Not every game has a save file, and every game has a config. Checkpoint64 backs up the folder where a game keeps your keybinds, sensitivity and video settings — 67 games and 16 dedicated servers have a preset — and keeps every version, so a reinstall, a file verification or a new PC costs you a restore instead of an evening in the options menu.
The file that isn't a save
Play a competitive shooter for six hundred hours and there is nothing on your disk to lose: your rank and your unlocks sit on the publisher's servers. What is on your disk is the config — the autoexec you copied off a pro, the sensitivity you settled on after a month, the video settings you tuned until the frame time stopped spiking.
The same is true of games that do have saves but keep the interesting part elsewhere. An MMO's hotbars, macros, gearsets and HUD layout are config, not progress. So is an EVE Online overview, a DCS control binding, a sim racer's wheel setup — all of it hours of work, all of it in a folder the game rewrites without warning.
What resets a config
- Verifying game files. The launcher notices a config file it doesn't recognise and restores the default. This is the most common one, because it usually happens right after something else went wrong.
- Reinstalling, or a new PC. Game files come back from the store; settings don't.
- A patch that changes the format. The game rewrites the folder on first launch and drops what it can't read.
- Cloud sync that doesn't cover it. Steam Cloud is opt-in per game and per file — plenty of games sync saves and skip config entirely. The Steam Cloud alternative guide has the detail.
None of these announce themselves. You find out at the main menu.
What Checkpoint64 backs up
A config folder is backed up whole. You don't tick individual files, and a setting the game invents in next month's patch is included without you doing anything.
Some entries are narrowed to specific file types instead, because a few games keep settings in the same directory they fill with screenshots and combat logs — Guild Wars 2 is .xml only, Arma 3 is the profile files that carry your bindings, Darktide is its config file. You get the settings and not four years of screenshots.
After that it behaves like any other backup: versions accumulate, so the config from before you tried a 1600 DPI experiment is still there, and restoring is something you click on the machine you click it on.
Games with config presets
A sample of the 67, each linking to its exact folder:
- Shooters — Counter-Strike 2, VALORANT, Apex Legends, Overwatch 2, Hell Let Loose, The Finals, Escape from Tarkov, Hunt: Showdown 1896
- MMOs and live service — Final Fantasy XIV, EVE Online, Guild Wars 2, Path of Exile 2, Destiny 2, Helldivers 2, Sea of Thieves
- Sim and racing — DCS World, Assetto Corsa Competizione, F1 24, War Thunder
- Everything else — Rocket League, Dota 2, Tekken 8, Deep Rock Galactic, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, Among Us
The full catalog has the rest, with the exact path per platform.
Dedicated server configs
Sixteen dedicated servers have an entry of their own, separate from the client: Palworld, ARK: Survival Ascended and Survival Evolved, Conan Exiles, Satisfactory, ICARUS, Astroneer, Squad, Project Zomboid and more.
What that protects is the afternoon somebody spent on harvest multipliers, decay timers, slot counts, the admin list and the rule set the group argued about — which usually exists in exactly one place, on one box, owned by whoever volunteered. Checkpoint64 versions those files. It does not host your server; if you'd rather not run one at all, the dedicated server alternative guide covers passing a single world around instead.
One caveat: these entries point at where the Steam client installs a server tool. Deploy with SteamCMD and your server is in a directory you chose, which no catalog can guess — point the entry at it with Change folder and that path wins.
Manual backup vs Checkpoint64
| Copy the folder yourself | Checkpoint64 | |
|---|---|---|
| When it happens | When you remember | Automatically, every 60 seconds |
| History | Whatever you kept | Every version, labelled |
| After a file verification | Find last year's copy | Pick a version, click Restore |
| New settings a patch adds | Only if you re-copy | Included — it's the whole folder |
| Second PC | Manual transfer | Restore anywhere you're signed in |
How to back up a config folder
- Open the Add screen and search for the game. Config entries sit alongside the save ones, so there is no path to hunt for. Nothing to update either — the catalog lives on our servers, so new entries appear on their own.
- Leave auto-backup on. Every 60 seconds Checkpoint64 checks for changes and uploads a new version; only changed files are sent, and a config folder is small enough that you'll never notice.
- Restore after a reset. Open Versions, pick the config from before the game clobbered it, and Restore. Binds, sensitivity and HUD come back together, because they were backed up together.
If a game you play has no entry yet, point Checkpoint64 at its settings folder and it will version it anyway — that is how several of these started. The release post goes through the batch game by game.