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Cold Fear

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Cold Fear
Cold Fear cover
Developers
Darkworks
Publishers
Ubisoft
Engines
RenderWare
Release dates
Windows March 30, 2005
Reception
Metacritic 66
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Cinematic camera, Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Survival horror, Shooter
Art styles Realistic
Themes Horror
Cold Fear on HowLongToBeat
Cold Fear on IGDB
Cold Fear on MobyGames
Cold Fear on Wikipedia

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
StarForce 3 DRM[Note 1].
Use Alternate Executable to remove the disc check.
Windows
GamersGate (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Green Man Gaming
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Not available in Germany and Austria
Windows
Ubisoft Store
Icon overlay.png
Included with Ubisoft+. Does not need Uplay to run.
Windows
StarForce DRM for this game does not work on modern versions of Windows (see above for affected versions).

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Delete video files
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\data\movie\.
  2. Delete or rename Logo_Dar.bik, Logo_Ubi.bik, Renderware.bik and RW.bik.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/15270/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\SAVES[Note 3]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/15270/pfx/[Note 2]
6 save slots available.

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Steam Cloud
Ubisoft Connect
[5]

Video

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Use Cold Fear Widescreen Fix
Multi-monitor
Use Cold Fear Widescreen Fix
Ultra-widescreen
Use Cold Fear Widescreen Fix
4K Ultra HD
Use Cold Fear Widescreen Fix. Very high resolutions have significantly reduced mouse sensitivity. Support for higher 4:3 resolutions is limited due to many causing the game to crash at start-up.[6]
Field of view (FOV)
See Field of view (FOV) and Changing the FOV distorts the shadows.
Windowed
Run ColdFear_Retail.exe with -windowed command line argument
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
120+ FPS
Frame rate above 60 FPS can cause glitches.
See Animations speed up and errors during gameplay.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Anti-aliasing (AA)

Force SGSSAA (Nvidia only)[7]
  1. Download and run Nvidia Profile Inspector.
  2. Select the Cold Fear profile.
  3. Change Antialiasing compatibility value to 0x000000C1.
  4. Change Antialiasing - Behavior Flags to None.
  5. Change Antialiasing - Mode to Override any application setting.
  6. Change Antialiasing - Setting to 8xQ [8x Multisampling].
  7. Change Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling to 8x Sparse Grid Supersampling.
  8. Press "Apply Changes" in the top-right corner.

Field of view (FOV)

Distorts Realtime Shadows.
Set FOV[8]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\Conf\.
  2. Edit Heroes.cfg.
  3. Find the following lines and change the values to your desired FOV.
CAMERA_AIM_FOV
CAMERA_CONSTRAINT_FOV
CAMERA_FOLLOW_MAXDIST

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Done in the same menu as controller remapping, with 2 input slots per action.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Both mouse y-axis inversion and controller y-axis inversion are controlled under "inversed aiming" option.
Controller
Controller support
Does not process analog controller inputs as analog. Instead processes them as "MAX" value input and "MIN" value input. As a result analog trigger inputs on controllers with shared axes triggers cancel each other out (eg. if you set left trigger to aim and right trigger to shoot, pressing both would just make you stop aiming). Can fix this by mapping triggers to separate axes with XInput Plus.
Full controller support
Controller is completely unmapped upon first launch and has to be manually bound; the movement inputs, the run button, and the cling button are used to navigate menus (to change selected option, select an option, and go back, respectively).
Controller remapping
Done in the same menu as keyboard remapping, with 2 input slots per action.
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion
Both mouse y-axis inversion and controller y-axis inversion are controlled under "inversed aiming" option.
Controller types
XInput-compatible controllers
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
PlayStation controllers
PlayStation button prompts
Light bar support
Adaptive trigger support
DualSense haptic feedback support
Connection modes

Generic/other controllers
Generic DirectInput controllers are supported.
Button prompts
Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M
Game does not differentiate between controller and keyboard and mouse inputs

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Separate options for music, sound effects, and voices.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Brazilian Portuguese
Fan translation: download (GGames).
Spanish
Russian
Retail only. Patch for digital release here.
Polish
Retail only, Download.

VR support

3D modes State Notes
vorpX
G3D
User created profile, requires DGVoodoo2 WIP58 (DX9) and very important tweaks profile introdution. Note: Profile may not work with the latest wrapper, in case of issues please report to the vorpx forum.

Issues unresolved

Anischenko Texture Stretching

During certain animations, the boss' textures are glitchy and stretch across the environment.

Mouse cursor does not remain inside the window

There is no fix so far.

Issues fixed

Game doesn't launch after changing resolution

Create a blank file in the installation folder
  1. Delete res.bin in the installation folder.
  2. Create a new text document.
  3. Save the blank document as res.bin in the installation folder.
  4. Right-click on the newly saved blank file and select Properties.
  5. Check Read-only and click OK.

Changing FOV Distorts Realtime Shadows

Install the Widescreen Patch with killer-m's fix to make realtime shadows ignore FOV[9]
  1. Install ThirteenAG's Widescreen Patch by unzipping the contents of ColdFear.WidescreenFix.zip into <path-to-game>.
  2. Install killer-m's fix by unzipping the contents of scripts.zip into the installation directory, so that the scripts folder now contains ColdFear.ShadowsFix.patch and ColdFear.ShadowsFix.asi.

Notes:

The nightly Widescreen Patch is intended to fix this issue on its own,[10] but it doesn't seem to work without killer-m's fix.[11]

Animations speed up and errors during gameplay

Limit the frame rate to 60 FPS
Set the refresh rate to 60Hz

DXVK issues: crash before main menu, corrupted graphics (Proton/Linux)

The game does not work with some versions of DXVK, which is enabled by default in Proton 5.0 and newer. If DXVK is left enabled in Proton 5.0-10, 5.13-6, 6.3-8, or 7.0-6, the game won't run.
Enable "Use WineD3D" flag

Run Proton with the environment variable PROTON_USE_WINED3D set to 1. (In the General tab of the game's Properties window in Steam, put PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 %command% in the launch options field.)

Use the latest Proton

In the Compatibility tab of the game's Properties window in Steam, enable the "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool" option and select Proton 8.0 or newer from the drop-down list.

Use an older version of Proton that uses WineD3D by default

In the Compatibility tab of the game's Properties window in Steam, enable the "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool" option and select Proton 4.11-13 or older from the drop-down list.

Reduced color depth (Proton/Linux)

Color banding may occur with Proton 6.3-8.
Use a different Proton version

In the Compatibility tab of the game's Properties window in Steam, enable the "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool" option and select Proton 5.13-6 or older, or Proton 7.0-6 or newer, from the drop-down list.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio FMOD 3.74
Cutscenes Bink Video 1.7d

Mods

Game is mod-friendly. Most game variables are within editable config files located at <path-to-game>\Conf\.

ColdFear - Extended Edition

A rebalance mod that makes you move faster, gives a flashlight to nearly every weapon, increases the max ammo of each weapon, increases the clip size of the pistol, etc.[12]

Quick Unlock Extreme Mode

By default Extreme difficulty is locked until you complete a playthrough on Hard difficulty, this mod replaces COLDFEAR.DAT with one where the difficulty is already unlocked.
Extreme Difficulty sets your maximum health to 4% of Normal Difficulty so that you basically die in one hit. Enemies are made less aggressive and/or accurate to compensate.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 2000
Processor (CPU) 1 GHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 2.2 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 3
ATI Radeon 8500
64 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0 compatible
Other 8X DVD-ROM
Supported ATI Radeon video cards: 8500/9000/X
Supported Nvidia GeForce video cards: 3/4/FX/6 (4 MX not supported)


Notes

  1. This version of StarForce DRM does not work on Windows Vista or later.[1][2][3][4] For supported versions of Windows the StarForce driver may need to be updated manually using SFUPDATE.
  2. 2.0 2.1 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>/15270/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (15270) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.
  3. 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