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Understanding Game Settings and Setup

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Introduction:
Often while sharing games with users, I’ve found that many people do not have a thorough knowledge of game settings and setup necessary for an optimal experience. I have attempted wherever possible to setup things for them in my releases automatically so that they can simply install and play, not needing to worry about changing different settings. However, the ability to do this automatically in every case for everyone’s hardware or preferences is sometimes impossible or at least somewhat difficult. Therefore I decided I would release this guide to show people how to generically set up these settings by themselves. More instructions, less hand holding.

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ISO files:
The first thing that should be covered for a basic understanding of installation of various games is how to mount an ISO. Thankfully, if you use Windows 8, this is as easy as double-clicking the ISO file, and it will automatically mount as a virtual CD/DVD. Sometimes, if the ISO is created with less compatible settings, Windows 8 may fail to mount the disk, however. If this is the case, or if you have a different operating system (like Windows 7, Vista, or XP), there are two methods you can follow to use the disc. Perhaps the easiest method is to install a 3rd party ISO mounting program, such as Daemon Tools. Alternatively, you can use a file extraction utility such as 7-zip or WinRAR to extract the files and launch the setup program located within.

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Redistributables (prerequisite files):
Secondly, you should understand what a redistributable package is, as many games require them. A redistributable package is an application coding extension required to execute different kinds of code. In other words, a game might require a redistributable to be installed in order for it to work. Most game providers such as Steam automatically install required redistributables for you, and the same is true for many game releases within the file-sharing community. However, there are many cases where sometimes the redistributable required to run the game does not get installed, and you get messages that files are missing when you attempt to launch the game. Most times if you Google the error message, the first results will point you to the required redistributable package you need to install to fix the issue. Do NOT Google and download the file name declared to be missing and install it! You might get lucky and it work, but most times you are simply putting a big Band-Aid on the problem, and will experience issues such as frequent crashes or even an infected computer at worst.

Luckily, most games give you the redistributables required within the game directory, under names such as Redists, DirectX, vcredist, DotNet, and so on. If this is the case, running these applications will most likely solve the issue for you. However, sometimes a game will not provide you with the redistributables, and you will have to download them manually. Common redistributables required for games are DirectX, Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Redistributables (Google the ones you need), and Microsoft .NET framework (Google the version you need).

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System Requirements
In order to find games your system can handle, you need to know how to look at the system requirements and see that it is compatible with your configuration. To get a good concept of your computer hardware on Windows, do the following:
1. Press WinKey + R
2. Type dxdiag
3. Hit enter
This launches the DirectX Diagnostic Tool. This will give you most of the information required to know what your computer is capable of, including your OS, Processor, Memory, approximate total display memory.

The Operating System (OS) value will tell you what version of Windows you are running (e.g., Windows 7). It will also tell you if you are running a 32-bit or 64-bit version. This is important to know which version of applications you should install or can use. 64-bit (also known as x64) machines can run both 64-bit and 32-bit (also known as x86) programs.

The Processor will tell you the name of your processor, what speed it is, and how many CPU threads you have. The most important variables here are speed and CPUs. The higher the speed, generally speaking, the better. This speed value is typically calculated in gigahertz (GHz) with values such as ~2.5 GHz. The number of CPUs mentioned is a calculation of the number of threads your processor uses. The more threads, the better your machine is at multitasking. Your threads typically is equal to the amount of cores your CPU has, but some CPUs have more threads than cores, so this is not always reliable. A processor that shows four CPUs may only be running two cores with two threads operating on each.

The Memory will tell you how much RAM you have in megabytes (MB). To turn this value into gigabytes (GB) you must divide this value by 1024. So if your computer shows 4096MB RAM, that means you have 4GB of RAM installed.

The DirectX version will tell you what version of DirectX is installed. Common values are 9, 10, and 11. This is important when looking over the required DirectX version for a game in its system requirements.

Heading over to the Display tab, you will see the name of your graphics card and its capabilities. The Approx. Total Memory shows how much memory DirectX can use to process textures. This is NOT your VRAM. Your VRAM is generally a smaller value that can only be known by researching your graphics card or using a utility such as HWiNFO. Below in DirectX Features you will find what capabilities your graphics card has, such as Direct3D acceleration.

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Troubleshooting Compatibility:
Many older games may have compatibility issues with newer hardware or operating systems. In these cases, right-clicking the game and selecting Troubleshoot Compatibility will often lead to a solution. The most common solution to getting an older game to be compatible is to run it in compatibility mode for Windows XP. Experiment with the different options, and realize that if none of them work, you may not be able to run the game.

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Settings:
Okay, so you have installed a game and it is running fine, or it is running sluggishly. There either is or is not a settings menu in the game or launcher to setup the graphics settings. The question is, how do you set up your machine to get the best ratio of quality and performance.

Power Settings
One of the most common mistakes is running a game and getting suboptimal performance due to using low power settings on your computer. Optimally, you should turn your power settings to High Performance mode when you play games to get the best quality/performance from your computer. Generally you can change this by going to the Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, Power Options, and changing this to High Performance and selecting Save Changes. This, however, varies between operating systems, so you may need to Google “how to change power settings” in order to get a thorough walkthrough.

Graphics Card Settings:
On most computers, graphics card settings may be configured by right-clicking on the desktop and selecting your graphics utility, such as Nvidia Inspector, AMD Catalyst Control Center, or Intel HD Graphics. In the options, find the advanced mode for whichever application and turn that on. Next, locate the section for 3D graphics for gaming. You should see options such as Anti-aliasing, Texture/Anisotropic Filtering, and VideoSync/Frame Rate Control. The picture below shows an example view from AMD Catalyst control Center.



Anti-aliasing controls how much jagged edges are reduced on 3D objects. Turning anti-aliasing off typically increases performance at the cost of more jagged edges. Turning anti-aliasing to use application settings will allow the game to decide or implement anti-aliasing if available. For many games that do not have antialiasing in its features, overriding the game settings and forcing Anti-aliasing can improve the appearance of 3D objects by smoothening the edges. Multisampling is cheaper than Supersampling. Supersampling is cheaper than Morphological filtering. 4x Multisampling is generally an acceptable value.

Texture/Anisotropic Filtering controls how good the textures will look that are far in the distance. Setting this higher will increase texture fidelity at a cost to performance. Forcing this for games with no filtering settings may produce a better visual appearance.

VideoSync/Frame Rate Control will determine how much your screen is allowed to tear. Screen tearing is when your screen flickers jagged lines between frames. Turning video sync off typically can increase performance at the cost of screen tearing. Turning it on will reduce or eliminate it. Forcing it on games with no video sync options can sometimes reduce tearing on them.

Game Settings:
Most games have in-game settings configurable in options. The most important one is resolution. Resolution controls how much of your screen is used. Generally you should use your maximum screen resolution, but you may lower it to improve performance. Additionally, if you run the game in windowed mode instead of fullscreen, lowering resolution will allow you to more easily fit the window on your screen. Many small, casual games, especially ones that only allow small resolutions, are best played in windowed mode.

You will generally find options such as video sync, anti-aliasing, texture filtering, and others as well. Many older games will have an option to toggle 3D acceleration. If your game is running sluggishly and appears somewhat pixelated, turning off 3D acceleration will generally fix this, as it is most likely using a method of 3D acceleration that is incompatible with your graphics card. This is common on older games when running them with newer hardware.

Anti-aliasing, video sync, and texture filtering works the same as indicated in the Graphics Card section, but generally will run different algorithms than your Graphics Card does. Play with these settings to see which ones provide the best overall quality/performance ratio on your system.

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And above all, if you have a problem, Google it!