PLAYING.md

Playing

← README · Setup guide · Multiplayer · DLC and unlocks

Everything about playing once the game is built: how to start it, the controls, the settings, and where WindowSmash keeps your save, screenshots and problem reports.

Contents

• Starting the game
• Settings
• Controls
• Controllers
• Window and display
• Shaders and first-time stutter
• Low frame rate
• Where your files are
• Problem reports

Starting the game

Everything starts from a launcher. Play SSBU.bat and Install WindowSmash.bat are in the WindowSmash folder; the others are in its launchers folder. Double-click the one you want:

Launcher	What it does
Play SSBU.bat	Opens the WindowSmash window (below), then starts the game and joins the online lobby, so Local Wireless shows everyone's rooms. If the lobby doesn't answer, the game plays offline.
Play SSBU.bat with Shift held	Opens the WindowSmash window even when you've ticked Start the game directly next time.
launchers\Play SSBU Offline.bat	Starts the game without going online.
launchers\Host SSBU Netplay.bat	Starts the game as the host of a private room (multiplayer guide).
launchers\Join SSBU Netplay.bat	Starts the game and joins someone's private room.
launchers\Unlock All Fighters.bat	Unlocks every base-game fighter on your save. Close the game first (DLC and unlocks).
launchers\Prepare Shaders.bat	Prepares all of the game's shaders ahead of time (below).
Install WindowSmash.bat	Sets everything up and builds the game (setup guide). Run it again to get the newest WindowSmash and build it.
launchers\Build WindowSmash.bat	Builds the game from your files, when the tools are already installed (setup guide).
launchers\Configure Game Data.bat	Points WindowSmash at your game data and fonts (setup guide, step 10).

Play SSBU.bat first opens a small window that shows the game version (13.0.5) and changes the most used settings: your online name and lobby, the window and frame pacing, the render scale, the graphics card, and which player the keyboard is. Play saves what you changed and starts the game; Close changes nothing. It edits the same files as the in-game settings, keeping their comments. Tick Start the game directly next time to skip the window; hold Shift while you start Play SSBU.bat to see it again.

The first time you play online, the game picks a name for you, such as Player1234, and shows it at the bottom of the screen. To change it, open the settings and go to Online.

Settings

Press Esc in the game to open the settings (on Windows and Linux; the macOS version doesn't have them yet, so there you edit the files below). On a controller, press its Home button (the PS or Xbox button), or hold − and + together for a second. Close the settings the same way, or with B.

Page	What you can change
Display	Window or full screen, frame pacing, how many frames the graphics card works ahead, the mouse pointer, the frame rate in the corner, the window's size, the render scale, the graphics card.
Controllers	For each connected controller: which player it is, face buttons by position or by label, stick dead zone, rumble, how far a trigger is pulled for ZL / ZR, and which control is each button (Buttons...). For the keyboard: which player it adds to. Also Rumble on or off for every controller, and whether controllers work while another window is in front.
Online	Public lobby, a private lobby code, your own server, or offline; your name; direct connections (multiplayer guide).
Game	Restart or quit the game, the keys, and the game version.

• Move with the arrow keys or the D-pad. Change a setting with left and right. Select with Enter or A. Switch pages with Tab, the number keys 1–4, or L / R.
• The game keeps running behind the settings, but it doesn't see your buttons or keys while they're open. In a match, pause first. In a netplay room, the other players keep playing.
• Every change is saved at once. Settings marked now take effect straight away. Settings marked next start take effect the next time the game starts: Game → Restart the game does that for you. A match in progress is lost when you restart.
• To type a name or a code, use the keyboard, or pick the letters with a controller: A types, B deletes, + finishes.

The settings are kept in the same files as always: display.ini, controllers.ini and the online_*.txt files in the WindowSmash folder. You can still edit those files by hand, and the settings keep your comments in them. Some things are only in the files, such as settings for a whole kind of controller (below).

Controls

The keyboard plays as player 1, together with player 1's pad if there is one:

Switch button	Keyboard
Left stick	Arrow keys
A / B / X / Y	Z / X / C / V
L / R	A / S
ZL / ZR	Q / W
+ / −	Enter / Backspace
Right stick	I J K L

Key	What it does
Esc	Opens or closes the settings.
F1	Shows or hides the overlay: frame rate and, online, the connection.
F2	Shows more details, including the connected pads.
F3	Takes a screenshot.
F11 or Alt+Enter	Switches between a window and full screen.

Keys for troubleshooting

Key	What it does
F4	Writes one frame's drawing commands to the log.
F5	Turns depth sampling on or off.
F6	Records a 10-second profile into build\profile_*.txt.

Controllers

Up to eight players can use pads at once: Xbox, PlayStation, Switch Pro, GameCube, and most other controllers.

• Each pad that connects becomes the next free player. A pad that's unplugged and plugged back in gets its player back.
• Buttons go by position, as on a Switch controller. On an Xbox controller, the right-hand button (B) is the Switch's A, and the bottom one (A) is the Switch's B. To use the printed letters instead, or to change any button, open the settings and go to Controllers.
• The settings' Controllers page, or F2 in the game, shows which pads WindowSmash found and which player each one is.

Note

PlayStation, Switch Pro and most other pads need SDL3.dll next to build\ssbu.exe. Step 12 of the setup guide adds it. Without it, only Xbox (XInput) pads work, as players 1–4.

GameCube controllers

These work, each port or controller as its own player:

• Nintendo's GameCube controller adapter (the one for Wii U and Switch), or another brand's adapter (Mayflash and others) set to its Wii U mode. Windows' own driver and the WinUSB driver Dolphin's setup installs with Zadig both work.
• Another brand's adapter in its PC mode.
• The Nintendo Switch Online GameCube controller (the one for Switch 2), on a USB cable. Its Bluetooth doesn't work with WindowSmash.

They play as GameCube controllers, as they do on a Switch:

• The game uses its own GameCube controller controls, which you can change in the game's Options → Controls.
• The buttons go by the letters printed on them. L and R are analog, so the game reads how far they're pulled, and Z works as on the console.
• Rumble works when the adapter's second plug (the grey one on Nintendo's adapter) is in a USB port too. WaveBird controllers have no rumble.

Note

The Switch Online GameCube controller needs one more step on some PCs. It only starts sending its buttons after the game talks to its second USB "interface", and Windows may not give that interface a driver. If the log (build\play.log) says its interface 1 has no WinUSB driver:

1. Plug the controller in with its cable and open Zadig.
2. Choose Options → List All Devices.
3. Pick the controller's Interface 1: the USB ID shows 057E 2073 01. Not Interface 0, which Windows needs for the buttons.
4. Choose WinUSB as the driver and click Replace Driver (or Install Driver).

Start the game again. The log then says Switch 2 GameCube controller started.

The log names what it finds, on lines that start with [input]: an adapter (GameCube adapter found), each controller that becomes a player, and anything that stopped one from working.

Any other pad can use the game's GameCube controls too: set style = gamecube for it in controllers.ini (below). Its triggers become L and R, and its shoulder buttons become Z.

controllers.ini

The first time the game starts, it writes controllers.ini into the WindowSmash folder. The settings change it for you; you can also open it in Notepad (Controllers → Open controllers.ini opens it). Every setting is explained inside the file. Changes made by hand apply the next time the game starts, and deleting the file brings back the defaults.

Setting	What it does	Default
keyboard_player	Which player the keyboard adds to: 1–8, or 0 for no keyboard.	1
background	1: pads keep working while the game window isn't in front. 0: only while it is.	1
layout	positional: buttons by position, as on a Switch pad. labels: by the letter printed on the pad (PlayStation pads stay positional).	positional
style	auto: GameCube controllers play as GameCube controllers, other pads as Pro Controllers. gamecube or pro: this pad plays as that kind of controller.	auto
deadzone	How much of the stick's travel around the centre is ignored, 0–50 percent.	0
rumble	Rumble strength, 0–100 percent. 0 turns it off. (In [general]: 0 turns rumble off for every controller, 1 leaves each at its own strength.)	100 (1 in [general])
trigger_threshold	How far a trigger must be pulled to press ZL or ZR, 1–99 percent. (On a GameCube controller, the game itself decides how far L and R are pulled.)	25
remaps	<Switch button> = <pad control>, for example ZR = rightshoulder. The file lists every name.

The file has these sections:

• [general] holds keyboard_player, background and rumble (on or off for every controller).
• [players] reserves a player for one pad, for example 2 = DualSense Wireless Controller (the settings' Player row writes the pad's GUID there). The log names every pad as it connects, with its type and GUID.
• [device default] applies to every pad.
• [device ps5], [device <name>] or [device <GUID>] applies to one kind of pad, or one pad. Types include xbox360, xboxone, ps4, ps5, switchpro, joyconpair and gamecube. The settings write a controller's changes under [device <its name>], or under the section it already takes its settings from.

For example, to make every pad use the printed letters, turn rumble down on a PlayStation 5 pad, and give Xbox One pads the game's GameCube controls:

[device default]
layout = labels

[device ps5]
rumble = 60

[device xboxone]
style = gamecube

Window and display

F11 or Alt+Enter switches between a window and full screen at any time. The game draws its picture at 1920 × 1080 and fits it into the window, always at 16:9, with black bars when the window has another shape. render_scale (below) draws it bigger for a sharper picture on a bigger screen. Screenshots keep the whole picture at the size it was drawn.

The first start also writes display.ini, which sets how the game starts. The settings' Display page changes it too:

Setting	Values	Default
window	windowed: a window that keeps 16:9 as you resize it. borderless: covers its whole monitor. fullscreen: borderless and always on top; the monitor keeps its resolution.	windowed
width, height	The window's inside size at 100% display scaling.	1280, 720
pacing	clock: a steady 60 frames a second. vrr: for G-Sync or FreeSync monitors, each frame shown as soon as it's ready; best with borderless. display: follows a 60, 120 or 240 Hz monitor's own refresh.	clock
latency	How many frames the graphics card may work ahead, 1–3. Lower is more responsive.	3
hide_cursor	1 hides the mouse pointer after two seconds without movement.	1
overlay	1 shows the frame rate in the corner from the start (F1 shows or hides it while playing).	1
gpu	Which graphics card draws the game. auto: the fastest; on a laptop with two, the NVIDIA or AMD one rather than the processor's own. Or part of a card's name, such as nvidia, radeon or intel. build\play.log lists the cards found (a [gfx] graphics cards line).	auto
render_scale	How many times bigger than 1920 × 1080 the game draws its picture, in each direction: a number from 0.5 to 4, or auto. auto matches the picture to the screen when the game starts, for example 1.33 (2560 × 1440) on a 1440p monitor with window = borderless; it never goes below 1. A picture bigger than the window is shrunk to fit, which smooths edges (2 on a 1440p monitor). Each step up costs the graphics card more: 2 draws four times the pixels and needs about 200 MB more graphics memory.	1

A display.ini written by an older WindowSmash has no gpu or render_scale line; the game then uses auto and 1. Add the line yourself to use it, or delete display.ini to get a new one with every setting. render_scale is read when the game starts: change it, then start the game again.

Shaders and first-time stutter

The game's graphics programs (shaders) are prepared the first time each one is used, so a new effect can show a moment late, or stutter, the first time you see it. WindowSmash keeps every prepared shader in dump\shadercache\ and loads them in the background each time the game starts, so each stutter happens only once.

To prepare them all before playing, double-click launchers\Prepare Shaders.bat. It runs at low priority so the PC stays usable, and shows a progress bar with the time left. A first run compiles about 40,000 shaders: about half an hour on a 16-thread processor, an hour or two on a 4- to 8-thread one. You can close it at any time and start it again later; what's done stays done, so a later run takes minutes. It needs Python and Visual Studio, as for building.

Low frame rate

If matches run slowly on a PC that should manage them (press F1 for the frame rate), check these first:

• A laptop is drawing with its processor's graphics. With two graphics chips, the game takes the NVIDIA or AMD one by itself. Check the [gfx] drawing with line near the top of build\play.log, and see gpu in display.ini.
• Prepare Shaders is still running. It uses most of the processor; let it finish, or close it while you play.
• NVIDIA's shader cache is off. In NVIDIA Control Panel → Manage 3D settings, set Shader Cache Size to Driver default (not Disabled). Without it, the graphics driver redoes its part of every shader each time the game starts.
• Windows uses a slow system timer. Some "gaming tweaks" set Windows to time everything with an old, slow timer (the HPET). WindowSmash notices and works around it, and says so near the top of build\play.log: a [clock] line ending in slow. Other programs stay slower, though; to undo the tweak, run bcdedit /deletevalue useplatformclock in a Command Prompt opened as administrator, then restart the PC.

Where your files are

All of these are in the WindowSmash folder:

What	Where
Your save	save\
Screenshots (F3)	screenshots\
The game's log	build\play.log
Crash and freeze reports	reports\
Controller and window settings	controllers.ini, display.ini
Your online name, lobby and direct connections	online_name.txt, online_server.txt, online_direct.txt
Your multiplayer identity	netplay_id.txt. Don't copy it to another PC: two PCs with the same one look like one player.

Tip

Back up your save now and then: copy the save folder somewhere safe while the game is closed. To restore it, close the game and copy it back.

Problem reports

When the game crashes, or freezes with no new picture for five seconds, WindowSmash writes a report into the reports\ folder:

File	Written when
crash_<time>.txt	The game crashed.
freeze_<time>.txt	No new picture for 5 seconds (again at 30 and 120 seconds).
stopped_<time>.txt	The game stopped with an error message.
<…>.dmp	Next to a crash or freeze report: a minidump of the game's memory.

When you report a problem, attach the .txt report and the end of build\play.log. Read them first: they can contain folder names, player names and internet addresses. Share a .dmp file only privately, with someone who asked for it, because it contains part of the game's memory. Getting help lists what else to include.

If the game doesn't start at all, check, in this order: the game data path (step 10), that the game is version 13.0.5 (a game built from another version says so when it starts: what to do), the six font files, that your processor has AVX2, and your graphics driver.

WindowSmash is experimental. That it starts doesn't mean every fighter, stage, mode or online match works.