This page is for the original game. For the upcoming remake, see Dead Space (2023).
Key points
- A glitch in the game causes the difficulty to change itself when multiple save files are present. See Issues fixed.
- Very poor mouse input due to aggressive negative mouse acceleration when running at frame rates above 60 FPS. Use Dead Space Mouse Fix.
General information
- Dead Space Wiki
- GOG.com Community Discussions
- GOG.com Support Page
- Steam Community Discussions
- Dead Space on TheGameEngine.org
Availability
DLC and expansion packs
- All DLCs were never released for PC.[1]
Game data
Configuration file(s) location
- The file for key-bindings
controls.rmp
is in a binary format and requires hex editing.
Save game data location
- 20 save slots available.
Video
Advanced graphics settings.
Brightness settings. With exclusive fullscreen, game is so much brighter that even lowest value looks relatively bright.
WSGF multi-monitor screenshot.
[2]
In-game AA, 16xAF (driver).
4xAA (driver), 16xAF (driver).
Use Widescreen Fixer[4]
|
- Download and install Widescreen Fixer.
- Run the program
- Select the 'Main' tab, and select 'Dead Space' from the dropdown menu
- Click the settings cog next to the drop down bar
- In the window this opens, enter your FOV of choice (I'd recommend 0.3)
- Click the 'Settings' tab, go to 'Hotkey' at the bottom, and input your hotkey of choice (e.g. Alt+F1)
- Click 'save settings' and then 'close window'. Leave the program running
- Launch 'Dead Space'
- When in game, press the hotkey you input in step 6.
- Your FoV of choice should now be visible in game
- When you look at the Widescreen Fixer program, below the 'Select game' dropdown menu is 'Status'. 'Game Running', and Fix Enabled should both be Yes if it worked correctly. Please note that the program must be kept running alongside the game for the selected FOV to work.
|
Force SGSSAA (Nvidia only)[5][6]
|
- Download and run Nvidia Profile Inspector.
- Select the Dead Space profile.
- Change
Antialiasing compatibility value to 0x004010C0 .
- Change
Antialiasing - Behavior Flags to None .
- Change
Antialiasing - Mode to Override any application setting .
- Change
Antialiasing - Setting to 4x [4x Multisampling] or 8xQ [8x Multisampling] .
- Change
Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling to 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling or 8x Sparse Grid Supersampling .
- Press "Apply Changes" in the top-right corner.
Notes
- Might blur the image to some extent, Antialiasing fix is needed and 4x SGSSAA may not look good at resolutions lower than 1080p.[7]
- Due to the aforementioned reasons, driver downsampling (DSR/Custom Resolutions (Nvidia) or VSR (AMD)) combined with FXAA or SMAA may be preferable.[8]
|
Ambient occlusion
Force HBAO+ (Nvidia only)[9][10]
|
- Download and run Nvidia Profile Inspector.
- Select the Dead Space profile.
- Change
Ambient Occlusion compatibility value to 0x0000000F .
- Change
Ambient Occlusion setting to Performance .
- Change
Ambient Occlusion usage to Enabled .
- Press "Apply Changes" in the top-right corner.
Notes
- The "Performance" ambient occlusion setting yields a stronger effect compared to "Quality" and "High Quality" and provides much better performance.[11]
|
Input
- Game uses controller HUD if controller is present. Simply unplug/disable controller when playing with keyboard and mouse.
Keybind Editor
|
- Dead Space configuration tool by felayga allows to modify keyboard and mouse binds.
- The tool with interface shown on screenshot can be downloaded here or compiled from sources.
Manual edits still required to:
- bind wheel or unlock action for mouse binds;
- bind hidden actions, such as map zoom.
|
Edit keybinds manually[12]
|
- Before proceeding change at least one of the default game key bindings in order to generate the required file
- Go to the configuration files location.
- Open
controls.rmp with a hex editor such as HxD.
- To simplify things, adjust the program so that you have 20 bytes per row (14 in hex)
- Each primary or alternate keyboard key is stored in the 0C and 0D column
- By comparing the codes in the default file with those here you can understand what every lines control
- You'll be able to arrange the controls with a little patience and the codes below
- Mouse binds editing scheme:
- 1st Column - allow mouse binds.
- 2nd - mouse button ID = 00-04 = Left, Right, Middle, WheelUp, WheelDown.
- To bind use to mouse wheel, offset is 0x78.
Notes
- Codes for every keyboard key can be found in one of these website:
- 1 - "Make" scan code
- 2 - In the "Keyboard Scan Code" section, the "Make" code of the set 1 column
|
Audio
Audio feature |
State |
Notes |
Separate volume controls |
|
|
Surround sound |
|
Up to 5.0 output.[13] |
Subtitles |
|
|
Closed captions |
|
|
Mute on focus lost |
|
Only when minimized |
Royalty free audio |
|
|
Localizations
Language |
UI |
Audio |
Sub |
Notes |
English |
|
|
|
Both English US and English GB are available |
Simplified Chinese |
|
|
|
Fan translation, donwload |
Czech |
|
|
|
GOG and Origin version. |
French |
|
|
|
|
German |
|
|
|
|
Hungarian |
|
|
|
GOG, Origin and Retail version, the language files are available here. |
Italian |
|
|
|
|
Polish |
|
|
|
GOG, Origin and Retail version. |
Brazilian Portuguese |
|
|
|
Fan translation: download (GGames) |
Russian |
|
|
|
GOG, Origin and Retail version, download. |
Spanish |
|
|
|
|
Turkish |
|
|
|
Fan translation available here |
VR support
Issues fixed
Screen tearing
- Sometimes the game has screen tearing problems.
Play the game in windowed mode
|
- You can then put the game in full screen using these.
|
Mouse acceleration, lag, and random sensitivity
- Mouse view becomes messier the more the framerate exceeds 60 FPS.
Use raw mouse input fix[14]
|
Notes
- Sensitivity will wildly increase when walking on organic matter (normalizes when aiming).
|
Invisible door
- With a high frame rate, the first door after getting the Plasma Cutter may be impassable.
Limit frame rate to 120 FPS or lower[citation needed]
|
|
Invisible wall blocks red marker at final chapter
- For unknown reason, the chamber door after second store may block the track. Try to keep a save at second savepoint of the chapter.
Unbreakable containers and unopenable crates
- With a high frame rate, containers and crates may not be interactable.
Limit frame rate to 120 FPS or lower[citation needed]
|
|
Stretched geometry
- With a high frame rate, hair physics may "explode" and stretch unnaturally. This can be observed in the very first scene.
Limit frame rate to 120 FPS or lower
|
|
Doctor Challus Mercer doesn't appear in Chapter 5: Lethal Devotion
Momentarily enable Vsync[15]
|
- Enter Cryo Chamber with the in-game Vsync enabled.
|
Deadly lock-up during landing in zero gravity
- At high framerates there's a risk of player getting soft-locked in landing state during zero gravity sections, game resolves this lock-up by forcibly killing the player after 5–10 seconds. This can be "fixed" by capping framerates to 60 or 30 FPS. Severity of the issue can potentially scale up with the framerate, being very common at 300+ FPS.
Large deadzone
- The game inserts large deadzones onto the analog sticks, making precise control very difficult, especially on gamepads like the Logitech Gamepad F310, which have their own deadzones.
Make deadzones smaller[16]
|
- Download Durazno XInput Wrapper.
- Extract the contents and run
Durazno.exe .
- Set the AntiDeadzone option to 40%, close the program.
- Copy
Durazno.ini and xinput1_3.dll to the installation folder.
- Open the game and disable vsync. Force it through your driver control panel if you want vsync.
|
- For Steam users.
Make deadzones smaller
|
- Start the game.
- Open Steam Overlay.
- Go to Controller Configuration.
- Choose Browse Configs.
- Go to Community tab.
- Choose any from ones at the top that say they fix deadzone problem.
|
Game crashes at launch
Fix settings.txt[17]
|
- Go to the configuration file(s) location.
- Open
settings.txt (if it isn't present create it manually).
- Eventually change both
Window.Fullscreen and Window.VSync to false .
|
Try unplugging or disabling controllers[18]
|
- Open Device Manager.
- Disable all
HID compliant game controller under Human Interface Devices [HID] .
|
Run the game on a single core
|
- Open Command Prompt.
- Type
cd "<path-to-game>" and press enter.
- Type
start "" /Affinity 1 "Dead Space.exe" and press enter, which will tell Windows to run the game on only one core.
- If the game is not installed on your
C: drive, after step 2 you will need to type the drive letter followed by : and then press enter. For example, if the game is installed on the E drive, you would type E: and then press enter before step 3.
- You will likely need to do this every time you want to play the game if this fix works.
|
Audio stutter
- This must be done every time you launch the game.
Make Dead Space a high priority task in Task Manager[19]
|
- Launch Dead Space.
- Press Alt+Tab ↹ to return to the Desktop.
- Click the Processes tab.
- Right click Dead Space and click "Go to details."
- This selects Dead Space in the Details tab. Right click it, and change priority to "High".
|
Windows mouse cursor visible
- If this cursor is visible, it may cause problems on multi-monitor systems.[citation needed]
Spinning camera
- These will also fix the camera/reticule being pulled to the top left during turret sequences, like the tentacle grab or asteroid defense sequences.
Create an empty joypad profile[21]
|
- Go to
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Electronic Arts\Dead Space\ .
- Create an empty text file called
joypad.txt .
|
Unplug any extra input device except mouse and keyboard[citation needed]
|
Disable Logitech G13 Joystick[citation needed]
|
- Open Device Manager.
- Under
Human Interface Devices [HID] disable the Logitech G13 Joystick .
Notes
- This will only disable the Joystick meaning the G13 can still be used to play the game.
|
Difficulty changes itself when multiple save files are present
- Difficulty only changes itself when save at end of a chapter (save in the train).
Always select "load game" instead of "continue game" on main menu[22]
|
- Alternatively, delete all save files except the one you are using.
|
Use CheatEngine to change the game difficulty[23]
|
- Run Dead Space and load your save.
- Click
Open Process and attach to your running Dead Space executable.
- Click
Add Address Manually and enter "Dead Space.exe"+A8ADC0 (for Steam version) or "Dead Space.exe"+A88E30 (for GOG/Origin version), select Byte Type.
- Change the value to 0, 1, 2, or 3, depending on the difficulty you want:
- 0 = Easy
- 1 = Medium
- 2 = Hard
- 3 = Impossible
- The next time you save the game, it will save an uncorrupted file with difficulty you selected.
|
Game randomly cuts to a black screen and pauses, as if it was Alt-Tabbed
Use the Borderless Gaming program[24]
|
- Download, install, and run the program
- Launch Dead Space
- Ensure that the game is not set to fullscreen in the video settings, and your native resolution/refresh rate is applied
- Left click 'Dead Space' in the 'Applications' box on the Borderless Gaming program
- Right click, and select 'Make borderless'
- This will result in the loss of some minor visual fidelity, but the bug will no longer occur. Please note that this must be reapplyed when the game is launched.
|
Other information
API
Technical specs |
Supported |
Notes |
Direct3D |
9 |
|
Shader Model support |
3 |
|
Executable |
32-bit |
64-bit |
Notes |
Windows |
|
|
|
Middleware
|
Middleware |
Notes |
Physics |
Havok |
|
Audio |
RwAudioCore |
[13] |
Unlock impossible difficulty without playthrough
Save game editor
- A tool by malkhal that allows players to modify their Dead Space game save data. Backing up the original save files is recommended before using this tool. Can be downloaded here.
- Improves framerate significantly
Install the DXVK file[citation needed]
|
- Download DXVK.
- Extract the contents of the archive to
<path-to-game> .
- Launch the game.
- This can also fix some graphical glitches for AMD users.
|
System requirements
Windows |
|
Minimum |
Recommended |
Operating system (OS) |
XP SP2 |
Vista |
Processor (CPU) |
Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz AMD Athlon 64 3000+ |
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ |
System memory (RAM) |
1 GB |
2 GB |
Hard disk drive (HDD) |
7.5 GB | |
Video card (GPU) |
Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT ATI Radeon X1600 Pro 256 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0c compatible Shader model 3.0 support |
Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT |
Sound (audio device) |
DirectX 9.0c compatible | |
- Nvidia GeForce 7300, 7600 GS, 8500 and ATI Radeon X1300, X1300 Pro, HD2400 are below minimum system requirements.
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Notes regarding Steam Play (Linux) data:
- ↑ At 3440x1440 and a 50 refresh, max resolution is limited to 1920x1080
References