Cryostasis

Cryostasis

Developers
	Action Forms
Publishers
Steam	1C Company
North America	Aspyr Media
Europe	505 Games
Japan	Zoo Corporation
Engines
	AtmosFear 4
Release dates
Windows	February 27, 2009
Reception
Metacritic	69
IGDB	65
Taxonomy
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Adventure, Shooter
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Arctic, Horror, Supernatural

Key points

Supports Hardware PhysX and allows for additional PhysX effects on Nvidia cards.

Badly optimized and has numerous problems with performance, even on systems with specs way above recommended ones.

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SecuROM 7 DRM disc check or StarForce 5 DRM.
GOG.com (unavailable)
Steam (unavailable)
Amazon.com (unavailable)		Digital download is no longer available. Retail version is still available.

Some retail versions can be played without needing the CD, once the initial DRM initialization is completed.^{[citation needed]}

North American retail version has no DRM.

This game is not available digitally anymore.

Free demo is still available here.

Essential improvements

Patch

Patch 1.1 can be downloaded here. Among other things, it enables PhysX and disables DRM.

Skip intro videos

Edit init.cfg
Go to <path-to-game>\Data\Scripts\ Open init.cfg with a text editor. Change r.showlogos 1 to r.showlogos 0 Save the changes.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\config.cfg
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/7850/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Data\Save\
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/7850/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

General settings.

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			Natively supports 16:9 and 16:10 resolutions such as 1920x1080 and 1680x1050.
Multi-monitor			If needed change @r.aspectratio = 1.600000 to the desired aspect ratio in config.cfg. Game is Vert- and FOV needs to be increased to compensate.
Ultra-widescreen			If needed change @r.aspectratio = 1.600000 to the desired aspect ratio in config.cfg. Game is Vert- and FOV needs to be increased to compensate.
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		Default FOV is 80°. See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed		Borderless only. See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		Enable Windowed and select the desktop resolution in-game.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Toggle On/Off
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Toggle On/Off
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		No frame rate or refresh rate cap. DirectX 10 (Shader Model 4.0) mode is switching the display to 60 Hz refresh.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Field of view (FOV)

Edit config files

Open these files with a text editor: <path-to-game>\Data\Scripts\init.cfg <path-to-game>\Data\Scripts\game\movie_proc.s <path-to-game>\Data\Areas\BIOS91\Scripts\startup.cfg Find the first instance of r.fov 80 and change 80 to the desired FOV in all three files. Save the changes. Notes Changing FOV can be tested in the console by modifying the r.fov cvar. The distance of the player camera can also be changed.

Windowed

Edit init.cfg[citation needed]
Go to <path-to-game>\Data\Scripts\ Open init.cfg with a text editor. Change r.windowed 0 to r.windowed 1 Save the changes. Notes Only works if using Shader Model 2.0 or 3.0 in-game. The window is locked to the top-left corner of the screen.

Input

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

Controller types

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Single volume slider
Surround sound		Up to 7.1 output
Subtitles		Located under "Game" settings
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support		EAX 5.0.

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Czech				Retail Only.
French
German				Retail Only.
Hungarian				Retail Only. Available to download.
Polish				Retail Only.
Italian				Retail Only.
Russian
Spanish

Issues fixed

Noclip bug

A common problem that is encountered after saving in certain places and then reloading from that save point is the player will suddenly start clipping through walls and be unable to progress normally.

Use console commands[citation needed]
Open the console with ~. Type in d.noclip=0 and press ↵ Enter. Type in d.fly=1 and press ↵ Enter.

"The program cannot start because PhysXLoader.dll is missing from your computer" error at launch

It provides no error message if launched from Steam. This error only appears on direct launch.

Install PhysX legacy
Install the NVIDIA PhysX Legacy System Software.

Advanced PhysX effects still not rendering ingame with legacy drivers

This is what I had to end up doing on my system :

1. Install legacy physx software https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/physx/physx-9-13-0604-legacy-driver/ 2. Install 'modern' physx https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/physx/physx-9-19-0218-driver/ 3. Choose your GPU as physx processor in Nvidia Control Panel. 4. Make sure you have shader model 4.0 selected and advanced effects turned on in the game's video settings

"Cryostasis Termination" error on startup

On startup, the game crashes directly to an error message stating "Effect::Load() failed. screen_00.fxo File not found".

Change Shader version in config file[citation needed]
Go to the installation folder. Open config.cfg in a text editor such as Notepad++. Change @r.shadermodel = 3 to @r.shadermodel = 4.

Black Screen on startup

On startup, the game is a black screen but has audio.

Change Resolution in the config file to your native resolution
Go to the installation folder. Open config.cfg in a text editor such as Notepad++. Change @v.sx = 800 to @v.sx = (x width). Change @v.sy = 600 to @v.sy = (y height).

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
vorpX		G3D User created game profile, see vorpx forum profile introduction.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9, 10
Shader Model support	2, 3, 4

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Enable the console

Edit init.cfg
Go to <path-to-game>\Data\Scripts\ Open init.cfg with a text editor. Change d.consoleh = 0 to d.consoleh = 1 Save the changes. Notes Console is opened with ~ in-game.

Change camera distance

Edit autoexec.cfg
Go to the installation folder. Open autoexec.cfg with a text editor. Add c.camdist # where # represents the distance of the player camera (default is 0). Save the changes. Notes Changing camera distance can be tested in the console by modifying the c.camdist cvar.

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Physics	PhysX

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	XP SP3	Vista SP1
Processor (CPU)	Intel Dual Core 2.0 GHz AMD Athlon 4000+	Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz AMD Athlon X2 5200+
System memory (RAM)	1 GB (XP) / 2 GB (Vista)	2 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	6.5 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 7600 AMD Radeon X1900	Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT AMD Radeon HD 3870