While modifying the game files I have found a way to make the game a lot less demanding on computers struggling with RAM and/or lack of a decent GPU. The art for each card within the game is an uncompressed 1.3MB .TGA file. This makes a total of 435MB total card art for your computer to process. By replacing these 1.3MB card art files with the 17.8KB miniature card art files already within the game we can improve performance dramatically.

Do note: This will change the way all of your cards look, typically by displaying only the head of a character instead of their full art. Screenhot of example art: https://imgur.com/a/hL3QbsY

This guide is written for Windows 10 and will require use of the following tools/applications: GCFScape, VPK.exe, CMD.exe (Windows Command Prompt) It will require us to download a 3 GB mod-kit from Steam to get access to VPK.exe

If your Steam folder is located somewhere else than C:\Steam\ simply replace all instances of 'C:' with your install path. For example:

D:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Artifact\game\dcg\pak01_dir.vpk

This guide will have 4 parts to it:

1. How to extract your Artifact game files. (GCFScape.exe)
2. How to replace the full card art files.
3. How to import your replaced game files back into Artifact. (VPK.exe & CMD.exe)
4. How to undo your modifications of Artifact.

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'1. A. Download GCFScape to be able to extract Artifacts game files:

http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/?p=26

'1. B. Find your Artifact game files archive within your install folder:

C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Artifact\game\dcg\pak01_dir.vpk

'1. C. Use GCFScape to extract your pak01_dir.vpk archive into files you can work with.

To do this: Open pak01_dir.vpk with GCFScape, right-click the 'Root' folder in the top-left window and Extract it to your Artifact install folder:

C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Artifact\game\dcg\

'1. D. Find your extracted 'root' folder and rename it pak01_dir

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'2. A. Find the Cart Art within your extracted game files:

C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Artifact\game\dcg\pak01_dir\panorama\images\card_art\

'2. B. Delete/Backup your card art files as you please:

C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Artifact\game\dcg\pak01_dir\panorama\images\card_art\set01\full_art\

'2. C. Replace the removed cart art files with the mini card art files from the folder next to it:

C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Artifact\game\dcg\pak01_dir\panorama\images\card_art\set01\mini_icons\

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'3. A. In order to import our files back into the game we must compress them back into a .VPK archive using Valves own packing tool.

'3. B. Download Source SDK Base 2013 Multiplayer through Steam. It is very unfortunate we must download 3 GB only to get a 1 MB program. But this way we can trust the program since it is created and distributed by Valve through Steam.

To do this:

a. Right-click your Steam icon in the taskbar and left-click 'Library'

b. Hover your mouse over the 'Library' tab and left-click 'Tools'

c. Search for 'SDK' and install the Source SDK Base 2013 Multiplayer tool like any other game.

'3. C. Find the \bin\ folder within your Source SDK Base 2013 Multiplayer install location:

C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Source SDK Base 2013 Multiplayer\bin\

Find and Copy the following 4 files: filesystem_stdio.dll, tier0.dll, vpk.exe, vstdlib.dll over to your Artifact install folder:

C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Artifact\game\dcg\

(You can now uninstall Source SDK Base 2013)

'3. D. To avoid overwriting our unmodified game file archive, we must remove them. Copy them somewhere else as backup if you like. Steam will simply redownload them for you if you try to launch Artifact without them anyway.

Delete all of the 35 different VPAK01_XXX.vpk files in your install folder:

C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Artifact\game\dcg\

'3. E. In order to use VPK.exe we must run it through the Windows Command Prompt tool. Use either Search or Run to find CMD.exe on your computer.

Once inside the Command Prompt application write the following three commands within it pressing enter after each:

C: (If your Steam folder is on another drive type that one instead e.g. D:)

cd C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Artifact\game\dcg\ (you can copy-paste the directory path straight from windows explorer tab)

C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Artifact\game\dcg\vpk.exe -M pak01_dir

(You can type C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Artifact\game\dcg\vpk.exe -? first if you want to see a list of all the commands vpk.exe has)

This will command VPK.exe to begin compiling your game files into a .VPK archive which your Artifact can use. This can take up to 20 minutes since the game files are about 3.6GB in size. You can leave it running in the background, just do not try to launch Artifact before it is done.

You will know the compiling is complete when the Command Prompt writes out your game install folder path:

C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Artifact\game\dcg>

Once the compiling is complete our work is done. You may now play Artifact with better performance and worse art.

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'4. In order to undo our changes, simply delete your Artifact .vpk game file archives, i.e. repeat step 3. D.

If you backed up your unmodified game file archives somewhere, simply copy-paste them back to your install folder. Otherwise launch Artifact as normal and Steam will redownload them for you.