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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
 
 
 
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic guide at StrategyWiki
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic at Wikipedia

General information

Official game site
Official game series site
Might and Magic Wiki
Steam Community Discussions

Availability[edit]

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

Essential improvements[edit]

Patches[edit]

The latest retail patch is v1.02 (you must install v1.01 first). The German version has a separate patch (this includes v1.01).

Skip intro videos[edit]

Use -novid command line argument[1]

Large Address Aware[edit]

Improves stability on 64 bit systems with at least 3GB RAM by allowing the application to use more than 2GB RAM. Resolves the "Out of Memory" errors.

Unlimited Edition mod[edit]

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.

Game data[edit]

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

Configuration file(s) location[edit]

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

Save game data location[edit]

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

Save game cloud syncing[edit]

System Native Notes
Steam Cloud

Video settings[edit]

In-game general video settings.
In-game general video settings.
In-game advanced video settings.
In-game advanced video settings.
Graphics option Option 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
Vertical sync (Vsync)
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[edit]

Run the game in windowed mode using the console[2]
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[edit]

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 you're satisfied with the selected value, create autoexec.cfg in your 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.

Input settings[edit]

In-game key map settings.
In-game key map settings.
In-game mouse settings.
In-game mouse settings.
Keyboard and mouse Native 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
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Audio settings[edit]

In-game audio settings.
In-game audio settings.
Audio options Native Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Polish
Local retail version only.
Russian
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.
Spanish

Network[edit]

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[edit]

3D modes Native GG3D Notes
Nvidia 3D Vision
 
 Use Helix Mod for better 3D support.

Issues fixed[edit]

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

Game fails to start[edit]

Disable anti-virus[citation needed]

Disabling your anti-virus may fix this issue.

Black screen on start-up (Steam)[edit]

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[edit]

A few issues can cause this error.

Upgrade your drivers[1]

Updating your hardware drivers (including non-graphics drivers) may solve this issue.

Use automatic settings[1]

Use the command line parameter -autoconfig.

In Steam:

  1. In your Steam library, right click on Dark Messiah of Might and Magic Singleplayer
  2. Choose Properties
  3. In the General tab, click on Set launch options...
  4. In the text box that follows, type -autoconfig
  5. Click OK

Notes

If this fails, see next method.
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 your command line parameters.

In Steam:

  1. Enter the game's launch options window. See previous method, steps 1-3.
  2. Type -w [desired resolution width] -h [desired resolution height].
  3. Click OK

Crash when exiting the game[edit]

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.

Xana speaks German in a Russian version of the game[edit]

Download proper Russian voice lines[1]
  1. Download the proper Russian voice lines and extract them.
  2. Copy the newly extracted folders (mm and custom_russian) to <path-to-game>, overriding files if needed.

Game installs AZERTY (French) keyboard layout[edit]

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

In Windows:

  1. Go to Control Panel, 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

Random crashes on Nvidia hardware[edit]

Disable Shadowplay[citation needed]

autoexec.cfg does not automatically execute[edit]

The singleplayer version of the game does not automatically execute the autoexec.cfg file (a file that holds console commands) while the multiplayer version does.

Enable the usage of autoexec.cfg[citation needed]

Use the command line parameter +exec autoexec.cfg.

In Steam:

  1. Right click on Dark Messiah Might and Magic Single Player
  2. Click on Properties
  3. Under Set launch options... type in +exec autoexec.cfg
  4. Click OK

Changing language doesn't take effect (Steam version)[edit]

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[3]
  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

Other information[edit]

API[edit]

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 6, 7, 8, 9
Shader Model support 2, 3
64-bit executable

Middleware[edit]

Middleware Notes
Physics Havok Heavily modified variant.
Audio Miles Sound System
Cutscenes Bink Video

System requirements[edit]

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP
Processor (CPU) 2.4 GHz 3.0 GHz
System memory (RAM) 512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 7 GB
Video card (GPU) 128 MB of VRAM 256 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 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 Verified by User:Suicide machine on 2016-10-17
  2. ↑ https://steamcommunity.com/app/2100/discussions/0/864976837801037787/
  3. ↑ Steamcommunity (How to change the game language to german?) - last accessed on 2017-04-15