Anonymous edits have been disabled on the wiki. If you want to contribute please login or create an account.


Warning for game developers: PCGamingWiki staff members will only ever reach out to you using the official press@pcgamingwiki.com mail address.
Be aware of scammers claiming to be representatives or affiliates of PCGamingWiki who promise a PCGW page for a game key.

The Punisher (2005)

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
The Punisher
The Punisher cover
Developers
Volition
Publishers
THQ
Russobit-M
Engines
CTG[1]
Release dates
Windows January 18, 2005[2]
Reception
Metacritic 67
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Action, Shooter, TPS
Art styles Realistic, Comic book
Themes Contemporary, North America
Series The Punisher
The Punisher (2005) on HowLongToBeat
The Punisher (2005) on IGDB
The Punisher (2005) guide on StrategyWiki
The Punisher (2005) on MobyGames
The Punisher (2005) on Wikipedia
The Punisher
Subseries of Marvel
The Punisher 1990
The Punisher (2005) 2005

The Punisher is a singleplayer TPS game developed by Volition and published by THQ.

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
SecuROM 5 DRM disc check
Windows
A demo is available.

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Skip intro videos[citation needed]
  1. Install The Punisher Widescreen Fix.
  2. Open ThePunisher.WidescreenFix.ini with a text editor.
  3. Change SkipIntro = 0 to SkipIntro = 1.

PunisherPlugin

Removes "black and white" filter from interrogations.
Optionally disable score penalties for executing enemies.
Optionally enable dual wielding every weapon.
Supported pun.exe size: 2 605 056 bytes.

Debug Menu

Enables various debug options.
Change player model, enable infinite health/ammo, freecam mode, etc.

The Punisher Gore Patch

Removes "black and white" filter from interrogations.
Restores unfinished blood effects on faces and a few quick kill animations.
Compatible with PunisherPlugin if using pun.exe instead of The Punisher No Black & White Effects.exe; this is recommended because it allows skipping the trainer included in the "gore patch" to disable the black & white filter.
Compatible with both US and UK versions of the game. All European versions of the game are compatible with the UK version of the patch.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

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

Save game data location

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

Video

Widescreen resolution

Use The Punisher Widescreen Fix[citation needed]
To change the FOV, open ThePunisher.WidescreenFix.ini and increase the FOVFactor value.
To run in windowed mode, create wndmode.ini in the installation folder.
To change the FPS limit, open d3d8.ini and modify the FPSLimit value.
Some elements like HUDs and menus could look very tiny in high resolutions.
Some elements may overlap.

Input

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Effects, Music, Voice.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
Italian
Polish
Local retail only.
Brazilian Portuguese
Fan translation.
Russian
Spanish

Issues fixed

Interrogations and aiming issues

Use ThirteenAG's fix
Limit the Framerate to 60 FPS[citation needed]
Use d3d8to9 wrapper[citation needed]
Use this method only if not already using ThirteenAG's fix and do not intend to play the game in widescreen.
  1. Download d3d8.dll.
  2. Copy it to <path-to-game>.
  3. Set monitor refresh rate to 60 Hz.

Fixing "blurred" graphics

Do this steps before opening the game:
  1. Open regedit.exe.
  2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0000\UMD\.
  3. Find the value PixelCenter.
  4. Change 30 00 00 00 to 31 00 00 00.
  5. After closing the game, change PixelCenter back to 30 00 00 00.

Notes

This method also helps in other games with blurred graphics, like in The Matrix: Path of Neo.
This method was tested on AMD videocards (maybe it will also work on NVIDIA videocards).

Incorrect black levels

Black level correction with ReShade[citation needed]
  1. Download and install dgVoodoo 2 for this game.
  2. Download the latest version of ReShade and run the ReShade Setup program.
  3. Click Select game, then select pun.exe found in <path-to-game>.
  4. Delete d3d9.dll.
  5. Select Direct3D 9 as the rendering API.
  6. Allow to download shaders/effects, click "uncheck all" and select only Levels.fx.
  7. Run the game, press Home/Pos1 to enter the configuration menu and follow the tutorial to create a new config.
  8. Enable Levels.fx and change the range to 15-255.
  9. In the Settings tab, under Usage Mode select Performance Mode.
  10. Press Home/Pos1 to exit the configuration menu.

Greenish smoke/fog, rough color transitions, visual artifacts during closed captions

Use dgVoodoo 2

Stuttering on HDD

Disable APM[3]

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 8.1
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

System requirements

Windows[4]
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98 SE, ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium III 1.0 GHz
AMD Athlon XP 1.0 GHz
System memory (RAM) 128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 2 GB
Video card (GPU) 64 MB of VRAM
DirectX 8.1 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

  1. Volition on X - last accessed on 2023-10-19
    "All of our games run on our own engine that we developed in-house."
  2. The Punishing Begins - IGN - last accessed on 2023-06-02
  3. Stuttering on secondary HD - Tom's Hardware - last accessed on May 9, 2014
  4. The Punisher back cover - last accessed on 2023-10-19