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The Polar Express

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
The Polar Express
The Polar Express cover
Developers
Blue Tongue Entertainment
Publishers
THQ
Engines
RenderWare
Release dates
Windows November 3, 2004
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Action, Adventure, Platform
Art styles Realistic
Themes Contemporary
The Polar Express guide on StrategyWiki
The Polar Express on MobyGames
The Polar Express on Wikipedia

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
SecuROM DRM disc check.
Windows

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Use replacement video files

Use The Polar Express intro skip.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\BlueTongue Entertainment\The Polar Express[Note 1]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Save\[Note 2]

Video

Video settings (<path-to-game>\Config.exe).
Video settings (<path-to-game>\Config.exe).

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
See Windowed.
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.
High-fidelity upscaling
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
Appears to be always on.[citation needed]
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
Game will not run above 1000 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Widescreen resolution

Widescreen fix[1]
  1. Download and install Cheat Engine.
  2. Download an archive which corresponds to your screen aspect ratio.
  3. Open the installation folder and make a backup of PolarExpress.exe and Data\.
  4. Open the downloaded archive and copy PolarExpress.exe and Data\ to the installation folder.
  5. Run Config.exe.
  6. Run Cheat Engine and open the Config.exe process.
  7. Change "Value type" to "Array of byte" and paste 80020000E001 in the text field.
  8. Click on "First scan".
  9. Right-click on the fourth result and click on "Change value of selected addresses".
  10. Change the value to:
    • 00050000D002 for 1280x720
    • 000500000003 for 1280x768
    • 000500002003 for 1280x800
    • 000500000004 for 1280x1024
    • 560500000003 for 1366x768
    • A00500008403 for 1440x900
    • 400600008403 for 1600x900
    • 400600000004 for 1600x1024
    • 900600001A04 for 1680x1050
    • 800700003804 for 1920x1080
    • 80070000B004 for 1920x1200
    • More values available here
  11. Go back to the configuration window and set 640x480 resolution.

Notes

In-game cutscenes will become stretched.

Windowed

Windowed mode can be set but is limited to 640x480.
Set in registry[2]
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Open Config.exe and set a different resolution to generate the necessary value.
  3. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\BlueTongue Entertainment\The Polar Express
  4. Open the vidmode value.
  5. Change the 01 on the second line to 00. The game will now run in a window.

Input

Audio

Audio settings (in-game).
Audio settings (in-game).
Audio settings (<path-to-game>\Config.exe).
Audio settings (<path-to-game>\Config.exe).

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
SFX, Music.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Spanish

Other information

API

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

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio FMOD
Cutscenes Bink Video

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98, 2000, XP, ME
Processor (CPU) 400 MHz Pentium 3 (or equivalent AMD)
System memory (RAM) 128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 1.2 GB
Video card (GPU) AGP video card
32 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible


Notes

  1. Applications writing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE will be redirected to other locations based on various criterias, see the glossary page for more details.
  2. 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).

References