Soldier of Fortune: Payback

Soldier of Fortune
Soldier of Fortune	2000
Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix	2002
Soldier of Fortune: Payback	2007

Soldier of Fortune: Payback is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person shooter game in the Soldier of Fortune series.

The game lacks an FPS limiter or Vsync and causes large amount of bugs and physics glitches with frame rates higher than 60 FPS.

General information

Steam Community Discussions

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series

GOG.com Support Page

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
GOG.com
Steam (unavailable)

Game was sold on Steam at one point,^[1] however was taken down most likely due to Activision losing the license for the IP.

Not available for sale on GOG in Germany.

Essential improvements

Patches

Patch 1.1 fixes crashing, as well as a number of issues with the game.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Config\key_binding.txt^{[Note 1]}
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/7980/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Main configuration file is not saved in text form for the most part.

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Save\profile.dat^{[Note 1]}
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/7980/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

General settings.

Graphics feature	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution		See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor		See Widescreen resolution.
Ultra-widescreen		See Widescreen resolution.
4K Ultra HD		See Widescreen resolution.
Field of view (FOV)	See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed	Use D3DWindower.
Borderless fullscreen windowed	See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)	See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)	See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)	See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS
120+ FPS	No frame rate cap, but bullet physics break when FPS exceeds 120, causing bullets to phase through enemies without harming them. High frame rates below 120 will result in exaggerated physics effects, but this does not affect gameplay. Refresh rate can be set when choosing resolution. See Issues fixed.
High dynamic range display (HDR)	See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Widescreen resolution

Though most modern resolutions are natively supported, on some systems it may be limited to 1600x1050 and will have to be set manually with a hex editor.

Hex edit the config file^[2]

Go to <path-to-game>\Save.
Open profile.dat with a hex editor such as HxD.
Find a string which displays the current resolution, e.g. 1280x720x60.
Replace it with the desired resolution.

Notes

If the resolution's height does not have enough characters - close the hex editor, open the game, choose 1600x1050, apply new settings and quit. Then edit the config file.

Image is Vert-. For ultra-wide resolutions, FOV will need to be increased to compensate.

Changing any in-game options will revert the changes.

Field of view (FOV)

Use modified DLL files^[2]

Download modified DLL files and extract them.
Copy CloakNTEngine.dll with a preferred FOV value to the installation folder overriding already existing file.

Notes

This fix requires Patch 1.1 installed.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		No option to disable it.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Notes
LAN play
Online play

Issues fixed

Lacking sounds / loud noise when playing the game

Use software that restores legacy audio effects on newer OS^{[citation needed]}
See Restore legacy audio effects on newer OS and choose appropriate solution for your sound card.

Enemies not taking any damage when you shoot them

Cap frame rate to 85 FPS via Nvidia Control Panel
Open Nvidia Control Panel and navigate to Manage 3D settings. Under the Program Settings tab, select sof3.exe. Set the max frame rate to 85 FPS and save.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9.0c
Shader Model support	2

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Physics	Havok

Enable a developer console

Start a game with `-console` parameter^{[citation needed]}

Mods

No HUD mod - Put the Gui2 directory from that zip file into your SOF3 game installation directory. This mod only works correctly with widescreen.
Kifs Blood Mod - Improves the blood texture.
Functional Iron Sights - Adds actual iron sights when aiming.

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	XP, Vista
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium 4 2.5 GHz	Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz
System memory (RAM)	512 MB	1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	3.3 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 6800 ATI Radeon X800 256 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0c compatible Shader model 2.0 support	Nvidia GeForce 7900 ATI Radeon X1900 512 MB of VRAM

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>/7980/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (7980) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

↑ steamdb.info - last accessed on 28 May 2023
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 WSGF page

[gamedir-2] 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-3] 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>/7980/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (7980) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

[1] steamdb.info - last accessed on 28 May 2023

[WSGF-4] 2.0 ^2.1 WSGF page

[1]

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[2]

Developers

	Cauldron
Publishers
Original	Activision Value
Current	Activision
Engines
	CloakNT
Release dates
Windows	November 14, 2007
Reception
Metacritic	45
IGDB	50
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Shooter
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Contemporary
Series	Soldier of Fortune