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Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg cover
Developers
Sonic Team
Publishers
Sega
Release dates
Windows March 31, 2006[1]
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Microtransactions None
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Action, Platform
Art styles Cartoon
Themes Fantasy
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg on HowLongToBeat
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg on IGDB
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg guide on StrategyWiki
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg on MobyGames
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg on Wikipedia

Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg is a singleplayer and multiplayer third-person action-platform game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega. The game uses a revised version of the Sonic Adventure 2 engine.[2]

After its launch on the GameCube in 2003, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg received a PC port that released in Europe on March 31, 2006.[1] The port was later released digitally via GamersGate on March 26, 2009.[3]

The PC version of Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg suffers from poor optimization, improper sound mixing, severe screen tearing, and poor controller support.

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
DRM-free
SafeDisc v4 DRM[Note 1].
Certain re-releases are DRM-free.[6]
Windows
Amazon.com (unavailable)
DRM-free
Windows
Amazon.com (unavailable)
DRM-free
Sega Arcade Collection.
Windows
GamersGate (unavailable)
Requires online activation
SecuROM PA DRM.
Delisted on March 2, 2016.[7]
Windows
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

Game data

Launcher general settings.
Launcher general settings.

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %APPDATA%\SEGA\Billy Hatcher\gegg.ini

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %APPDATA%\SEGA\Billy Hatcher\gegg.bin

Video

Launcher graphics/sound settings.
Launcher graphics/sound settings.

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
See Widescreen resolution.
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
To switch between fullscreen and windowed mode in-game by pressing Alt+ Enter, see Debug menu.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS
Selectable to 30 or 60 FPS.
120+ FPS

Widescreen resolution

Widescreen patch (Vert-)[8]
Replaces the preset 1600x1200 resolution with the user choice of 1920x1080, 2560x1440 or 3840x2160.
  1. Go to <path-to-game>.
  2. Create backup copies of DEFAULT.INI and hglNj.dll.
  3. Download this patch.
  4. Extract the .7z archive of the patch. The patch consists of three folders, each containing files pertaining to a certain resolution.
  5. Place all files for the desired resolution in <path-to-game>. When prompted, overwrite DEFAULT.INI and hglNj.dll.
  6. Make sure the 1600x1200 resolution is selected before running the game.

Notes

Results in severe graphical glitches in multiplayer.

Input

Launcher keyconfig settings.
Launcher keyconfig settings.

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse buttons can not be remapped. To use the mouse to control the camera, see Debug menu.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion
Controller types
XInput-compatible controllers
Use Xidi.
Xbox button prompts
Button prompts are directly ported from the GameCube version of the game.
Impulse Trigger vibration
PlayStation controllers
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Generic/other controllers
DirectInput controllers are supported.
Button prompts
Always uses GameCube controller prompts.
Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M
Must choose between controller or keyboard in the launcher.

Xidi

Xidi improves support for XInput controllers in games that use directinput.
Allows the right stick to control the camera, the triggers to be treated as buttons, and enables controller vibration.
Install Xidi
  1. Download the latest version of Xidi.
  2. Enter the Win32 folder and copy dinput8.dll into <path-to-game>.
  3. Create a new file called Xidi.ini in <path-to-game>.
  4. Open Xidi.ini in a text editor and copy and paste the configuration at the bottom of this section.
  5. Save and close Xidi.ini.
  6. Run the configuration program and remap your controller.
[Mapper]
Type = BillyHatcher

[Properties]
DeadzonePercentStickLeft  = 10
DeadzonePercentStickRight = 10

[CustomMapper:BillyHatcher]
Template = StandardGamepad

; set the start button to the button the game always defaults to
ButtonStart = Button(9)
ButtonBack  = Button(10)

; work around being unable to pan the camera down normally
StickRightY = Split( Keyboard(Numpad5), Keyboard(Numpad8) )

; invert camera
;StickRightX = Invert( Axis(Z) )
;StickRightY = Split( Keyboard(Numpad8), Keyboard(Numpad5) )

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Audio options are limited to High, Middle and Low.
Surround sound
May require DirectSound3D restoration software.
Subtitles
All dialogue is displayed in text form.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Launcher language settings.
Launcher language settings.

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
4 Versus
LAN play
Online play
Asynchronous multiplayer

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 8 [9]
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio Criware [10]
Cutscenes Criware [11]

Debug menu

Enable the debug menu[12]
  1. Open the configuration file.
  2. Under ;details, change SECRET=0 to SECRET=1.
  3. Run the game and press Esc to open the debug menu.

Notes

The debug menu allows the resolution, frame rate, and mouse input settings to be adjusted while the game is running.

System requirements

Windows[13]
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 2000 SP4, XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium III 1.0 GHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 800 MB
Video card (GPU) 32 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible
Sound (audio device) DirectSound3D compatible
Other 12x CD-ROM drive
In-game movies require a CPU with SSE support.


Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[4] 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.[5]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 A Double Dose Of SEGA Console Classics Coming To A PC Near You! | GamesIndustry.biz - last accessed on 2023-06-17
    "Sonic Mega CollectionTM Plus and Billy Hatcher and The Giant EggTM, two favourites amongst SEGA fans, are set for their PC debut across Europe on March 31st."
  2. Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg Interview - IGN - last accessed on 2023-05-25
    "Naka: In terms of the engine itself, I guess you could consider it an evolution of the Sonic Adventure 2 engine. By making these changes and evolving the engine, we've been able to take advantage of the strengths of the GCN."
  3. GamersGate on Twitter - last accessed on 2023-05-19
  4. Not Loading in Windows 10; this will break thousands of - Microsoft Community - last accessed on 2017-01-16
  5. Microsoft - MS15-097: Description of the security update for the graphics component in Windows: September 8, 2015 - last accessed on 2018-02-16
  6. Verified by User:Mystyle48 on 2023-05-24
    The GSP Software release runs out of the box on Windows 10 22H2, with or without the disk.
  7. Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg - History - IsThereAnyDeal - last accessed on 2023-10-19
  8. Billy Hatcher & The Giant Egg (PC) - 1080p. Debug Options, Speed Values and more! - YouTube - last accessed on 2023-05-19
  9. Verified by User:Mystyle48 on 2023-05-24
    Verified by observing d3d8.dll loaded by <path-to-game>\BillyHatcher.exe in Process Explorer.
  10. Verified by User:Mystyle48 on 2023-05-24
    ADX (.adx) audio files are present in <path-to-game>.
  11. Verified by User:Mystyle48 on 2023-05-24
    Sofdec video files are present in <path-to-game>, denoted by mv_[scene].sfd.
  12. Verified by User:Mystyle48 on 2023-05-24
  13. Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg PC back cover - last accessed on 2023-10-17