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Screamer

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Screamer
Screamer cover
Developers
Graffiti
Publishers
Retail Virgin Interactive
Digital Interplay Entertainment
Release dates
DOS October 31, 1995
Windows (DOSBox) February 13, 2009[1]
macOS (OS X) (DOSBox) October 26, 2012[2]
Linux (DOSBox) August 31, 2017
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Perspectives First-person, Third-person
Genres Racing
Vehicles Automobile, Street racing
Series Screamer
Screamer on HowLongToBeat
Screamer on IGDB
Screamer guide on StrategyWiki
Screamer on MobyGames
Screamer on Wikipedia
Screamer
Screamer 1995
Screamer 2 1996
Screamer Rally 1997
Screamer 4x4 2000

Screamer is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person and third-person racing game in the Screamer series.

All versions of the game suffer from hard crashes in SVGA mode regardless of platform. There is no known fix.

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
DOS
Epic Games Store
DRM details are not known
Windows
macOS (OS X)
GOG.com
DRM-free
Pre-packaged with DOSBox.[3]
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Steam
DRM-free after installation through Steam client (notes may include more details)
Pre-packaged with DOSBox.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
A free demo version is available from Archive.org.

Essential improvements

VGA vs SVGA

The game can be run in either VGA 320x200 256 color mode or in SuperVGA (SVGA) 640x480 256 color mode. While SVGA looks better, there are known issues with the game crashing or hanging in this mode. In particular the crashes happen in SVGA mode when letting the game's attract mode run. Or during game play on the 5th track (harbour track) of the championship.

This is a game bug for which no true fix is available, but there are ways to minimise the likelihood of a crash.

Method 1: Careful manoeuvring

The crashes during the 5th track in SVGA mode can be avoided by careful manoeuvring. The downside of this is, that it requires a good knowledge of the track layout and checkpoint locations.

During the first checkpoint at the containers, always take the right lane.

During the second checkpoint at the plane, always take the right lane.

At the last skyscraper on the left, just before the turn to the straight of the finish line, keep on the left.

Credit to grapeli on GitHub.

Method 2: Switching view

It seems this error is far less likely to occur when using a different view during the 5th track. In particular, the view available by pressing F1 or F2 (F3 is default).

Method 3: Use the VGA map file

As the crash does not happen with the VGA version:

  1. Go to <path-to-game>\GFX (retail version) or <path-to-game>\SCREAMER\GFX (digital versions).
  2. Back up the game's SVGA map resource file for the 5th lap, MAP5H.DAT, then delete it.
  3. Copy the VGA map resource file MAP5L.DAT and rename it to MAP5H.DAT.

The downside of this approach is that some scenery will disappear, such as buildings and trees, despite those same elements existing when playing the game in VGA mode.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
DOS <path-to-game>\CONFIG\
Windows <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
macOS (OS X) <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
Linux <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
It's unknown whether this game follows the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux. Please fill in this information.

Save game data location

System Location
DOS <path-to-game>\REPLAYS\
Windows <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
macOS (OS X) <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
Linux <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]

Save game cloud syncing

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
120+ FPS
70 FPS cap.
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Input

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
For DOSBox change the priority background value in the DOSBox configuration file.
Royalty free audio
Red Book CD audio
General MIDI audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
LAN play
8
Online play
For DOSBox use DOSBox IPX/modem emulation.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
DOS video modes VGA, SVGA Also supports S3 ViRGE's S3D API

System requirements

DOS
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS)
Processor (CPU) 486 DX4 33 MHz
System memory (RAM) 8 MB (VGA mode)
16 MB (SVGA mode)
Hard disk drive (HDD) 30 MB
Video card (GPU) VGA
Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10
Processor (CPU) 1.0 GHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 500 MB
Video card (GPU) DirectX 7.0 compatible
macOS (OS X)
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 10.6.8
Processor (CPU) Intel Core Duo 2.0 GHz
System memory (RAM) 1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 500 MB
Video card (GPU) 64 MB of VRAM
Other
Linux
Minimum
Operating system (OS) Ubuntu 16.04
Processor (CPU) 2.0 GHz
System memory (RAM) 1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 500 MB
Video card (GPU) OpenGL compatible
256 MB of VRAM


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 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).

References