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Second Sight

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Second Sight
Second Sight cover
Developers
Free Radical Design
Publishers
Former Codemasters
Current THQ Nordic
Release dates
Windows February 4, 2005
Reception
Metacritic 73
IGDB 73
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Action, Shooter, Stealth, TPS
Art styles Realistic
Themes Contemporary, Europe, North America, Supernatural
Second Sight on HowLongToBeat
Second Sight on IGDB
Second Sight guide on StrategyWiki
Second Sight on MobyGames
Second Sight on Wikipedia

Second Sight is a singleplayer third-person action, shooter, stealth and TPS game.

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
StarForce 3.4.62.00 DRM[Note 1]
Windows
GamersGate
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Gamesplanet logo.svg
Icon overlay.png
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Windows
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows
StarForce DRM for this game does not work on modern versions of Windows (see above for affected versions).

Essential improvements

Peixoto's patch

Forces the game to run at high resolutions without shrinking the HUD\Menus.
Fixes rendering artifacts when running the game at resolutions higher than 1080p.
Not compatible with custom overlay programs such as RTSS and Afterburner.
Installation instructions
  1. Download the latest version of the Peixoto's patch.
  2. Extract the archive and run the Peixoto.bat file.
  3. In the window that opens, select Second Sight from the list on the left.
  4. Click on the Play button, and point to the secondsight executable in the installation directory.
  5. (Optional) Create a shortcut by clicking on the Create shortcut button. This will allow the game to be launched without having to launch Peixoto user interface.

Skip intro videos

Instructions[3]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>.
  2. Delete or rename the trailers folder.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\secondsight.cfg[Note 2]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/11550/pfx/[Note 3]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\profiles\[Note 2]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/11550/pfx/[Note 3]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

Video settings.
Video settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Only GOG release supports 4K resolution via in-game video settings.[4]
Field of view (FOV)
Use ThirteenAG's fix.
Windowed
See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See Windowed.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
High-fidelity upscaling
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS
120+ FPS
Capped at 60 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Widescreen resolution

GOG release supports widescreen resolutions via in-game video settings[4].
Anything higher than 1080p may cause artifacts[citation needed].
Use ThirteenAG's fix
Manually edit configuration file[5]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>.
  2. Open secondsight.cfg with a text editor.
  3. Modify the values scr_height and scr_width to the desired resolution.

Windowed

Edit manually "secondsight.cfg"[5]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>.
  2. Open secondsight.cfg with a text editor.
  3. Find the value scr_fullscreen and set it from T to F.
Force windowed mode[citation needed]
  1. Install ThirteenAG's fix.
  2. Go to <path-to-game>.
  3. Create wndmode.ini.

Notes

Causes graphical issues.[6]
Does not work with the GOG release. See Game does not launch section.
Use DxWnd[7]
If some translucent effects (during Projection and Charm powers in main character, for example) look completely invisible, check Anti-aliasing (AA) settings.
When forcing AA via the Nvidia Control panel, set the Antialiasing - Mode property to Enhance the application setting[8].

Input

Control settings.
Control settings.
Movement keybindings.
Movement keybindings.
Combat keybindings.
Combat keybindings.
Actions keybindings.
Actions keybindings.

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
XInput is not supported.
Controller types

Audio

Audio settings.
Audio settings.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Music, Sound Effects, Voices.
Surround sound
5.1.
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Spanish

Issues unresolved

Decals are rendered incorrectly

Some decals - such as bloody footsteps - get offset when panning the camera.
The issue does not go away even after disabling Draw Decals property in the video settings menu.

Issues fixed

Low frame rate

The game may initially run at a low frame rate, such as 38 FPS.
Restart the computer[9]
  • Restarting the computer fixes the low frame rate issue.

Black screen with some resolutions

Setting the resolution higher than 1024x768 using the in-game options may result in a black screen.
Does not affect the GOG release.[10]
Use widescreen fix[citation needed]

Run the game at screen refresh rate

Although the in-game graphics option allows the selection of 85 Hz, the game will not run higher than 60 Hz.
Set refresh rate manually[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>.
  2. Open secondsight.cfg.
  3. Change scr_hz to the screen refresh rate.

Game does not launch

ThirteenAG's widescreen fix is not compatible with the GOG release.[11]
GOG release features native widescreen support via in-game settings. No additional patches are needed.[12]
Uninstall ThirteenAG's widescreen fix
  1. Restore the original dinput8.dll file in the installation folder.
  2. Use the in-game video settings to set widescreen resolution.

Rendering artifacts and missing effects

Various graphics artifacts are present when running the game at resolutions higher than 1080p.
Install Peixoto's patch
  1. Download the latest version of the Peixoto's patch.
  2. Extract the archive and run the Peixoto.bat file.
  3. In the window that opens, select Second Sight from the list on the left.
  4. Click on the Play button, and point to the secondsight executable in the installation directory.
  5. (Optional) Create a shortcut by clicking on the Create shortcut button. This will allow the game to be launched without having to launch Peixoto patch's user interface.

Game doesn't recognize dgVoodoo 2

Create a file named secondsight.exe.local in <path-to-game>[13]

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0c
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 2000, XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium III
AMD Athlon 1.0 GHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 1 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 3 Ti200
ATI Radeon 8500
DirectX 9.0c compatible
Sound (audio device) DirectX 9 compatible
Supported graphics cards: ATi Radeon 8500, 9000, 9100, 9200, 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800, X800; nVidia GeForce 3 Ti200/Ti500, GeForce 4 MX420/MX440, Ti4200/Ti4600, GeForce FX5200/FX5600/FX5700/ FX5800/FX5900/FX5950 GeForce 6800 GT
Not compatible with Windows 98/ME
Not compatible with all integrated sound/graphics solutions (inc. Laptops)


Notes

  1. This version of StarForce DRM does not work on Windows 8.1, Windows 10, or Windows 11.[1][2] For supported versions of Windows the StarForce driver may need to be updated manually using SFUPDATE.
  2. 2.0 2.1 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).
  3. 3.0 3.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/11550/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (11550) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References