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Dear Esther

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games

This page is for the original release. For the updated version, see Dear Esther: Landmark Edition.

Dear Esther
Dear Esther cover
Developers
The Chinese Room
Robert Briscoe
macOS (OS X) InterWave Studios
Linux Ryan C. Gordon
Engines
Source
Release dates
Windows February 14, 2012
macOS (OS X) May 15, 2012
Linux June 10, 2013
Reception
Metacritic 75
IGDB 72
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Microtransactions None
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Relaxed
Perspectives First-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Exploration
Art styles Realistic
Series Dear Esther
Dear Esther on IGDB
Dear Esther on MobyGames
Dear Esther on Wikipedia
Dear Esther
Dear Esther 2012
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition 2017

Warnings

The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support for 32-bit-only apps.

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Humble Store
DRM-free
Included with Humble Monthly Trove.
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Steam (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
The store page now leads to Landmark Edition.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
The Linux version is no longer available digitally.
This game is no longer sold on Steam. A DRM-Free version can be purchased via Humble Widget.
The original mod release can be downloaded from here.

Monetization

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

Microtransactions

Type Notes
No microtransactions None

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Use -novid command line argument[citation needed]

Increase movement speed

Bind key to increase movement speed[1] (retrieved)
  1. Open <path-to-game>\dearesther\cfg\userconfig.cfg
  2. Add the following code to the end of the file:
    bind 1 "de_playerspeed 100"
    bind 2 "de_playerspeed 200"
    bind 3 "de_playerspeed 300"
    bind 4 "de_playerspeed 400"
    bind "W" "+forward"
    bind "MOUSE1" "+forward"
    bind "MOUSE2" "+zoom"
    bind "MWHEELDOWN" "de_playerspeed 100"
    bind "MWHEELUP" "de_playerspeed 200"
    bind "MOUSE3" "de_playerspeed 400"
    
  3. Enable the developer console from the options menu.
  4. Toggle the console with ~, type in exec userconfig, and press Enter.
  5. In game, you can hold the left mouse button to move forward, mousewheel up to increase movement speed, mousewheel down to reset or use the number 1, 2, 3, 4 to adjust movement speed.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\dearesther\cfg\[Note 1]
macOS (OS X)
Linux $XDG_DATA_HOME/dearesther/
This game follows the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux.

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\dearesther\SAVE\[Note 1]
macOS (OS X)
Linux $XDG_DATA_HOME/dearesther/

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Steam Cloud
Does not sync any save data, despite Steam Cloud feature flag

Video

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

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Hor+
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
75-90° horizontal. Use fov_desired # in the console for custom values.
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Display Mode setting includes borderless fullscreen windowed mode.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Up to 16x.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Up to 8x MSAA.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
Double buffered, Triple buffered
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
Capped at 300 FPS. Use fps_max # in the console for custom values.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

In-game input settings.
In-game input settings.
In-game input mapping settings.
In-game input mapping settings.
In-game controller settings.
In-game controller settings.

Audio

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

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
4 and 5.1 speakers options.
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Bulgarian
Available here.
Simplified Chinese
Available here.
Czech
Available here.
French
Available here. (Alternative)
German
Available here.
Hungarian
Available here. (Alternative)
Italian
Available here.
Korean
Available here.
Polish
Available here.
Portuguese
Fan translation, download.
Brazilian Portuguese
Available here.
Russian
Available here.
Serbian
Available here and here.
Spanish
Available: Subtitles and fan dub.
Turkish
Available here.
Ukrainian
Available here.

VR support

3D modes State Notes
vorpX
G3D, DirectVR
Officially supported game, see official vorpx game list.

Issues fixed

Purple and black broken textures

A generic fix for this issue can be found on our Source engine page.

Native Linux version ("Native .bin" version) fails to launch on unsupported localizations

Instructions[2][3]

Run the game with the following command: LC_ALL=C ./Dear_Esther

Native Linux version ("Native .bin" version) fails to launch on older AMD or Intel GPUs with open source drivers

Override Mesa GL version[4]
  1. Open a terminal in <path-to-game> and enter following command:
    export MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=3.2
  2. Launch the game in the same terminal tab:
    LC_ALL=C ./Dear_Esther

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9
OpenGL 2.1 OS X and Linux only.
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
This 32-bit-only macOS game does not work on macOS Catalina (10.15) or later.
Linux

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz
System memory (RAM) 1 GB (XP)
2 GB (Vista)
Hard disk drive (HDD) 2 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 7600
ATI Radeon X1600
DirectX 9 compatible
Shader model 3.0 support
Pre-Sandybridge Intel graphics chipsets not supported
macOS (OS X)
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 10.6.7
Processor (CPU) Intel Core Duo 2 GHz
System memory (RAM) 2 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 2 GB
Video card (GPU) ATI Radeon 2400
Nvidia GeForce 8600M
Intel HD Graphics 3000


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