Island Wars 2 Help

At the game's main menu, select the 3rd button from the top ("Options"). From the set of wide buttons you see, select the last one (not the short "help" button at the bottom of the screen). A window should pop up (it says "Please restart the game and select your new language"). Click on "OK" to close the window, then at the bottom-left "< Back" button, and again at the bottom-left "X Quit" button. Now restart the game and select the correct language.

Windows XP's "sticky keys" accessibility feature interferes with games that use the Shift keys to fire. You will need to disable it. You can do this either from the dialog box that pops up when you press a Shift key 5 times in succession, or from Start/Control Panel/Accessibility Options/StickyKeys.

Your DirectX version is out of date (you need at least version 7.0). Download the latest version from Microsoft's web site here.

Again, your DirectX version is out of date (you need at least version 7.0). Download the latest version from Microsoft's web site here.

This message says that your computer can't switch to full-screen to play the game. There is no legitimate reason for this (unless you have another full-screen application running in the background). It is more likely a bug in certain video drivers (in conjunction with DirectX 7.0). Try updating your graphics card driver (check your manufacturer's web site) and/or DirectX version (here). Also, before running the game, shut down any instant messengers, and generally any program that may pop up a window. Check the system tray area (at the bottom right of your screen, next to the clock) and terminate any unnecessary programs.

Yes. From the main menu, select "options...", then "controls...". Select either "player 1" or "player 2" and then for each control:

• To use the keyboard, press the desired keyboard key.
• To use a joystick or gamepad, press a joystick button or move the stick in the appropriate direction.
• To use the mouse, you need to click on the "use mouse" button on the previous screen. Only player 1 can use the mouse.

Island Wars 2 should feel very fast and very very smooth when you're playing. If it feels slow or "choppy", or it slows down when there's a lot of action on the screen, then there's room for improvement. The good news is the game offers extensive customization options that you can tweak to get the best out the game on your particular computer.

This guide will help you optimize Island Wars 2 performance. First of all, if you've changed anything, set all the menu options to their default values.

So, how do you find out if the game is running slowly in the first place? Island Wars 2 automatically compensates for most variations in performance, meaning that normally you won't be able to tell whether the game is running "really fast" or simply "adequately fast", unless your system is really slow and you can just plainly see that the game is slow and jerky.

Start off with going to options/graphics/advanced and turning "show fps" on. This shows your current frames-per-second (fps) at the top-right of the screen. The higher your fps is, the faster and smoother the gameplay.

Now play through a game, and keep an eye on your fps. You shouldn't have any problems if this constantly stays above 50. If you are getting less than 35 fps, perform the following steps in sequence. At the end of each step, play a game and check your fps. If you are getting sufficiently high values, then you're done. If it's still too low, try the next step.

Step 1: Go to options/graphics/advanced and turn "v-sync" off. In most cases, your fps reading should jump up as soon as you click on the "apply" button (some graphics cards require you to restart the game for this change to take effect, so reload the game just to be sure).

Step 2: Go to options/graphics and set "detail" to "medium".

Step 3: Go to options/graphics/advanced and turn "bilinear filter" off.

Step 4: Go to options/graphics and set detail to "low".

Step 5: Go to options/graphics/advanced and set "video mode" to "320x240" (you'll need to restart the game for this change to take effect). Go to options/sound and set "quality" to "low", and also turn "in-game music" off.

That's it! If the game is still running too slowly, you'll just have to buy a better computer :). By making careful configuration changes, it's possible to play on a Pentium 166 MHz at more than 20 frames per second (20 fps is the absolute minimum if you want it to feel more like an animated game and less like a slide show).

Other performance hints:

• Palm trees are comparatively expensive, graphically speaking, especially when on fire. In Free-For-All mode, don't set the number of palm trees too high if you are running the game on a slow computer.
• The "colored sunlight" in the advanced graphics options is graphically expensive and very resolution-dependent. It is recommended that you only turn it on only in medium/low resolutions (640x480 and below) and only if you have a recent 3D graphics card (Geforce-class or above).