Pharaoh - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game

This page is for the original release. For the remaster, see Pharaoh: A New Era.

Pharaoh
Developers

	Impressions Games
Expansion	BreakAway Games
Publishers
Retail	Sierra On-Line
Digital	Activision
Re-release	Sold Out Software
Release dates
Windows	November 5, 1999
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase, Expansion pack
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Bird's-eye view, Isometric
Controls	Point and select
Genres	Building
Themes	Egypt, Classical
Series	City Building (Sierra)

City Building (Sierra)
Caesar (series)
Pharaoh	1999
Zeus: Master of Olympus	2000
Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom	2002
Children of the Nile	2004
Pharaoh: A New Era	2023

Contents 1 Availability 1.1 Version differences 2 Monetization 2.1 DLC and expansion packs 3 Essential improvements 3.1 Patches 3.2 Skip intro videos 4 Game data 4.1 Configuration file(s) location 4.2 Save game data location 4.3 Save game cloud syncing 5 Video 5.1 Widescreen resolution 5.2 Windowed 6 Input 7 Audio 7.1 Localizations 8 Issues fixed 8.1 Unable to load function; Ft_thunk (Kernell32.dll) 8.2 Game freezes / movies not playing 8.3 Game speed/Map scroll rate issue 9 Other information 9.1 API 9.2 Middleware 10 System requirements 11 Notes 12 References

General information

Pharaoh Heaven community site

GOG.com Community Discussions

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		The base game uses a simple disc check. The Cleopatra expansion utilizes SecuROM v4 DRM disc check.
GOG.com		Pharaoh: Gold
Steam		Pharaoh: Gold

A free demo version is available from GameFront.

Version differences

Pharaoh: Gold includes both Pharaoh and Cleopatra.

Monetization

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
Queen of the Nile: Cleopatra

Essential improvements

Patches

Pharaoh Enhancement Pack 1.2 enables the in-game mission editor and fixes various issues. The Cleopatra Enhancement Pack 2.1 fixes the expansion's issues. Both are available here. They are already included in the digital releases.

Skip intro videos

Instructions^[1]
Go to `<path-to-game>\Binks\High` Rename, move or delete `Intro_big.bik`.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\^{[Note 1]}
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/564530/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Save^{[Note 1]}
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/564530/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

Video settings

Graphics feature	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution		See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed	Only for 16-bit colour depth desktop. Hackable for 32-bit; see Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed	See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS

Widescreen resolution

For Pharaoh with Cleopatra:

Use Pharaoh Resizer
Download Pharaoh Resizer (French version) Place it in `<path-to-game>`. Open `PharaohResizer.exe`, set the desired resolution and save the new executable in `<path-to-game>`. Use the new executable file to play If the game crashes, choose another resolution

Use Pharaoh Resizer

Download Pharaoh Resizer (French version)
Place it in <path-to-game>.
Open PharaohResizer.exe, set the desired resolution and save the new executable in <path-to-game>.
Use the new executable file to play

If the game crashes, choose another resolution

For Pharaoh without Cleopatra:

Replace `Pharaoh.exe` with this file.

Windowed

Change color depth^[2]
Change the colour depth of the display to 16-bit For Windows 8 and newer, enable the following compatibility settings for the `Pharaoh.exe` file (located in `<path-to-game>`: `Reduced color mode (16-bit color)`. For Windows Vista and 7, change the colour mode through the Screen resolution settings in the Control Panel. For Windows XP, change the colour mode through the Display settings in the Control Panel. Download the patched files and extract them into `<path-to-game>`. Launch the game.

Change color depth^[2]

Change the colour depth of the display to 16-bit
- For Windows 8 and newer, enable the following compatibility settings for the Pharaoh.exe file (located in <path-to-game>: Reduced color mode (16-bit color).
- For Windows Vista and 7, change the colour mode through the Screen resolution settings in the Control Panel.
- For Windows XP, change the colour mode through the Display settings in the Control Panel.
Download the patched files and extract them into <path-to-game>.
Launch the game.

PharaohStarter.exe^[3]
An application that automatically changes the colour depth to 16-bit and starts Pharaoh in a window. After the game is closed the color depth returns to 32-bit. Download the launcher. Extract the contents of the download to `<path-to-game>`. Run the game using `PharaohStarter.exe`.

PharaohStarter.exe^[3]

An application that automatically changes the colour depth to 16-bit and starts Pharaoh in a window. After the game is closed the color depth returns to 32-bit.

Download the launcher.
Extract the contents of the download to <path-to-game>.
Run the game using PharaohStarter.exe.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Audio

Audio settings

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Sliders for Music, Speech, Effects and City Ambient.
Surround sound
Subtitles		Not during cutscenes
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French				Retail only; download for digital versions.
German
Hungarian				Fan translation.
Italian
Korean				Retail only
Polish				Retail release; download for digital versions. Details
Brazilian Portuguese				Retail only. Faraó.^[4]
Spanish				Retail only; download for digital versions.
Swedish				Retail only.

Issues fixed

Unable to load function; Ft_thunk (Kernell32.dll)

Enable Compatibility mode^[5]
Enable the following compatibility settings for the `Pharaoh.exe` file (located in `<path-to-game>`: `Compatibility mode (Windows 2000)`. Launch the game.

Game freezes / movies not playing

Force only one CPU core to run the game^[6]
Download ImageCFG. Extract the contents of the download to `<path-to-game>`. Open a text editor (ex. Notepad) and paste in the following: @echo off if not exist Pharaoh.exe goto end if exist Pharaoh.exe.bak goto end copy Pharaoh.exe Pharaoh.exe.bak imagecfg -u Pharaoh.exe imagecfg -a 0x1 Pharaoh.exe pause :end 4. Save the file with the `.bat` extension and place it in `<path-to-game>`. 5. Run this file to launch the game.

Force only one CPU core to run the game^[6]

Download ImageCFG.
Extract the contents of the download to <path-to-game>.
Open a text editor (ex. Notepad) and paste in the following:

@echo off
if not exist Pharaoh.exe goto end
if exist Pharaoh.exe.bak goto end
copy Pharaoh.exe Pharaoh.exe.bak
imagecfg -u Pharaoh.exe
imagecfg -a 0x1 Pharaoh.exe
pause
:end

4. Save the file with the .bat extension and place it in <path-to-game>.
5. Run this file to launch the game.

Update the mss32.dll file^[7]
In `<path-to-game>`, rename the `mss32.dll` file to `oldmss32.dll`. Download Miles Sound System (MSS) v6.0m. Extract the contents of the download to `<path-to-game>`. Launch the game.

Game speed/Map scroll rate issue

Set the slider in-game^[8]^[9]
While in-game, press options and press speed option and move the game speed slider to adjust the game speed or scroll rate slider to adjust the scroll speed.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
DirectDraw	6	^{[citation needed]}

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	Miles Sound System	5.0r^[10]
Cutscenes	Bink Video, Smacker

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95	98
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium 133 MHz	Intel Pentium 166 MHz
System memory (RAM)	32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	360 MB	630 MB
Video card (GPU)	1 MB of VRAM DirectX 6 compatible

Notes

↑ ^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).
↑ ^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>/564530/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (564530) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

↑ Tested by Nessy
↑ Support for Pharaoh + Cleopatra - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023
↑ gog.com - last accessed on May 2023
↑ BraSoft (archived, 2001). - last accessed on May 2023
↑ Instructions from the Sold Out Software release.
↑ gog.com - last accessed on May 2023
↑ gog.com - last accessed on May 2023
↑ https://www.gog.com/forum/pharaoh_cleopatra/game_runs_at_superhigh_speed/?search=fast
↑ https://www.gog.com/forum/pharaoh_cleopatra/some_animations_not_showing/?search=fast
↑ Verified by User:Nessy on 2020-01-19
Version number found in Mss32.dll in the game installation folder.