Settings
You get to the settings from the start screen, or in a game from the menu (Esc, then Settings). There are four pages. You change things on the page and confirm with OK; Cancel throws the changes away. In a game, health bars, scroll speed and the frame limit change as soon as you press OK. Most of the rest is read when the next map starts.
Gameplay
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Language | The language of the engine's interface. English is complete. |
| Health bars | Always, only on units that are hurt, or never. |
| Minimap size | A slider from small to large. The minimap stays on screen under the settings page, so you see what you are doing. The unit panel, the chat and the log follow its size. |
| UI width | How much of a wide window the interface uses; the game picture always fills the window. Stretch puts the minimap at the left edge and the command card at the right edge. Centred (the default) keeps the interface in a centred column up to 21:9, so a 32:9 window has empty sides and a 21:9 one is unchanged. 16:9 safe area keeps it inside a 16:9 column in the middle, as on a normal monitor. The start screens follow the same column. A window that is 16:9 or narrower looks the same in every mode. |
| Team marks | The flat team-coloured patches some models have. Off by default. |
| Debug overlay | The frame rate in the top bar. On by default; F3 or /fps cycles compact, detailed and off. |
| Scroll speed | How fast the camera slides when the pointer is at the edge of the window. |
| Start games straight after loading | A single-player game starts as soon as it has loaded, without waiting for a click or key. For trying a map over and over. Off by default. |
Video
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Full screen | A borderless window over the whole screen. |
| Resolution | The window size when it is not full screen. The default is 1280 by 720. |
| Shadows | Off, Low or High. Turning them off is the fastest way to win back frames. |
| Frame limit | The most frames per second to draw. 0 means no limit, which is the default so that you can see what the machine can do; set it to your screen's refresh rate to save power. |
| Graphics interface | Vulkan (the default), DirectX 12 or Automatic (what the system prefers). It is read once when the engine starts. Change it on the start screen and press OK, and the engine restarts itself at once on the new interface; changed from the menu of a running game, it applies the next time you start W4 (the game is not thrown away). On the test PC an empty map ran at 690 frames per second with Vulkan and 523 with DirectX 12. On macOS the engine always uses Metal. |
Sound
Three sliders: the music (the start screen's generated music), the effects (hit sounds in the game) and the interface volume (clicks, chimes and refusals of the interface, on their own channel so you can quiet them without silencing the fight). An older settings file keeps its old behaviour: the interface follows the effects volume until you move the new slider.
Floating text
On the Graphics page, the group Floating text has three switches, all on by default: damage numbers, gold numbers (the +N where gold is earned) and fallen hero text. They only change what is drawn; the game itself is unchanged, and the same numbers are in the message stream.
Input
The six keys the engine lets you move. Click a key button, then press the key you want; Esc cancels the capture. The defaults:
| Action | Default |
|---|---|
| Move | M |
| Stop | S |
| Attack | A |
| Menu | F10 (Esc always opens it too) |
| Log window | F12 |
| Minimap on and off | Tab |
You can bind letters, F1 to F12, Space, Tab and the key under Esc. Digits are not on the list because they select control groups. Keys are physical positions, so on a keyboard that is not QWERTY the name on the screen is the QWERTY name of that key.
Where they are stored
In engine.toml in your application data folder: %APPDATA%\W4 on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support/W4 on macOS, and ~/.config (or XDG_CONFIG_HOME) elsewhere. It is a plain text file, so you can copy it to another computer.
Which settings follow your account
Every setting is either saved to your W4 ID or kept on this computer only. The settings sheet says which, above each group: Saved to your account or This device only (when you are signed out it says "This device; sign in to sync").
The Your settings block of the account sheet (click your profile plate) shows how the sync went: when it last ran, how many settings it sent, how many were new from your account, and each of your own values that your account replaced because the other copy was written later, with a Keep mine button that takes your value back. Sync now runs it at once. The command palette has Sync my settings now and Keep my settings over the last sync. The sync itself needs the online service; until it is switched on the block says so and nothing leaves your computer.
- Follow your account: language, health bars, minimap size, team rings, start when loaded, scroll speed, floating texts, all volumes and mute, hotkeys and hero keys, and the accessibility options. These are tastes, so they should be the same on every computer you play on.
- Stay on this device: UI scale and width, the frame rate overlay, window size and full screen, frame limit, graphics API, old PC mode, detail, shadows, picture scale, smoothing and sharpness. These depend on your screen and graphics card, and a laptop must not overwrite a desktop.
If the same setting changed on two computers, the newer change wins. engine.toml stays the copy the game reads, so everything works offline and signed out. Not built yet: the online service does not store settings yet, so for now every group behaves as "this device"; the markers describe the rule that will apply.