Dr. Brain: Action Reaction

Dr. Brain: Action Reaction

Developers
	Knowledge Adventure
Publishers
Retail	Sierra On-Line
	Knowledge Adventure
Digital	Jordan Freeman Group
Engines
	Unreal Engine 1
Release dates
Windows	August 19, 1999
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Action, FPS, Platform, Puzzle
Art styles	Stylized
Series	Dr. Brain

Dr. Brain
Castle of Dr. Brain	1991
The Island of Dr. Brain	1992
The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain	1995
The Time Warp of Dr. Brain	1996
Dr. Brain Thinking Games: Puzzle Madness	1998
Dr. Brain Thinking Games: IQ Adventure	1998
Dr. Brain: Action Reaction	1999

Dr. Brain: Action Reaction is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person action, FPS, platform and puzzle game in the Dr. Brain series.

General information

Official site - retrieved with Wayback machine from August 17, 2000.

OldUnreal Forums - Dr Brain Action Reaction Board

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
ZOOM Platform

Monetization

Type	Notes
One-time game purchase	The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

Microtransactions

Type	Notes
No microtransactions	None

Essential improvements

Patches

Unofficial

OldUnreal Multimedia Patch 0.99 for Unreal 224

• A huge patch, it adds support for modern Windows, bug fixes, extra video and audio renderers, and many other additions.

A list of new configuration settings can be found on this OldUnreal forums post.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/*.ini

SPORE.ini contains general settings.

User.ini contains camera FOV, mouse, keyboard/controller bindings and other settings.

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>/DBACTREA/Save

Video

Video Options

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor		See Widescreen resolution.
Ultra-widescreen		See Widescreen resolution.
4K Ultra HD		See Widescreen resolution.
Field of view (FOV)		90° by default. See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed		Toggle with Alt+↵ Enter, see Windowed. The window can only be freely resized with the OpenGL renderer, although the FOV has to be changed to accomodate for the resolution change, as it does not scale the FOV automatically. To prevent windowed mode from using the default software renderer, change the line WindowedRenderDevice=SoftDrv.SoftRenderDevice in <path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/SPORE.ini to: WindowedRenderDevice=D3D8Drv.D3D8RenderDevice for Direct3D 8 WindowedRenderDevice=D3D9Drv.D3D9RenderDevice for Direct3D 9 WindowedRenderDevice=OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice for OpenGL WindowedRenderDevice=GlideDrv.GlideRenderDevice for Glide
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Use the Direct3D8, Direct3D9 or OpenGL renderers, and set MaxAnisotropy with the preferences console command.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		For Glide, use nGlide and force via GPU control panel or use dgVoodoo 2. For the Direct3D8, Direct3D9 and OpenGL renderers, enable MSAA in <path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/SPORE.ini through the preferences console command, or force SGSSAA with Nvidia Profile Inspector.
High-fidelity upscaling		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		For Glide, use nGlide or dgVoodoo2, and force it in their respective configuration. For the Direct3D8, Direct3D9, and OpenGL renderers, it's always on; force it off on the GPU's control panel.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		Glide capped at 63 FPS. Game speeds up at high FPS. For the solution, see High frame rate.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.
Ray tracing (RT)

Texture filtering

nGlide's DirectX 9 wrapper does not use mipmapping, resulting in texture aliasing on distant textures. Force SGSSAA or use nGlide's Vulkan wrapper or the OldUnreal's Unreal 224 Multimedia Patch's OpenGL or D3D9 renderer instead. These can also force mipmapping by setting AutoGenerateMipmaps and AlwaysMipmap to True in <path-to-game>\SPORE.ini.

The OldUnreal's Unreal 224 Multimedia Patch's OpenGL and D3D9 renderers also allow disabling bilinear filtering by setting NoFiltering to True in <path-to-game>\DBACTREA\System\SPORE.ini.

Widescreen resolution

Custom resolutions can be set manually. Note that the image is Vert-, and FOV should be increased to achieve a Hor+ image.

It doesn't work for the Glide renderer, as it doesn't support widescreen resolutions. Even if such a resolution is inserted, the game defaults to one of the 4:3 resolutions present in the graphics settings.

High resolutions suffer from small HUD and texts. To fix it, see GUI scaling issues.

Set custom resolution in-game
While in game, open the console with Tab ↹. Enter setres XXXXxYYYY (for example setres 1920x1080).

Edit ini file
Launch the game at least once then close it. Open <path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/SPORE.ini. Go to the [WinDrv.WindowsClient] section. Set FullscreenViewportX and FullscreenViewportY to the desired resolution.

Field of view (FOV)

Set default FOV in-game

While in game, open the console with Tab ↹. Type fov x, where x is the desired FOV. Notes To maintain identical vertical FOV to the 4:3 FOV at 16:9 resolutions, use 106. At 21:9 resolutions, use 121. Besides a certain FOV value, the weapon isn't rendered. The command is required everytime a level is loaded, the camera changes its position or when a weapon is picked up. For a permanent solution, use the FOV fix.

Windowed

Edit ini file
Launch the game at least once then close it. Open <path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/SPORE.ini. Find the section [WinDrv.WindowsClient]. In that section, find an entry WindowedViewportX= and set its value to your desired window width. In that section, find an entry WindowedViewportY= and set its value to your desired window height. Set StartupFullscreen= to False to start the game in windowed mode.

High frame rate

Hex edit Engine.dll
Open <path-to-game>\DBACTREA\System\Engine.dll with a hex editor such as HxD. Press Ctrl+R and set Datatype to Hex-values. Search for 0AD7A33B and replace it with 00000000. Press Enter and save the file. Notes For a higher refreh rate, see Run the game at screen refresh rate.

Input

Control Options

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity		Minimum of 1 and maximum is infinite. For a more precise fine tuning, see Mouse sensitivity.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support		Set UseJoystick=True in <path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/SPORE.ini under [WinDrv.WindowsClient].
Full controller support
Controller remapping		Edit in <path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/User.ini.
Controller sensitivity		Edit in <path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/User.ini.
Controller Y-axis inversion		Edit in <path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/User.ini.

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers

PlayStation controllers

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Mouse sensitivity

Set custom sensitivity in-game
While in game, open the console with Tab ↹. Enter setsensitivity x (for example setsensitivity 5).

Edit ini file
Open <path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/User.ini. Change the line MouseSensitivity= to the desired value.

Audio

Audio Options

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		Game crashes on Alt+Tab.
Royalty free audio
Red Book CD audio		On Windows, CD music might not play correctly; see the troubleshooting guide for solutions.

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Notes
Local play
LAN play
Online play

Issues fixed

Heavy lag with the default Direct3D 7 and OpenGL renderers

Use custom renderers

Download OMP0.99-Unreal224.7z from here. From the file, extract D3D8Drv.dll, D3D8Drv.int, D3D9Drv.dll, D3D9Drv.int, OpenGLDrv.dll and OpenGLDrv.int to <path-to-game>\DBACTREA\System\. Open Edit in <path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/SPORE.ini. In the [Engine.Engine] section, change the line RenderDevice=D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice to: RenderDevice=D3D8Drv.D3D8RenderDevice for Direct3D 8 RenderDevice=D3D9Drv.D3D9RenderDevice for Direct3D 9 RenderDevice=OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice for OpenGL

Use the default Glide renderer

Open <path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/SPORE.ini. In the [Engine.Engine] section, change the line RenderDevice=D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice to RenderDevice=GlideDrv.GlideRenderDevice. Notes Glide does not support non-4:3/5:4 resolutions. Even if such a resolution is inserted manually, the game defaults to one of the resolutions present in the graphics settings. Only supports up to bilinear texture filtering, unlike Direct3D and OpenGL that support trilinear and anisotropic filtering as well. This means textures at a distance will be completely blurred without any detail on them.

Brightness slider not working

Use the enhanced renderers

Use dgVoodoo2

Use nGlide

Use DDrawCompat

GUI scaling issues

Use Peixoto's patch (OpenGL and Direct3D 7, 8 or 9)

Use nGlide (Glide only) or dgVoodoo2 (Direct3D or Glide)
Notes nGlide and dgVoodoo2 let the user set a separate rendering resolution for 3D elements, while 2D elements are upscaled from the application-reported resolution. Glide doesn't natively support widescreen resolutions.

No view bobbing

Edit ini file
Open <path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/User.ini. Change Bob=0.000000 to the desired value.

Mouse spinning uncontrollably with a forced resolution in dgVoodoo 2

Turn on Free mouse in dgVoodoo 2's control panel
Right click in any part of dgVoodooCpl.exe's window. Click in Show all sections of the configuration. Go to the GeneralExt tab and tick the box Free mouse. Click in Apply and OK.

Run the game at screen refresh rate

Set fullscreen refresh rate
Launch the game at least once then close it. Open <path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/SPORE.ini. Find the line RefreshRate=60. Change the value to set the monitor's refresh rate. For example, 120 or 144. Notes Modifying any video options will undo the custom refresh rate.

Music doesn't play from the CD

Use the ogg-winmm CD Audio Emulator
Make sure to have the CD inserted or mounted. Download the ogg-winmm CD Audio Emulator. From the downloaded ogg-winmm_binary.zip, extract all files to <path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/. There should be music playing in-game now.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	6	Direct3D 6 by default. To add in Direct3D 8 and 9 support, the unofficial OldUnreal Multimedia Patch 0.99 for Unreal 224 is required.
DirectDraw	2	Software renderer mode.Software renderer mode.
OpenGL		The OldUnreal Multimedia Patch 0.99 for Unreal 224 comes with an enhanced OpenGL renderer.
Glide	2
Software renderer

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	Galaxy Audio	Use the OldUnreal Multimedia Patch 0.99 for Unreal 224 for FMOD and OpenAL support.
Multiplayer	AdventureLink

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95, 98	98
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium II 266 MHz	Intel Pentium III 500 MHz
System memory (RAM)	32 MB	128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	100 MB	400 MB
Video card (GPU)		Voodoo 3 ATI Rage 128 Riva TNT
Sound (audio device)	Windows 95 compatible
Other	12x CD-ROM drive 28.8 Kbps modem and ISP account for Internet play	24x CD-ROM drive 56 Kbps modem and ISP account for Internet play