Mega Man X8

Mega Man X8

Developers
	Capcom
Release dates
Windows	March 10, 2005
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Scrolling, Side view, Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Action, Platform
Vehicles	Hovercraft, Robot
Art styles	Anime
Themes	Sci-fi
Series	Mega Man X

Mega Man X8 (also known as Rockman X8 in Japan) is a sci-fi anime action platform game developed by Capcom Production Studio 1 and published by Capcom. It is the eighth mainline installment in the Mega Man X series, which returns to the series its roots of 2D side view-scrolling run-and-gun gameplay after Mega Man X7 was panned by critics and players alike for its awkward transition into 3D.

The game was originally released for the PlayStation 2 on December 7, 2004 in North America before it was later released in Europe on February 11, 2005, and in Japan on March 10, 2005. The PC version was also released in Japan the same day the PlayStation 2 version was released, and unlike the PC port of Rockman X7, the PC port of Mega Man X8 was developed in-house, featuring support for higher resolutions, enhanced 3D audio, and some other improvements and bugfixes compared to the North American PlayStation 2 release. It is, however, limited in terms of video settings and only supports 4:3 resolutions. The PC version was also not released physically in North America.

The PlayStation 2 version served as the basis for the port of Mega Man X8 featured in Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2.

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SecuROM 5 DRM.

Some releases of the game are sold on one or two discs in certain regions. The two-disc versions supports multiple languages whereas the single-disc versions does not.

Demos

A demo is available here. The demo only supports English and Japanese.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\systemdata.wss

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\gamedata.wss

Five save slots are available.

Video

Video settings.

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			4:3 resolutions only with the exception of 1280x1024. See the WSGF entry for widescreen hacks, however, hacking non-4:3 resolutions causes visual glitches and other side-effects. Use Increase rendering resolution.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD			See Increase rendering resolution.
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed		Use dgVoodoo 2.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Can be through the GPU's control panel or dgVoodoo 2.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Can be through the GPU's control panel. For SGSSAA, see Anti-aliasing (AA).
High-fidelity upscaling		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS
120+ FPS		Framerate is capped at 60 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Increase rendering resolution

Use dgVoodoo 2

Download the latest stable release of dgVoodoo 2 here, then extract the contents of dgVoodoo2_*.zip to its own folder in a convenient in the computer (e.g. Documents). Run the dgVoodooCpl.exe, then configure the following settings from the General tab: Adapter(s) to use/enable: <video card> Output API: Set to Best available one Scaling mode: Set to Stretched, 4:3 Aspect Ratio Miscellaneous: Check Keep window aspect ratio Now go to the DirectX tab and configure the following settings: Videocard: dgVoodoo 3D Accelerated Card Filtering: Set to either App driven, Force bilinear, Force trilinear, or Force anisotropic 2x-16x Resolution: Set to either Unforced (use the game's default resolution) or Max (use the system's highest native resolution) Behavior: Check Application controlled fullscreen/windowed state, uncheck Disable Alt-Enter to toggle screens state (Alt+↵ Enter is not used by this game) Antialiasing (MSAA): Set to either App driven or x2-x8. Miscellaneous: Uncheck dgVoodoo Watermark (Optional) Right-click the dgVoodoo 2 banner and click the Show all sections of the configuration, go to the GeneralEx tab, and from the Fullscreen mode attributes section check Fake to enable borderless fullscreen windowed. Click Apply and dgVoodoo 2 should save the configuration file to where it was installed by default, then copy the dgVoodoo.conf to <path-to-game>. Alternatively, click the Add button and point the program to where the game is installed to save it there. Go into the MS/x86 folder from where dgVoodoo 2 is installed, then copy the D3D8.dll file to <path-to-game>. Launch the game. The game should now render in a higher resolution.

Anti-aliasing (AA)

SGSSAA significantly improve the overall image clarity moreso than dgVoodoo2.

Forced anti-aliasing via GPU control panel is incompatible with Direct3D wrappers such as dgVoodoo2 or d3d8to9 in Fullscreen mode for this game.

Force SGSSAA via Nvidia Profile Inspector

Download and run Nvidia Profile Inspector. Create a game profile for Mega Man X8 in Nvidia Profile Inspector by following these instructions. Set Antialiasing Compatibility to 0x080100C1. Set Antialiasing Behavior Flags to Override any application settings. Set Antialiasing Setting to Multisampling (2x, 4x, 8x). Set Antialiasing Transparency Supersampling to Sparse Grid Supersampling to the corresponding MSAA value. Click Apply changes to save the settings.

Input

Key remapping.

Controller remapping.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		Player movement keys are bound to ↑↓←→, answering navigator calls is bound to Space ␣, and menu keys are bound to ↵ Enter and Esc, which cannot be remapped.
Mouse acceleration		Mouse is not used in gameplay.
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support		Uses DirectInput.
Full controller support		Remapping controller bindings requires pressing Tab ↹ to switch between keyboard and controller inputs in the Controls settings.
Controller remapping		Player movement is bound to the left stick and cannot be remapped. Confirm is also bound to the Dash button and Cancel is bound to the Jump button.
Controller sensitivity		Digital movement.
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers		The game does not work D-pad or analog triggers due to using DirectInput. See Controller support for a workaround.
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration

PlayStation controllers		Recognized as a generic DirectInput controller. D-pad, however, is not supported.
PlayStation button prompts
Light bar support
Adaptive trigger support
DualSense haptic feedback support
Connection modes	Wired V2 tested.

Generic/other controllers
Button prompts		Buttons are referenced by number in the Controls screen, while in-game keyboard prompts are only shown.

Additional information
Controller hotplugging		See Controller support for hotplugging support.
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Controller support

Xidi and Hookshot can translate XInput calls into DirectInput, haptic feedback support, and enable controller hotplugging for this game.

Xidi only supports Windows 10 and 11.

Launch the game by using Xidi and Hookshot

Ensure that Visual C++ Runtime for Visual Studio 2019 (x86 and/or x64) is installed. Download the latest versions of Xidi and Hookshot, then extract their respective folders to a convenient location in the computer (e.g. Documents). Go into the Xidi-*\Win32 folder, then copy and paste the dinput8.dll and Xidi.HookModule.32.dll files into <path-to-game> where the game's executable is located. Go into the Hookshot-* folder, then copy and paste the Hookshot.32.exe and Hookshot.32.dll files into <path-to-game>. Create a blank text file by right-clicking an empty space in File Explorer → New → Text Document, rename this text file as either MEGAMANX8.exe.hookshot (international versions) or ROCKMANX8.exe.hookshot (Asian, Chinese, and Korean versions), and then place this file into <path-to-game>. Create another blank text file but this time rename this file as Xidi.ini, open the Xidi.ini file with a text editor, then paste the following configurations into its contents, and save the file (File → Save or Ctrl+S): Xidi.ini configuration for Mega Man X8: [Mapper] Type = MegaManX8 [CustomMapper:MegaManX8] Template = DigitalGamepad ; A / B / X / Y buttons ButtonA = Button(3) ButtonB = Button(4) ButtonX = Button(1) ButtonY = Button(2) ; Start / Back buttons ButtonBack = Button(11) ButtonStart = Button(12) ; LS / RS buttons ButtonLS = Button(9) ButtonRS = Button(10) ; PS2 stick weapon selection StickRightX = Split( Button(6), Button(5) ) Launch the game through Hookshot.32.exe with the command line argument using the full name of the game's *.exe. Reset the game's controller bindings from the in-game options menu and rebind the controls. The game should now be able to register the D-pad and triggers on an XInput controller.

Audio

Audio settings.

Localization settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		BGM, SE.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		Game pauses when out of focus.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language selected during installation changes the options available in-game.

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Traditional Chinese
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Russian				Fan translation by «DK team»
Spanish

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	8.1
Shader Model support	1.4

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	DirectSound3D	May require DirectSound 3D restoration software.

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	98	ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium III 1.0 GHz AMD Athlon 1.0 GHz	Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz AMD Athlon XP 2000+
System memory (RAM)	128 MB	256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	1 GB	1.6 GB
Video card (GPU)	64 MB of VRAM DirectX 8.1 compatible	128 MB of VRAM