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Dark Messiah of Might and Magic

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic cover
Developers
Singleplayer Arkane Studios
Singleplayer Floodgate Entertainment
Multiplayer Kuju Entertainment
Publishers
Ubisoft
Engines
Source
Release dates
Windows October 24, 2006
Reception
Metacritic 72
IGDB 77
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives First-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Action, ARPG, Immersive sim, Stealth
Art styles Realistic
Themes Fantasy
Series Might and Magic
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic on HowLongToBeat
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic on IGDB
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic guide on StrategyWiki
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic on MobyGames
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic on Wikipedia
Might and Magic Book One: The Secret of the Inner Sanctum 1986
Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World 1988
Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra 1991
Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen 1992
Might and Magic: Darkside of Xeen 1993
Might and Magic: World of Xeen 1994
Swords of Xeen 1995
Heroes of Might and Magic (series)
Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven 1998
Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor 1999
Crusaders of Might and Magic 1999
Arcomage 1999
Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer 2000
Legends of Might and Magic 2001
Might and Magic IX 2002
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic 2006
Might & Magic: Duel of Champions 2013
Might & Magic X - Legacy 2014
Might & Magic Showdown Cancelled
Might & Magic: Chess Royale 2020

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person action, ARPG, immersive sim and stealth game in the Might and Magic series.

General information

Official game series site
Steam Community Discussions
Dark Messiah on Nexus mods
Dark Messiah on Mod DB

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
SecuROM 7 DRM. Multiplayer requires Steam.
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Green Man Gaming
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Windows
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows
All versions require Steam DRM for multiplayer.
Some retail versions allow playing single player without Steam.

Demo

English demo is available here.

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest retail patch is v1.02 (you must install v1.01 first). The German version has a separate patch (this includes v1.01). Not necessary for Steam version.

Skip intro videos

Use -novid command line argument[1]

Enable the console

Use -console command line argument[1]

Large Address Aware

Significantly improves stability on 64-bit systems with at least 3 GB RAM by allowing the application to use more than 2 GB RAM. Resolves the "Out of Memory" errors. Use it on the mm.exe in the game directory.

Game data

In-game general settings.
In-game general settings.

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\mm\cfg\config.cfg[Note 1]
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Source\mm\Settings\
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2100/pfx/[Note 2]
Video settings are stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Source\mm\Settings\.

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\mm\SAVE\[Note 1]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2100/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Steam Cloud

Video

In-game general video settings.
In-game general video settings.
In-game advanced video settings.
In-game advanced video settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Issues with HUD positioning.
Ultra-widescreen
Stamina bar is slightly cut off
4K Ultra HD
HUD does not scale well at resolutions beyond 1080p
Field of view (FOV)
Set via console. Must enable cheats (SV_Cheats 1, Fov XX)
Windowed
See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See Windowed.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Up to 16x
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Up to 4x MSAA, use 0x000000C1 flag in Nvidia Inspector for SGSSAA
Vertical sync (Vsync)
Double buffered [2]
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
No frame rate cap.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
Rendered image uses SDR color space. In-game HDR option refers only to HDR Rendering.

Windowed

Run the game in windowed mode using the console[3]
If you use windowed/borderless windowed mode in Windows 10, the game window might stay in front of others, making alt-tabbing difficult.
  1. Start the game and open the console (~ key). You can enable the console by going to Settings > Keyboard tab > Advanced...
  2. Enter the command mat_setvideomode width height 1. As an example, for 1280x720, type mat_setvideomode 1280 720 1.

Notes

For borderless windowed mode, try mat_setvideomode width height 2. If that doesn't work, try the tools mentioned in Glossary:Borderless fullscreen windowed.
To go back to fullscreen mode, use mat_setvideomode width height 0.

Adjust/disable camera tilting when strafing

Adjust/disable camera tilting when strafing[citation needed]

Note: though this is a different effect from head-bobbing, head-bobbing needs to be disabled for the following fix to work. You can easily disable it by going to Settings > Gameplay.

  1. Start the game and open the console (~ key). You can enable the console by going to Settings > Keyboard tab > Advanced...
  2. Enter the command sv_rollangle 0 to disable tilting completely. A different number can be used to change the tilting strength (default is 3).
  3. Once satisfied with the selected value, create autoexec.cfg in the configuration file path and put the command into it. Set autoexec.cfg to automatically execute. The value will now be automatically applied on every game start-up.

Higher corpse limit

The number of corpses per level is limited to 2-4, so if you kill new enemies the old bodies fade away. To increase this number, follow this guide or download directly from Nexus mods or Mod DB.

Only works for the Steam version.

Toggle HUD

In the autoexec.cfg, insert the following to set a key (in this example "x") that can turn the HUD on and off:

bind x ToggleHUD
alias ToggleHUD "HUDOff"
alias HUDOff "cl_drawhud 0; alias ToggleHUD HUDOn"
alias HUDOn "cl_drawhud 1; alias ToggleHUD HUDOff"

Input

In-game key map settings.
In-game key map settings.
In-game mouse settings.
In-game mouse settings.

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Settings for both smoothing and acceleration can be found in the mouse & keyboard section
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Toggle crouch and walk

In the autoexec.cfg, insert:

//Key Bindings - Change these to whatever you wish
bind alt ToggleWalk
bind c ToggleCrouch

//Walk Toggle Button
alias ToggleWalk "WalkOn"
alias WalkOn "+speed; alias ToggleWalk WalkOff"
alias WalkOff "-speed; alias ToggleWalk WalkOn"

//Crouch Toggle Button
alias ToggleCrouch "CrouchOn"
alias CrouchOn "+duck; alias ToggleCrouch CrouchOff"
alias CrouchOff "-duck; alias ToggleCrouch CrouchOn"

Audio

In-game audio settings.
In-game audio settings.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Set +snd_digital_surround 1 as launch command to avoid muted/muffled sound like voices (for Vista and above) from rear / side speakers.
Subtitles
Not in cutscenes.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Traditional Chinese
Retail only.
Czech
Retail only. link #1
French
German
The German retail version is censored, e.g. no dismemberment and less blood. The German version on Steam, however, is completely uncut and identical to the international version, while an uncut patch exists for the retail release.[4]
Hungarian
Local retail only. Official language files available here.
Italian
Polish
Local retail version only. Official language files available here
Brazilian Portuguese
Fan translation; download.
Russian
Official localization by «Buka» and «Reanimedia» (Audio). A mistake in the SteamPipe update causes Xana to speak German. See Xana speaks German in a Russian version of the game for a fix.
Russian
Fan translation by «SyS-team», «Spirit Team», «ENPY Studio»
Spanish

Network

Servers can optionally use Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) protection.

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
32
Online play
32

Connection types

Type Native Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
For dedicated hosting, install Dedicated Server under Tools in the Steam client.
Direct IP
Open the console (~) and use connect followed by the IP and port.

Ports

Protocol Port(s) and/or port range(s)
TCP 27014-27050
UDP 4380, 27000-27030
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.

VR support

3D modes State GG3D Notes
Nvidia 3D Vision
Use Helix Mod for better 3D support.
vorpX
G3D, DirectVR
Officially supported game, see official vorpx game list.

Issues fixed

TweakGuides has created a comprehensive guide for fixing issues in this game. It can be found here.

Changing language doesn't take effect (Steam version)

Since the game is using an obsolete version of the Source engine, the only way to set its language is by changing the language of Steam itself.

Change language of Steam client[5]
  1. In Steam, open Steam client settings
  2. Click on Interface
  3. Select the interface language you're also using for the game
  4. Steam will restart

Game fails to start on Windows 11 / Windows 10

Copy game files
  1. Copy all files from the bin folder to the root folder[6]
  2. If Lavasoft Web Companion is installed, uninstall it[7]

Out of Memory crash

Apply patch & lower quality
  1. Apply the Large Content Awareness patch to mm.exe
  2. Lower the game's graphics quality to medium (excluding resolution)

FOV lowers after using Ballista at the start

Use bow zoom and then update your FOV again[8]

Go to the next map, there will be a bow on the table. Pick up that bow and zoom with it and then you will be able to readjust your FOV with the console again.

Black screen on start-up (Steam)

Because the SteamPipe update converted the game to a new format, certain glitches may appear - most common of which is black screen on start-up.

Verify game cache (Steam)[1]
  1. In your Steam library, right click on Dark Messiah Might and Magic Single Player
  2. Click on Properties
  3. Go to Local Files tab
  4. Click on Verify Integrity of Game Files... and wait for the verification to finish.

Fault Module Name: ntdll.dll

A few issues can cause this error.

Update hardware drivers (including those not related to the graphics card)[1]
Run the game with the -autoconfig command line argument[1]
Start the game in a custom resolution[1]

Use the command line parameter -w [desired resolution width] -h [desired resolution height]. As an example, for 1440x900:

-w 1440 -h 900

Make sure -autoconfig is not present in the command line parameters.

Crash when exiting the game

Enable Heap emulation for mm.exe[1]
  1. Download this compatibility fix and extract it.
  2. Launch PatchInstall.bat to add a fix to compatibility database.

Crash when changing level

If this bug appears, it usually happens when loading Сhapter 4.

Apply the Large Address Aware fix.

Xana speaks German in a Russian version of the game

Download proper Russian voice lines[1]
  1. Download the proper Russian voice lines and extract them.
  2. Copy folder sound from custom_russian to <path-to-game>/mm_russian.

Game installs AZERTY (French) keyboard layout

Steam and retail versions of the game install the "AZERTY (French)" keyboard layout, which can't be deleted with normal means because it does not show in Language options.
Manually add and then delete "AZERTY (French)" layout[citation needed]

In Windows:

  1. Go to Control Panel and find Language options.
  2. Add new input language French (France), choose the French keyboard layout for it.
  3. Delete the input language that you have just added.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9 [9]
Shader Model support 1.1, 1.3, 1.4, 2.0
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Use autoexec.cfg

To use any console tweaks in the game, some of which are described on this site, you have to launch the game with the autoexec.cfg.
  1. Autoexec.cfg is located in the configuration file location. If it doesn't exist, create it there.
  2. To launch the game on Steam with the Autoexec file, add
    +exec autoexec.cfg
    command line argument.
  3. Optionally, add custom console options in the file and they will be included automatically when the game starts.
The file can have a custom filename, e.g. myset.cfg or myoptions.cfg.

Mods

Unlimited Edition

Mod features:
  • Limited Edition weapons can be found and equipped in the game
  • New Game+ mode
  • Extra inventory for the New Game+ mode
  • Endurance difficulty for the New Game+ mode
  • Restored unused NPCs voices and audio interactions
  • Fixes for missing sound effects
  • Mini-mods support
Only the Steam version is currently supported.

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Physics Havok Heavily modified variant.
Audio Miles Sound System Singleplayer: 7.0L
Multiplayer: 6.6a
Cutscenes Bink Video 1.8J

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium IV 2.6 GHz
AMD Athlon 2.6 GHz
System memory (RAM) 512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 7 GB
Video card (GPU) 128 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible
Other 4X DVD-ROM
Supported Video Cards: Nvidia GeForce FX/6/7, ATI Radon 9/X


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 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>/2100/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (2100) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Verified by User:Suicide machine on 2016-10-17
  2. Black mesa vsync is double buffered - last accessed on 2024
  3. Steam Community - last accessed on 26 May 2023
  4. Dark Messiah on Schnittberichte - last accessed on 2021-01-29
  5. Steamcommunity (How to change the game language to german?) - last accessed on 2017-04-15
  6. https://steamcommunity.com/app/2100/discussions/0/3730700942540033263/?ctp=2#c3759977515071186759 - last accessed on 2023-01-27
  7. https://steamcommunity.com/app/2100/discussions/0/558747922227774495/?ctp=4#c350543738455599454 - last accessed on 2023-01-27
  8. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1903318856
  9. Verified by User:Aemony on 2022-11-30
    Confirmed that the game uses D3D9 — even when running in DX8 compatibility mode.