(this guide is up to date as of Playtest version 0.5, Apr 15th 2025)

first off, the most unoptimised thing in this game is the blood, so turn it down if you're having too much trouble running the game

personally i set gore to max and set blood to about 20%

if that's not enough, then set Graphics in Settings to "Low"

however this makes the game look blurry as hell, though fortunately we can fix this:

you can change more settings in Engine.ini at this location (create it if it doesnt exist):

IMPORTANT: please make sure you save the file as Engine.ini and not Engine.ini.txt
(when saving with Notepad, use "Save As", then set "Save as type" to "All Files" before saving)

to stop the screen from looking super blurry, add this inside Engine.ini:

to make the textures look less blurry, add this:

if you want the lighting+shadows back for a good balance between performance and quality:

at this point i can already run the game at ~60 fps

but if that's still not enough, there's lots of Engine.ini tweaks out there but here's what i personally use for this game:
(many of these settings probably dont even do anything but i cant be bothered to test each and every one of these)

here's what the game looks like with this Engine.ini:


IMPORTANT: if your Engine.ini file gets deleted each time you close the game:

1. right-click your Engine.ini file in your file explorer
   
2. click "Properties"
   
3. enable the "Read-only" checkbox
   
4. click "OK"

do note that you'll have to run Notepad as administrator to be able to edit your Engine.ini file while it's set to Read-only

(this section is for linux users only, please avert your eyes if you're on windows)

for the best fps, use Proton GE: https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom?tab=readme-ov-file#native

and also install gamemode: https://github.com/FeralInteractive/gamemode

also, you can find Engine.ini at this path:

if the game won't launch or just shows a black screen, then set this as your launch options:

if your Engine.ini gets deleted each time you close the game, then make your Engine.ini file in the game's installation folder
(right-click "Half Sword Playtest" on steam > Properties... > Installed Files > Browse...)
then set this as your launch options: