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Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive
Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive cover
Developers
Spellbound Entertainment
macOS (OS X) RuneSoft
Publishers
2001-2003 Infogrames
2003-2013 Atari
2013-2016 Nordic Games
2016-present THQ Nordic
Retail re-release Sold Out Software
Release dates
Windows July 23, 2001
macOS (OS X) March 4, 2015[1]
Linux July 5, 2018[2]
Reception
Metacritic 78
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view, Isometric
Controls Multiple select, Point and select
Genres Stealth, Strategy
Themes Western
Series Desperados
Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive on HowLongToBeat
Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive on IGDB
Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive guide on StrategyWiki
Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive on MobyGames
Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive on Wikipedia
Desperados
Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive 2001
Desperados 2: Cooper's Revenge 2006
Helldorado 2007
Desperados III 2020

Warnings

The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support for 32-bit-only apps.

Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive is a singleplayer bird's-eye view and isometric stealth and strategy game in the Desperados series.

General information

Official Discord server for game series
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
LaserLock DRM
Windows
GamersGate
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Gamesplanet logo.svg
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
GOG.com
DRM-free
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Green Man Gaming
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
A demo can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. The level is included in the modernized version.

Essential improvements

Patches

The v1.01 Patch updates the retail game to the latest version.
The v1.02 patch was released exclusively for Steam and GOG.com releases, which includes an in-game language switch and the demo-exclusive mission, as well as better compatibility for modern systems. Retail versions did not receive this update.

Compatibility on modern systems

Various DirectX wrappers can be used to improve compatibility on modern systems and prevent issues like crashes or a low framerate.
DXGL[3]
  1. Download and install DXGL.
  2. Add the game's executable game.exe to the application list.
  3. Make sure Vertical sync in the display tab is disabled.
Use dgVoodoo2[3]
  1. Download and extract dgVoodoo 2.
  2. Copy the files inside the MS\x86 directory to <path-to-game>\Game.
  3. Open the dgVoodoo 2 control panel (dgVoodooCpl.exe) and activate Fast video memory acess in the DirectX tab.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Game\Data\Configuration\[Note 1]
macOS (OS X)
Linux
It's unknown whether this game follows the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux. Please fill in this information.

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Game\Data\Savegame\[Note 1]
Steam %APPDATA%\THQNordic\Desperados\
macOS (OS X)
Linux

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

In-game video settings.
In-game video settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Use the modified executable (game.exe for retail, desperados.exe for digital versions).
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
Use the modified executable (game.exe for retail, desperados.exe for digital versions).
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Use DxWnd.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
Retail release is capped at 21 FPS and digital version at 25 FPS. Game speed is tied to frame rate.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

In-game input settings.
In-game input settings.

Audio

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

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
FMVs are not subtitled.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Polish
Local retail version only. For digital versions download this
Russian
1C-Softclub
Spanish

Issues fixed

Crashes

Enable the following compatibility settings for the game.exe file: Compatibility mode (Windows XP SP 3).[4]
Sometimes the game crashes when loading a new level or a different save file.
Delete SpriteBank.tmp[3]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\Game.
  2. Delete the file SpriteBank.tmp.

Strange mouse movement

Change settings in control panel[5]
  1. Go to Computer → Control Panel → Mouse Properties → Pointer Options
  2. Deactivate "Enhance pointer precision".

FMVs do not play (retail only)

Copy video files from the disc to game directory[3]
  1. Open the disc and go to GAME\Data.
  2. Copy the folder Cinematics to <path-to-game>\Game\Data.

Tearing when panning camera

Add launch parameters[6]
The game files offer a readme file in which the developers describe several launch parameters.
  1. Add the following launch parameters: NOSMOOTHMOUSE MOUSEFACTOR 0.5
  2. Enable V-Sync from your video card provider.
If that does not work WGSF offers a 60 fps patch. However, this will make the gameplay faster. See the WSGF entry.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
DirectDraw 7
OpenGL
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
This 32-bit-only macOS game does not work on macOS Catalina (10.15) or later.
Linux

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio FMOD
Cutscenes Bink Video

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95, 98, Me, 2000 (only as administrator)
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium II 233 MHz MMX
System memory (RAM) 64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 600 MB
Video card (GPU) No 3D card necessary, incompatible with Permedia 2
4 MB of VRAM
DirectX 7.1 or higher compatible
macOS (OS X)
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 10.7
Processor (CPU) 1.0 GHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 2 GB
Video card (GPU) OpenGL 2.0 compatible
Linux
Minimum
Operating system (OS) Ubuntu, SteamOS
Processor (CPU) Intel 1.4 GHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 2 GB
Video card (GPU) OpenGL 2.0 compatible


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