Anonymous edits have been disabled on the wiki. If you want to contribute please login or create an account.

Prototype 2

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Prototype 2
Prototype 2 cover
Developers
Radical Entertainment
Publishers
Activision
Engines
Titanium
Release dates
Windows July 24, 2012
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Third-person
Genres Shooter
Series Prototype
Prototype 2 on MobyGames
Prototype 2 on Wikipedia
Prototype
Prototype 2009
Prototype 2 2012

Key points

The PC port suffers from a number of technical issues and engine-limitations.[1][2]

General information

Steam Community Discussions
Steam Forum thread with additional fixes - maintained by Suicidal.banana.

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Amazon.com (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Amazon.co.uk (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Gamesplanet logo.svg (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Humble Store (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
Windows
All versions require Steam DRM.[3]

DLC and expansion packs

Preorder DLCs "Bio-Bomb Butt Kicker" (GameStop exclusive) and "Hardened Steel Vehicle Armor" (BestBuy exclusive) are only available on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Name Notes
RADNET Access Pack
  • Over 55 unique pieces of digital content accessible at launch at no extra charge.
  • 20 Events Death-defying chopper races, intense combat scenarios plus more!
  • 20 Challenges Compete with and beat your friends’ best scores!
  • 5 Exclusive ‘Behind The Scenes’ Videos
  • 5 Exclusive Sgt James Heller Mutation Abilities
  • 5 Bonus Unlock Abilities for Sgt James Heller
  • Alex Mercer Skin unlock – the ultimate fan reward
Windows
Colossal Mayhem Pack
  • Thermobaric Boomstick: All the force of a Thermobaric Ordinance in a compact rocket launcher form. Will need to be reloaded from Radnet Menu if dropped.
  • Heller Test Subject Skin: Playable skin of Heller after his infection while being experimented on.
  • Infected Heller Skin: Playable skin that gives Heller a zombified appearance and changes all of his dialogue to growls.
  • Infantry Heller Skin: Playable Skin from before Heller was infected with Blacklight.
  • Warp Vortex: Throw or kick an object and it causes a vortex of energy to pick up all light objects and enemies nearby. Will also work with the Bio-Bomb grenade.
  • Anti Gravity Field: Anything Heller comes into contact with instantly loses its gravitational hold to the earth, including people.
  • Air Time: Infinite gliding, never touch the ground again.
Windows
Excessive Force Pack
  • New Weapon: Viral Infector Grenade Launcher
  • Armored Heller Skin
  • Agile Armor Alex Mercer Skin
  • Zombie Mercer Skin
  • Shockwave
  • Chaos Creator Mode
  • Medusa's Wrath
Windows
Colossal Mayhem Pack and Excessive Force Pack never released on Steam, however the files were hidden within the PC release files.
Download community fix
  1. Download the file unlocker here.
  2. Extract the files to <path-to-game>.
  3. Start the game.

Essential improvements

Prototype Fix Plugin

A mod that includes patches for several of the problems with the PC version mentioned in this article:
  • Prevents crashes on machines with many cores and threads.
  • Fixes framerate-related problems caused by game trying to poll every DirectInput/HID device.
  • Can reduce frame-doubling and fixes mouse input issues at framerates higher than 60FPS by removing tickrate limit.
  • Fixes broken VRAM calculation on newer cards, allowing 4xMSAA option to be selectable again & slightly improving performance.
  • Allows changing the in-game 640x480 & 800x600 resolution options to custom values (desktop resolution by default)
  • Optionally allows increasing shadow resolution from 2048x2048 up to 8192x8192.
  • Allows modifying camera FOV to increase/decrease by desired amount.
  • Can run the game in borderless windowed mode, improving startup time & reducing issues when switching between game via ALT+TAB.
  • Includes patch to fix shadowing issues on AMD graphics cards.
  • Engines 500FPS limit can be customized, allowing even higher framerates or helping to limit it to the G-Sync/FreeSync framerate window.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Activision\Prototype 2\
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/115320/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Activision\Prototype 2\
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/115320/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
OneDrive
Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud

Video

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
See Widescreen resolution.
Ultra-widescreen
See Widescreen resolution. Fix for FOV with UW
4K Ultra HD
See Widescreen resolution.
Field of view (FOV)
See the WSGF entry.
Windowed
See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See Windowed.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Can be toggle between Off, Low and High.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS
120+ FPS
Set refresh rate manually; see Widescreen resolution. Frame rate is capped at 500 FPS; However, all games using the Titanium engine are internally locked at 60 FPS and will duplicate previous frames to achieve higher frame rates. Only the mouse cursor updates above that, which can lead to difference in mouse acceleration depending on performance, especially above 60 fps.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.
An in-depth look at the Prototype 2 settings is available on this GameSpy Port Authority article.

Widescreen resolution

Resolution is natively capped at 1920x1080 and 1920x1200.
Install Prototype Fix Plugin
Change resolution launch option[4]
  1. Right-click the game in the Steam Library.
  2. Choose Properties, then Set launch options.
  3. Add resolution=2560x1600@60 (resolution followed by refresh rate).
  4. Choose OK to save your changes.

Windowed

Force windowed mode[citation needed]
Windowed launch option[4]

Use the windowed command line argument.

Notes

Mouse cursor is always visible and not captured to window.

Input

Mouse acceleration

Mouse acceleration is tied to frame rate of the game, leading to extremely choppy control in periods of poor performance.[1]
Use controller[citation needed]
Usage of a controller is unaffected by the mouse acceleration problem.
Limit frame rate to keep mouse acceleration constant[5]

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
At least 5.1
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.
Polish
Available on steam despite not being listed on the store page.[6]
Russian
Available on steam despite not being listed on the store page.[7]
Spanish

Issues unresolved

No shadows with AMD/ATI graphics cards

Prototype 2 has a similar bug as with Prototype, where shadows are not rendered properly on AMD/ATI Radeon cards.[8]
While there is a fix for Prototype, there are no known fixes for Prototype 2.
Unknown if this bug has been solved over the years through graphics driver updates.

Cannot complete Operation Flytrap

On some PC configurations it's impossible to complete the mission Operation Flytrap.
Force game to use only one CPU core[citation needed]
Advised to enable all cores for the game again after finishing this level for improved performance.
  1. Alt+Tab out of the game
  2. Open task manager,
  3. Find prototype2.exe
  4. Right click → Set Affinity... and uncheck all but one of the checkboxes.
  5. Go back into the game and restart the mission.
Cap framerate to 60 or lower before starting the mission[citation needed]

Performance degrades over time

Prototype 2 has possible memory leak issues that cause performance degradation after extended time of playing the game.[citation needed]
Workaround: Alt+Tab to release memory[9]
Appears to release 500-600mb of RAM, delaying the onset of a memory leak crash temporarily.

Issues fixed

Low frame rate

This is caused by the engine incorrectly overpolling the USB I/O in Windows in some cases.[10]
Install Prototype Fix Plugin

Crash after starting or loading a game

The game may crash on a CPU with more than 8 threads.
Install Prototype Fix Plugin
Turn off CPU threads above 8 in the BIOS
Strongly advised to turn these CPU threads back on after exiting the game to prevent general lower system performance afterwards.
Use msconfig to limit your processor without going into BIOS.[11]

If you're on Windows, you can simply turn off your threads in System Configuration:

  1. Hit the windows key on your keyboard
  2. Type msconfig then enter
  3. Go to the boot tab
  4. Hit Advanced Options...
  5. Checkmark Number of processors
  6. Set to 4
  7. Restart your PC.
IMPORTANT: When you are finished playing Prototype 2 go back and uncheck the Number of processors button and then restart your PC to get your CPU cores back!

Crash after starting or loading a game on Linux with Proton

The game may crash on a CPU with more than 8 threads.
Add taskset -c 0-7 %command% as a command line argument[citation needed]

No voice audio during gameplay

Bug caused by Dolby surround setups.[4]
Set sound option to TV[citation needed]
  1. Go to Options → Audio.
  2. Set the sound system option to TV instead of Home Theater.

Glowing outlines on characters

Disable anti-aliasing[4]

Game crashes when booting the game

Some keyboards (and likely other input devices) may cause Prototype 2 to crash while attempting to load the game, showing a brief black screen that isfollow by a crash-to-desktop.
Devices with additional USB ports for connecting peripherals may be responsible for the problem.
Disable HID-compliant consumer control devicec[12]
This may accidentally disable an input device.
  1. Open the Device Manager.
  2. Disable one or more instances of HID-compliant consumer control device, not HID-compliant device, till the game boots again.
Unplug USB devices till the game boots[citation needed]
When the device causing this crash is found, unplug the device(s) before starting the game, then plug them back in.

Stuck at gray screen after task switching

Press Alt+Tab two more times[citation needed]
Run the game in Windowed mode[citation needed]

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0c
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Cutscenes Bink Video v1.9.99.0

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP, Vista, 7
Processor (CPU) Intel Core 2 Duo 2.6 GHz
AMD Phenom X3 8750
System memory (RAM) 2 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 10 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
ATI Radeon HD 4850
512 MB of VRAM


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 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>/115320/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (115320) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References