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Populous

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Populous
Populous cover
Developers
Bullfrog Productions
Publishers
Electronic Arts
Release dates
DOS June 5, 1989
Mac OS (Classic) 1993
Windows (DOSBox) September 1, 2011[1]
macOS (OS X) (DOSBox) October 18, 2012
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, Expansion pack, Subscription gaming service
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view, Isometric
Controls Point and select
Genres RTS
Themes Fantasy
Series Populous
Populous on HowLongToBeat
Populous on MobyGames
Populous on Wikipedia
Populous
Populous 1989
Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods 1991
Populous: The Beginning 1998

Populous is a singleplayer bird's-eye view and isometric RTS game in the Populous series.

General information

Populous Wiki - a small wiki for the Populous series
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Prompts for answers from manual, code wheel, etc.
Prompts for answers from the manual.[2]
DOS
Mac OS
GOG.com
DRM-free
Includes the Promised Lands expansion. Pre-packaged with DOSBox.[3]
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Microsoft Store
Microsoft Store
Origin
Included exclusively with Xbox Game Pass for PC as part of its version of EA Play.
Windows
Origin
Origin
Pre-packaged with DOSBox. Included with EA Play.
The in-game DRM has been modified to accept any input.[2]
Manual link for EA App purchase.
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Includes the Promised Lands expansion. Pre-packaged with DOSBox. Included with EA Play (Steam).
Windows

Monetization

Type Notes
Expansion pack The expansion pack includes new maps and terrain types.
One-time game purchase The game requires an upfront purchase to access.
Subscription gaming service Available via EA Play.

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
The Promised Lands
Windows

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
DOS
Windows <path-to-game>\Game\Game\DATA[Note 1]<path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 2]
Mac OS (Classic)
macOS (OS X) <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 2]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2203860/pfx/[Note 3]

Save game data location

System Location
DOS
Windows <path-to-game>\Game\Game\*.GAM[Note 1]
<path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 2]
Mac OS (Classic)
macOS (OS X) <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 2]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2203860/pfx/[Note 3]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Origin
Steam Cloud
Xbox Cloud

Video

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
For DOSBox toggle with Alt+ Enter (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
For DOSBox use an unofficial build (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
60 FPS and 120+ FPS

Input

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
No speech.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
For DOSBox change the priority background value in the DOSBox configuration file.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
2
Online play
For DOSBox use DOSBox IPX/modem emulation.

Issues fixed

Jaggy mouse input

The Origin version uses DOSBox. A bug in this version causes the mouse to feel jaggy or less smooth.
Edit dosbox.conf[citation needed]
  1. Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Populous\Game\Game\DOSBox
  2. Open dosbox.conf in a text editor
  3. Change autolock=false to autolock=true
  4. Save the file, this should fix the issue

Notes

If autolock was already set to true when you first edited the file, you may want to try changing it to autolock=false instead.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
DOS video modes

System requirements

DOS
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 3.3
Processor (CPU) IBM PC compatible
System memory (RAM) 2 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 2 MB
Video card (GPU) VGA video card
Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP, Vista, 7, 8
Processor (CPU) 1.8 GHz
System memory (RAM) 512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 2 GB
Video card (GPU) DirectX 7 compatible
macOS (OS X)
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 10.6.8
Processor (CPU)
System memory (RAM)
Hard disk drive (HDD)


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).
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 File/folder structure within the installation folder reflects the path(s) listed for DOS game data. For the GOG.com release, file changes in DOSBox are redirected to <path-to-game>/cloud_saves/ even if GOG Galaxy is not used (this folder contains all redirected files, so some files in the cloud_saves folder might be temporary files or other files that do not contain saves or settings).
  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>/2203860/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (2203860) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References