Step 4 of 5

The first session: install, tutorial, controls, settings

The hour after an installation finishes is where most beginners give up, usually because they skipped the tutorial and met other players instead. This step sets out an order of operations that works across the category, and names the handful of settings worth changing before anything else.

Data card 4.1
Where the installer should come from

Take the installer from the publisher's own website or from a well-known distribution platform that the publisher names on that website. Those are the two sources with a reason to be correct. Sites that aggregate installers for other people's software are a different proposition entirely, and there is no reason to use one when the vendor publishes its own.

The vendor's requirements page, which you read in Step 2, is usually one click from the same place, so this is also the moment to confirm the figures you wrote down.

Visit the War Thunder website

Paid affiliate link. A commission is paid to GRAVELGANT s.r.o. when an account is created and confirmed after this link is followed. The instructions in this step are written for the whole category and do not depend on it.

Data card 4.2
The order of operations

Doing these in order removes most of the frustration. Allow about an hour, and do not plan to play with anyone else on the first evening.

1. Close other programs, plug the laptop in, and make sure the household knows a large transfer is about to start.
2. Obtain the installer from the publisher's own site or its named platform, and let it finish without interruption.
3. Run the installer and accept the default location unless you have a specific reason to move it. Note which drive it chose.
4. Let the launcher complete its first update. This can take as long as the installation itself and cannot usefully be rushed.
5. Log in with the account you confirmed in Step 3.
6. Open the settings before playing, and work through the six items listed further down this page.
7. Start the tutorial and finish it, even the parts that feel obvious.
8. Stop. Stand up. Come back another day for the second session.

Data card 4.3
The launcher and the first update

Online games are updated constantly, so the first thing the launcher does is fetch everything that has changed since the installer was built. On a modest connection this can be slower than the installation, which surprises people who think they have finished.

Leave it alone while it works. Interrupting an update mid-file sometimes means the launcher has to verify or fetch the whole set again, which costs more time and more of your data allowance than waiting did.

From then on, the launcher will usually check for updates before each session. Plan for a few minutes of waiting after a long gap between sessions, particularly after a large seasonal update.

Data card 4.4
Why the tutorial is the point

A tutorial is a guided, usually offline introduction that teaches the controls at a pace nobody else sets. In a game where several kinds of vehicle or several roles exist, it is also where you find out which one suits you before committing an evening to it.

Skipping it is the single most common beginner mistake in this category. The second session is far more enjoyable when the basic controls have become automatic, and a tutorial is the only place where they can become automatic without an audience.

In the example this course follows, the vendor's own sequence ends with the tutorial: register, confirm the email address, log in, begin. That is also the order the affiliate network describes.

Data card 4.5
Controls

Most games in this category are built around a keyboard and mouse, with optional support for a gamepad and, in vehicle games, for a joystick. Begin with whatever is already attached to your computer. Specialised hardware is a decision for much later, after you know whether you enjoy the game at all.

Two things are worth doing in the first session. Open the control list and read it once, so that you know a list exists and where it lives. And learn the key that pauses or opens the menu, because knowing how to stop is more reassuring than knowing how to start.

If any standard control is uncomfortable to reach, rebind it. Every game in this category allows it, and there is no virtue in using the default arrangement if it hurts your hand.

Comfort is worth as much attention as the controls themselves. Put the screen at a distance where you are not leaning forward, keep the keyboard at a height where your wrists are flat rather than angled up, and have a glass of water within reach so that standing up feels like a choice rather than an interruption. These sound like small things, and they are the difference between an enjoyable two hours and a sore evening.

One more habit for a first session: give yourself permission to be bad at it. Every person in a multiplayer match was a beginner at some point, the tutorial exists precisely because the controls are not obvious, and nothing is being measured. Nobody is watching the first hour, and the second one is always easier.

Data card 4.6
Six settings worth changing

These are the settings that most affect comfort and performance for a newcomer. The names vary between games; the meanings do not.

One more habit: if the room is dark, turn the screen brightness down rather than the in-game brightness up. Long sessions are easier on the eyes that way, and it costs nothing to try.

Data card 4.7
When something does not work

Three ordinary problems account for most first-session failures, and each has an ordinary answer.

• The game will not start. Restart the computer, then let the launcher verify or repair the installation; most launchers have a control for that in a settings or options menu.
• It runs but stutters. Lower the quality preset one level, close the browser, and check that the computer is plugged in rather than running on battery.
• Movement is delayed, or other players jump about. This is the connection, not the computer. A wired connection is steadier than wireless, and a household member streaming video at the same time is a common cause.

If none of that helps, the support contact you found in Step 1 is the right next move. Describe what you did, what the computer did, and the six figures from Step 2; that is the information a support team actually needs.

Summary
Before you move on

You have the game installed from a source with a reason to be correct, you have finished a tutorial, and you have set six options deliberately rather than by default. You also know what to try first when something misbehaves, which is most of what separates a confident beginner from a frustrated one.

Step 5 is about everything that happens after the novelty wears off: money, classification and keeping the whole thing in proportion.