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Gears of War

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games

This page is for the original release. For the updated version, see Gears of War: Ultimate Edition.

Gears of War
Gears of War cover
Developers
Epic Games
Windows People Can Fly
Publishers
Microsoft Game Studios
Engines
Unreal Engine 3
Release dates
Windows November 6, 2007
Reception
Metacritic 87
IGDB 84
Taxonomy
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Shooter
Art styles Realistic
Themes Post-apocalyptic, Sci-fi
Series Gears of War
Gears of War on HowLongToBeat
Gears of War on IGDB
Gears of War guide on StrategyWiki
Gears of War on MobyGames
Gears of War on Wikipedia
Gears of War
Gears of War 2007
Gears of War: Ultimate Edition 2016
Gears of War 4 2016
Gears POP! 2019
Gears 5 2019
Gears Tactics 2020

Warnings

For Games for Windows - LIVE on Windows 8 or later, install the latest Games for Windows - LIVE software.

Key points

Install Title Update 3 to fix an issue with expired digital signatures.[1]
Comes with exclusive content (a new singleplayer chapter, 3 extra multiplayer maps and a map editor).

General information

Official Gears of War series site
Gearspedia - A wiki for the series

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
Icon overlay.png
SafeDisc 4.81 DRM[Note 1].
Windows
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
All versions require Games for Windows - LIVE DRM.[Note 2]
No longer available digitally.

Essential improvements

Patches

Title Update 3 fixes an expired digital signatures issue that prevents all earlier versions of the game from launching.[1] This is a required update.
Exit Asus Auto Updater (if it is running) prior to installing to prevent installation issues.[4]

Update Games for Windows - LIVE

Update Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable[citation needed]
  1. Uninstall Microsoft Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable.
  2. Uninstall Microsoft Games for Windows Marketplace.
  3. Install the Games for Windows Marketplace Client (not required for W10 - it is built-in with Xbox UWP application).

Skip intro videos

Delete/rename video files[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\WarGame\Movies
  2. Delete or rename:
EpicLogo.bik
ESRB.bik
ESRB_chi.bik
ESRB_kor.bik
MGSLogo.bik

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Gears of War for Windows\WarGame\Config\

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\XLive\Content\E000002D9621B011\

Video

Display settings
Display settings

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
See the WSGF entry.
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
80° horizontal by default. See Field of view (FOV)
Open console (~) and enter set WarfareGame.WarCameraMode FOVAngle 100
Windowed
Via options or toggle with Alt+ Enter.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Use Borderless Gaming.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
In-game setting requires DirectX 10 rendering enabled. However it can be forced for DX9 through the Nvidia Control Panel/AMD Control Center.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS
120+ FPS
Capped at 62 FPS by default.
Open console (~) and enter set Engine.GameEngine bSmoothFrameRate 0
(doesn't work on windows 10)
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.
Antialiasing is activated in the game when the video option "DX10 active/antialiasing on" is active. By default it uses x4 multisampling and can not be reduced or overrided in any control panel (at least in DX10).

Field of view (FOV)

Increase field of view[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\WarGame\Config
  2. Edit WarCamera.ini
  3. Find [WarfareGame.WarCameraMode_Default]
  4. Edit FOVAngle=<#>
  5. Save your changes

Temporary alternative:
Open console (~) and enter set WarfareGame.WarCameraMode FOVAngle <#>

The FOV for zooming can be changed in the WarWeapon<Difficulty>.ini file. Each gun must be changed individually.

High frame rate

Permanently unlock the game's framerate[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\WarGame\Config
  2. Edit WarEngine.ini
  3. Find [Engine.GameEngine]
  4. Change bSmoothFrameRate=TRUE to bSmoothFrameRate=FALSE
  5. Save your changes

Motion blur

Disable motion blur[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open WarEngineUserSettings.ini.
  3. Change MotionBlur=True to MotionBlur=False
  4. Save your changes.

Input

Controller support.
Controller support.

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Delete cannot be bound to commands as it is used to delete bindings.
Mouse acceleration
Smoothing enabled by default; see Mouse acceleration.
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
XInput controllers only.
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Presets only.
Controller sensitivity
Low, Medium, High options.
Controller Y-axis inversion
Controller types
XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration
PlayStation controllers
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Generic/other controllers
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Mouse acceleration

Disable mouse smoothing[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open WarInput.ini.
  3. Go to the [Engine.PlayerInput] section.
  4. Change bEnableMouseSmoothing=true to bEnableMouseSmoothing=false.
  5. Save your changes.

Audio

Audio settings
Audio settings

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Music, SFX, dialogue
Surround sound
Up to 7.1 output[5]
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support
Use OpenAL Soft for binaural HRTF mixing.[6]

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
Italian
Hungarian
Retail version only.
Russian
Ported from Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. Available here.
Russian
Fan translation by ««Spirit Team», «SyS-team», «ENPY Studio»
Latin American Spanish
Only available on retail Launch.
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
Xbox 360 version only.
LAN play
Versus, Co-op
Online play
8 Versus, Co-op
2 players for co-op.

Connection types

Ports

Protocol Port(s) and/or port range(s)
UDP 80, 3074
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.

Issues fixed

"You cannot run the game with modified executable code. Please reinstall the game." error

Install Title Update 3 to fix an issue with digital signatures.[1]

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9, 10
Shader Model support 3, 4
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Physics PhysX
Cutscenes Bink Video
Multiplayer Games for Windows - LIVE

System requirements

Windows
Minimum
Operating system (OS) XP, Vista
Processor (CPU) Intel 2.4 GHz
AMD 2.0 GHz
System memory (RAM) 1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 12 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 6600
ATI Radeon X1700
DirectX 9.0c compatible


Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[2] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[3]
  2. Games for Windows - LIVE DRM features: Legacy activation, supports local profiles.

References