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Darksiders

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games

This page is for the original release. For the Warmastered Edition, see Darksiders Warmastered Edition.

Darksiders
Darksiders cover
Developers
Vigil Games
Publishers
THQ
Nordic Games
Russia Buka Entertainment
Engines
Phoenix Engine
Release dates
Windows September 23, 2010
Reception
Metacritic 83
IGDB 82
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Third-person
Genres RPG
Themes Post-apocalyptic, Sci-fi
Series Darksiders
Darksiders on HowLongToBeat
Darksiders on IGDB
Darksiders guide on StrategyWiki
Darksiders on MobyGames
Darksiders on Wikipedia
Darksiders
Darksiders 2010
Darksiders II 2012
Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition 2015
Darksiders Warmastered Edition 2016
Darksiders III 2018
Darksiders Genesis 2019

Darksiders is a singleplayer third-person RPG game in the Darksiders series.

General information

Official manual
Darksiders Community Forums
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Icon overlay.png
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Included in the Extras for Darksiders Warmastered Edition.[1]
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Bundled with Darksiders Warmastered Edition.
Windows
Origin (unavailable)
Origin
Was bundled with Darksiders II: Digital Deluxe
Windows
All owners of any Steam copy of Darksiders will automatically see the Warmastered Edition as part of their library.[2]

Essential improvements

"New Game" Crash Fix

DLL to fix the crash that happens when selecting New Game or loading a Save File[citation needed]
  1. Download New Game Crash Fix
  2. Extract to where the games EXE file is located.

Alternatively use Special K's "Spoof CPU Core Count" setting within the FPS Limiter's "Advanced" section and set it to 6 or less CPU cores. Do not combine the above fix with Special K.

Skip intro videos

Rename/delete files[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\media\videos\
  2. Delete or rename AMD_Logo_movie.wmv, kaiko_logo.wmv, main_menu_intro.wmv, start_screen_intro.wmv, THQ_Logo1280x720.wmv, THQNORDIC_LOGO_Color_white.wmv and Vigil_Logo1280x720.wmv.

Stuttering fix

Run the game through Steam Big Picture[3]

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %LOCALAPPDATA%\Darksiders\
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/50620/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Darksiders\
Epic Games Launcher %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\darksiders1.exe
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/50620/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Origin
OneDrive
Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud
Approx. 100 MB available.

Video

General settings.
General settings.
Advanced settings.
Advanced settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Use Flawless Widescreen or Widescreen Fixer.
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
See the WSGF entry.
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
See Windowed.
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)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
Pre-rendered cutscenes are at 30 FPS. Frame rate is uncapped during the videos.
No frame rate or refresh rate cap.[4]
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Windowed

Manually edit options.dopt[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open options.dopt with a hex editor such as HxD.
  3. Press Ctrl+G and go to offset 0x15 (hexadecimal).
  4. Type in 00, replacing the 01.
  5. Save the file and launch the game.

Input

Keyboard rebinding.
Keyboard rebinding.
Controller buttons.
Controller buttons.
Keyboard and mouse controls are disabled if a controller is plugged in.

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Under Advanced options.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
XInput and DirectInput. Designed for XInput controllers. First/primary controller only.
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Renders most DirectInput controllers unuseable. Use XInput wrapper to bypass the issue.
Controller sensitivity
Separate for X- and Y-axis.
Controller Y-axis inversion
Controller types
XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration
PlayStation controllers
Generic/other controllers
Additional information
Controller hotplugging
DirectInput hotplugging crashes the game.
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Global hotkeys (for example volume keys on some keyboards) are disabled when game is in focus.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Sliders for music, sound, voice and videos.
Surround sound
Auto-detection, 7.1 audio is supported.
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Czech
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Fan translation, download.
Russian
Spanish
Turkish
Fan translation. Details missing—please edit this page and add it.

VR support

3D modes State GG3D Notes
Native 3D
Nvidia 3D Vision
See also Helix Mod: Darksiders (new 2016 fix).
TriDef 3D
iZ3D
vorpX
G3D
Officially supported game, see official vorpx game list.

Issues fixed

Steam achievements not unlocking

Steam achievements will fail to unlock if the game has already been launched on the current instance of Steam.
Restart Steam[citation needed]
  • Restart Steam each time you launch Darksiders. Achievements that should have been awarded will not be awarded until the task is completed again.

Cutscenes do not play

Cutscenes do not play[citation needed]
  • Check that Windows Media Player 11 or better is installed on your system.
  • Codec Packs have been known to interfere as well (e.g. LAV Filters). Uninstall any codec packs.
  • You may also try using the K-Lite Basic Codec Pack and concentrate every option into Windows Media Player, then use it's Codec Tweak Tools' Fix option.

Game doesn't reach menu

Game doesn't reach menu[citation needed]
  • Could be caused by the AMD logo video.
  • Rename <path-to-game>\media\videos\AMD_Logo_movie to something else.

Game freezes at initial black screen

Game freezes at initial black screen[citation needed]
  • Unplug your keyboard, then start the game, then plug the keyboard back in.

Cutscenes are only visible on half of the screen

This can be caused by the MS13-057/KB2803821 update; reinstall the update to resolve the issue.[5]
Reinstall KB2803821[5]
  1. Open Programs and Features:
    • Vista and later: Open the Start screen/Start menu, type appwiz.cpl and press Enter.
    • Windows XP: Press Win+R, type appwiz.cpl and press Enter.
  2. View the installed updates:
    • Vista and later: choose View installed updates.
    • Windows XP: choose Show updates.
  3. Locate KB2803821 and remove it.
  4. Run Windows Update and install the update again to get a newer version that does not have this problem.

Unresponsive controls, Controller buttons with keyboard

This is most likely caused by game detecting some of computers devices as controller.
Remove unused controllers, set main controller as primary one[citation needed]
  1. Push Win+R and type joy.cpl then push OK.
  2. From Advanced settings... set your used controller as primary one and then push OK.
  3. Locate all unused controllers listed and either unplug them physically, disable them from device manager or with virtual controllers uninstall from control panel.
Disable DirectInput support[citation needed]
  1. Download the fix here.
  2. Extract the dinput8.dll into <path-to-game> alongside with DarksidersPC.exe.

Game causes system reboot when it crashes

Game causes system reboot when it crashes[citation needed]
  • Launching game through exe may solve system reboot problems when game crashes.

Black screen on multi-monitor systems

When playing on a system with multiple monitors, the game will default to fullscreen on the primary monitor. When the game is alt-tabbed out of and reopened, the screen will go black. Once there simply wiggle the mouse. Sometimes the game will go back to normal, and sometimes the game will crash instead.

Can't Alt+Tab with the GOG.com version

The game becomes very prone to crashing after Alt-Tabbing on some machines.
Use Command Prompt[6]
  1. Open the Start menu, search for Command Prompt and open it.
  2. Copy this: sdbinst -u -g {c0728393-3782-4e36-a2cd-b3aa27cd6836}
  3. Right-click and paste in the Command Prompt, then press Enter.
Rename executable[citation needed]
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Rename DarksidersPC.exe to anything else.
  3. Edit the shortcut properties to target the correct file.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0c
Shader Model support 3.0
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Physics Havok
Audio Fmod
Interface Scaleform
Cutscenes Windows Media

Increase performance

As the game doesn't feature many graphical options, for lower end machines, this disables most of the game's effects.
Rename/delete files[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\media\
  2. Delete or rename all files including 'fx', except Impact_FX.oppc and vfx_shared.oppc.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP SP3, Vista SP1, 7
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 4 530 3.0 GHz
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4 GHz
System memory (RAM) 1 GB (XP)
2 GB (Vista, 7)
Hard disk drive (HDD) 12 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 8800
Nvidia GeForce GT 220
ATI Radeon X1900
256 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible
Shader model 3.0 support


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>/50620/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (50620) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References