest, StartupMovies=UE3AnimatedLogo_ProRes, and StartupMovies=AMDLogo720p
• Add a semi-colon before the S in each “StartupMovies” so it looks like “;StartupMovies”

When you start the game next, you won’t have to deal with companies barraging you with their logos.

Choppiness

There are widespread reports that the game has a bit of lag of choppiness regardless of how powerful your rig may be. Well, this doesn’t seem to have any sort of reliable fix, but there are a few things that helped me.

• Run the game’s benchmarking utility, which you can access from Steam
• Update your drivers. Head over here for Nvidia, and over here for AMD. They make a big difference.
• PC purists will undoubtedly say there’s a stark difference between the Ultra and Very High graphical settings, but I barely noticed one. My rig, which can run just about anything I toss at it, seemed to stutter less when I set the quality to Very High

Unfortunately, the reports of the random stuttering are so widespread that there doesn’t seem to be a solid fix at the moment. On the other hand, at least you know it’s not just your computer, so you don’t have to spend all your time trying to fix it.

Difficulty

BioShock games have harder difficulties unlock after you beat easier ones. However, those of you experienced withe the series will most likely find Infinite a bit easy. In order to avoid wasting a playthrough to get to the good stuff, you can unlock a harder mode right from the start.

• Enter the famed Konami Code from the main menu (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A)
• If you’re playing on the PS3, replace the B and A with O and X
• On the PC B and A will be whatever buttons you have set up as the cancel and confirm actions (not the A key and the B key!)

You’ll have unlocked 1999 mode, which makes the game significantly more difficult