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PCGamingWiki:Game Best Practice

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games

This article is a draft for a more professional article to-come. It details features that are PC-specific, and often missing from PC games or ports of console games.

General

  • Can run without CD/DVD (necessary)
  • Saved games save in conventional locations (game folder, My Documents) (highly desirable)
  • Borderless Fullscreen Windowed natively supported (see: Tribes Ascend) (highly desirable)
  • No DRM or use of non-intrusive DRM (necessary)
  • Console menu enabled (optional)
  • Non-encrypted config files (necessary)
  • Ability to quick save/load (highly desirable)
  • Ability to play offline (highly desirable)

Graphics

  • Field of View options (necessary in SOME form, lowest is what CS:GO uses)
  • DEFAULT FoV fit for monitors (necessary)
  • Multi-monitor support (desirable extra)
  • AA options (optional)
  • AF options (optional)
  • VSync options (necessary)
  • Triple buffering for VSync (highly desirable)
  • Support for high resolutions (necessary)
  • Support for 16:9 and 4:3 monitors (necessary)

Performance

  • Game is capable of at least 60 FPS on minimum hardware requirements (highly desirable)
  • Game is tested to not crash within its system requirements or at least on popular configurations and new hardware (necessary)
  • Game has CPU optimisations enabled when applicable (see Skyrim before its patches and before the Skyrim Boost mod, Fallout New Vegas upon launch etc.) (necessary)
  • Game can use more than 4 GB of RAM if available (desirable)

Controls

  • Rebindable keys including mouse keys (necessary)
  • 3rd-party controller support (desirable, necessary for racing games, minimum of 360 controller)
  • Mouse sensitivity options (necessary)
  • Mouse acceleration toggle if mouse acceleration is implemented (necessary)
  • Menus fit for mouse, scrollable via scroll wheel (how not to: Skyrim, Borderlands, Dead Island) (necessary)
  • No console specific prompts or info boxes (i.e. Do not remove memory card while saving) (necessary)
  • Option to turn off auto-aim (necessary)

Communications

  • Game has voice chat (highly desirable)
    • Option to turn voice chat off (necessary)
    • Push-to-talk for voice chat (necessary)
  • Text-based chat (highly desirable)
  • Voice commands (see: TF2 / Tribes) (optional)

Networking / Multiplayer

  • NAT Traversal - removes need for port forwarding (highly desirable)
  • Dedicated servers (highly desirable)
  • Master server list (highly desirable)
  • LAN support (highly desirable)

Modding

  • Game has map editor if applicable (completely optional)
  • Game has modding tools like Source SDK or Creation Kit (completely optional, desirable)
  • Game has mod depository (ala Skyrim) (desirable)

Support

  • Cloud support (optional)
  • Ticket system / official forums / official support on Steam forums / email support (AT LEAST one - necessary)
  • Mac / Linux compatibility (optional)