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Resident Evil

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games

This page is for the original game. For the remake, see Resident Evil HD Remaster.

Resident Evil
Resident Evil cover
Developers
Capcom
Publishers
Japan Capcom
North America, Europe Virgin Interactive
Russia Akella
Release dates
Windows September 17, 1997
Reception
IGDB 79
Taxonomy
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Series Resident Evil
Resident Evil on IGDB
Resident Evil guide on StrategyWiki
Resident Evil on MobyGames
Resident Evil on Wikipedia
Resident Evil 1996
Resident Evil 2 1999
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis 1999
Resident Evil Survivor 2002
Biohazard 2 (Sourcenext) 2006
Biohazard 3: Last Escape (Sourcenext) 2006
Resident Evil 4 2007
Resident Evil 5 2009
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City 2012
Resident Evil 6 2013
Resident Evil: Revelations (series)
Resident Evil 4 Ultimate HD Edition 2014
Resident Evil HD Remaster 2015
Resident Evil Zero HD Remaster 2016
Umbrella Corps 2016
Resident Evil 7 Teaser: Beginning Hour 2016
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard 2017
Resident Evil 2 (2019) 2019
Resident Evil 3 (2020) 2020
Resident Evil Resistance 2020
Resident Evil Village 2021
Resident Evil Re:Verse 2022
Resident Evil 4 (2023) 2023

Key points

Poor compatibility with modern systems.
Very poorly programmed; the game is linked to the speed of the processor, which results in the game moving very fast, and scripts are bugged when running the game on a processor faster than recommended by the official requirements of the game.

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
Windows

Essential improvements

Resident Evil Configuration Tool

A fan-made config tool that facilitates video settings management and allows keyboard and joystick keys/buttons to be remapped.

Peixoto's patch

Fixes the "Failed to initialize the Graphic Hardware Device.(3) error", forces the game to run at the correct speed, in HD and 32 bit color depth, and adds full compatibility with XInput controllers, among other things.

Resident Evil Classic REbirth

Removes the need for Win95 or Win98/ME compatibility modes to start, fixes all frame rate issues, adds full compatibility with XInput, RawInput, and DirectInput controllers, adds several new resolutions and a borderless fullscreen mode, replaces Registry configuration with an INI textfile, removes the need for a physical CD-ROM drive installed on PC, and adds support for loading movie files from Hard Drives, translates the Japanese version into English.
Provides extended mod support.
Requires Japanese MediaKite release version 1.01.

Resident Evil Classic REbirth High Quality BGM, VOICE, and FMV

Replaces the audio in the game with higher quality sounds and includes FMVs.
Includes an older version of the REbirth Patch and the Japanese MediaKite 1.01 executable.
Use Classic REbirth High Quality video pack for higher quality FMVs.

Resident Evil Classic REbirth High Quality video pack

Replaces in-game video cut-scenes with better quality MP4 files that have reduced artifacts, smooth interpolations to 30 FPS, and better compression.

HD mod by teamx

Improved backgrounds, effects.
HD files, HD fonts .

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows

Save game data location

System Location
Windows

Video

Launcher options menu.
Launcher options menu.

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Use Resident Evil Classic REbirth to add support for borderless fullscreen mode.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Forcing anisotropic filtering through your GPU driver has no effect in this game because of its 2D backgrounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Do not force anti-aliasing, it will create some long black line artifacts. Only tested with MSAA so far.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
30 fps gameplay, 60 fps on loading doors and menus only.

Input

Audio

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

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
Japanese
English
Finnish
Fan translation by Mechanical Paladin & Doze_D
French
Russian
Fan translation by CasperPro, requires Resident Evil Classic REbirth. Voices by Vector, Voices by Lisy. For subtitles, unzip over fix.
Spanish
Fan translation by Leigiboy
German
Fan translation by Accadon, requires Resident Evil Classic REbirth.

Issues fixed

"Jill Bug"

While playing with Jill the image freezes during the encounter with Barry after killing the first monster. This bug is active when your computer's performance is too high for your game requirements. To prevent this from happening it is necessary to decrease the FSB (Front Side Bus) frequency to reach a value that does not cause problems with the game, usually 100Mhz or 66Mhz. It is the frequency of the FSB clock that will determine how will the performance of the motherboard and processor of a machine. For those who do not have hardware with this configuration capability a less efficient alternative is to use software specialized in occupying processor resources to slow the execution of applications, known as "cpu killer".
Use Resident Evil Classic REbirth

"Failed to initialize the Graphic Hardware Device.(3)" error

This issue is caused by incorrect detection of Z-buffer formats on AMD cards.
Use Peixoto's patch[citation needed]
Use Resident Evil Classic REbirth[citation needed]

"The game would only be able to run only when Windows95" error

Enable the following compatibility settings for the CHECKER.EXE, LAUNCH.EXE, RESIDENTEVIL.EXE, and SETUP.EXE files: Compatibility mode (Windows 95)[citation needed]
Use Resident Evil Classic REbirth[citation needed]

Installing the game

During installation, the installer goes fullscreen like many 90's era installers did. An error message sometimes appears behind the fullscreen installer background. The error itself isn't a problem, but clicking 'OK' requires using Alt+Tab or Ctrl+Alt+Delete (and enter Task Manager) to be able to see said error. This might take a few tries since it's such a wonky process.
This game is from an era where PC games asked what graphics card you had, and the list is very small and outdated. Pick the card that looks and runs best on your machine.
By using Resident Evil Classic REbirth you do not need to install the game - it is made completely portable as it does not require Windows Registry information. By doing this, it is also possible to completely skip Graphics Card selection.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 3
Software renderer
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 90 MHz
System memory (RAM) 16 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 5 MB
Video card (GPU) 4 MB of VRAM
DirectX 3a compatible


References