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Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Revision as of 11:54, 13 September 2018 by Garrbot (talk | contribs) (→‎Audio settings: updated template usage)
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time cover
Developers
Ubisoft Montreal
Publishers
Ubisoft
Engines
Jade
Release dates
Windows November 30, 2003
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time guide on StrategyWiki
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time on Wikipedia
Prince of Persia
Prince of Persia 1989
Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame 1993
Prince of Persia 3D 1999
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time 2003
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within 2004
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones 2005
Prince of Persia (2008) 2008
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands 2010
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown 2024
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake TBA

Key points

A remastered version of Prince of Persia (1989) can be unlocked on 6th gen consoles, but not in the PC version.

General information

Ubisoft forums for game series
Prince of Persia Wiki
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 v3 DRM[Note 1].
Russian copies use StarForce 3 DRM[Note 2].
Windows
Amazon.com
DRM-free
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Windows
Green Man Gaming
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Ubisoft Store
Icon overlay.png
Windows
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

Skip intro videos

Delete/rename video files[citation needed]
  1. Go to Video in the installation folder.
  2. Delete or rename Bink.int, Intro.int, nvidia.int, poplogo.int and ubisoft.int

Skip loading screens

Delete/rename loading files[citation needed]
  1. Go to Video in the installation folder.
  2. Delete or rename Loading.int, POP_IN.int, and POP_OUT.int

Game data

Configuration file location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Hardware.ini[Note 3]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/13600/pfx/[Note 4]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Profiles\[Note 3]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/13600/pfx/[Note 4]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud
Ubisoft Connect

Video settings

Basic video settings.
Basic video settings.
Advanced video settings.
Advanced video settings.

Template:Video settings

Widescreen resolution

Widescreen fix (Hor+)[7]
  1. Download Widescreen fix by nemesis2000
  2. Extract pop.7z files to the installation folder (password: pop).
  3. Edit pop.ini to set the resolution and FOV multiplier.

Notes

Supported exe size: 4 280 320 bytes.

Windowed

Force windowed[citation needed]
  1. Download and run DxWnd as administrator.
  2. Click on Edit, then Add.
  3. Set name to Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time.
  4. Set path to <path-to-game>\POP.exe.
  5. Set launch to <path-to-game>\PrinceOfPersia.exe.
  6. Set Acquire admin caps.
  7. Set Desktop for borderless fullscreen windowed.
  8. Click on Input tab, set Cursor visibility to Hide.
  9. Click OK, then File and Save.

Post-processing

Disable bloom, blur, and distortion
  • Use Peixoto's patch to disable the blur shader.
  • Use 3D Vision fix to disable the low resolution distortion effect as well as the bloom effect.

Input settings

Input settings.
Input settings.

Template:Input settings

Audio settings

Audio settings.
Audio settings.

Template:Audio settings

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Czech
Retail only. Patch for digital release here.
French
German
Italian
Not in GOG.com version
Polish
Available as a patch from the local publisher.
Official translation, download
Russian
Retail only. Patch for digital release here.
Spanish
Retail only for digital release see.

VR support

Issues unresolved

Water effects not rendering

When the Water effects graphics option is enabled, water does not render on certain modern systems, such as those employing Intel HD Graphics. Disabling the setting is a working—albeit sub-optimal—solution.

Issues fixed

Sensitivity issues for XInput controllers

The game has sensitivity issues with diagonal input for XInput controllers (running diagonally does not work because the game expects DirectInput values).
Use XInput Plus[citation needed]
  1. Download XInput Plus.
  2. Set the target program to pop.exe
  3. Go to "Sticks", and change the "Rect Correction" slider from "0" to "1".
  4. Go to "DirectInput" and check "Enable DirectInput Output."
  5. Assign "LT/RT" to "Button 12/13"
  6. Press apply, this will install a DLL file in the <path-to-game> (which will be automatically used when you start the game).

If pressing left stick fully forward still results in walking, go to "Sticks" and reduce Saturation in 5% increments until rectified.

Extreme amounts of fog

Fixed in the GOG.com version.[8]
Use Peixoto's patch[citation needed]
Disable "Fog" option in video settings[citation needed]
Edit Hardware.ini[citation needed]
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Open Hardware.ini.
  3. Change the following values as noted.
    • ForceVSFog=1
    • InvertFogRange=0
  4. Save the file, then right-click on it and select Properties.
  5. Check Read-only, and click OK.

Missing interface

Edit Hardware.ini[citation needed]
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Open Hardware.ini.
  3. Change the following value as noted.
    • CanStretchRect=0
  4. Save the file, then right-click on it and select Properties.
  5. Check Read-only, and click OK.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Cutscenes Bink Video

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98SE
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium III 800 MHz
AMD Athlon 800 MHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 1.5 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 3
ATI Radeon 8500
DirectX 9.0 compatible

Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[1] 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.[2]
  2. This version of StarForce DRM does not work on Windows Vista or later.[3][4][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>/13600/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (13600) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References