Most heuristic search method's performances are dependent on parameter choices. These parameter settings govern how new candidate solutions are generated and then applied by the algorithm. They essentially play a key role in determining the quality of the solution obtained and the efficiency of the search. Their fine-tuning techniques are still an on-going research area. Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm is a very powerful optimization method and has become popular in many fields. Based on the prolonged research work on DE, it is now arguably one of the most outstanding stochastic optimization algorithms for real-parameter optimization. One reason for its popularity is its widely appreciated property of having only a small number of parameters to tune. This paper presents a detailed review of DE parameter tuning with a table compromised a recommended guidelines for these parameters, along with a full description of the basic DE algorithm and its corresponding operators, overlooked by previous studies. It is aimed at practitioners to help them achieve better results when adopting DE as an optimization method for their problems with less time and effort. Moreover, an experimental study has been conducted over fifteen test problems and the results obtained prove the reliability of the setting values.
