Astrobatics

Astrobatics

Developers
	KraiSoft Entertainment
Release dates
Windows	November 11, 2003
Taxonomy
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Side view
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Arcade
Vehicles	Space flight
Art styles	Pre-rendered graphics
Themes	Space

Astrobatics is a singleplayer side view arcade game.

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Developer website

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\KraiSoft\Astrobatics

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\RESOURCE\Astrobatics.plt

Video

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		The game is most likely locked on 30 FPS or below.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
Ray tracing (RT)

Input

The remap controls section of Astrobatics

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		All actions that can be done in the game could be remapped
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus		The game has its own custom cursor
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Audio

The sound settings of Astrobatics, including the mouse or keyboard control toggle and other options

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		The game has separate volume control for Sound FX and Music.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English

Essential improvements

Use DDrawCompat
Only the ddraw.dll wrapper from DDrawCompat works for this game, this will restore and improve some animations the game contains, the most noticeable change is when the game boots up showing the logo.

Issues fixed

Game refuses to boot up on modern hardware

The game will refuse to open when executed on modern Windows operating systems, mainly 8, 8.1, and 10.

On Windows 11, DDrawCompat v0.3.2 is also required for the game to run, other versions will not work.

Enable the following compatibility settings for the Astrobatics.exe file: Compatibility mode (98/Me).

Game is lagging both in menu and in-game

To resolve this, while the game is open press Alt+Tab ↹ then go back, the game should run on its normal speed after.

Game doesn't show a message or prompt when the ship receives power-ups

Supposedly, the game should always show a message when the ship receives power-ups, however for some reason on newer Windows versions this message prompt is disabled, this could affect gameplay as the game is also not telling the player the current shield level once it is activated.

Modify in-game settings with Registry Editor

Open Registry Editor by doing Start + R, then type regedit and press Enter. Click Edit on Registry Editor, click Find then type MessagePrizes, this should lead you to HKEY_USERS\{numbers}\SOFTWARE\KraiSoft Entertainment\Astrobatics or HKEY_USERS\{numbers}\SOFTWARE\KraiSoft\Astrobatics containing the MessagePrizes and MessageFreePrices values, once you've found both of the mentioned values, double-click on them and change their number from 0 to 1, enabling them. Close the Registry Editor and open the game afterwards, the game should now have text or message prompts when you receive power-ups.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
DirectDraw

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

No middleware information; you can edit this page to add it.

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	95
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium II
System memory (RAM)	32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	25 MB of free space.
Video card (GPU)	8 MB of VRAM DirectX 8.1 compatible