Options

The options panel lets you adjust your computer's settings for the best possible game experience. To bring up this panel, click on the gears icon in the lower right side of your screen or press F7.

The Game Options can be opened by clicking on the gears icon at the bottom of the screen or pushing the F7 key on your keyboard. The Game Options menu controls your settings for the game.

Video

Here you can define the overall video settings for your game. Choose the best configuration for your game. For slow systems choose low and for faster systems select high. If you wish, choose Custom to individually change specific settings. Default - change all settings to their default value Restore - put all your settings back to where they were from the last time you saved. Save - save your settings. Logout - logout of the game and return to the pirate selection screen.

Graphics

Here you can configure individual graphic settings. Some options require the game to be restarted.

Display

Here you can define your display options. Fullscreen - check to play the game in full screen instead of windowed mode. Windowed Resoltions - your screen resolution while playing in windowed mode. Fullscreen Resoltions - your screen resolution while playing in fullscreen mode. Invert Mouse Look - up becomes down and down becomes up while you are holding the right mouse button. Interface Scale - causes the compass, icons, meters, and chat to becomes smaller or larger. Hardware Gamma - if the game appears to bright or dark check the box and adjust the slider to improve your view of the game.

Graphic Card Options

As of 1/30/2009 a new "Graphic Options" button has been added to the Pirates Online launcher. This helps to set the option appropriate for your system, which the game has not done that well at autodetecting in the past. Previously (and still in some cases) players have had to manually edit their "game_options.txt" file to set this properly. When you first start Pirates Online, you are presented with the login screen (ie Launcher). On the lower right hand side of the login screen is the "Graphic Options" button, as reflected in the image to the right.

This pops up a box allowing you to select one of three options:

Open GL
DirectX8
DirectX9

"Open GL" is the default. If this is what is set and your having problems, I would recommend trying "DirectX9" first, as it is the most commonly supported today. "DirectX8" may prove to work better for some older systems and may have better performance on some newer ones. Once set here, the game should launch using the graphics api of your choice.

To Manually Set the Graphics API

You will need to create/edit the "game_api.txt" file located in the PiratesOnline directory if you have ever saved settings in the Options Panel.

1) Go to Start | Programs | Accessories | Windows Explorer.
2) Navigate to C:\Program Files\Disney\Disney Online\PiratesOnline.
3) Double click on game_api.txt to open it (usually in notepad), if the file does not exist, start and then exit the launcher, it should create one automatically. If not refer to the "Old" instructions at the bottom of this guide, they may be helpful.
4) This file will have only one word/option in it, the graphics API that is set for the game. Change it to one of the following (without the quotes):

For Open Gl: "pandagl" (If you simply delete the game_api.txt file, it will default to this)

For DirectX 8: "pandadx8"

For DirectX 9: "pandadx9"

For DirectX 10: "pandadx10" <-- Some Vista users have reported this has helped them, not sure how well its supported.

5) Save the file start launcher, login and launch game.

Audio

Here you can turn on/off the music and sound effects and adjust their volumes.

Feedback Form

Click the ? in the top right corner of the Game Options panel to get the feedback form. Tell Disney what you think about various aspects of the game. Clicking the Manage Account button will open a browser window to a Disney web page where you can make changes to your account settings.