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Evil Genius

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Evil Genius
Evil Genius cover
Developers
Elixir Studios
Publishers
2004-2008 Sierra Entertainment
2008-present Rebellion Developments
Release dates
Windows September 28, 2004
macOS (OS X) May 9, 2013[1]
Reception
Metacritic 75
IGDB 83
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view
Controls Point and select
Genres Building, RTS
Themes Comedy, Contemporary
Series Evil Genius
Evil Genius on HowLongToBeat
Evil Genius on IGDB
Evil Genius guide on StrategyWiki
Evil Genius on MobyGames
Evil Genius on Wikipedia
Evil Genius
Evil Genius 2004
Evil Genius 2: World Domination 2021

Evil Genius is a singleplayer bird's-eye view building and RTS game in the Evil Genius series.

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions
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)
SecuROM 5 DRM.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
GamersGate
Icon overlay.png
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Mac version is available once added to your library despite the store page showing Windows only and not Mac (except for a small Mac notice under the system requirements section).
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Green Man Gaming
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows
ZOOM Platform
DRM-free
Windows
Developer website (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
Windows
A free demo version is available from SierraHelp.

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Skip Intro[2]
  1. Go to the configuration files location.
  2. Open concept.cfg with a text editor.
  3. Find the following lines and set them to these values.
StartupState=1
CopyrightScreenDuration=0

Patches

PCGamingWiki Patch

Contains all the official fixes and most tweaks, new fixes, along with the extra bonus content.

Official 1.01

The official patch for the game released by Elixir Studios.

Game data

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

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\DynamicResources\Config[Note 1]
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/3720/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\DynamicResources\Layouts\[Note 1]
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/3720/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

In-game general video settings.
In-game general video settings.
In-game advanced video settings.
In-game advanced video settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
See Widescreen resolution.
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
See Widescreen resolution.
Field of view (FOV)
Change the Max Camera Height. See Custom camera height.
Windowed
See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Fixes Alt+Tab crashes. When out of focus the game will appear as paused.
See Borderless fullscreen windowed.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
No FPS cap. Performance hits are to be expected with more entities.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Widescreen resolution

Widescreen resolution[citation needed]
  1. Download the Universal Resolution Changer and extract it to <path-to-game>\ReleaseExe
  2. Open resolution.ini and set the desired values.

Notes:

A "Elixir App D3D: Genreic App Error" message may be shown on initial start-up when editing resolutions higher than 1920*1080, preventing the game from starting. This is caused by Discord, close Discord and restart the game. Discord can be opened again after the game has reached the title screen and this error disappears after first start-up and Discord can be freely used without closing it first on subsequent start-ups.[citation needed]

Windowed

Through the resolution changer[citation needed]
  1. Download the Universal Resolution Changer and extract it to <path-to-game>\ReleaseExe
  2. Open resolution.ini and look for the line Windowed, then change it to Windowed=1

Input

In-game general control settings.
In-game general control settings.
In-game key map settings.
In-game key map settings.

Audio

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

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Up to 7.1 output.[3]
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support
EAX 4
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
See Enabling speech on the German version.
Italian
Spanish

Issues fixed

Corrupt main menu screen and missing audio

This is caused by the Windows region format setting being set to English (UK).

Crash when pushing the research button

Instructions[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\DynamicResources\Layouts\
  2. Open the desired save game with a text editor.
  3. Push Ctrl+H and in the Find field, type ResearchSubject=0 and in the Replace with field, type ResearchSubject=12008.
  4. Click on the Replace button.
  5. Launch the game and load the desired save game, then open the research screen and click on the door icon, located at the top.
  6. Cancel the door research by clicking on the red icon.

Enabling speech on the German version

Instructions[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration files location.
  2. Open concept.cfg.
  3. Find the following lines and set them to these values or add them if they are missing.
[Sound]
PlayFeedback=true 
PlayNewsflashes=true

The Direct3D device has a non-zero reference

Deleteting configuration file[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration files location.
  2. Delete Current.opt.
  3. Follow the Widescreen resolution instructions in order to set up a custom resolution.

Generic Application Error

Install the DirectX 9.0c end-user runtime[citation needed]

Missing grass (Windows 8)

Run the game in compatibility mode for Windows Vista.[citation needed]

Playtime not being tracked (Steam)

By default, Steam only counts time while the game's launcher is active. To fix this, configure Steam to launch the actual game executable instead. Note time will nonetheless only be counted in fullscreen mode.
Name[citation needed]
  1. Open the Steam Properties of the game Evil Genius (right-clicking the icon is a common method to access the Properties).
  2. Under Launch Options, enter the following line, but adapt if the game's actual file location is different:
/c "C:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Evil Genius\ReleaseExe\EvilGeniusExeStub-Release.exe"

Other information

Enabling the developer console

Instructions[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration files location.
  2. Open Default.ksb and Current.ksb with a text editor.
  3. Add the following line near the end of the file, before the three hypens.
ToggleDebugCommands:Ctrl+D

Notes

While playing push Ctrl+D once, then press ~ or \ to open the console.

Increased Camera Zoom

Instructions[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration files location.
  2. Open concept.cfg with a text editor.
  3. Find the following line and set it to this value.
[GameCamera]
MaxHeight=65.0

Changing the default Debug.log location

By default on Windows this file is created into the main drive.
Instructions[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration files location.
  2. Open concept.cfg.
  3. Find the following line, then set it to the desired path.
Debug output log file=YourPath

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0b
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98SE
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium III 800 MHz
System memory (RAM) 128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 1.4 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 2
16 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0b 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).
  2. 2.0 2.1 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>/3720/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (3720) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

  1. Mac Game Update: 10 New Classic Additions - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023
  2. Intro Skip Instructions - last accessed on May 2023
  3. World Dominating Audio in Evil Genius - SoundBlaster - last accessed on May 2023