Step 4 of 5

Installing carefully and getting through the first session

This step is a general procedure that applies to any desktop game, and in fact to most desktop software. It is written in terms of what every installer does rather than as a tour of any one product's screens, because the screens differ and the sequence does not. Allow an hour, most of which is waiting.

Ten minutes of preparation

Three things done beforehand prevent most of the problems people meet during an install. Apply any pending operating system updates and restart, because a system part-way through its own update is the commonest cause of an installation failing for no visible reason. Close other programs, particularly browsers with many tabs, so that memory and bandwidth are available. And check your free space against the figure you wrote down in Step 2 rather than against your memory of it.

If your internet plan has a data allowance, this is also the moment to consider timing. A large download at a time when nobody else in the house needs the connection is a courtesy that costs nothing, and some plans treat data used at certain hours differently — your provider's own account pages are where that is stated.

The installation procedure

What to watch for inside an installer

Installers vary, but four screens recur. The licence screen, already mentioned, is the one where you accept terms. The components screen lists optional extras and is where a bundled offer will appear if there is one; everything there is declinable. The location screen chooses the drive and folder. And the shortcuts and startup screen decides whether the program adds itself to your desktop and whether it starts automatically when your computer does.

That last one is worth a deliberate answer. A launcher that starts with your computer will check for updates in the background, which is convenient, and will also use memory and bandwidth when you are not playing. Either choice is fine; the point is to make it rather than inherit it. If you accept the default and change your mind later, both Windows and macOS have a startup or login items setting where you can remove it.

A system permission prompt during installation — asking for an administrator password, or for permission to make changes — is a normal part of installing software on any modern operating system. It is not a warning about the software. If a prompt appears when you are not installing anything, that is a different situation and worth investigating separately.

Creating the account

Most connected games ask you to register before or during the first launch. Use the email address you decided on in Step 1 rather than whichever one autofills. Choose a password that you do not use anywhere else, and if the service offers two-factor authentication — a second code from an app or a message — switch it on while you are already in the settings, because nobody goes back to do it later.

If the registration form asks for more than an email address and a password, read what it is asking for and whether it is marked as required. A date of birth is often genuinely required, since age affects what the service may show you. A phone number is sometimes optional. There is no obligation to complete optional fields, and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner publishes general guidance on how organisations should handle personal information and on the choices you have.

Decline, for now, any offer to link the account to a social media profile. It is easy to add later and fiddly to unpick, and it joins two accounts whose privacy settings you would then have to think about together.

Visit the Raid: Shadow Legends website Paid affiliate link. Registering and starting to play through this link earns the publisher of Clear Volume a commission from the affiliate network, at no difference in price to you. The procedure on this page is written to work with any desktop game.

The first session, and what "working" looks like

When the game first opens, resist the urge to start playing and spend five minutes in its settings instead. Three settings matter more than the rest at this stage: the resolution should match the screen resolution you wrote down in Step 2; the graphics preset should start at a medium or low setting rather than the highest; and the volume should be somewhere other than its default, which is frequently loud.

Starting low and raising the graphics settings is the right order, because it separates "this computer cannot run the game" from "this computer cannot run the game at maximum detail", and those two conclusions lead to different actions. If the game is smooth at a low preset, raise one setting at a time and stop when it stops being smooth.

Working, at this stage, means four things: the game starts without an error, the picture is steady rather than stuttering, sound plays, and your keyboard and mouse do what you expect. It does not mean you have enjoyed it yet. Most connected games open with a guided introduction or tutorial that teaches the controls; completing it is the quickest way to find out whether the game's rhythm suits you, and it is also, in the case of the one game named in this course, the point at which the affiliate programme described on our funding page records a completed referral. We mention that for transparency, not as an instruction.

When something does not work

Three ordinary problems account for most first-session trouble, and all three have unremarkable explanations.

If none of those helps, the vendor's own support pages are the next stop, and they are also the only place that can tell you about a problem specific to that game. Downloading a third-party "optimiser" or "fixer" to solve a game problem is not a step this course recommends at any point.