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Shadowgrounds

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Shadowgrounds
Shadowgrounds cover
Developers
Frozenbyte
macOS (OS X) Alternative Games
Linux Alternative Games
Publishers
Meridian4
Linux Linux Game Publishing
Engines
Storm3D
Release dates
Windows November 11, 2005
Linux September 16, 2009
macOS (OS X) April 12, 2011
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Series Shadowgrounds
Shadowgrounds on HowLongToBeat
Shadowgrounds guide on StrategyWiki
Shadowgrounds on MobyGames
Shadowgrounds on Wikipedia
Shadowgrounds
Shadowgrounds 2005
Shadowgrounds: Survivor 2007

Key points

Game progress is only saved in-between levels. It's due to a technical limitation in the game engine.[1]
Mouse sensitivity can't be modified.[2]

General information

Shadowgrounds FAQ and troubleshooting
Frozenbyte Community forums for Shadowgrounds series
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
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)
SafeDisc v4 DRM[Note 1].
Russian copies use StarForce 4 DRM[Note 2].
Windows
Developer website
DRM-free
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
GOG.com
DRM-free
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Humble Store
DRM-free
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
StarForce DRM for this game does not work on modern versions of Windows (see above for affected versions).

Essential improvements

Patches

The Shadowgrounds website provides the latest patch, version 1.05.

Skip intro videos

Delete or rename files[7]

Delete or rename logo.wmv in <path-to-game>\Data\Videos.

Game data

In-game options menu.
In-game options menu.

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Config\options.txt[Note 3]
macOS (OS X)
Linux $HOME/.frozenbyte/shadowgrounds/
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2500/pfx/[Note 4]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Profiles\<user-id>[Note 3]
macOS (OS X)
Linux $HOME/.frozenbyte/shadowgrounds/
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2500/pfx/[Note 4]
This game does not follow the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux.

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

External options menu.
External options menu.
External advanced graphics settings.
External advanced graphics settings.

Widescreen resolution

Set custom resolution[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open options.txt.
  3. Change screen_height = and screen_width = to the desired resolution.
HUD is stretched.[8]

Field of view (FOV)

Custom FOV[9]
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Open Data1.fbz with 7-Zip.
  3. Go into Data\Misc.
  4. Extract default_game_options.txt to any folder.
  5. Open default_game_options.txt.
  6. Change camera_default_fov = 120 to the desired FOV.
  7. Save the changes and replace the original file in the archive.

Borderless fullscreen windowed

Set borderless fullscreen[10]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open options.txt
  3. Change the following values as noted.
    • maximize_window = 1
    • window_titlebar = 0
    • windowed = 1
  4. Save the changes.

Input

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Brazilian Portuguese
Retail only - CD Expert. Official localization ported, download.
Russian
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
4 Co-op
Shared-screen. Other players must use controllers.
LAN play
Online play

VR support

3D modes State Notes
Nvidia 3D Vision
See Helix Mod: Shadowgrounds.

Issues fixed

Water textures are missing or corrupted

Disable anti-aliasing[11]
If disabling anti-aliasing doesn't work, go to Advanced Options and set "Misc" to Low.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0c
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux

Mods

Shadowgrounds: Beast

A simple mod featuring a couple of tweaks and partially remastered GUI.

Add some weapons overhauls and a re-organised upgrades menu.

Alien Breed III

A mod that add new textures, a new GUI and slightly modified models in the style of Alien Breed.

Come in two version:
  • Standard - The basic mod version.
  • Special - Add Alien/Alien Breed style textures for alien environments.
Only work on the German version of Shadowgrounds.

Additional GUI skins for the mod can be found here.

Camera view mods

Both of these mods also increases default corpse despawn timers, and halves flashlight consumption rate.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 2000, XP
Processor (CPU) 1.3 GHz
System memory (RAM) 384 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 1 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4200
ATI Radeon 9000
macOS (OS X)
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 10.6.5
Processor (CPU) Intel Mac
System memory (RAM) 1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 1 GB
Video card (GPU) 256 MB of VRAM
OpenGL 2.0 compatible
The game cannot be run on GeForce4 MX cards or Intel graphics solutions


Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[3] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[4]
  2. This version of StarForce DRM does not work on Windows 8.1, Windows 10, or Windows 11.[5][6] For supported versions of Windows the StarForce driver may need to be updated manually using SFUPDATE.
  3. 3.0 3.1 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).
  4. 4.0 4.1 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>/2500/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (2500) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References