What are the optimal video settings for spotting infantry?

Question

I'm finding it difficult to spot enemy soldiers (dang camo!) and I wondered if there are certain video settings that can improve how soldiers show up.

Here are my current settings (not limited by hardware):

Mesh Quality looks to be the only setting that says it affects draw distance, but increasing it also adds more clutter.

Answer

I believe this is covered in the Johan Andersson Battlefield 3 Presentation tech talk at the NVIDIA GeForce Lan 6. He indicated that no settings are ever so low that they confer an advantage (e.g. disabling all trees, etc.)

It's in part 5 at about 1:15 seconds in.

In a multiplayer game you can't just disable everything. Because that increases the visibility too much. If you disable all our particles and all our shadows it becomes like Quake 3 arena. And that's not really fair.

The other parts: one, two, three, four.

I would shoot for mostly High settings, as that is what the designers intended. (I do recommend turning shadows to medium and avoiding MSAA as the perf penalties are far too high for very little visual improvement.)

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Where does Bastion store its configuration/settings?

Question

I just picked up Bastion on Steam and ran into a small problem.

By default, the game was running at my monitor's native resolution of 2560x1440, but I went to the in-game options menu and selected a different resolution by mistake. The problem is, the list of available resolutions doesn't have a scrollbar, so now I can't change it back! The highest resolution I see in the list is 1920x1200.

Since I just purchased the game I don't have any saved games to worry about, so I just want to wipe any settings/config files and start from the defaults. Where does Bastion keep its settings, or more importantly, how can I reset the resolution?

Answer

Here's a quote from the developers:

Q: I changed the in-game resolution, how can I restore the original settings?

A: The game will auto-detect your monitor's proper resolution on start-up. If you change your resolution and the proper one is not available in the options menu, you can have it auto-detect again by deleting your profile here (exact location may vary): "\Program Files\Steam\userdata\33142021\107100\local"

Source

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What are the tournament/pro level graphics settings for Unreal Tournament 2004?

Question

In UT2004 - what are the recommended tournament level graphics settings?

For example, like in Quake 3 the professionals set their graphics to only show the necessary elements in the game, and maximize the size of their opponents graphics boxes.

e.g. removing unnecessary/distracting textures.

Answer

There are none. You can tone your graphics settings as you like and maybe set a custom crosshair and change the HUD size, but tournament holders sometimes have a strict policy of what the HUD has to look like.

And, you can't redefine or modify hitboxes in UT 2004, if that is what you mean. Playing with such values can get you kicked by the server security (Safegame, AntiTCC etc.) real fast.

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In Civilization 5, how may turns are there for each Game Pace setting?

Question

I'm about to start a new game, and I'm using the Advanced Setup to customize the game a little. Does anyone know the number of turns for each of the 4 Game Pace settings to get to 2050?

• Marathon = ?
• Epic = ?
• Standard = 500 turns
• Quick = ?

Or is it not that simple?

More generally, is there a detailed guide anywhere to what all the settings on the Advanced Setup screen affect? Some have explanatory tooltips but some don't!

Answer

CIV5GameSpeeds.xml has all the information about what the different game speeds do. Adding up the number of turns for each speed gives us:

• Marathon = 1500 turns
• Epic = 750 turns
• Standard = 500 turns
• Quick = 330 turns

I'm not aware of a guide to all the advanced setup options. Most of them I think affect the random generation of the world. If you have questions about a specific one, feel free to create another question.

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Is it possible to change the Field of View (FOV) in Dead Island?

Question

The default Field of View in Dead Island is quite cramped, and even though I'm not prone to motion sickness, I tend to get a headache when I play the game as a result. I went through the options, but there doesn't seem to be any way to adjust the FOV. Is there a workaround or a solution that would let me fix the FOV?

Answer

1. Navigate to the Data folder in your Dead Island installation. This will vary based on whether you installed through Steam or put it in an install folder of your choice. In Steam, by default it is located here in \Steam\steamapps\common\dead island\DI\

2. Locate the Data0.pak file and open it with a file archiving program such as WinRAR or 7-Zip.

3. Inside Data0.pak you'll see a folder called Data and inside Data, you will find the `Skills' folder.

4. Inside the Skills folder, locate the file default_levels.xml

5. Now that you have found this file, navigate to My Documents\DeadIsland\out

6. Inside the out folder, you're going to want to recreate the directory structure of where the XML files was located. Do this by creating a New Folder, name it Data, then inside that folder, create another New Folder and name this one Skills.

7. Copy/Paste the default_levels.xml folder from the archive into the Skills folder. You can close your archiving program after this, as you wno't need it anymore.

8. After pasting the default_levels.xml file, open it with a text editor such as Notepad.

9. Locate the variable CamereaDefaultPOV. You can do this by using ctrl+F. You'll see v+"62.5" as the default value. Change this so something between 70 and 90, based on your preference. The general opinion is that 82.5 is the ideal.

10. Save the file and exit. You may want to set it as "Read-only" like it's recommended in this question just to be safe.

You should be all set. The way this works is that the game apparently reads the settings that you set in this file before it reads the default files. Because this doesn't involve actually modding any of the game's actual data files, you shouldn't be at risk for VAC to flag you for cheating or something.

~Source

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What happens when I connect Tropico 4 with my Facebook and Twitter accounts?

Question

There's a setting in the options panel that allows me to connect my Facebook and Twitter accounts with the game. I assume this will allow you to post about your achievements in-game. Is this correct? Does this unlock any other functionality that might be useful to gameplay?

Answer

It allows you to share short text blurbs about achievements, mission completions and some in-game events (e.g. elections) to Twitter and Facebook, and also post screenshots to Facebook.

(Note that we never auto-post; Facebook/twitter buttons appear on some dialogs, and you have to click them to post.)

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How to save console options in Portal 2?

Question

I'm playing Portal 2 with my girlfriend, and she gets motion sick. We found out a console option to reduce the field of view, which drastically reduces her sickness (cl_fov_75). However, this option is not persisted, so if we forget to input the command she'll get sick again. Is there any command in the Portal 2 console to make this persistant (either with another command, or by modifying some kind of ini file)?

Answer

It's not recommended to modify config.cfg, since it can easily be overwritten by the game. The proper file to write your scripts and commands is autoexec.cfg which should be located in the same folder ([steam location]\steamapps\common\portal 2\portal2\cfg). If it's not there - create it. This file is executed automaticly when you load a map.

cl_fov 75;

should solve your problem.

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Best controller setup in Killzone 2

Question

I recently purchased Killzone 2 and I'm bit new to console gaming, specially FPS. I have trouble with aiming and moving/turning sideways. The sensitivity of the right thumb stick doesn't fit very well on my finger. I tried changing the sensitivity, but the result was not helpful. I would like to know if there's a better way of configuring these controller settings.

Update: The latest update (patch) added the ‘High Precision’ setting in the controller options. It gives some smooth moving capabilities but still I need to improve my aiming.

Answer

Make sure you have the latest patch, then try the high precision mode, as described here: http://kotaku.com/5271701/how-killzone-2s-patch-can-change-your-controls

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