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Starbound

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Starbound
Starbound cover
Developers
Chucklefish Games
Release dates
Windows July 22, 2016[1]
macOS (OS X) July 22, 2016[1]
Linux July 22, 2016[1]
Reception
Metacritic 81
OpenCritic 85
IGDB 87
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Multiplayer
Starbound on IGDB
Starbound on MobyGames
Starbound on Wikipedia

Key points

Modding and Steam Workshop support.
Notable performance issues.[2][3] See Poor performance / low FPS.
Does not save per user, but in game folder without separate user folders.

General information

Official forums
Official wiki
GOG.com Community Discussions
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Official website
DRM-free
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
GOG.com
DRM-free
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Humble Store
DRM-free
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Microsoft Store
Microsoft Store
Included with Xbox Game Pass for PC.
Windows
Steam
DRM-free after installation through Steam client (notes may include more details)
[4]
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Discord (unavailable)
Discord
Windows

Version differences

Unstable

The Unstable version (included with the game on Steam) is an unstable release that "may destroy your saves and be generally, well, unstable."[5] Updates are usually released to the Unstable version in advance for public testing, before being pushed to the main branch, and Steam Workshop mods cannot normally be accessed by the Unstable version. Between updates, however, the Unstable version is otherwise exactly the same as the standard version.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\storage\starbound.config[Note 1]
Microsoft Store %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Starbound\starbound.config
macOS (OS X) <path-to-game>/storage/starbound.config
Linux <path-to-game>/storage/starbound.config
The path to the storage directory can be customized by changing the storageDirectory option in the file sbinit.config, which is located in the same directory as the Starbound executable.[6]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\storage\[Note 1]
Microsoft Store %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Starbound\
macOS (OS X) <path-to-game>/storage/
Linux <path-to-game>/storage/
The path to the storage directory can be customized by changing the storageDirectory option in the file sbinit.config, which is located in the same directory as the Starbound executable.[6]
The storage/player directory contains the save files for all characters/players along with the respective ship worlds and automated backups.
The storage/universe directory contains all planet worlds and systems that have been generated.
This game does not follow the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux.
Save games are not being stored per user, but are shared between user accounts.

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Discord
GOG Galaxy
OneDrive
Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud
Xbox Cloud

Video

General options
General options

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
Resolutions up to 2560x1440.
Multi-monitor
See Multi-monitor.
Ultra-widescreen
See Multi-monitor.
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Toggle by pressing F11.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
Enabled by default. To disable it see Vertical sync (Vsync).
60 FPS
120+ FPS
Frame rate is capped at 60 FPS. Physics/AI issues beyond 60 FPS.[7]
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Multi-monitor

Modify config[8][citation needed]
  1. Launch the game and go to Options.
  2. Set the resolution to one which is single-monitor and tick Fullscreen.
  3. Click Accept and quit the game.
  4. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  5. Open starbound.xml with your text editor of choice.
  6. Modify the value in "maximizedResolution" : [ xxxx, yyyy ], with your desired resolution.
  7. Save and close the file.

Vertical sync (Vsync)

Instructions[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open starbound.config with your text editor of choice.
  3. Change the value labeled Vsync from true to false
  4. Save and close the file.

Disable Frame Skipping

Instructions[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open starbound.config with your text editor of choice.
  3. Delete the value labeled Maximumframeskip
  4. Save and close the file.

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
There is no option for this, however some may notice it is enabled when playing in fullscreen mode.
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Official Steam Controller bindings only.
Controller types
Steam Input
Steam Input API support
Official Steam Controller bindings only.
Hook input (legacy mode)
Official controller preset(s)
Steam Controller button prompts

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
SFX and music.
Surround sound
Config option at line 5 and 6: "audioChannelSeparation" & "audioChannels"
Subtitles
Everything is text-based.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Russian
Fan translation. Steam Workshop page, GitHub. Incomplete.
Spanish
Fan translation, download. Incomplete.
Spanish
Fan translation, download. Incomplete continuation of the previous Spanish fan translation.
Simplified Chinese
Fan translation, Steam Workshop page, Github. Almost all text have been translated.
The font mod is required before installing the Chinese translation mod.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Notes
Local play
Use Nucleus Co-op.
LAN play
Connect by using a local IP.
Online play

Connection types

Type Native Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Dedicated server in both the game directory ("starbound_server.exe") as well as a separate "Starbound Dedicated Server" Steam tool.
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Ports

Protocol Port(s) and/or port range(s)
TCP 21025
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.

Issues fixed

There is an active bug causing this for Windows XP users.[citation needed] Try the fixes below if you are not running Windows XP.
Wait[citation needed]
Many people have encountered this while launching the game for the first time. Simply waiting for it finish loading assets may work. This can take anywhere from 2 minutes to more than 10 minutes.
Resize window[citation needed]
For users experiencing hangups on OS X and Linux, re-sizing the window with your cursor has been shown to help.[citation needed]

Game does not start at all with no error message (Windows)

This may occur due to a DLL file conflict with other installed software, such as Microsoft's IIS web server.
Copy files[9][10]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\win32\.
  2. Copy the files libeay32.dll and ssleay32.dll to <path-to-game>\win32\launcher.

libdirectfb-1.2.so.9: cannot open shared object file

This only applies to Linux users.
Instructions[11]
  1. Open a Terminal.
  2. Type the following in one by one:
ln -s /usr/lib/libdirect-1.7.so.1.0.0 /usr/lib/libdirectfb-1.7.so.1.0.0 /usr/lib/libfusion-1.7.so.1.0.0 .
mv libdirect-1.{7.so.1.0.0,2.so.9}
mv libdirectfb-1.{7.so.1.0.0,2.so.9}
mv libfusion-1.{7.so.1.0.0,2.so.9}
mv {,_}libSDL-1.2.so.0

Access violation

Instructions[12]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\win32\
  2. Right-click on starbound.exe and select Properties.
  3. Select the Compatibility tab and tick Run this program as an administrator.
  4. Also in compatibility mode tick Run this program in compatibility mode for:
  5. Select Windows 7 and repeat the same steps for starbound_opengl.exe and launcher/launcher.exe.

Notes

This doesnt work for newer versions of the game.

Poor performance / low FPS

Play in OpenGL mode[13]

If you experience low FPS and FPS drops:

  1. Launch the game and click Launch Starbound (OpenGL) on the launcher.
Disable threaded optimization[13]
  1. Go to the Nvidia Control Panel.
  2. Set Threaded optimization to Off.

Notes

This only applies to users who have an Nvidia card.
Unset compatibility mode for Steam[14][15]
  1. Go to the steam.exe application or shortcut.
  2. Right-click and select Properties.
  3. Select the Compatibility tab and click Change settings for all users.
  4. Untick Run this program in compatibility mode for: and click Apply.
  5. Run Steam and launch the game.

Notes

This only applies to the Steam version of the game.
Delete registry entry[16]
  1. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers.
  2. Look for a entry with your path to steam.exe.
  3. Delete that entry.

Notes

If you dont find it there try HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers.
This only applies to the Steam version of the game.

libsteam_api.so: cannot open shared object file

This only applies to Linux users.
Verify integrity of game files
  1. Right-click the game in Steam and choose "Properties...".
  2. Navigate to the tab "Installed Files".
  3. Click on "Verify integrity of game files".

Notes

This only applies to the Steam version of the game.
Launch via run-client.sh[6]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>/linux/.
  2. Run the file run-client.sh.
Launch with updated LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable[17]
  1. Open a Terminal.
  2. Navigate to <path-to-game>/linux/.
  3. Run the starbound executable as follows: LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:./" ./starbound

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
OpenGL 4.6
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
[18]
Linux

Command line arguments

Command Description
-help[6] Show help text
-version[6] Print version info
-bootconfig <bootconfig>[6] Boot time configuration file, defaults to sbinit.config
This path is relative to the directory that contains starbound.exe (Windows), starbound (Linux) or Starbound.app (macOS/OS X).[6]
-logfile <logfile>[6] Log to the given logfile relative to the root directory, defaults to starbound.log
This path is relative to the directory specified by the storageDirectory option in sbinit.config, usually <path-to-game>/storage.[6]
-loglevel <level>[6] Sets the logging level (debug|info|warn|error), defaults to Info
-quiet[6] Do not log to stdout, defaults to false
-verbose[6] Log to stdout, defaults to true
-runtimeconfig[6] Sets the path to the runtime configuration storage file relative to root directory, defaults to starbound.config
This path is relative to the directory specified by the storageDirectory option in sbinit.config, usually <path-to-game>/storage.[6]
This argument does not accept any parameters, hence rendering it useless.[6]

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP or later
Processor (CPU) Intel Core 2 Duo
System memory (RAM) 2 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 3 GB
Video card (GPU) 256 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible
macOS (OS X)
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 10.7 or later
Processor (CPU) 64-bit Intel CPU
System memory (RAM) 2 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 3 GB
Linux
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) Debian Stable or Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or later
Processor (CPU) Intel Core 2 Duo
System memory (RAM) 2 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 3 GB
Video card (GPU) 256 MB of VRAM
OpenGL 2.1 compatible


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 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

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Starbound - Starbound is Leaving Orbit on 22 July
  2. Massive FPS problem - Steam Community Discussions - last accessed on May 2023
  3. Performance Problems - Steam Community Discussions - last accessed on May 2023
  4. Verified by User:Mmachinecodev on 2022-06-09
  5. playstarbound.com - last accessed on May 2023
  6. 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 Verified by User:Mezzodrinker on 2023-08-11
    Tested with DRM-free Starbound 1.4.4 on Arch Linux
  7. bartwe comments on Slow or laggy Starbound fix. - last accessed on May 2023
  8. Multi-Monitor Support (Nvidia Surround / Ati Eyefinity) - Official forums - last accessed on May 2023
  9. |Resolved by userfix| Bug: not starting at all | Official Chucklefish Forums
  10. [Solution Launcher not launching | Official Chucklefish Forums
  11. The Linux startup crash thread | Official Chucklefish Forums
  12. FIX: IF YOU ARE GETTING ERROR: "Access violation detected at ..." - Steam Community Discussions - last accessed on May 2023
  13. 13.0 13.1 CURRENT WORK-AROUNDS (Try these if you're having issues!) - Official forums
  14. Low fps - Steam Community Discussions - last accessed on May 2023
  15. Verified by User:Pridit on 6 December 2013
  16. Fix: Steam thinks its running in compatibility mode - EduGeek - last accessed on May 2023
  17. Verified by User:Mezzodrinker on 2023-08-11
    Uses the same approach as run-client.sh, as provided in the game files
  18. Catalina 64-bit Compatibility - Google Docs - last accessed on 5 May 2023