What sounds better than going to Banoi’s Royal Palms Resort? A resort that’s…full of zombies! This RPG FPS game is pretty fun, though a bit disappointing in all honesty. It’s still good though!

Good, but still full of possible bugs and errors that you may encounter. Some are worse than others, but you can fix some of these. Until then, you can await a patch or several patches that try to tackle these.

One nice thing about the game is that it has 4 player co-op — just FYI for those who enjoy playing games with other people. Then again, you probably know of this feature already and that is why you’re reading this article.

In that case, know that these game fixes are for the PC — not the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 (PS3) console versions of the game.

So if you just bought and downloaded the game through Steam, then you’re in luck! Troubleshoot your problems with our guide below so that you can begin destroying zombies in epic battles as soon as possible with the best performance possible.

Dead Island Mouse Too Sensitive

Is your mouse sensitivity too high? This is a common issue. For whatever reason, the mouse sensitivity option is skewed so that your mouse is almost always too sensitive depending on your PC. You *should* be able to fix this through the in-game options though. Try all extremes for the mouse sensitivity game option to the point where it’s near 0. Of course, you can always set your DPI for your mouse to something lower / higher outside of the game through Windows, but that should not be necessary. Alternatively, the mouse may be too slow or sluggish. These sensitivity issues may in fact also relate to the resolution you’re using so try adjusting the resolution to see if any changes are made. There is also a FoV (Field of Vision) modification you can do to attempt to fix this, which will be posted below this. To summarize:

— Change your resolution
— Adjust the mouse sensitivity through the in-game options
— Adjust FoV (Field of Vision) [guide below]

How to Change Field of Vision (FoV)

Field of Vision determines how much of the screen you can see at once. The higher the number, the more you can see. In fact, you could say it adjusts how zoomed in to the screen you are since objects are larger / magnified if the number is lower. This also has an impact on your mouse movement. As posted by the user Hideous, you can follow these instructions to alter the FoV:

There have been people claiming to have a FOV fix that involves hex editing some *.dll files which is a big no-no for VAC, which can result in you being banned, there is a much easier way to edit the CameraDefaultFOV cvar located in Data0.pak/Data/Skills/default_levels.xml
To do so, simply extract the file, locate your Dead Island folder in your user’s documents folder, where your audio and video settings are already saved, and create a “Data” folder, a “Skills” subfolder, and place the default_levels.xml in the skills sub folder. Open the file, edit away.
Screenshots:
90 degree FOV: http://i.imgur.com/ZG9pe.jpg
62.5 (default) FOV: http://i.imgur.com/w8H3e.jpg

To be clear, your DeadIsland folder should have this structure:
DeadIsland
->out
->->data
->->->skills
->->->->default_levels.xml
->->logs
->->settings

Alternatively, directions are available from user jonaswashe—

Follow the directions for the FOV fix: (If you already have skip to step 4)

1. Extract Data0.pak located in the game directory with a ZIP program

2. locate: Data0.pak/Data/Skills/default_levels.xml

3. Copy file to My Documents\DeadIsland\out\Data\Skills
create the folder if you don’t have it.

4. Change the following settings to a lower number in a txt editor

5. Save changes

Hope that helps!

Long Load Times

Some users are experiencing ridiculously LONG load times when doing things like loading the menu, game, etc. It can literally take over 5-10 minutes for some people. Oddly enough, this may relate to error logging that is done by the game.

1) Go to My documents\\deadisland\\out\\logs
2) Right click the crash.log -> Properties — and mark the file as “Read Only”

This will prevent the game from writing data to the log because it is no longer writable (hence Read Only). Oddly enough, this may fix your long loading times.

Dead Island Crackling / Static Audio Noise

If using headphones or even just normal speakers, you may experience an annoying buzzing sound, popping, etc. Try the following…
— If using headphones (USB or stereo) then unplug them and see if your speakers have the issue
— Lower the in-game sound and increase the sound instead through your speakers / headphones or Windows
— Switching your Windows audio sound options from 7.1 to 5.1 or from 5.1 to 2.1, etc — may help (despite the fact your speaker setup may not be what you now set it to)
— In notepad, load My Documents\\DeadIsland\\out\\Settings\\Audio.scr and UseEAX()
— Using the same file above, look for API(“XAudio2”) and change it to API(“aXACT”) OR API(“aDS3D”)…or even API(“aOpenAL”)
— If you are using a USB headset, then in the file mentioned above look for the line MixFrequency() and make sure it’s set to what your headset CAN ACTUALLY HANDLE! i.e. MixFrequency(48000)

Note that you may want to set your audio.scr file to “Read Only” to prevent it from reverting if any modifications are done to it, though many have not experienced this.

Textures Bleeding / Look Weird

This may be YOUR fault! Especially if you touched the GAMMA settings, then the colors may just be over saturated. Put the GAMMA settings back to default even if it looked good when you adjusted it in the options area. There is also an issue with the textures stretching on a higher resolution. We have on fix for this one … yet. But if you know of how to solve it, then help out — please do comment on the solution! Thanks.

No Menu Text On Main Menu

Have no text showing for your Dead Island menu? The fix may be so simple that you’ll laugh in frustration. Change your Regional Settings and/or System Locale to what you use. For example, English (United States). Easy fix for a big problem, huh?

Keyboard of Game Controller NOT Working

If your keyboard or game controller are not working (i.e. Xbox 360 game controller) then try the following.

— If wanting to use a keyboard, unplug the game controller before playing
— Disable your antivirus
— Re-plugin your controller when trying to play the game

Solve Dead Island Lagging / Stuttering

Experiencing lag or low FPS (frames per second)? Try the following…
— Update your video card drivers to the newest version
— Lower your game resolution (especially if you have an older graphics card)
— Lower your graphics settings and so forth
— Enable VSYNC (or you can also try disabling it if you have it on already, which can also help)

Fix Microstuttering

While different from normal lag or stuttering, this is an easy fix. Thanks for posting it tastethecourage

Enter the Ease of access center (this can be accessed through Accessories after clicking Start), then click ‘Make the Keyboard Easier to use’

Click ‘Set Filter Keys’.

Click ‘Set up Filter Keys’.

Click ‘Turn on Repeat Keys and Slow Keys’,and then on ‘Set up Repeat Keys and Slow Keys’. Select the option to ignore all repeated keystrokes, and reduce the time option at the top to 0.0 seconds.

Go back.

Ensure that ‘Turn on Filter Keys’ is ticked at the top and apply. Dead Island now runs smoothly, when you’re done, untick the box and apply.

Be sure to revert the settings back to normal when you’re done playing the game.

No Game Audio

Have no sound or audio for the game? Check out the following…

–- On the Windows Start bar, go to Run > type in “DXDIAG” > click the Sound tab. Under the “DirectX Features” area drag the Hardware Sound Acceleration level from Full Acceleration to NO Acceleration!
–- Alternatively, go to My Computer > Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices. Now click the Advanced button under Speaker settings’ and go to the Performance tab. Drag the Hardware acceleration ticker from FULL to NONE. Try this for the Sample Rate Conversion Quality too — sliding it from the Best setting to Good
-– Sound issues are most common when using a speaker setup higher than 2.1 (i.e. 7.1 or 5.1 or headphones even). Changing your stereo configuration to a basic 2.1 may fix the game sound problem for you.

Note that you should revert these settings if they do NOT fix your problem OR if they do fix it, but you’re done playing the game. This will ensure your audio is back to normal after exiting the game.

Game Crashing / Crash to Desktop / Black Screen on Launch

Game crashing (even C2D or CTD) can be caused by many things so it’s hard to diagnose. Still, we have some solutions that have worked for us and other people that we know. This includes fixes for launch failures or when the exe fails to launch in general.

— Lower your game resolution to something more common before opening the game
— Turn off your AntiVirus and Firewall, as they can cause game issues
— Launch the game EXE directly instead of using the generated shortcut
— Update your ATI, NVIDIA, etc. drivers

System Hardware Requirements

Minimum:
OS: Windows XP
Processor: Core2Duo 2.66 GHz
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: ATI 2600XT 512MB VRAM (GeForce 8600GT)
DirectX®: DirectX 9.0C
Hard Drive: 2.0 GB available hard drive space
Other: keyboard, mouse

Recommended
OS: Windows 7
Processor: Core2Duo 2.66 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce 9600 (1GB)
DirectX®: DirectX 9.0C
Hard Drive: 2.0 GB available hard drive space
Other: keyboard, mouse