To Devs: Check your Out of Range error logic

Far too often, recently, i have been assaulted by Out of Range errors in several games where i accidentally set my video card to a refresh rate not supported at a particular resolution.

An easily resolvable user-error; but many games allow these changes without any user validation or have automatic reversion. So the game becomes instantly unusuable.

Worse, because resolution is considered part of the user’s profile, the files governing screen resolution are often saved even after uninstallation, forcing a user to dig around and change the appropriate file manually.

Just off the top of my head, Age of Empires 3 and Lord of the Rings online have this problem. Some games i haven’t purchased because i was unable to play their demos due to this error.

Some of this is based on Video and Monitor drivers being properly installed. If you end up with Default or Generic or sometimes even Plug and Pray, Windows can report back refresh rates that are not supported.

Having either a Safe Mode or an external options editing program can also be useful in helping people recover from this.