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Planet Alpha

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Planet Alpha
Planet Alpha cover
Developers
Planet Alpha ApS
Publishers
Team17
Engines
Unreal Engine 4[Note 1]
Release dates
Windows September 4, 2018
Reception
Metacritic 72
OpenCritic 71
IGDB 58
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Microtransactions None
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Side view, Scrolling
Controls Direct control
Genres Platform
Themes Sci-fi
Planet Alpha on HowLongToBeat
Planet Alpha on IGDB
Planet Alpha on MobyGames

Planet Alpha is a singleplayer side view and scrolling platform game.

General information

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

Availability

Monetization

Type Notes
One-time game purchase The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

Microtransactions

Type Notes
No microtransactions None

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Replace video file[2]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\PlanetAlpha\Content\Movies\.
  2. Rename or move the file Bootflow.mp4.
  3. Download an empty .mp4 file from the PCGW files section.
  4. Extract one of the files to the above location and rename it to Bootflow.mp4.

Notes

Simply removing the intro file causes the game to stay at a black screen.
Alternatively, make a copy of Chapter 01.mp4 and rename it to Bootflow.mp4 to only show a quick clip.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %LOCALAPPDATA%\PlanetAlpha\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\
%LOCALAPPDATA%\PlanetAlpha\Saved\SaveGames\SavedSettings.sav
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/485030/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %LOCALAPPDATA%\PlanetAlpha\Saved\SaveGames\
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/485030/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

Video settings
Video settings

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Static aspect 16:9.
Multi-monitor
Pillarboxed by default. Use this patcher.
Ultra-widescreen
Pillarboxed by default. Use this patcher or a modified exe for 21:9.
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Exclusive fullscreen also available.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS
120+ FPS
Framerate normally capped at 92 FPS.[3] See High frame rate for how to achieve 120 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the engine page to force native HDR output, or the glossary page for other alternatives.
The game engine may allow for manual configuration of the game via its variables. See the Unreal Engine 4 page for more details.

High frame rate

Modify user settings file[4]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open GameUserSettings.ini.
  3. Under [/Script/Engine.GameUserSettings], add the line FrameRateLimit=144.000000
  4. Change the FrameRateLimit= number to the desired frame rate.
  5. Save and close the file.

Post-processing

Disable chromatic aberration[2]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open Engine.ini.
  3. Add the following lines and save the file:
[SystemSettings]
r.SceneColorFringeQuality=0

Motion blur

Disable motion blur
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open Engine.ini.
  3. Add the following lines to the end of the file:
[SystemSettings]
r.MotionBlur.Max=0

Input

Control settings
Control settings

Audio

Audio settings
Audio settings

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Master, Music, Effects, Interface
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
Danish
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Norwegian
Romanian
Russian
Spanish
Swedish

Change language

Steam users can change the language via the game properties.
Modify Engine.ini[2]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open Engine.ini.
  3. Add the following and change the variable to a supported ISO 639-1 code (e.g. en for English, de for German).
[Internationalization]
Culture=en

VR support

Issues fixed

Game crashes shortly after start

The game is affected by OpenSSL SHA bug.
See Bypass OpenSSL SHA bug on Intel 10th gen and later CPUs.[5][6]
Fix OpenSSL SHA bug by patching executable[6]
Tested on the GOG version. May not apply to the executable from Steam Store.
  1. Open <path-to-game>\PlanetAlpha\Binaries\Win64\PlanetAlpha-Win64-Shipping.exe in a hex editor (e.g. HxD).
  2. Go to(Ctrl+G) the address 00060243 (this and all further numbers are hexadecimal).
  3. Change the value from 48 to 4C.
  4. Go to(Ctrl+G) the address 0006024B
  5. Change the value from 48 to 49.
  6. Save the file (Ctrl+S).

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 11
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Physics PhysX
Audio FMOD

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 7
Processor (CPU) Intel Core i5-2550K 3.4 GHz
AMD FX-4350 4.2 GHz
System memory (RAM) 4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 5 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce GTX 660
AMD Radeon HD 7850
2 GB of VRAM
A 64-bit operating system is required.


Notes

  1. Unreal Engine 4 engine build: 4.19.2.0[1]
  2. 2.0 2.1 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>/485030/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (485030) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

  1. Verified by User:Mastan on 2022-09-25
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Verified by User:Waschbär on 2020-07-17
  3. Verified by User:Baronsmoki on 2019-06-18
  4. Verified by User:Expack3 on 2019-06-18
  5. Planet Alpha Steam Discussions - Crashes 10-15 seconds into the game - last accessed on 2022-09-26
  6. 6.0 6.1 Verified by User:Mastan on 2022-09-26