Risen is a single-player fantasy-themed action role-playing game released just a week ago. While the graphics is quite good in some parts (lighting, shadows, weather effects and environment), the developers didn’t manage to integrate Anti-Aliasing due to the HDR (High Dynamic Range) effects. Here is a way how you can enable Anti-Aliasing anyway, working only for nVidia graphics card though.

1. Download and install nHancer

nHancer is an Advanced Control Panel and Profile Editor for nVidia graphics cards, enabling you to optimize the display of games and customizing driver settings. This will allow you to force the nVidia driver to activate Anti-Aliasing, no matter what the game wants. Download and install the latest version of nHancer from the official website or from the local server.

2. Rename the Risen executable to Vanguard

Go to the binary folder of your Risen installation, probably C:\Program Files (x86)\Deep Silver\Risen\bin and rename Risen.exe to Vanguard.exe. This will force the nVidia driver to apply Anti-Aliasing settings usually applied for the game Vanguard which are also working for Risen.

3. Enable Anti-Aliasing settings with nHancer

Now launch nHancer and let it search for all profiles if this is the first time you start the application. Once the list in on the left side is populated, search for Vanguard and select the according profile. Once you selected it, tick “Anti-Aliasing” in the “Enhancements” tab on the right side and select the Anti-Aliasing mode you prefer. You will probably have to do some experimenting to find the right setting for your hardware, but I suggest to use “Multisampling” and then the 8x or 16x setting.

My GTX 260 can easily run Multisampling 8x and 16x without big performance losses, but using Supersampling or Combined 16x will kill the performance to around 2-3 FPS. Try various options for your graphics card and select the one which looks best without losing too many FPS.

Then make sure “Anti-Aliasing compability” is checked under the “Compability” tab and “Vanguard” is selected in the drop-down menu below.

4. Launch Risen and have fun with smoother edges and less aliasing

Now you can just launch Vanguard.exe (your Desktop shortcut may not be working any more) and enjoy the better graphics! I took some comparison screenshots for you to see which Anti-Aliasing setting has which effect and how big the performance losses are. Graphics settings:

Resolution: 1920×1080
Details: Everything “High”,  Depth of Field deactivated (looks ugly),
Config tweaks:  ViewRange set to 16000

1. Anti-Aliasing off, 55 FPS
   
2. Multisampling 8x, 35 FPS
   
3. Combined 16xS, 3 FPS
   

As you can see, there is not much difference in the image quality between Multisampling 8x and Combined 16xS, but the performance differences are huge. I recommend to use Multisampling and not Supersampling or Combined.