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SpellForce: The Order of Dawn

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
SpellForce: The Order of Dawn
SpellForce: The Order of Dawn cover
Developers
Phenomic
Publishers
2003-2011 JoWood Productions
2011-2016 Nordic Games
2016-present THQ Nordic
North America Encore
Re-release Sold Out Software
Engines
KRASS Engine
Release dates
Windows November 28, 2003
Reception
Metacritic 74
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, Expansion pack
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view
Controls Multiple select, Point and select
Genres RPG, RTS
Themes Fantasy
Series SpellForce
SpellForce: The Order of Dawn on HowLongToBeat
SpellForce: The Order of Dawn on IGDB
SpellForce: The Order of Dawn on MobyGames
SpellForce: The Order of Dawn on Wikipedia
SpellForce
SpellForce: The Order of Dawn 2003
SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars 2006
SpellForce 2: Faith in Destiny 2012
SpellForce 2: Demons of the Past 2014
SpellForce 3 2017
SpellForce 3: Soul Harvest 2019
SpellForce 3: Fallen God 2020
SpellForce 3: Versus Edition 2020
SpellForce: Conquest of Eo 2023

Warnings

GameSpy online services have been shut down (see Network for solutions).

SpellForce: The Order of Dawn is a singleplayer and multiplayer bird's-eye view RPG and RTS game in the SpellForce series.

General information

Official Forum
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)
CD key
SecuROM 4 DRM disc check. Expansions use SecuROM 5 DRM.
Russian copies use StarForce DRM.
Windows
Retail
CD key
The 2007 JoWood-published 'Spellforce Universe' (red box)
Windows
GamersGate
Icon overlay.png
Platinum Edition.
Windows
Gamesplanet logo.svg
Icon overlay.png
Platinum Edition.
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
CD key
Platinum Edition. Serial keys for multiplayer available by request to GOG support team.[1]
Windows
Green Man Gaming
Icon overlay.png
Platinum Edition.
Windows
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Platinum Edition.
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
CD key
Platinum Edition with unique 1.61 patch.
Windows

Version differences

The retail-only Gold Edition includes the base game and The Breath of Winter expansion pack.
The Platinum Edition includes the base game and both expansion packs.

Monetization

Type Notes
Expansion pack The expansion packs include new campaigns, items, units, buildings, skirmish mode and more.
One-time game purchase The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
The Breath of Winter
Windows
Shadow of the Phoenix
Windows

Essential improvements

Patches

Official patches can be found on Patches-Scrolls.

Fix for Polish retail release

To fix a problem with being unable to start the Polish retail version of the Gold Edition on Core i3/i5/i7 and Xeon processors, install CD Projekt's iCore fix.

Skip intro videos

Delete/rename prelude videos[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\videos.
  2. Delete or rename prelude_0.bik, prelude_1.bik, prelude_2.bik and prelude_3.bik.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\config.lua[Note 1]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/39540/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\SpellForce\SAVE
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/39540/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
OneDrive
Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud
Added in a patch.[2]

Video

Video settings.
Video settings.

Widescreen resolution

Retail and GOG.com versions do not natively support widescreen. There are two workarounds.
Download a fixed .exe from WSGF[citation needed]
  1. Download the modified executable archive from Nexus Mods (formerly on WSGF).
  2. Paste and overwrite the .exe corresponding to the desired resolution into the installation folder.
  3. The game will now play in widescreen.
Edit config.lua manually[citation needed]
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Edit config.lua.
  3. Locate the section Graphic =
  4. At the end of the section add two entries:
    • WindowWidth = *your window width*,
    • WindowHeight = *your window height*,
  5. Save the file and exit.
  6. Run SpellForce.exe as administrator.
This fix may cause a series of graphical errors.[citation needed]
Draw distance also can be increased beyond the in-game maximum in the config.lua file, but at the cost of performance drops.
As of July 2019, the latest Steam version of the game includes native widescreen resolution support via in-game options.

Input

Audio

Audio settings.
Audio settings.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Music, SFX and Voice.
Surround sound
Set in Options, 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.
Italian
Retail and Platinum Edition only.
Polish
Retail and Platinum Edition only.
Russian
Retail and Platinum Edition only. Full official text and UI translation for the Steam Platinum Edition can be downloaded here
Spanish
Retail and Platinum Edition only.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
8 Versus, Co-op
Co-op supports up to 3 players.
Online play
8 GameSpy services have been shut down;[4] see GameSpy for workarounds.

Connection types

VR support

3D modes State Notes
vorpX
G3D
User created profile, requires DGVoodoo2 WIP58, (DX9) see profile introdution.
Note: Profile may not work with the latest wrapper, in case of issues please report to the vorpx forum.

Issues fixed

Game asks for serial key on every launch

Enter key while running the game as administrator[citation needed]

Issues unresolved

Shadow issues

On modern systems, dynamic shadows (high and very high settings) are only rendered on part of the screen.[5] Precise cause remains unclear.

SLI issues

SLI (more than one graphics card) is not supported and causes a black anomaly to fill the screen. Disable SLI to remedy this.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio Miles Sound System 6.5c
Cutscenes Bink Video 1.5y
Multiplayer GameSpy GameSpy server browser has been shut down.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98, ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium III 1 GHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 2 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 2
32 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0a compatible
Sound (audio device) DirectX compatible


Notes

  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 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>/39540/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (39540) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References