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SpellForce: The Order of Dawn

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Revision as of 11:38, 28 September 2018 by Garrbot (talk | contribs) (→‎Save game data location: updated template usage)
SpellForce: The Order of Dawn
SpellForce: The Order of Dawn cover
Developers
Phenomic
Publishers
Encore
JoWood Productions
Nordic Games
Engines
KRASS Engine
Release dates
Windows December 16, 2003
SpellForce: The Order of Dawn on Wikipedia

Warnings

GameSpy online services have been shut down (see Network for solutions).
SpellForce
SpellForce: The Order of Dawn 2003
SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars 2006
SpellForce 2: Faith in Destiny 2012
SpellForce 2: Demons of the Past 2014
SpellForce 3 2017
SpellForce 3: Soul Harvest 2019
SpellForce 3: Fallen God 2020
SpellForce 3: Versus Edition 2020
SpellForce: Conquest of Eo 2023

Key points

All digital releases and recent physical releases are the Platinum Edition and include the expansions 'The Breath of Winter' & 'The Shadow of the Phoenix.'
GameSpy online server browser has been shut down.
On modern systems, dynamic shadows (High, Very High) are only rendered on part of the screen.[1] Precise cause remains unclear.
SLI (more than one graphics card) is not supported and causes a black anomaly to fill the screen, disable SLI to remedy.

General information

Official Forum
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)
CD key
SecuROM 4 DRM disc check. Expansions use SecuROM 5 DRM.
The 2007 JoWood-published 'Spellforce Universe' (red box) requires CD Key only, no disc check.[2]
Russian copies use StarForce DRM.
Windows
GamersGate
DRM-free after installation (requires an internet connection during installation)
Shadow of the Phoenix
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Platinum Edition.
Windows
Green Man Gaming
Icon overlay.png
Platinum Edition.
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Platinum Edition.
Windows

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
The Breath of Winter
Windows
Shadow of the Phoenix
Windows

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Delete/rename prelude videos[citation needed]
  1. Go to videos in the installation folder.
  2. Delete or rename prelude_0.bik, prelude_1.bik, prelude_2.bik and prelude_3.bik.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\config.lua[Note 1]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/39540/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\SpellForce\SAVE
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/39540/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
OneDrive
Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud
Added in a patch.[3]

Video settings

Video settings.
Video settings.

Template:Video settings

Widescreen resolution

The game supports no native widescreen. There are two workarounds, one better than the other.

Download a fixed .exe from WSGF[citation needed]
  1. Download the Spellforce .exe archive from WSFG.
  2. Paste and overwrite the .exe corresponding to your resolution into the installation folder.
  3. The game will now play in widescreen.

Alternatively you can:

Edit config.lua[citation needed]
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Edit config.lua.
  3. Locate the section Graphic =
  4. At the end of the section add two entries:
    • WindowWidth = *your window width*,
    • WindowHeight = *your window height*,
  5. Save the file and exit.
  6. Right click on SpellForce.exe in the installation folder and choose Properties.
  7. Go to the Compatibility tab and choose Run this program as an administrator.

This fix however produces a series of graphical errors.[citation needed]

Input settings

Template:Input settings

Audio settings

Audio settings.
Audio settings.

Template:Audio settings

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Polish
Only available in Polish retail release.
Russian
Only available in Russian retail release.
Spanish
Only available in Spanish retail release.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
8 Versus, Co-op
Co-op supports up to 3 players.
Online play
8 GameSpy server browser has been shut down.

Connection types

Issues fixed

Game asks for CD key on every launch

Enter key while running as administrator[citation needed]
  • Right-click on game executable (or shortcut) and select Run as administrator. Enter the key, and after that the game will no longer prompt for the key every time it's launched (even if not running as administrator).

Other information

  • Draw-distance can be increased beyond the in-game maximum in the config.lua, at the cost of performance drops.

Other information

API

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

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio Miles Sound System 6.5c
Cutscenes Bink Video 1.5y
Multiplayer GameSpy GameSpy server browser has been shut down.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP, Vista, 7
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 4 1.5 GHz
System memory (RAM) 512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 4 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce4 Ti
128 MB of VRAM

Notes

  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).
  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>/39540/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (39540) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References