Glossary:Command line arguments
Key points
- Commonly used to force windowed modes, custom specific resolutions or certain hidden settings.
General information
- Command-line argument at Wikipedia
A command line argument/parameter/option is additional data provided to an application at launch that might affect how the application behaves. They usually follow at the end of a launch command, after the name of the executable of the application that is being run. For example, while many Windows users might be familiar with ipconfig /all
or ping google.com
for network diagnostics, those "commands" are actually made up of the application to run as well as the appropriate command-line argument that affects how the application runs. The full launch command that are used behind-the-scene in those examples are actually:
"C:\Windows\System32\ipconfig.exe" /all "C:\Windows\System32\PING.EXE" google.com
Many games and software exposes certain parameters and options for command-line use to allow developers or users to configure the application in a certain way directly at launch, without requiring what might otherwise be rather cumbersome ways to do the same thing. This is often used to enable or configure settings not exposed through the built-in configuration menu of the application. While many command line arguments might be the same across multiple games, these are often the result of using the same engine or similar internal naming schemes among the developers. An application only supports the command line arguments it have been developed to support, and ignores those it does not recognize how to handle. Supported command line arguments must either be revealed by the developer or found by users by data mining the application. One such way of finding supported command lines involves using Process Explorer to extract all found strings of the executable and then going through those to find and test what might be the a specified argument, parameter, or option.
Command line arguments that are often supported by games includes:
-fullscreen
,-windowed
, or a variation thereof to specify display mode to use.-resolution
,-width
or-height
to specify resolution to use.-console
to enable the built-in console if the application have one.
Windows
- Follow the instructions for the desired environment.
Desktop shortcuts
- For generic Windows desktop shortcuts.
Instructions[1] |
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"<path-to-game>\game.exe" -command Notes
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Steam
Instructions[2] |
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GOG Galaxy
Instructions[3] |
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Origin
Instructions[4] |
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Uplay
Instructions[5] |
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Battle.net
Instructions[5] |
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References
- ↑ How to Add a Command Line Parameter to a Windows Shortcut
- ↑ Verified by User:Hawaii_Beach on 2017-01-09
- ↑ Verified by User:Orzelek303 on 2018-02-01
- ↑ Verified by User:Blackbird on 2016-11-02
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Verified by User:Dr4Wm4N on 2016-12-15