Games not recognizing hardware correctly?

Technology and Gaming Help and Support
#1

So I just recently upgraded my computer, almost everything is new. I’ve had a few games that auto detect hardware to set optimal settings not read my hardware properly, and try to put the settings lower than they should.

As an example, in Saints Row The Third, it tries to default to medium settings, when I ran high before the upgrade, and can run ultra now with the game feeling much smoother than before the upgrade. When I was changing the settings in RAGE, it said I didn’t have enough cores for one setting (but let me choose it anyway) and Alan Wake defaulted to medium. I played RAGE and Saints Row on the old system, but did not play Alan Wake.

I’m assuming it’s something odd about my motherboard and/or processor? I have an Intel DZ68BC and an Intel i5 2500k. I’ve gotten the latest BIOS update for my motherboard already, thinking that might fix the issue.

If anyone has experience with this type of issue, please share your experience/wisdom. Right now, it’s not a big deal, I can still override the settings and everything works well. Who knows if it’ll be an issue in the future.

#2

It sounds like you upgraded the hardware without wiping and reinstalling your software. Try uninstalling and reinstalling your games and see if that doesn’t fix it.

#3

In the future don’t upgrade the bios unless you really have to.
You risk bricking your motherboard.
Sounds to me like a registry issue, old registry values being (for some reason) read instead of new one. When you upgraded your PC did you re-install Windows?
(I guess you are using Windows 7)
When you have a problem you can not solve most of the times a fresh Windows installation will help (in the future try that before anything serious like changing your bios version).

If re-installing the OS is really too much of a hassle for you (protip: reformat your hdd while you’re at it) try CCleaner to clean your registry. It might not work tho.

#4

I have a new main hard drive, with my old hard drive (reformatted) as the secondary/data drive.

Noted.

I started Steam once from the old HDD before wiping it, (deleted everything from the Steam folder but steam.exe and /steamapps/) I wouldn’t be surprised if that did it. I’ll try CCleaner now. The games I have had the problem with are all Steam games, so that could be the issue.

#5

Some games just don’t auto-detect very well, either, and some will give you “safe” settings based on your hardware, when you could easily run higher.

#6

CCleaner seems to have fixed it. Saints Row The Third now defaults to high instead of medium.

I guess I’ll run it fairly regularly again (I used to on my old system) to make sure this shit doesn’t happen.

Thanks for the help guys.

#7

Another render for my architectural engineering class, once again I butcher melding between render and background photo.

I also can’t believe I managed to convince my team to do a “giant, mile-wide skyscraper that rams itself into the ground” for our last design assignment. Combine Citadel v.2, I can see you already…

#8

wat

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