Silent Storm

Silent Storm
Silent Storm	2003
Hammer & Sickle	2005

Silent Storm is a singleplayer bird's-eye view strategy game in the Silent Storm series.

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
GamersGate		Gold Edition
Green Man Gaming		Gold Edition
		Gold Edition
GOG.com		Gold Edition
Humble Store		Gold Edition
Steam		Gold Edition. Can be run without Steam.

Version differences

The Gold Edition contains both Silent Storm and its expansion Sentinels.

Digital releases fix issues caused by 64-bit operating systems using 4+ GB RAM.^[1]^[2]

Retail releases have shadow and reflection issues on modern GPUs. See Incorrect shadows and reflections.^[3]^[4]

Demo versions

Demo versions are available for Silent Storm and Sentinels.

Monetization

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
Sentinels

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Move, delete or rename files^{[citation needed]}

Move, delete or rename the following files from these paths.

<path-to-game>\Silent Storm\res\Video

<path-to-game>\Silent Storm Sentinels\res\Video

Intro.bik
JoWooD.bik
Nival.bik

Patches

The latest official patch for the base game is 1.2, available from Patches-Scrolls.

The latest official patch for Sentinels is 1.1, available from Patches-Scrolls: international | French.

Unofficial Silent Storm Steam patch

Fixes some game-breaking issues near the end of the game.

Comes with an already included d3d9.dll which fixes the shadow issues.

Running as administrator

To prevent issues, run the game as administrator.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\cfg\^{[Note 1]}
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/254960/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\save\^{[Note 1]}
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/254960/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

The expansion's video settings.

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		Sentinels has native widescreen support. Use this for Silent Storm.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		Fake windowed mode. See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		None, x2, x4, x8, x16
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Cannot be disabled (Low, Medium, High, Very high)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Windowed

Windowed^{[citation needed]}
Edit `<path-to-game>\Silent Storm\cfg\config.cfg` (base game) or `<path-to-game>\Silent Storm Sentinels\cfg\s3config.cfg` (Sentinels). Set `setvar gfx_fullscreen = 1.00` to `setvar gfx_fullscreen = 0.00`.

Input

The expansion's control settings.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		Edit `<path-to-game>\Silent Storm\cfg\input.cfg`
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion		Invert Turn X & Y, Invert Scroll X & Y
Controller
Controller support

Audio

The expansion's audio settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Sound, Music, Character Responses mutable
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French				Retail and Steam only.
German				Retail and Steam only; download for GOG.com version.
Polish				Retail only.
Russian

Issues fixed

Unsupported video card

These fixes are only needed for the retail versions of the game. Digital versions are already patched and fully working. The retail versions require a no-CD patch for the following fixes.

Simple fix

Use unofficial patcher^{[citation needed]}
Update your game with the latest official patch. Download the fix from here. Find `<path-to-game>\Silent Storm\game.exe` then patch it.

Hex editing

Replace and hex edit executable^[5]

Open the game executable with a hex editor such as HxD.
Go to offset 0x9bae or 39854.
Replace the highlighted 0x74 with 0xEB and save.

00009B90 00 FF D3 52 57 FF 15 38 22 8B 00 8B 45 A4 50 E8 ...RW..8"...E.P.

00009BA0 1C C4 3C 00 83 C4 04 E9 01 0D 00 00 3B C7 74 2E ..<.........;.t.

00009BB0 B9 F7 51 00 00 8D 75 A4 E8 53 FE FF FF 52 BA 6B ..Q...u..S...R.k

Notes

For Sentinels, search for 3B C7 74 2E on the same string and replace 0x74 with 0xEB.

Only use this fix if the very first one doesn't work.

Incorrect shadows and reflections

Huge performance hit on Nvidia graphics cards, even though with the fix the game runs fine on ATI cards.^[6]

Unofficial Steam patch

Instructions^{[citation needed]}
Download the unofficial Steam patch. Extract `d3d9.dll` to `<path-to-game>\Silent Storm`.

WineD3D

The game might simply lockup on certain setups, poor performance overall.^[7]

Put WineD3D components in root installation folder^{[citation needed]}

Download WineD3D.
Extract libwine.dll, wined3d.dll and d3d9.dll into <path-to-game>.

Notes

This fix also applies to Silent Storm: Sentinels.

Shadows cast by buildings may still occasionally appear incorrect due to how the render engine works.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Cutscenes	Bink Video

Silent Storm Editor

Installing^[8]
Download the archive from here and extract its contents. Go to the `Microsoft SQL Server` folder, then run `setup.exe` as adiminstrator. Open `Silent Storm Editor` folder and move the files to `<path-to-game>`. Disconnect from the current Windows user or restart the computer in order for the MySQL server to start.

Running the editor^{[citation needed]}

Go to the installation folder.
Find the MapEdit.exe executable.
Set the executable to run as admininistrator.

Notes

The first startup may take a few more seconds, if the window doesn't show up at first Alt+Tab ↹ to find it.

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	98, 2000, ME, XP
Processor (CPU)	800 MHz
System memory (RAM)	128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	32 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0 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
Notes regarding Steam Play (Linux) data:
- File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data.
- Use Wine's registry editor to access any Windows registry paths.
- The app ID (254960) may differ in some cases.
- Treat backslashes as forward slashes.
- See the glossary page for details on Windows data paths.

References

↑ Windows 7 SP1 64-bit, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023
↑ It works! (8GB RAM, widescreen) - Steam Community Discussions - last accessed on May 2023
↑ No Shadows and/or Refraction? Here's the fix!, page 2 - Forum - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023
↑ Graphical gltich - Steam Community Discussions - last accessed on May 2023
↑ Silent Storm Game Fix - Johannes Bauer's Website - last accessed on May 2023
↑ Shadows fix - Nvidia framerate issues - last accessed on May 2023
↑ Tested by RaTcHeT302.
↑ Steam Community Guides - Silent Storm Editor - last accessed on May 2023

[gamedir-5] 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).

[Proton_path_note-6] 2.0 ^2.1 Notes regarding Steam Play (Linux) data:
File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data.
Use Wine's registry editor to access any Windows registry paths.
The app ID (254960) may differ in some cases.
Treat backslashes as forward slashes.
See the glossary page for details on Windows data paths.

[3] File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data.

[4] Use Wine's registry editor to access any Windows registry paths.

[5] The app ID (254960) may differ in some cases.

[6] Treat backslashes as forward slashes.

[7] See the glossary page for details on Windows data paths.

[1] Windows 7 SP1 64-bit, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023

[2] It works! (8GB RAM, widescreen) - Steam Community Discussions - last accessed on May 2023

[3] No Shadows and/or Refraction? Here's the fix!, page 2 - Forum - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023

[4] Graphical gltich - Steam Community Discussions - last accessed on May 2023

[7] Silent Storm Game Fix - Johannes Bauer's Website - last accessed on May 2023

[8] Shadows fix - Nvidia framerate issues - last accessed on May 2023

[9] Tested by RaTcHeT302.

[10] Steam Community Guides - Silent Storm Editor - last accessed on May 2023

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

Developers

	Nival
Publishers
2003-2011	JoWood Productions
2011-2016	Nordic Games
2016-present	THQ Nordic
Retail (USA)	Encore
Retail (Russia)	1C Company
Engines
	Silent Storm Engine
Release dates
Windows	November 7, 2003
Reception
Metacritic	83
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase, Expansion pack
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Turn-based
Perspectives	Bird's-eye view
Controls	Point and select
Genres	Strategy
Themes	World War II
Series	Silent Storm