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Populous: The Beginning

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Populous: The Beginning
Populous: The Beginning cover
Developers
Bullfrog Productions
Publishers
Electronic Arts
Engines
Magic Carpet
Release dates
Windows November 17, 1998
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, Expansion pack
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view
Controls Multiple select, Point and select
Genres RTS
Themes Fantasy
Series Populous
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Populous: The Beginning on HowLongToBeat
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Populous: The Beginning on MobyGames
Populous: The Beginning on Wikipedia
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Populous
Populous 1989
Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods 1991
Populous: The Beginning 1998

General information

Populous Wiki - A small wiki for the Populous series
Populous: Reincarnated - A fan site dedicated to Populous: The Beginning
Populous: Reincarnated Wiki - A wiki for Populous: The Beginning
The Beginning - A fan site which provide news and mods to Populous: The Beginning
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
 SecuROM DRM.
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
 Updated for compatibility with modern systems.
Windows
Origin (unavailable)
Origin
Windows
The GOG.com and Origin versions include the Undiscovered Worlds expansion.[1]

Monetization

Type Notes
Expansion pack The expansion pack includes new singleplayer missions.
One-time game purchase The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Undiscovered Worlds
Windows

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest official retail patch available is Patch 1.01 (1.02 for Undiscovered Worlds). The GOG.com version comes with this pre-installed.

Unofficial Patches

Collective Populous Patch

The unofficial Collective Populous Patch includes 1.01 fixes as well as a network hosting bug fix. It also removes the CD check and adds a restore tool along with an update tool.

This patch will update the game to the US version.

Displacements Patch

The unofficial Displacements Patch improves all landscape textures.

This patchs affects both the base game and its expansion.
Compatible with the Collective Populous Patch.

Populous: Enhanced Edition

Populous: Enhanced Edition is a massive QoL enhancement mods that add new features, improvements and fixes beyond the developer scope.

Also known as Populous 1.5.
Add four new tribes, a Two-Player cooperative campaign, rebalanced multiplayer and more.
Higher resolution support without graphical glitches.
Only work for the base game with no FMV.

Multiverse Launcher

Multiverse Launcher is a client specifically designed for Populous: The Beginning, through which Populous fans can play the game with numerous fixes, improvements and new features.

Can be used to play both official and unofficial campaigns with the Campaign Manager, allowing to play them without overwriting files.
Come pre-packages with additional mods that can be toggle anytime.
Discord integration; which displays what campaign, level and even tribe you're playing on Discord.

Game data

In-game general settings.
In-game general settings.

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Save[Note 1]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Origin

Video

In-game video settings.
In-game video settings.
In-game Direct3D settings (only when running the game with hardware acceleration).
In-game Direct3D settings (only when running the game with hardware acceleration).

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
Supports up to 1280x800; run the game with the -allres parameter.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Use dgVoodoo 2.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Use dgVoodoo 2.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
Use dgVoodoo 2.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Audio

In-game audio settings.
In-game audio settings.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Uses QSound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
German
Retail only; download for GOG.com version.
Japanese

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
4
Online play
4 Official servers have been shut down.

Connection types

Type Native Notes
Matchmaking
Original matchmaking service is no longer available. Use the Populous Reincarnated Matchmaker
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Ports

Protocol Port(s) and/or port range(s)
UDP 7575
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.
This is the default port used. It can be changed in-game by the user

Issues fixed

Game crashes on startup (AMD/ATI GPUs)

This will also fix any rainbow colour issues
This will also enable the usage of the Direct3D executable on modern systems
Game will suffer from mouse drift on multi-monitor setups
Use dgVoodoo 2[2]
  1. Download and setup dgVoodoo 2.
  2. Once the initial setup is done, go to the MS subfolder.
  3. Copy the D3DImm.dll and DDraw.dll files and paste them into <path-to-game>.
  4. Update the game's atiumdag.dll file. See Graphics card not detected for AMD/ATI GPUs for full instructions.
  5. Enable the following compatibility settings for the D3DPopTB.exe and PopTB.exe files (located in <path-to-game>): Compatibility mode (Windows XP (Service Pack 2)) and Run this program as an administrator.
  6. Run the game (D3DPopTB.exe for hardware mode, PopTB.exe for software mode).

Game lag

Add parameter to game[3]
  1. Force Vsync off.
  2. Add /frameratemouse as a parameter to D3DPopTB.exe or PopTB.exe.

Notes

May cause some slight screen tearing.

Graphics card not detected for AMD/ATI GPUs

Replacing the outdated atiumdag.dll file[citation needed]
  1. Download the updated atiumdag.dll file.
  2. Move the new file into the installation folder, replacing the existing file when prompted.
  3. The game can now be run in hardware mode with ATI/AMD cards.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 6
Software renderer
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio QSound

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95 98
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 133 MHz Intel Pentium 200 MHz
System memory (RAM) 16 MB 32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 100 MB 110 MB
Video card (GPU) 32 MB of VRAM
DirectX 6 compatible


Notes

  1. ↑ When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References