Blade of Darkness

Blade of Darkness

Developers
	Rebel Act Studios
2021 rerelease	Fire Falcom
2021 rerelease	General Arcade
Publishers
	Codemasters
2021 rerelease	SNEG
Engines
	Blade
Release dates
Windows	February 21, 2001
Reception
Metacritic	75

Key points

Released as Blade: The Edge of Darkness in Spain, Severance: Blade of Darkness in Europe and as Blade of Darkness in North America.

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
GOG.com		Includes Legacy Version
Steam		Includes Legacy Version

Essential improvements

Patches (2001 Version)

1.001 is the only patch. It is highly recommended. Already included in the GOG version.

Skip intro videos

Instructions
Go to <path-to-game>\Data Rename, move or delete the following folder: video

Improve D3d and Glide(3DFX) compatibility (2001 version)

The game usually runs quite well on modern systems in (D3D) but it has problems such as crashes randoms and problems with the letters of the game, but with Dgvoodoo2 all these problems can be fixed and also give it compatibility with glide (not use nglide since the game crashes if you use nglide it is better to use dgvoodo2 for glide as well).

Install the game. Download dgVoodoo2. After unpacking it, copy dgVoodooCpl.exe and dgVoodoo.conf to the <path-to-game>\Bin folder. Copy the four files from dgVoodoo2\MS\x86 (D3D8.dll, D3D9.dll, D3DImm.dll and DDraw.dll) to the Bin folder as well. Override if prompted. Copy the four files from dgVoodoo2\3DFX\x86 (Glide.dll, Glide2x.dll, Glide3x.dll ) to the Bin folder as well. Override if prompted. Execute dgVoodooCpl.exe in the Bin folder. This opens the dgVoodoo menu. Here, you can set your custom settings for the game. Click on the symbol on the top right (.\) to set this location as running instance. Now you can launch the game from the Blade.exe (under Bin). If it has problems, run it in Compatibility Mode for Windows Vista (no Service Pack). In the launch menu, select Setup. Under Video, select D3d or 3DFXVoodoo 1-2. Click Configure. Here, you can set a resolution. Now you can play the game.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Config
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1710170/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Save
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1710170/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			2021 rerelease support widescreen resolutions.For 2001 version isStretched. See the WSGF report for a solution.
Multi-monitor			See the WSGF report for a solution.
Ultra-widescreen			See the WSGF report for a solution.
4K Ultra HD			2021 rerelease support 4k resolutions .For 2001 version is 2048x1536 is the highest supported resolution
Field of view (FOV)		Camera can be zoomed in/out in 3 presets
Windowed		Available only for some renderers
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		2021 rerelease support antialiasing
Vertical sync (Vsync)		2021 rerelease support vsync option. In 2001 version vsync Enable by default in D3D Mode
60 FPS		2021 rerelease support custom framelimit
120+ FPS		See Mouse behaves erratically or Camera/view moves choppily and unpredictably and Cutscenes get out of sync.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		Up to 3 possible binds per action
Mouse acceleration		No mouse acceleration present
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Music and sound effects
Surround sound		Up to 7.0 with Creative ALchemy. Up to 7.1 in 2021 rerelease.
Subtitles		Can not be disabled
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support		A3D 1.0 and EAX 2

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Russian
Spanish

Issues fixed

2001 Version

Note that this game uses very problematic rendering methods.

To bypass most common issues it is highly advised to use dgVoodoo 2.

Instructions
Install dgVoodoo (for Direct3D). Choose D3d in the game's configuration setup. Optionally choose Miles Fast 2D Positional Audio if other audio options cause issues.

Cursor is missing/Black text

Generally caused by using Direct3D for output with modern graphics hardware.

Use dgVoodoo 2.

Alternatively use rOpenGL or 3dfx for video output.

Crash on launch

This is usually caused by video codec issues such as installed third party codec packs and the error for this is often MEM_RESIZE_FAILED.

Prevent the intro from playing. See Skip Intro Movies.

Alternatively convert the .mpg videos in the "video" directory and subdirectories to raw .avi while retaining the name to retain playback capability.[citation needed]

Crash after introduction video

The game doesn't properly handle failure states for when DirectPlay is not installed. Not having DirectPlay also significantly slows down the opening of the initial game launcher as well.

Install DirectPlay[citation needed]

Blank screen when using rOpenGL for video output

Alt-Tab out of the application then go back to it[citation needed]

Mouse behaves erratically or Camera/view moves choppily and unpredictably and Cutscenes get out of sync.

This generally happens using rOpenGL for video output.

The mouse-camera control granularity is linked somehow to the framerate. Higher framerates lead to smoother and slower mouse-camera control. Lower framerates lead to choppy control that is "quantized", too fast and jumpy. I've encountered such problems on both old and new hardware. Besides framerate, part of the problem seems to be related to the audio renderer, of all things.

At high fps some cutscenes don't play properly, which can be a problem if they are the ones you can't skip.

Use D3D or Glide (3DFX)and set refresh rate on 60hz.See Improve D3d and Glide(3DFX) compatibility.[citation needed]

Game runs too fast

This typically happens in videos modes other than 3dfx and is due to the game not handling multiple processors properly.

Lock the game to a single processor[citation needed]
A popular way to automate this process is to create a .bat file, go to the game app's directory (using the cd command), then use either StartAffinity Blade.exe 0 or psexec -a 0 Blade.exe

Saving Game Causes CTD (Crash to Desktop)

Just as you select "yes" to save a game the screenshot is taken for the load/save menu and the game CTD's. Loading the game again loads an old game that was saved in that slot previously, not the game you tried to save.

When saving wait about 10 seconds before hitting the final "yes" to confirm. (allow the reverberating menu selection sound to stop playing completely). Alternatively use Quicksave mod

Fog is too dense using rOpenGL

Use modified OpenGL raster.

Game doesn't lauch on modern systems

Run in compatibility mode for Windows Vista (no Service Pack)

Game crashes during level loading screens (3DFX)

This typically happens with 3dfx video renderer and user Nglide wrapper.

Use Dgvoodoo2.[citation needed]

Broken textures and visual artifacts

If textures appear black, stretched or otherwise broken, and you get visual artifacts like strange colors around light sources, then your Renderer has problems.

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
vorpX		Z3D User created profile, requires DGVoodoo2 v 2.6, see profile introdution. Note: Profile may not work with the latest wrapper, in case of issues please report to the vorpx forum.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	8, 11	DirectX 11 2021 rerelease
OpenGL

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows			64bits in 2021 rerelease

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	Miles Sound System, SoLoud (2021 rerelease)	6.0i

System requirements (2001 Version)

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95 OSR2	98, ME, 2000
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium II 400 MHz	Intel Pentium III 500 MHz
System memory (RAM)	64 MB	128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	750 MB
Video card (GPU)	8 MB of VRAM DirectX 8.0 compatible	32 MB of VRAM DirectX 8.0 compatible

System requirements (2021 Rerelease)

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	Windows 7, 8.1, 10	Windows 7, 8.1, 10
Processor (CPU)	Dual Core 2Ghz Processor	Intel Core i5 / AMD Ryzen 5 Processor
System memory (RAM)	4 GB RAM
Hard disk drive (HDD)	3 GB
Video card (GPU)	DirectX 11 compatible	DirectX 11 compatible

Troubleshooting (2001 Version)

Performance issues

If you are experiencing low frame rates, then we suggest that you change the resolution in the setup to 640x480x16, texture detail should then be set to LOW and the then the mip-mapping can be turned off. If you are still experiencing low frame rates, shadows and gore can be turned off from the in-game options menu. Turning the sound device to Miles fast 2D positional audio in setup and the sound quality to low in-game will also improve frame rate by about 10%.
If you encounter any problems, please ensure that you have the latest drivers installed for your card. These should be obtained from the card or chipset manufacturer.
If you increase the settings of your display options and experience decreased performance and have the latest drivers, we recommend setting your Display options back to their defaults.

Supported 3D chipsets

3dfx Voodoo 2, Voodoo Banshee, Voodoo3, Voodoo4, Voodoo5
3D labs Permedia 3
ATI Rage 128, Radeon
Matrox G200, G400
Intel i740
Nvidia Riva TNT, Riva TNT2, GeForce 256, GeForce 2
S3 Savage3D, Savage 4, Savage2000

Card issues

3DFX Voodoo Banshee and Voodoo 3

The 3DFX Banshee and VooDoo 3 have problems displaying partical effects. This is noticeable in game when water effects are on screen.

All Matrox cards

If you are experiencing problems with the game e.g. random crashes or textural errors then it is advisable to use the 5.52 drivers from the matrox site.

S3 Savage 2000

If you are experiencing problems then it is recommended that the ViperII-win9x-95103 drivers be used. Resolutions above 1152x864 should not be used.

Please note

- Windows 2000's control panel uninstaller should not be used as this will leave game save files on the hard disk.

Swap file

We recommend that the user has at least 250mb free hard disk space after installation. Severance should perform fine with less than 250mb free, in order to gain maximum performance from this product a larger swap file will be beneficial. Close down any applications before running.

Direct X

If you try to run the game without DirectX8 installed, Severance may not run correctly.