At the moment, Steam offers the 3 games in a pack pretty affordably.
While Still “Life itself” does run without any hitches and modifications even in the correct aspect ratio on my 2K 16:9 monitor, “Still Life 2” and the first part of the series from 2002 aka “Post Mortem” are a different beast.
However, since this guide is 5 years old, even in the Extended Mode, some options are missing or changed. Hence I am providing here the updated version to the guide featuring current screenshots!:
After installing DXWnd, you can go ahead and from the edit tab on the top of the page on the starting window, click Edit > Add.
You will be brought to a new window and to the first tab called Main. Here you can name the DXWnd profile and set the paths for the executable as shown below. Also ensure that your window looks like the one below:
4. in my case of using a 2K monitor, the picked resolution is my best bet for getting the most out of the screen here
5. we’re gonna have the game run in 4:3 with vsync which will fix animation bugs and picture quality
btw don’t try and launch the game through DxWnd just save those settings and leave it running, then run the game though steam
For “Post Mortem” to run:
I’ve actually used the guide of Steam user DarkSide but modified it a bit so it plays nicely on my 2K monitor (else the game window will be the size of a postage stamp!).
Unzip the archive and copy “dgVoodooCpl.exe” along with the contents of MS/x86 folder into the Post Mortem main folder:
3. Launch dgVoodooCpl.exe and set the settings like on the images below (make sure you added a new running instance / config folder setup for the game beforehand!):
In the “DirectX” tab:
The game will run in 4:3 screen aspect ratio with V-sync on (no tearing), antialiasing and anisotropic filtration.
copy all DLLs from the ZIP’s subfolders 3DFX/x86 and MS/x86 and the “dgVoodooCpl.exe” from the root to the “game” subfolder of where the game is installed.
– Under Config folder/running instance make sure to add the games location that you pulled earlier and make sure it is selected. – You want to make your changes to the configuration and then click on “apply”
Switch to the “DirectX” tab, and make the following settings: Particularly important is to disable the options “dgVoodoo Watermark” or else you have a watermark in the game, and “Disable Alt-Enter to toggle screen state, or else you will never be able to switch the game to fullscreen mode.
Set the following compatibility settings for “game.exe”:
This has been performed using the GOG release of the game, works for the Steam version as well, however:
There are 2 errors you will run into on Windows 11 24H2, especially when you run the game on “HD, 2K or higher resolutions”:
-MFC RESIZE ERROR -“SWAT MFC Appliaction has to close”
The first is happening due to the mission briefing FMVs being in Indeo movie codec which is old and obsolete and no longer updated. Hence installing an old codec presents a security risk. There is however a mod that can be downloaded, tocompletely replace them all with re-encoded versions that use the popular XVID codec.
Download the replacement movies from The Mod Database:
After the scenario is successfully running you can put the window on fullscreen again and reposition and resize the elements within the window to your liking!
I post this for future reference of people who have this problem, because I had the same problem. After searching the internet, I found that it is a known issue that that the WC 3 video sound stutters with cycles=max setting, can be found on the dosbox compatibility page. Unfortunately, that is the setting in the GOG version. Setting cycles to 70000 fixed the problem for me.
In November, 2024, Gog updated the game, hence the CPU settings differ a bit now:
I run it on: Windows 11 24H2 on a Nvidia GeForce 1070 Katana on a AMD FX-8370 Eight-Core Processor@4.00 GHz
I also highly suggest using an analog joystick instead of a gamepad, as the thumbsticks have a different movement pattern (round instead of a rectangle), which means the deadzones are not correctly and correct calibration will fail!
To run the Steam version of the game, you need the following 3 patches:
The SilentPatch to fix the memory leaks and crashes of the game
The Autosave v2 mod to allow saving anywhere in the game (most reasons of failure in this game is failing to save when needed).
The Widescreen Fix (Albeit it is suggested by community members to only apply it on ultra widescreen monitors as the game supports 16:9 natively, in Win 11 it will overlap if you minimize the game once or start the game the next time. With the widescreen fix, you can simply re-select a 4:3 resolution temporarily in the main menu and then switch back to your desired 16:9 resolution, without the widescreen fix, this will fail to fix the aspect ratio!).
How to fix the game:
Download and install the game on Steam
Download all mods
Install the SilentPatch (there is a .txt file with installation instructions if needed)
Install the Autosave 2 mod (do not forget to also download and install the mod loader from the same site, beforehand)
Install the widescreen fix.
Start the game for the first time
Afterwards you will receive two popups, one by the modloader and one by the DirectShow filter and Video for Windows codec:
answer the prompts in the following order:
A) modupdater: select “INI files: replace all and keep settings. Then click on “Download and Install updates now” B) ffdshow compatibility manager untick: Report this exe file name via internet anonymously. untick: Don’t ask me again. Select: use ffdshow. (always) Click: OK C) modupdater: Restart Now
When you copy over the files from the CD to HDD (because the Batch installer won’t work), do not forget to remove the read-only attribute to the files!
Hint: As you cannot setup your details of where the soundblaster is located, it will fall back to PC Speaker if it isn’t where the game expects it to be.
To fix this, set the following values in your DOSBox config file for the game:
I am just adding additional steps necessary for Win11 24H2 not mentioned in his guide.
The general difference between his guide and the additional steps I have added is, that 24H2 appears to behave quite different than earlier builds.
Preconditions:
Make sure, any audio/video codecs or DVD players you have installed previously to redeem the issue as from other guides or comments from the Steam Community, have been completely uninstalled.
Make sure the game files and registry entries are also in its original state. To ensure this, uninstall the game and reinstall it. (caution! Make sure, the Steam folder used has no spaces in its folder name, if it does, create a new one with the Steam Settings! (refer to the coder who fixed the game to work on modern systems in his pinned Steam community post)
The reason for the above preconditions are, because all necessary video and sound codecs are already shipped with the game installation and are inside the game folder but are ignored as Steam sets it to Windows 95 compatibility mode which means the game cannot access them, despite they are there!
6. run the game from steam, first thing you will see is the following prompt:
Be quick so the dialog won’t disappear, select “Use ffdshow. (always)” and make sure the checkbox “Report the exe file name via internet anonymously” is unset.
That’s it! Enjoy playing the game! 🙂
Now, once inside the game, we are hit with more issues.
After the intro and the cut scenes finished playing, we are hit with the following error:
Which simply means the Midi sound cannot be played, so the background music and speech is missing.
We fix this by going to the sound preferences of the game and select the fitting MIDI Mapper to use. Since I am using a dedicated Creative Labs X-Fi Xtreme Gamer dedicated PCI soundcard, I am choosing “Creative Synth B” (As “Creative Synth A” sometimes makes the game freeze)
Last but not least we want to fix the transparent textures issues, hence we set up within the game the following:
opened dgvoodoosetup and unchecked all options about vsync and aliasing
Your setup should look as follows in the DirectX tab:
– Under Config folder/running instance make sure to add the games location that you pulled earlier and make sure it is selected. – You want to make your changes to the configuration and then click on “apply”
If you use dgVoodoo disable it for that implant removal cutscene/puzzle. In dgVoodoo-Setup DirectX tab check “Disable and passthru to real DirectX”.
It still occationally causes freezes while being in fullscreen, I decided to leave a feedback to Microsoft about it in the Windows Feedback Hub, if you wanna read or participate, find it here.
So, Resolution announced yesterday, that Broken Sword 1 Director’s Cut going to be delisted on November 4th, 2024, as can be seen in this Steam post.
So this also means the OST of the game and the original release of 1996 will be removed, as both where part of the Director’s Cut as a DLC.
While the Reforged Edition does have the original graphics you can switch to using the Tab key, it does not contain the original cut-scenes and neither the additional scenes of gameplay with Nico of the DC and the re-recorded audio bits.
However, on the bright side, I can report we finally did an interview with the dear Charles Cecil, for our podcast:
I have noticed, there are some do and don’ts for this game.
Don’ts: – don’t move the installation files using the move function of Steam. Instead uninstall it from the old location and reinstall it at the new location.
Do’s: – You have a higher probability of getting the game to run, if you disable displaying the Steam overlay in the Steam properties of the game.
– If the game’s process in task manager is staring, stopping, restarting without using resources and stopping again, delete the file “TargetHardwareProfiler.dll” in the Steam installation folder of the game.
– if you still have issues, deleting the App data of the game (%AppData%\Local\ForzaHorizon4)
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