Balls of Steel

Balls of Steel
Balls of Steel	1997
Balls of Steel (2024)	2024

Balls of Steel is a singleplayer and multiplayer top-down view pinball game in the Balls of Steel series.

This version includes five tables: Barbarian, Darkside, Duke Nukem, Firestorm and Mutation.

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Pinball Maniac entry

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
GOG.com (unavailable)
Steam (unavailable)

No longer sold digitally due to licensing issues.^[2]

Essential improvements

The following improvements are meant only for the retail version, not the digital ones.

Patches

Patches are available to fix various issues. An unofficial v1.3c is also available.

BOS Loader

Adds windowed mode, bilinear filtering and Direct3D renderer.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wildfire Studios\Balls of Steel^{[Note 1]}
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/358430/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wildfire Studios\Balls of Steel\High scores^{[Note 1]}
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/358430/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

General settings

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		Toggle with `Alt`+`↵ Enter` or `F`. Easily resizable by dragging borders.
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
120+ FPS
Color blind mode		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Keyboard and mouse prompts
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Players	Notes
Local play	4	Hot seat
LAN play
Online play

Issues fixed

StickyKeys keeps re-enabling

Rebind the keys or replace the launcher the inside installation folder^[3]
Download the replacement launcher from PCGamingWiki repository and replace the old one inside the installation folder. Otherwise flippers can be rebound to other keys.

Slowdown in Scrolling table view

Run in Windows XP compatibility mode^[4]
Right-click the shortcut for the game, choose Properties and then Compatibility tab. Change Compatibility Mode to Windows XP SP3.

Load bos.exe inside the installation folder^{[citation needed]}
If you still experience the problem, load bos.exe inside the installation folder instead.

Game won't run on Steam Deck

Use dgVoodoo2^[5]

Download the latest version of dgVoodoo 2 and extract the archive.
Open the MS\x86 folder and copy D3D8.dll, D3DImm.dll, DDraw.dll, and D3D9.dll files.
Paste the files into the game installation folder where the executable is.
Add the following command line argument WINEDLLOVERRIDES='ddraw.dll=n' %command%
Optional: Run the included dgVoodooCpl.exe program in the game installation folder and configure the settings.

Other information

API

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)

System requirements

Retail version

Windows
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	95
Processor (CPU)	Pentium
System memory (RAM)	16 MB
Storage drive (HDD/SSD)
Video card (GPU)	VESA compatible SVGA display card 1 MB of VRAM
Sound (audio device)	Windows-compatible soundcard
Other	CD-ROM drive

Digital version

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	XP, Vista, 7, 8
Processor (CPU)	1.8 GHz
System memory (RAM)	512 MB	1 GB
Storage drive (HDD/SSD)	100 MB
Video card (GPU)	DirectX 7 compatible	DirectX 9 compatible

Notes

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 Applications writing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE will be redirected to other locations based on various criterias, see the glossary page for more details.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1
Notes regarding Steam Play (Linux) data:
- File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data.
- Use Wine's registry editor to access any Windows registry paths.
- The app ID (358430) may differ in some cases.
- Treat backslashes as forward slashes.
- See the glossary page for details on Windows data paths.

References

↑ News - Now Available on Steam - 3D Realms Anthology, 25% off! - last accessed on May 2023
↑ Farewell For Now, Duke + Last chance to get Dragonsphere free - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023
↑ GOG.com support - Default controls and Windows 'Sticky Keys' - last accessed on May 2023
↑ GOG.com forums - Game slows down in scrolling view sometimes - last accessed on May 2023
↑ SteamCommunity.com - Steam deck? :: Balls of Steel General Discussion - last accessed on 2023-04-05

[HKLM-3] 1.0 ^1.1 Applications writing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE will be redirected to other locations based on various criterias, see the glossary page for more details.

[Proton_path_note-4] 2.0 ^2.1 Notes regarding Steam Play (Linux) data:
File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data.
Use Wine's registry editor to access any Windows registry paths.
The app ID (358430) may differ in some cases.
Treat backslashes as forward slashes.
See the glossary page for details on Windows data paths.

[3] File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data.

[4] Use Wine's registry editor to access any Windows registry paths.

[5] The app ID (358430) may differ in some cases.

[6] Treat backslashes as forward slashes.

[7] See the glossary page for details on Windows data paths.

[1] News - Now Available on Steam - 3D Realms Anthology, 25% off! - last accessed on May 2023

[2] Farewell For Now, Duke + Last chance to get Dragonsphere free - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023

[5] GOG.com support - Default controls and Windows 'Sticky Keys' - last accessed on May 2023

[6] GOG.com forums - Game slows down in scrolling view sometimes - last accessed on May 2023

[7] SteamCommunity.com - Steam deck? :: Balls of Steel General Discussion - last accessed on 2023-04-05

[1]

[2]

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

Developers

	Wildfire Studios
Publishers
	GT Interactive
	3D Realms
Release dates
Windows	December 12, 1997
macOS (OS X)	May 5, 2015^[1]
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Perspectives	Top-down view
Genres	Pinball
Series	Balls of Steel