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Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

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Revision as of 02:36, 11 May 2019 by Garrbot (talk | contribs) (updated template usage)
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines cover
Developers
Troika Games
Publishers
Activision
Engines
Source
Release dates
Windows November 16, 2004
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines guide on StrategyWiki
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines on Wikipedia
Subseries of World of Darkness
Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption 2000
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2004
Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York 2019
Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows of New York 2020
Vampire: The Masquerade - Night Road 2020
Vampire: The Masquerade - Out for Blood 2021
Vampire: The Masquerade - Parliament of Knives 2021
Vampire: The Masquerade - Sins of the Sires 2022
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt 2022
Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong 2022
Vampire: The Masquerade - Justice 2023
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 2024

Key points

Released in an unfinished and buggy state. As such, installation of either the Unofficial Patch or the True Patch is highly recommended.

General information

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]
Windows
Amazon.com
Icon overlay.png
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Includes Normal and Legacy version
Windows
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

Essential improvements

Patches

  • Patch 1.2 - this patch is already included in the unofficial patch.

True Patch Gold Edition

  • For more support, go to the website here. May not be SFW.

Aims to only fix bugs and preserve an experience as close as possible to the original game similar to the Basic version of the Unofficial Patch but without adding or changing any aspect of the game itself. Is not compatible with the GOG.com version of the game due to conflicts between it and the Unofficial Patch that is pre-installed.

Installing True Patch Gold Edition

True Patch Gold Edition is designed to be used with either the Steam or CD release of the game.

  1. Install the game. If you are using the CD version it is not necessary to install the 1.2 Official Patch.
  2. Run the game once in order to initialize additional files.
  3. Download the patch.
  4. In the .rar file navigate to the folder named "TRUE_PATCH_MAIN" and copy its contents to <path-to-game>, overwriting everything when prompted.
  5. Modern Windows OS such as Windows 10 requires additional steps to run the game with the patch.
    • Before starting the game navigate to start menu and run Command Prompt as an administrator.
    • Enter the command sc config secdrv start= demand. Do not exit the Command Prompt, keep it running.
    • Run the game. If it worked the game will be able to run with the patch without issue.
    • When finished playing the game go back to the Command Prompt and enter the command sc config secdrv start= disabled, followed by sc stop secdrv.

Unofficial Patch

The GOG.com version already includes the Basic version of the Unofficial patch. Legacy version does not.[3]
Using Unofficial Patches with Steam version[4][5]

The fan-made Unofficial Patch removes many bugs and adds multiple features like widescreen support. The Unofficial Patch is available in two flavors Basic and Plus:

  1. Install the game from Steam as you would any other game.
  2. Run the game once. It's fine if it crashes (this is where an install with a 64 bit OS is likely to give a memory error).
  3. Download the latest unofficial patch.
  4. Run the executable you've downloaded as an administrator.
  5. Choose the installation folder when prompted.
  6. Choose a type of installation - Basic or Plus
    • Basic - consists of bugfixes that do not alter Troika's vision for the game and some minor changes made to streamline the experience.
    • Plus - makes more extreme changes including fan-made content and numerous other fan changes to the overall flow and story that go outside of what the developers have originally intended.
  7. Enjoy the game.

Skip intro videos

Rename/delete intro videos[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\Vampire\media
  2. Delete or rename activision.bik, nvidiabloodlogo.bik, troika.bik and whitewolf.bik

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Vampire\cfg[Note 2]
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Troika\Vampire
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2600/pfx/[Note 3]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Vampire\save[Note 2]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2600/pfx/[Note 3]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video settings

Template:Video settings

Ultra-widescreen

Change the aspect ratio via hex edit[6]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\Bin\
  2. Open engine.dll with a hex editor such as HxD.
  3. Search for the value 39 8E E3 3F and change it to B8 1E 15 40

Field of view (FOV)

Changing the Field of View[7]
  1. Use the -console command line argument to enable the console.
  2. Start up the game, close the console and load up a save.
  3. Reopen the console using ~.
  4. Input fov # (replace # with your desired FOV).
  5. To get rid of the console, type showinventory to bring up the inventory, then close it with Esc.
  6. Save your game. The FOV is now altered for this save.

Anisotropic filtering (AF)

Anisotropic filtering on Linux/Wine with AMD/Mesa[8]
  1. You can force anisotropic filtering when using AMD GPU with Mesa (both radeonsi and r600) by setting the environment variable: R600_TEX_ANISO=16

Anti-aliasing (AA)

Use SweetFX[citation needed]
  1. Download SweetFX.
  2. Extract its contents to a folder.
  3. Follow the detailed instructions in the readme file to enable SMAA.
SGSSAA (Nvidia only)[citation needed]
  1. Open Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines driver profile via Nvidia Profile Inspector.
  2. Change Antialiasing compatibility to 0x000000C0[9][10]
  3. Change Antialiasing - Mode to Override any application setting.
  4. Change Antialiasing - Setting to 4x [4x Multisampling] or 8xQ [8x Multisampling].
  5. Change Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling to 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling or 8x Sparse Grid Supersampling.
  6. Apply changes.

Notes

High quality anti-aliasing.
Performance demanding.

Input settings

Template:Input settings

Audio settings

Template:Audio settings

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Fan translation, download
Italian
Fan translation, download.
Spanish
Fan translation, download.
Russian
Fan translation by «Russian Bloodline». Tessera patch + russification on GOG-version.

VR support

Issues fixed

Black screen during intros / movies

Black intro screen with sound - no logos[7]
  1. Right click on vampire.exe, go to "properties".
  2. Flag "disable visual themes" and "disable desktop composition"

Missing Textures

Missing Textures[citation needed]
  1. Make sure "Bump Mapping" is checked ON in the game settings.
  2. Restart the game

Unable to run, less that 15mb memory available

Unable to run, less that 15mb memory available[7]

Voices and Sound Effects have low quality surround/echo

Voices and Sound Effects have low quality surround/echo[citation needed]
  • To fix this issue permanently, open <path-to-game>\Vampire\cfg\autoexec.cfg and add the following to it:
// [Sound Patch]

snd_mixahead 0.35
snd_surround 1
snd_gain 2.2
snd_gain_max 1.58
dsp_on 1
dsp_spatial 73
dsp_stereo 1
dsp_dist_max 9999
hisound 1
footstep_pc_vol 0.31
// footstep_npc_use_templates 0
volume "0.930000"

Input Lag

Input Lag[citation needed]
  • If the controls are hitching and unresponsive, particularly when moving and looking at the same time, change the compatibility of the main executable vampire.exe to Windows 98 mode.
  • If this doesn't help, try running a game in Window or Borderless Fullscreen window mode to disable Vsync. Or simply force Vsync off in your graphics card's control panel.

Other information

API

Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio Miles Sound System 6.5e[11]

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98, ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU) AMD Athlon 1.2 GHz
Intel Pentium III 1.2 GHz
System memory (RAM) 348 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 4.7 GB
Video card (GPU) 64 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c 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. 2.0 2.1 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).
  3. 3.0 3.1 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>/2600/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (2600) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References