Problems running the game?

[Kyzrati]

Some potential issues to be aware of, and how to solve them:

Game does not start, instead Windows says there are missing DLLs like "msvcp100.dll".

Your system needs the MSVC++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x86), which can be downloaded and installed from here. After clicking "Download" it will list multiple versions, and the one you need is "vcredist_x86.exe".

Game does not start, or crashes almost immediately.

Possibility #1: Cogmind must have write access to its directory. In Windows, make sure the game is run with admin rights, otherwise it may crash. This is required to create config files and save your progress.

Possibility #2: Cogmind cannot be run from a directory path that contains non-English characters. On some systems this may include your desktop! Make sure the entire path to the game folder itself contains only numbers, punctuation, and English letters. Putting the game in a place like C:\Games\Cogmind\ would be fine. Somewhere like C:\遊戲\Cogmind is not.

Game starts, but won't start in fullscreen or the resolution is otherwise incorrect / doesn't match the screen space. (Especially common on 4K monitors.)

This used to occur under some Windows 8 and 10 systems due to its default handling of fullscreen software-rendered programs. It has since been resolved, but if you happen to have such a system, there is a Windows setting which can fix it. (After changing this setting, it's recommended that you delete your /user/cogmind.cfg file before restarting the game so it can better auto-calculate its proper grid size.)

The game didn't save my progress or configuration options!

Mostly likely it's because it was not run with admin rights, which is required to save files including both your configuration and saved game. Make sure to run it with admin rights, and note that adding COGMIND to your Program Files directory may prevent it from having admin rights by default.

If that's not it, your anti-virus software probably quarantined/sandboxed Cogmind and thereby prevents it from creating or saving files in its own subdirectories. When this happens the game may appear to function normally, but be unable to create or save any data! Make sure Cogmind is not restricted by AV programs! If Cogmind didn't start up in fullscreen mode the first time it was run, it is probably being sandboxed.

The game is sluggish.

Cogmind is light on system requirements, but if you have a really old CPU some mid/late-game areas might get slower. In this case, you can increase your FPS by switching to windowed mode and using a smaller font size. The smallest window supported is 1272x720, or a size 14 font.

If those don't work for you, a more general options is to cap the FPS. Cogmind is set to run at 60 FPS by default, but you can change this manually by opening /user/cogmind.cfg and changing "fpsCap=60" to some other lower number, like 40. This will reduce the amount of CPU time allocated to rendering and leave more for the action.

I'm having trouble getting the game working on my Mac.

This thread will get you up and running, or see here for M1 and later.

I use Wine on Linux and cannot install the MSVC redistributable.

Cogmind works fine on Linux under Wine, but I've heard* that some are unable to install the required redistributable. In this case, the required files can be installed manually by downloading "msvcp100.dll" and "msvcr100.dll" from the web and putting them in the "windows/system32" directory created by Wine, but ideally the Microsoft installer is a simpler, quicker and safer approach. (*This was many years ago, so it may no longer be true/required--later distributions generally included these files be default.) Alternatively, Cogmind also works fine under Proton (including via Steam install).