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Dead Man's Hand

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Dead Man's Hand
Dead Man's Hand cover
Developers
Human Head Studios
Publishers
Atari
Engines
Unreal Engine 2
Release dates
Windows March 16, 2004
Reception
Metacritic 63
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives First-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Action, FPS, Shooter
Art styles Realistic
Themes North America, Western
Dead Man's Hand on HowLongToBeat
Dead Man's Hand on IGDB
Dead Man's Hand on MobyGames
Dead Man's Hand on Wikipedia

Warnings

GameSpy online services have been shut down (see Network for solutions).

Dead Man's Hand is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person action, FPS and shooter game.

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
SecuROM 5 DRM.
Windows
Not available digitally.

Essential improvements

Patches

Retail patch 1 updates the game to the latest version. Includes bug fixes and 6 additional multiplayer maps.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\System\*.ini[Note 1]
DMH.ini contains general settings.
User.ini contains camera FOV, mouse, keyboard/controller bindings and other settings.

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Saves\SaveDMH\[Note 1]

Video

Video Settings.
Video Settings.

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
See Widescreen resolution.
Ultra-widescreen
See Widescreen resolution.
4K Ultra HD
See Widescreen resolution.
Field of view (FOV)
80° by default. See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed
Toggle with Alt+ Enter. See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See Anisotropic filtering (AF).
Anti-aliasing (AA)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
High-fidelity upscaling
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
Off by default. To turn it on, see Vertical sync (Vsync).
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
See Run the game at screen refresh rate. Game lacks an FPS limiter and causes clipping bugs on stairs with frame rates higher than 60 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Widescreen resolution

Custom resolutions can be set manually. Note that image is Vert-, and FOV should be increased to compensate for the first two options.
Set custom resolution in-game[1]
  1. While in game, open the console with ~.
  2. Enter setres XXXXxYYYY (for example setres 1920x1080).
Edit ini file[2]
  1. Launch the game at least once then close it.
  2. Open DMH.ini.
  3. Go to the [WinDrv.WindowsClient] section.
  4. Set FullscreenViewportX and FullscreenViewportY to the desired resolution.

Notes

HUD and menus remain stretched.
Some menu elements become cropped.
Use the Widescreen Fix[3]

Notes

Weapon and camera FOV are fixed both during gameplay and in-engine cutscenes.
Menu elements are no longer cropped.
HUD and menus are stretched.

Field of view (FOV)

Set default FOV in-game[4]
  1. While in game, open the console with ~.
  2. Type fov x, where x is the desired FOV.
Edit ini file[5]
  1. Launch the game at least once then close it.
  2. Open User.ini.
  3. Search for the line 34 and change the line to
    Aliases[27]=(Command="fov 106",Alias=SetFOV)
  4. Add SetFOV in front of one of the keyboard letters that says <Keyname>=.
  5. While in-game press the key to activate the new FOV.

Notes

To maintain identical vertical FOV to the 4:3 FOV at 16:9 resolutions, use 106. At 21:9 resolutions, use 121.
Game could start to randomly reset those values. If so, edit those values in <path-to-game>\System\DefUser.ini too.
Weapon FOV stays the same.
Weaponmodel goes out of its place.

Windowed

Edit ini file[6]
  1. Launch the game at least once then close it.
  2. Open DMH.ini.
  3. Find the section [WinDrv.WindowsClient].
  4. In that section, find an entry WindowedViewportX= and set its value to your desired window width.
  5. In that section, find an entry WindowedViewportY= and set its value to your desired window height.
  6. Set StartupFullscreen= to False to start the game in windowed mode.

Anisotropic filtering (AF)

Edit ini file[7]
  1. Launch the game at least once then close it.
  2. Open DMH.ini.
  3. Go to the [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice] section.
  4. Change the line LevelOfAnisotropy=1 (maximum is 16).

Vertical sync (Vsync)

Edit ini file[8]
  1. Launch the game at least once then close it.
  2. Open DMH.ini.
  3. Go to the [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice] section.
  4. Change the line UseVSync=False to True.

Input

Input Settings.
Input Settings.

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Enbaled by default. To disable it, see Mouse acceleration.
Mouse sensitivity
Max of 10. For higher, see Mouse sensitivity.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Enable by setting UseJoystick=True in DMH.ini. Auto aim from the Xbox version can be re-enabled. See Enable aim assist and Steam Input for button mapping. This Original Xbox layout page can be used for reference.
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Edit bindings in User.ini.
Controller sensitivity
Edit in User.ini.
Controller Y-axis inversion
Edit bindings in User.ini.
Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Mouse acceleration

Edit ini file[9]
  1. Launch the game at least once then close it.
  2. Open User.ini.
  3. Change the line MouseAccelThreshold= to 0.
[Engine.PlayerInput] entries are created upon inverting mouse y-axis or adjusting sensitivity

Mouse sensitivity

Edit ini file[10]
  1. Calculate your sensitivity for UT2004 on mouse-sensitivity.com.
  2. Open User.ini.
  3. Change the line MouseSensitivity= to the desired value.
[Engine.PlayerInput] entries are created upon inverting mouse y-axis or adjusting sensitivity.

Enable aim assist

Edit ini file[11]
  1. Launch the game at least once then close it.
  2. Open DMH.ini.
  3. Find AutoAim under [Engine.GameInfo].
  4. Change the value from 0.000000 to 1.000000.

Jerky/Uneven mouse movement

Edit User.ini[12]
  1. Launch the game at least once then close it.
  2. Open User.ini.
  3. Go to the following lines and change 6 to 0.1:
  4. MouseX=Count bXAxis | Axis aMouseX Speed=6
    
    MouseY=Count bYAxis | Axis aMouseY Speed=6
  5. Change the line MouseSmoothingMode= to 1 and MouseSamplingTime= to:
    • 0.008 for 125Hz polling rate
    • 0.002 for 500Hz polling rate
    • 0.001 for 1000Hz polling rate
  6. Change the line MouseSensitivity= to 50 in User.ini (more or less, if needed to adjust).
  7. Open DMH.ini.
  8. Go to the [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice] section and change ReduceMouseLag= to False.

Notes

Opening the control settings in-game to adjust mouse sensitivity will reset the value to 10 or below, making aiming way too slow.

Audio

Audio Settings.
Audio Settings.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Music, Effects.
Surround sound
Up to 7.0 with Creative ALchemy.
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support
EAX 3.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English

Network

Multiplayer Settings.
Multiplayer Settings.

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
LAN play
8
Online play
8 Direct IP connect possible. Alternatively, see GameSpy for alternative master servers.

Connection types

Type Native Notes
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP
Open the console with ~ and type in open [ip address:port].

Ports

Protocol Port(s) and/or port range(s)
TCP 7777
UDP 7777
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.

Issues unresolved

Clipping problems when climbing stairs

At high frame rates (+150fps), there will be clipping problems on some stairs.

Issues fixed

Poor performance on Windows 8/8.1/10/11

Install dgVoodoo2.
Use crosire's d3d8to9 wrapper
  1. Download d3d8.dll from here.
  2. Place it in <path-to-game>\System.

Vsync is broken on Windows 8/8.1/10/11

Install dgVoodoo2.
Use crosire's d3d8to9 wrapper
  1. Download d3d8.dll from here.
  2. Place it in <path-to-game>\System.

Run the game at screen refresh rate

Maximum selectable refresh rate is 60 Hz. This does not limit FPS, but may set your monitor's refresh rate to 100 Hz, which may result in screen tearing on a 120 Hz or 144 Hz monitor.
Set fullscreen refresh rate[13]
  1. Open DMH.ini.
  2. Find the line DesiredRefreshRate=60.
  3. Change the value to set your monitor's refresh rate. For example, 120 or 144.

Notes

Modifying any video options will undo the custom refresh rate.

Other information

API

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

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio OpenAL
Multiplayer GameSpy

System requirements

Windows
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 98, ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium III 800 MHz
AMD Athlon 800 MHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 2 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 2
32 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0 compatible
Sound (audio device) DirectX 9.0 compatible
Other 8X CD-ROM


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).

References

  1. Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-07-30
  2. Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-07-30
  3. Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-07-15
  4. Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-07-30
  5. Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-06-05
  6. Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-06-07
  7. Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-06-05
  8. Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-06-07
  9. Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-06-07
  10. Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-06-05
  11. Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-06-05
  12. Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-06-07
  13. Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-07-03