Star Wars Battlefront Tweak Guide

[Page 6] In-Game Settings (Pt.2)



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Audio Options


Master Volume: This slider affects the level of all sounds and music in the game. I recommend you set this to 100% and adjust the other volume components individually (See below). Setting this to 0% does not disable sounds to provide a performance improvement, and hence is not recommended (See the /nosounds switch in the Advanced Tweaking section). I currently do not know of any way to raise the volume beyond 100% in SWB, so if you believe the volume is too low adjust your Output Mode and Mixer Config settings as well as your general Windows volume control.


Music Volume: This slider controls the volume of music in the game. Set to your taste, has no impact on performance.


SFX Volume: This slider controls the volume of all special effects in the game, such as weapons fire, vehicle noises and explosions. Set to taste, has no impact on performance.


Speech Volume: This slider controls the volume of all speech in the game, including announcements and vocal commands. Set to taste, has no impact on performance.


Bass Management: This setting is Off by default, however if you select a multi-channel audio Output Mode (See below), such as 5.1 or 7.1 speaker output, this option can be set to On. When enabled, Bass Management assists in redirecting any excess bass signals to the subwoofer. There appears to be minimal performance impact from enabling this setting.


Output Mode: This setting has several options: Mono, Headphones, Stereo, Surround, Quadraphonic, 5.1 and 7.1. Each mode corresponds to a particular physical speaker setup, and you should choose the mode which matches your exact speaker setup. The higher the setting, the more channels used and hence the lower your performance may be in the game. However it is important to match your speaker setup because otherwise you may experience audio glitches and missing sounds. If you absolutely must reduce this to gain some performance, select Stereo to at least maintain correct left/right channel positioning. See the Troubleshooting and Advanced Tweaking sections if you are experiencing audio-related problems in SWB.


Mixer Config: This setting determines the type of mixer used: Software or Hardware. If you have a sound card, including most recent onboard audio solutions, you should select Hardware for optimal trouble-free audio quality and a minimal performance hit. Selecting Software mode may provide slightly better performance but it may also result in audio problems, softer audio, and also the disabling of advanced audio effects like EAX.


Effects: This setting can either be set On or Off . If enabled, this allows Star Wars Battlefront to use your audio hardware to produce advanced audio effects. In particular if you have a SoundBlaster sound card, enabling Effects will allow the use of EAX (Environmental Audio) – signified by the EAX box which appears at the bottom of this screen when in effect – providing the best quality positional audio. Enabling effects can reduce performance, but I believe the minor performance hit is more than made up for by the additional immersion and gameplay advantages of having proper 3D audio. Once again, if you are experiencing audio problems see the Troubleshooting and Advanced Tweaking sections for more details.


At the bottom of this screen (and depending on your sound card and Mixer Config/Effects settings) you may see an EAX or Advanced HD/EAX box with words like Environmental Morphing, Occlusion and Reverberation. These settings can't be altered here – see the Effects and Mixer Config settings above. These indicators merely show which types of advanced audio effects your sound card supports, and the fact that they are currently enabled in the game.


Make sure once again to click the Accept option to save settings and leave this screen.


Control Options


Infantry, Vehicle, Starfighter: This the place where you can assign different commands to your mouse, keyboard, joystick or gamepad. Set according to your tastes, has no impact on performance. Make sure you check the settings under each of the three tabs here so that you don't get an unpleasant surprise the first time you enter a new vehicle for example and find the mouse sensitivity to be way too high/low or the commands unfamiliar to you.


Mouse Sensitivity: Under each of the three tabs (See above) you can assign a level of sensitivity to your mouse movements in the game. This is very important, and you should adjust each one preferably during a game of Singleplayer. This setting has no impact on performance, so set to suit your tastes.


Joystick Sensitivity: If you are using a joystick in SWB, use this slider to adjust how sensitive the game is to your joystick movements. Has no impact on performance, so set to taste or ignore if you aren't using a joystick.


Invert Y Axis: Whether using a mouse or joystick, you can choose to invert the Y axis (by selecting Yes) meaning that pulling down/back on the mouse/joystick will make the character look up, and vice versa for forward/upward movements of the mouse/joystick. Has no impact on performance, purely driven by your preferences.


Once you've made the relevant changes in this section, click Accept to save your settings and move on. You will find yourself coming back to this screen often, since fine tuning and reassigning controls is an important part of becoming a good player. Also note that if you are experiencing any weird controller/mouse issues, see the Troubleshooting section for possible solutions.


Online Options


Hosting Bandwidth: This option determines the amount of outbound (uploading) bandwidth you can provide in total for people joining your server. The possible options are: 128KB, 256KB, 384KB, 512KB, 768KB and 1MB+. Using the left mouse button to increase this setting, and the right mouse button to decrease it, change the setting so it closely matches the maximum outbound bandwidth possible on your connection. It's important to note that this setting has no impact if you are playing on another server online, it only applies if you host a server on your machine for others to join.


Ticks Per Second: If you are hosting a server on your machine for other players to join, this setting determines the 'tick rate' of the server. The possible options are 15, 20 and 30, although you can set it above 30 (See the Advanced Tweaking section). The tick rate effectively caps the maximum framerate players can experience on the server, so a tick rate of 30 for example means players can only get up to 30FPS while playing on the server. Note that the tick rate of a server doesn't reduce your performance, it only caps your framerate to maintain the synchronization of all character movements and game physics. Importantly, this setting has no performance impact (or otherwise) whatsoever if you are playing on another server, since the server administrator of that server controls the tick rate for his/her server.


Display Network Performance Icon: If hosting a server, you can select whether the network performance icon is visible (On) or not (Off). Has no impact on performance, and once again only applies if you are hosting a server, not playing on another server online.


Search All Regions: If this option is set to Yes, the in-game server browser will search for servers from all regions - North America, Europe, Asia, etc. This will increase the number of servers you can see in the server browser, but be aware that joining a server from another part of the world may see you playing with a high ping and hence quite laggy gameplay. I recommend setting this to No unless you're desparate to find any populated server.


GameSpy ID Automatic Logon: If you're tired of seeing the prompt to start a GameSpy Account every time you want to join an Internet game, or you don't want your existing GameSpy Account to log in automatically, set this to Never, otherwise select Ask Every Time.


Profile Management


You must create at least one profile before playing Star Wars Battlefront. The name you select for the profile is the name your character will take when playing online, so choose wisely. However in most other respects the profile is just a way of separating different peoples' settings on the same machine, or if you want to use different configurations for Singleplayer vs. Multiplayer for example. In the Profile Management area you can Create or Delete profiles, but I urge caution - don't delete your original profile since you will lose all your favorite settings such as your control settings.


Whenever you start a game of SWB, you can then double-click on the name of your preferred profile/character to select that profile, implement its settings and commence play.



The next section covers all the known Advanced Tweaks for Star Wars Battlefront.