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Difference between revisions of "Dr. Brain: Action Reaction"

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|color blind notes          =  
 
|color blind notes          =  
 
}}
 
}}
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====Texture filtering====
 +
{{ii}} 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 [https://www.oldunreal.com/patch/unreal/omp/OMP0.99-Unreal224.7z OldUnreal's Unreal 224 Multimedia Patch's] OpenGL or D3D9 renderer instead. These can also force mipmapping by setting {{code|AutoGenerateMipmaps}} and {{code|AlwaysMipmap}} to True in {{file|{{p|game}}\SPORE.ini}}.
 +
{{ii}} The [https://www.oldunreal.com/patch/unreal/omp/OMP0.99-Unreal224.7z OldUnreal's Unreal 224 Multimedia Patch's] OpenGL and D3D9 renderers also allow disabling bilinear filtering by setting {{code|NoFiltering}} to True in {{file|{{p|game}}\SPORE.ini}}.
  
 
===[[Glossary:Widescreen resolution|Widescreen resolution]]===
 
===[[Glossary:Widescreen resolution|Widescreen resolution]]===
 
{{ii}} Custom resolutions can be set manually. Note that the image is {{term|Vert-}}, and FOV should be increased to achieve a {{term|Hor+}} image.
 
{{ii}} Custom resolutions can be set manually. Note that the image is {{term|Vert-}}, and FOV should be increased to achieve a {{term|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.
 
{{--}} 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|GUI scaling issues]].
  
 
{{Fixbox|description=Set custom resolution in-game|ref=<ref name="AlphaYellow_01122023">{{Refcheck|user=AlphaYellow|date=2023-12-01}}</ref>|fix=
 
{{Fixbox|description=Set custom resolution in-game|ref=<ref name="AlphaYellow_01122023">{{Refcheck|user=AlphaYellow|date=2023-12-01}}</ref>|fix=
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{{Fixbox|description=Use [https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat DDrawCompat].|ref=<ref>{{Refurl|url=https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat|title=GitHub|date=December 2023}}</ref>|fix=}}
 
{{Fixbox|description=Use [https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat DDrawCompat].|ref=<ref>{{Refurl|url=https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat|title=GitHub|date=December 2023}}</ref>|fix=}}
 +
 +
===GUI scaling issues===
 +
{{Fixbox|description=Use [https://www.patreon.com/user?u=44312848 Peixoto's patch] (OpenGL and Direct3D 7, 8 or 9)|ref=<ref name="AlphaYellow_05122023"/>|fix=
 +
}}
 +
{{Fixbox|description=Use [[Glossary:Graphics card#Glide Emulation|nGlide]] (Glide only) or [[DgVoodoo_2|dgVoodoo2]] (Direct3D or Glide)|ref=<ref name="AlphaYellow_05122023"/>|fix=
 +
{{ii}} 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.
 +
}}
  
 
==Other information==
 
==Other information==

Revision as of 12:16, 5 December 2023

Dr. Brain: Action Reaction
Dr. Brain: Action Reaction cover
Developers
Knowledge Adventure
Publishers
Retail Sierra On-Line
Knowledge Adventure
Digital Jordan Freeman Group
Engines
Unreal Engine 1
Release dates
Windows 1999
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives First-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Action, FPS, Puzzle
Art styles Stylized
Series Dr. Brain
Dr. Brain: Action Reaction on IGDB
Dr. Brain: Action Reaction guide on StrategyWiki
Dr. Brain: Action Reaction on MobyGames
Dr. Brain: Action Reaction on Wikipedia
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 first-person action, FPS and puzzle game in the Dr. Brain series.

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
DRM-free
Windows
ZOOM Platform
DRM-free
Windows

Monetization

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

Microtransactions

Type Notes
No microtransactions None

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>/DBACTREA/System/*.ini[Note 1]
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[Note 1]

Video

Video Options
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 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 dgVoodoo2.
For the Direct3D8, Direct3D9 and OpenGL renderers, enable MSAA in configuration file 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. To fix it, just use an hex code editor like HxD and change the 0AD7A33B values to 00000000 in Engine.dll. For a higher refreh rate, see Run the game at screen refresh 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>\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[1]
  1. While in game, open the console with Tab ↹.
  2. Enter setres XXXXxYYYY (for example setres 1920x1080).
Edit ini file[1]
  1. Launch the game at least once then close it.
  2. Open SPORE.ini.
  3. Go to the [WinDrv.WindowsClient] section.
  4. Set FullscreenViewportX and FullscreenViewportY to the desired resolution.

Field of view (FOV)

Set default FOV in-game[1]
  1. While in game, open the console with Tab ↹.
  2. 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[1]
  1. Launch the game at least once then close it.
  2. Open SPORE.ini.
  3. Find the section [WinDrv.WindowsClient].
  4. In that section, find an entry WindowedViewportX= and set its value to your desired window width.
  5. In that section, find an entry WindowedViewportY= and set its value to your desired window height.
  6. Set StartupFullscreen= to False to start the game in windowed mode.

Input

Control Options
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 SPORE.ini under [WinDrv.WindowsClient].
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Edit in User.ini.
Controller sensitivity
Edit in User.ini.
Controller Y-axis inversion
Edit in 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[1]
  1. While in game, open the console with Tab ↹.
  2. Enter setsensitivity x (for example setsensitivity 5).
Edit ini file[1]
  1. Open User.ini.
  2. Change the line MouseSensitivity= to the desired value.

Audio

Audio Options
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

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English

Issues fixed

Heavy lag with the default Direct3D 7 and OpenGL renderers

Use custom renderers[2]
  1. Download OMP0.99-Unreal224.7z from here.
  2. From the file, extract D3D8Drv.dll, D3D8Drv.int, D3D9Drv.dll, D3D9Drv.int, OpenGLDrv.dll and OpenGLDrv.int to the main game folder.
  3. Go to SPORE.ini.
  4. 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[2]
  1. Go to SPORE.ini.
  2. 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.[3]
Use dgVoodoo2.[3]
Use nGlide.[3]
Use DDrawCompat.[4]

GUI scaling issues

Use Peixoto's patch (OpenGL and Direct3D 7, 8 or 9)[3]
Use nGlide (Glide only) or dgVoodoo2 (Direct3D or Glide)[3]
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.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 7 To add in Direct3D 8 and 9 support, the unofficial OldUnreal Multimedia Patch 0.99 for Unreal 224 is required.
OpenGL
Glide
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.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 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
Other 12x CD-ROM drive 24x CD-ROM drive


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. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-12-01
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-12-03
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Verified by User:AlphaYellow on 2023-12-05
  4. ↑ GitHub - last accessed on December 2023