If you like to inflict more self-torture, try tweaking your new Gears of War for the PC. Normally, tweaking the game to get the best performance is a necessary exercise, especially when your net worth isn’t good enough to be announced in a magazine.

Well, Gears gives new meaning to torture.

One of the first things hardware-savvy PC gamers do when they run a game is to view its video settings and see what can be changed. When tweaks are done, said gamer plays through the early stages to test if performance is any good. If there are settings to be changed (and trust me, there will always be settings to be changed), one would simply visit the video settings while the stage is paused.

Not in Gears of War. When you press Esc and look for the video settings, you won’t be able to find it. You’ll have to quit to the main menu, and then visit the video settings. If you want to try out a new configuration scheme, you have to ditch the campaign and go to the main menu.

Funny thing in tweaking is you need to switch a few settings to see which one gives you the best gains. Tweaking was never such a frustrating exercise in any shooter, but Gears does this in spades.

But wait! Aren’t there settings that require you to restart the game for it to take effect? Yes, they have that here too. If you want AA (and if your PC can handle it), you have to restart. That means you have to log into your Windows Live again, unless you don’t plan on saving your progress if you do decide to play.

Post from: EveryJoe