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Dead Space 3

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Dead Space 3
Dead Space 3 cover
Developers
Visceral Games
Publishers
Electronic Arts
Engines
Visceral Engine
Release dates
Windows February 5, 2013
Reception
Metacritic 78
IGDB 74
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, DLC, Cross-game bonus, Subscription gaming service
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Shooter, Survival horror
Art styles Realistic
Themes Horror, Sci-fi, Space
Series Dead Space
Dead Space 3 on HowLongToBeat
Dead Space 3 on IGDB
Dead Space 3 guide on StrategyWiki
Dead Space 3 on MobyGames
Dead Space 3 on Wikipedia
Dead Space
Dead Space 2008
Dead Space 2 2011
Dead Space 3 2013
Dead Space (2023) 2023

Dead Space 3 is a singleplayer and multiplayer third-person shooter and survival horror game in the Dead Space series.

Key points

In-game Vsync option caps frame rate at 30 FPS; a higher frame rate Vsync lock can be forced externally instead.

General information

Official forums
Neoseeker Forums PC-specific
Aegis7 forums non PC-specific, less active
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Origin
2 DVDs. Limited Edition.
Windows
Amazon.com
Origin
Windows
Microsoft Store
Microsoft Store
Origin
Included exclusively with Xbox Game Pass for PC as part of its version of EA Play.
Windows
Origin
Origin
Included with EA Play.
Manual link for EA App purchase.
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Origin
Included with EA Play (Steam).
Windows
All versions require Origin DRM.

Monetization

Type Notes
Cross-game bonus Having a Mass Effect 3 savegame on the PC, will unlock the N7 Suit and having a Dead Space 2 savegame unlocks the Planet Cracker Plasma Cutter.
DLC The DLC adds missions, items and boosts.
One-time game purchase The game requires an upfront purchase to access.
Subscription gaming service Available via EA Play.

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Awakened
Windows
Tau Volantis Survival Kit Includes: Tundra Recon Suit, Marauder Suit, Sharpshooter Suit, Aegis VII Survivalist, AL-9 Clearcutter, SMP-90 Sharpshooter and Bot Accelerator.
Windows
Bot Capacity Upgrade
Windows
Bot Accelerator Included in the Tau Volantis Survival Kit pack.
Windows
Bot Personality Pack
Windows
EG-900 SMG
Windows
Enervator
Windows
First Contact Pack Includes: First Contact Suit and Negotiator. Included with the Limited Edition
Windows
Marauder Pack Includes: Marauder Suit and AL-9 Clearcutter. Included in the Tau Volantis Survival Kit pack.
Windows
Sharpshooter Pack Includes: Sharpshooter Suit and SMP-90 Sharpshooter. Included in the Tau Volantis Survival Kit pack.
Windows
Tundra Recon Pack Includes: Tundra Recon Suit and Aegis VII Survivalist. Included in the Tau Volantis Survival Kit pack.
Windows
Witness the Truth Pack Includes: Witness Suit and Evangelizer. Included with the Limited Edition.
Windows

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %LOCALAPPDATA%\EA Games\Dead Space 3\
Microsoft Store
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1238060/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\EA Games\Dead Space 3\
Microsoft Store
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1238060/pfx/[Note 1]
5 player profiles available. Each player profile only has 1 save slot, but a chapter select feature is available.

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Origin
OneDrive
Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud
Xbox Cloud

Video

Graphics options.
Graphics options.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Works with Nvidia Surround in 2D and 3D modes.
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Subtitles scales poorly with resolution larger than 1280 pixels wide, making them too small in very high resolution. Untested Cheat Engine table for subtitle scaling.
Field of view (FOV)
Fixable through config file. See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Up to 16 samples.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Only post-process AA (FXAA, SMAA).
Vertical sync (Vsync)
Only 30 FPS lock. See the glossary page for proper Vsync.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
Very high frame rate (+30 FPS) potentially causes problems with QTEs, physics (specifically ragdoll) and animations.
Running above 60 FPS may cause an infinite loading screen glitch upon death during co-op play.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Field of view (FOV)

There is deliberately no in-game option to modify the FOV.[citation needed]
Edit config file to change FOV[citation needed]
  1. Open %LOCALAPPDATA%\EA Games\Dead Space 3\system.txt
  2. Search for the line Window.FOVScale
  3. Change the value from 1.00000000 to a higher one (default FOV is around 75°).
  4. Save your changes.

Notes

In one cutscene if you change the FoV there will be a border in the middle of the screen. See screenshot for details.

Input

Mouse smoothing

Dead Space 3 suffers from floaty mouse movement, which becomes more pronounced the higher the frame rate.
Turn off mouse smoothing[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open general.txt.
  3. Add the line control.MouseSmoothing = false.

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Up to 5.1 output.[1]
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio
Combination of original and licensed tracks by Extreme Music Library Ltd. Credits use the track "Ephemeral" from the album "What We All Come to Need".

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Hungarian
Fan translation, download.
Italian
Polish
Fan translation, download here for the base game and here For the DLC.
Brazilian Portuguese
Fan translation, download.
Russian
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
Online play
2 Co-op
Co-op campaign.[2]

VR support

3D modes State Notes
Nvidia 3D Vision
See Helix Mod: Dead Space 3 - 3D Vision fix.
vorpX
G3D
Officially supported game, see official vorpx game list.

Issues unresolved

Cannot retrieve information from Origin error when accessing DLC store ingame

Several users affected by the issue have started posting tracerouting logs of their connection to the Origin servers to help EA identify the cause of the issue[3]
EA has responded to this issue with a workaround[4]
Many users are reporting that the workaround does not fix the issue[5][6]

Possible fixes:

  • Uninstall Origin and reinstall the latest version
  • Run Origin as administrator
  • Add Dead Space 3 and Origin to your firewall's exception list
  • Port forward the following ports:
TCP UDP
80 3659
443 14000-14016
9988 22990-23006
20000-20100 25200-25300
22990
17502
42127

Issues fixed

In-game stuttering, freezing issues

When using VSync,the game places most of its processing load on the first CPU core only(typically 99%) which may cause stuttering and occasional framerate dips on some systems while traversing through the map

Making affinity changes permanent (setting affinity in task manager only lasts until you exit the game):

  1. Edit your preferred shortcut for launching the game (desktop and/or start menu)
  2. In the target field, set the following (just put the default contents in double quotes and prepend cmd.exe /C ...):
  • For a 4/4 (core/thread) CPU cmd.exe /C start "" /affinity e "<path-to-game>\deadspace3.exe"
  • For a 4/8 and 8/8 (core/thread) CPU cmd.exe /C start "" /affinity fe "<path-to-game>\deadspace3.exe"
  • For a 6/6 (core/thread) CPU cmd.exe /C start "" /affinity 3e "<path-to-game>\deadspace3.exe"
  • For a 6/12 (core/thread) CPU cmd.exe /C start "" /affinity 7fe "<path-to-game>\deadspace3.exe"
  • For a 8/16 (core/thread) CPU and higher cmd.exe /C start "" /affinity fffe "<path-to-game>\deadspace3.exe"

Verify correct affinity by launching the game and checking affinity in task manager (see beginning).

To be used in Steam launch options, to launch the game directly from Steam, it must be a little different:

  • Ex. for a 8/16 (core/thread) CPU and higher C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C start "" /affinity FFFE "<path-to-game>\deadspace3.exe" %command%

Kinesis Door Audio Bug

Kinesis doors make constant hammering noise.[7][8]
Use Kinesis Door Audio Stutter FIX[citation needed]
  1. Download Fix on Mod DB
  2. Unpack .zip into Dead Space 3 installation folder.
  3. Start DS3Patcher.bat.
  4. Follow instructions.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0c
Shader Model support 3
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Physics Havok
Audio RwAudioCore [1]

System requirements

Windows
Minimum
Operating system (OS) XP SP3, Vista SP1, 7
Processor (CPU) 2.8 GHz
System memory (RAM) 1 GB (XP)
2 GB (Vista, 7)
Hard disk drive (HDD) 10 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 6800
ATI Radeon X1600 Pro
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>/1238060/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (1238060) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References