After months of neglect, this post now rises up during our Great Depression! Stop complaining there’s nothing to talk about, because I have a list you buckets of shrubbery.
You know Unturned (version 3)'s system of handling the configuration menus? Its trash, and I’m sure you’ll all agree with me on that. I especially hate how its organized, so Unturned II’s configuration menus should all be available in the same spot (“Configuration”).
From there, there can be five tabs that make up the new configuration menus. Why five? Because the settings we’re used to are so underwhelming, so this time around I’ve planned ahead and got a whole bunch to suggest.
Maybe there's a better way to explain this suggestion to you...
You’ll want to expand these images.
The dimensions are 1920x1080, of course. There’s a few random “inconsistencies” you might pick up on, but don’t mind them. 
So let’s start here, shall we?
At the top you can see the name of the current menu we’re in: the Configuration menu. Or, more accurately, menus. As said before, five tabs are near the top of screen. These can be clicked to, well, switch tabs. The currently selected tab has its colors seemingly inverted.
In the top-right is our [Back] button. In our bottom-right is our [Save] button. These are self-explanatory. (Trying to back out of the configuration menus with unsaved changes will initiate a pop-up asking you to confirm, after giving you a stern warning.)
Although it’s not demonstrated here, there is more than enough room around every UI element here so that, if Nelson desired, controller button icons can appear next to each of the normally-clickable buttons in case the virtual cursor is not enabled and players need to know how to navigate around.
Welcome to the Display.
We are in the [Display] tab right now. Let’s take a look at these options, starting with the Aspect Ratio.
The right sidebar is populated with stuff related to the setting you’ve most recently interacted with. If you expand on the image again, you may notice that some boxes on the left rail are filled slightly darker than others appear. These slightly-darker boxes are UI elements that can be interacted with directly.
The double-rightwards-arrows are basically a “drop-down” button, except in this case it expands rightwards into the right rail. The right rail is headed by the name of the setting being tampered with, followed by a short description of varying quality and usefulness. Then, your actual buttons for configuring the setting in some way.
- (If you were curious, the arrows are actually a Z Notation Schema Piping “⨠”)
Just an aspect of life.
Realistically, settings like these wouldn’t have a static table of options, but one that changes based on what your hardware can actually do. Regardless, I’ve made a static list for you all anyways. Plus, people want proper ultra-wide support anyways, so this is how we get Nelson to confirm it(???).
| ASPECT RATIO | R | E | S | O | L | U | T | I | O | N | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Auto Detect (default) | |||||||||||
| 3:2 | 720 × 480 | 1152 × 768 | 1280 × 854 | 1440 × 960 | 2880 × 1920 | ||||||
| 4:3 | 640 × 480 | 800 × 600 | 960 × 720 | 1024 × 768 | 1280 × 960 | 1400 × 1050 | 1440 × 1080 | 1600 × 1200 | 1856 × 1392 | 1920 × 1440 | 2048 × 1536 |
| 5:3 | 800 × 480 | 1280 × 768 | |||||||||
| 5:4 | 1024 × 768 | 1280 × 1024 | 2560 × 2048 | 5120 × 4096 | |||||||
| 16:9 | 1024 × 576 | 1152 × 648 | 1280 × 720 | 1366 × 768 | 1600 × 900 | 1920 × 1080 | 2560 × 1440 | 3840 × 2160 | |||
| 16:10 | 1280 × 800 | 1440 × 900 | 1680 × 1050 | 1920 × 1200 | 2560 × 1600 | ||||||
| 17:9 | 2048 × 1080 | ||||||||||
| 21:9 | 2560 × 1080 | 5120 × 2160 |
So, I did throw Resolution settings into that table also, since they basically have to go together considering how codependent they are. You may have also noticed that one setting was marked with (default). Anything marked like that is my proposed default setting. In this case, the game defaults to trying to Auto Detect your aspect ratio, and then from there your resolution too.
And for once? The game should acknowledge the codependent nature of aspect ratios and resolutions. No more of just listing every resolution known to man, no… just every resolution known to that aspect ratio.
A resolute resolution.
And you know what’s annoying? The amount of people who change their resolution and then run to the forums for help because the user interface got all wonky and they can’t change back without special instructions. Yeah, that sucks. While most settings should only change after clicking the [Save] button, some should change beforehand.
After changing your resolution, an “Accept Changes?” pop-up occurs.
-
You have made severe changes to your settings! Are you sure you wish to use these?
These changes will automatically revert in ten seconds if you do not manually choose to accept or revert these changes.
[Countdown from 10]
You must [Accept] or [Revert]. Failure to decide in those ten seconds will result in it reverting to the previous resolution.
Skim milk.
You’ve seen the first two settings’ sidebars, so let’s just skim through the next few as to not bore you.
-
Display Mode
Set your preferred display mode. Fullscreen mode can improve performance by not running background applications, but switching to a different application may take longer. Windowed mode has the game run in a window and continue to run background applications, rather than take up the whole screen. Borderless windowed mode looks like fullscreen mode, but is actually just windowed mode.- Fullscreen (default)
- Windowed
- Borderless Windowed
-
Screen Refresh Rate
The screen refresh rate represents how often your monitor changes the frame on the screen per second.- 59 Hz
- 60 Hz
- 75 Hz
- 144 Hz
-
VSync (Vertical Sync)
Vertical sync (vsync) allows the synchronization of the frame rate with the monitor refresh rate for better stability. Enabling vsync can reduce screen tearing at the cost of frame rate, and can introduce input lag.- Disabled (default)
- Enabled
The Screen Refresh Rate, like several other settings, is dynamic and only shows what your hardware can actually do. Take note that not everything has a default setting, and this is intentional.
Not everything is a “drop-down.”
Limit FPS
Locking your frame rate will cap your FPS, and not render beyond that cap.
Did you notice that the Limit FPS setting was toggled on in the second image? It was originally off, and when it was it slightly faded out the section too. That type of setting is just a simple toggle, except when enabled you can manually input a value (with no obvious limits as to high or low it can be). In this case, it does have a minimum of at least 30, but there is no maximum.
- (For the curious, the symbols used were a Check mark “✓” and an X mark “✗”)
60 FPS is the default, but the setting is also disabled by default.
Moving on!
-
Field of View
The field of view (FOV) is the extent of the observable game world that is seen on the display at any given moment.- Slider: 60° to 100° (default 90°)
- Slider: 60° to 100° (default 90°)
-
User Interface Scale
Scaling your user interfaces may help with issues caused by nonstandard resolutions.- Slider: 50% to 300% (default 100%)
- Slider: 50% to 300% (default 100%)
-
Brightness
Change the brightness of the game.- Slider: -50% to 50% (default 0%)
Obviously, these aren’t normal “drop-down” settings either. These are sliders. You can manually input the value via the smaller box, or just drag the slider around.
Even more common than people messing up their resolution and not being able to play the game is people setting the user interface scale to something ridiculously silly, confirming it after they see it’s terribly broken, and then complaining to the forum that they innocently broke their game on accident and need help. So? The setting is getting caps in my suggestion here. 50–300% should be good enough for any display.
Houston, we’ve had a problem.
Except when it’s not enough, I guess. That’s why I’m suggesting some launch options too!
Custom launch options override default settings, and using the “Restore Defaults” button will take them into account when applicable. These should all be self-explanatory:
- -noconfigcaps
- -w ####
- -h ####
- -fullscreen
- -windowed
- -borderless
No joke here. People have asked for color blind assist modes quite a bit.
The design for this one came out of the blue, but I dig it (obviously).
Color Blind Assist
Basic options to increase color blind accessibility.
The right rail’s stuff should be self-explanatory. The images are there to show you the impact of each color blind assist mode on that particular environment. There’s enough space left that people could technically add their own images via a mod, or even their own color blind assist options! Yeah… mod support for the configuration menu.
Color Blind Assist could have a few more modes than the few I showed. Protanomaly, Deuteranomaly, and Tritanomaly could also have their own options. Achromatopsia could technically have an option too, although I am unsure of how well that would work out.
Restoring defaults.
“Back to the basics.”
Let’s keep this section brief so we can “finish up.”
Restoring defaults is no joke, so games shouldn’t treat it as such. :] Want to reset a specific section? Now you can without resetting everything in the world with it! Woo!
If you don’t have anything selected to be restored, then the button is grayed out too (like the not selected sections’ buttons).
:perseverar::perseverar:
