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Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Template:Infobox game/row/osxporter
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell cover
Developers
Ubisoft Montreal
Publishers
Ubisoft
OS X Aspyr Media
Engines
Unreal Engine 2
Release dates
Windows February 19, 2003
macOS (OS X) September 29, 2004
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell guide on StrategyWiki
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell on Wikipedia

Warnings

The Mac OS X version of this game does not work on Mac OS X Lion (version 10.7) or later due to the removal of support for PowerPC apps.
Splinter Cell
Subseries of Tom Clancy
Splinter Cell 2003
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow 2004
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory 2005
Splinter Cell: Double Agent 2006
Splinter Cell: Conviction 2010
Splinter Cell: Blacklist 2013

General information

Official Forums
Splinter Cell Wiki
GOG.com Community Discussions
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

Demo

A demo is available here. It includes parts from Police Station and Kalinatek missions.

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest patch is 1.3. Digital distribution versions are already patched.

HD Textures from the PS3 version

Instructions[3]
  1. Download the archive from here.
  2. Extract the archive and copy the Textures folder to the game installation folder and overwrite the existing files.

Notes

HD textures are mostly faithful to the original textures, except in the Abattoir level which looks much cleaner. Ads have been removed.

Bonus Missions

  1. Download the archive from here.
  2. Extract the archive and copy the folders to the game installation folder.

Skip intro videos

Instructions[4]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\Videos.
  2. Delete or rename Logos.bik and videointro.bik.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\system\[Note 2]
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/13560/pfx/[Note 3]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Save\<user-id>[Note 2]
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/13560/pfx/[Note 3]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud
Ubisoft Connect

Video settings

In-game video settings.
In-game video settings.

Template:Video settings

Widescreen resolution

Use ThirteenAG's Widescreen Fix[3]
  1. Download the archive from here.
  2. Extract the archive and copy the system folder to the game installation folder.

Notes

FOV is automatically adjusted to resolution.
Removes HUD stretching and moves HUD elements to the edge of the screen.
Cutscenes are no longer fullscreen; instead, they are played at an unscaled 640 x 480 resolution.
When launching the game a window may appear asking to download the latest version and dgVoodoo 2 which is required to fix some rendering issues.

Field of view (FOV)

Use either this or ThirteenAG's Widescreen Fix or the FOV will be too wide.
Edit SplinterCellUser.ini[5]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open SplinterCellUser.ini.
  3. Find a section [Engine.PlayerController].
  4. There you'll find the two lines:
    • DesiredFOV=75.0
    • DefaultFOV=75.0

Notes

For Hor+ gameplay, a new profile must be created after this solution was applied. Otherwise, previously made profiles will still use the old FOV setting.

Anti-aliasing (AA)

Override AA settings[citation needed]
  1. Download and run NVIDIA Profile Inspector.
  2. Search and open the game profile.
  3. Locate the Antialiasing section.
    1. Set Behavior Flags to None.
    2. Set Mode to Override.
    3. Set Setting to desired AA (e.g. Multisampling).
  4. Apply changes.

Notes

This works only for Nvidia cards.
Force MSAA using dgVoodoo 2[3]
  1. Read the instructions below to properly setup dgVoodoo 2 for this game.
  2. Open dgVoodooCpl.exe and click on the DirectX tab.
  3. Set Antialiasing(MSAA) to 2x, 4x or 8x.

Notes

When using ThirteenAG's Widescreen Fix the included <path-to-game>\system\dgVoodoo.conf file overrides the global dgVoodoo settings. Delete/rename that file for the global settings to be applied, or edit that file directly in dgVoodooCpl.exe.
Water will be rendered incorrectly in few places (sea in the Oil Refinery level and water in two gardens in the last two levels of the main campaign).[6]
Force SMAA using ReShade[3]
  1. Read the instructions below to properly setup dgVoodoo 2 for this game.
  2. Download the latest version of ReShade and run the Reshade Setup program.
  3. Click Select game, then select SplinterCell2.exe found in <path-to-game>\system\.
  4. Select Direct3D 10+ as the rendering API.
  5. Allow to download shaders/effects and choose either all of them or just SMAA.
  6. Run the game, press Shift+F2 to enter the configuration menu and follow the tutorial to create new profile and activate SMAA.
  7. In the Settings tab, under Usage Mode select Performance Mode.
  8. Click X in top right to exit the configuration menu.

Notes

If downloading shader archive fails, download the archive manually and extract it to <path-to-game>\system\. Then in game in ReShade settings add \reshade-shaders-master\Shaders to end of the Effect Search Paths and \reshade-shaders-master\Textures to the end of Texture Search Paths field. Restart the game and continue from Step 6.
No water rendering issues.

Vertical sync (Vsync)

Edit SplinterCell.ini[3]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open SplinterCell.ini.
  3. Find a section [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice].
  4. At the bottom of the section, after FullScreenVideo=True, add a line:
    • UseVsync=True
  5. Save the file.

Input settings

In-game general control settings.
In-game general control settings.
In-game mouse settings.
In-game mouse settings.

Template:Input settings

Audio settings

In-game audio settings.
In-game audio settings.

Template:Audio settings

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
Italian
Russian
Retail only. Patch for digital release here.
Spanish
Retail version, download.

Issues unresolved

Sounds stop playing

Sometimes when quicksaving or entering the menu (OPSAT) some looped sounds, like clock ticking or water running, can stop playing.
Instructions[3]
  1. Quick save and quick load the game to reset the sounds.

Vselka Infiltration - Stuck in control room

In Vselka Infiltration mission after using the laptop in the control room the player can't get out, because the closed doors never open, since enemies that should open them can get stuck in the stairway.
Instructions[7]
  1. Use F2 to open the console.
  2. Type ghost and press Enter to activate the no clipping mode.
  3. Go through the closed doors.
  4. Type walk and press Enter to deactivate the no clipping mode.

Issues fixed

Broken shadows

Shadow comparison.
Shadow comparison.
Due to relying on now-obsolete functionality in Nvidia GPUs, the default "buffer" shadows are broken on modern hardware.

Force projector shadows

The game, when tweaked, supports projection shadows, which work on modern hardware.
Launch the game with -shadowmode=projector parameter[3]
Edit SplinterCell.ini[8]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open SplinterCell.ini.
  3. Find [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice] section.
  4. Uncomment ;ForceShadowMode=0 line (remove the semicolon).

Use dgVoodoo2 with default buffer shadows

Use dgVoodoo2[8]
  1. Download dgVoodoo2 from the official website.
  2. Extract the contents to the folder of your choice.
  3. Open dgVoodooCpl.exe and click the DirectX tab.
  4. Under Videocard select GeForce 4 Ti 4800 from the drop-down menu.
  5. Select 256 MB from the VRAM drop-down menu.
  6. Click Apply and OK at the bottom of the dgVoodoo 2 application window.
  7. Copy D3D8.dll file from dgVoodoo2\MS\ folder to <path-to-game>\system folder.

Notes

Requires dgVoodoo2 2.53 or later (included in the newest version of ThirteenAG's Widescreen Fix).

Stuttering during gameplay

Set splintercell.exe affinity to 1 CPU core[citation needed]

Lights bleed through walls

Lights will bleed through the walls if you manually add Anti Aliasing to the game via Nvidia control panel (which you can noticeably see in the training level by looking at the walls to your left and right.) You can get ride of most of the bleeding by using your Night Vision and turning it off, but to get rid of all the bleeding you must disable AA through the control panel.

Game not detecting EAX support

Open SplinterCellUser.ini in system folder in Splinter Cell directory and set following lines to true
  1. EAX
  2. EAX_Capable
  3. Sound3DAcc

Notes

The EAX will be automatically disabled if the audio settings menu is entered and has to be reenabled.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 8
Shader Model support 1.4
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio Dolby Digital
Cutscenes Bink Video

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 2000, XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium III 800 MHz
AMD Athlon 800 MHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 1.5 GB
Video card (GPU) 32 MB of VRAM
DirectX 8.1 compatible
Supported ATI chipsets: Radeon 7500, 8500, 9000, 9500, 9700
Supported Nvidia chipsets: GeForce 256, GeForce2 Ti/Ultra/Pro/GTS/MX400/MX, GeForce3 series, GeForce4 series
The Matrox Parhelia is also supported

Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[1] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[2]
  2. 2.0 2.1 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).
  3. 3.0 3.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/13560/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (13560) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References