:: Shadowgrounds FAQ ::

[JeffM4]

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is Shadowgrounds?

Shadowgrounds is an epic sci-fi game that blends addictive old school gameplay and modern technology into one big, nasty alien-battling carnage festival. The game is played from a top-down perspective that gives you a better view of the battlefield and allows for different and unique combat tactics.

What are the system requirements?

Windows 2000 / XP
1.5 GHz Processor
384 MB RAM
DirectX compatible 128 MB graphics card *
DirectX compatible sound card
1 GB of available Hard Drive Space
DirectX 9.0c (included)
Mouse & Keyboard
Gamepad (co-op)

* Shadowgrounds does not run well on integrated graphics cards (with the exception of laptop Radeon 9700 series / X600 series or better, and some new NVIDIA cards).

Note: Shadowgrounds will not run on GeForce 4 MX cards.

Is there a demo available?

Of course!

http://www.meridian4.com/games/Shado...ds/demo-2.html

Or

http://storefront.steampowered.com/v...me&AppId=2510&

Why is the game so dark?

The game being dark is a conscious choice to keep up the great atmosphere. If you desperately need to see more, you can use the Gamma level slider in the Options menu to brighten the screen.

Why is the camera top-down?

We wanted to create a top-down action game, because there hasn't been many lately. Top-down is a great camera especially for fast-paced action games like Shadowgrounds. We believe that games should have a great variety, and that not all games need to be first person shooters.

However, you should note that Shadowgrounds features a "Free Camera" mode where the camera is not locked to the original position. You can also slightly alter the pitch of the camera. It's still top-down, but might suit your play style better.

Is there a first person mode?

No. However, it is possible that some Shadowgrounds mods will attempt a first person camera. The game engine supports first person to some extent.

Does the game support multiple mice or keyboards?

Currently , no. Gamepads are recommended for co-op play. This may be addressed in an upcoming patch.

Is Internet/LAN multiplayer support coming to Shadowgrounds?

Never say never… The same computer Co-Op was added very late in the development process, and even that required quite a bit of extra effort. Internet/LAN is a different beast altogether - it is much, much more complex and would require reworking of the underlying game engine.

At the moment it’s in discussion but not decision has been made.

Will there be a Shadowgrounds 2?

Possibly. We would love to do Shadowgrounds 2, no question about it. An expansion pack is also possible. These also depend a little bit on sales - if the sales are high, then the chances of an expansion or even a sequel get higher. Nothing is certain at this point, and we hope that everyone also remembers the Level Editor and future Mods, which should be a very welcome addition.


SHADOWGROUNDS AND STEAM TROUBLESHOOTING

The Launcher takes ages to load!

This is a known problem with the Steam version. Everything works ok but the Launcher just loads quite a bit. We are investigating the reasons for this, and hope to fix it in a patch.

The demo/game doesn't work / launch!

Some Steam users have trouble launching the game. Usually the problems are solved with re-downloading the game, or simply just restarting Steam.

Another thing to try is clicking the Properties button (while Shadowgrounds is selected), then "Local Files" and then "Verify integrity of game cache". This is known to help in some cases.

The game download has stopped at 99% and I can't play.

If Shadowgrounds hasn't been downloaded 100%, it won't work. So you need to get the download meter to 100%. Try quitting Steam and restarting it. This also helps if there's "Updating 0%" or other such messages.

Another thing to try is clicking the Properties button (while Shadowgrounds is selected), then "Local Files" and then "Verify integrity of game cache". This is known to help in some cases.

I hear no sounds in the game.

Some users have sound problems with the Steam demo and full version. The symptoms are that there is no music, no speech (vocals), and no sound effects.

For some users, the only sound that works is the "let's kick their a**" vocal associated with the Speech slider. For others, nothing works.

We are working on a fix for this with Steam. No ETA yet. However, you should try all the general Steam fixes as mentioned above and below. A couple of users have had their problems fixed with re-downloading the game.

I get a Visual C++ error?!

Some Steam users get a Visual C++ error of some sorts either when launching Shadowgrounds or during play (crash).

Currently there is no solution to this. It is suspected to be a problem with Steam and certain systems, but it could also be a problem with the game itself.

You can try several things, like re-downloading the game and verifying the cache files. These may fix the problem on some computers...

"This game is currently unavailable"?!

There has been two reports of this happening. When the user is trying to launch Shadowgrounds via Steam, Steam comes up with an error dialog that says "This game is currently unavailable, please try again at another time" (or something similar).

Re-downloading the game/demo or verifying the local cache files doesn't seem to work in this case. Currently there is no solution but we are trying to figure it out.

I hear no sounds in the game!

Some users have sound problems with the Steam demo and/or full version. The symptoms are that there is no music, no speech (vocals), and no sound effects.

It seems that the sound problem is caused by a crash that very, very rarely occurs when the user tries to adjust the settings in the game's Options menu. After the crash or Blue Screen of Death, the game simply has no sounds anymore. For some users, the only sound that works is the "let's kick their a**" vocal associated with the Speech slider.
For others, nothing works.

However, the solution has been found. Two users solved this by deleting ALL of the local content (at least \SteamApps\youraccount\shadowgrounds folder and the shadowgrounds.gcf file) and then re-downloading the entire game through Steam again. Now the sounds should work again.


TROUBLESHOOTING

What are the Launcher options?

In general, the overall options that you would select from the Launcher's standard menu (not the Advanced menu) should be quite well adjusted for most cases. If you have a CPU and a graphics card that are of "the same caliber", you should have no need to tweak the individual options found in the Advanced menu. If you have an old CPU but a new graphics card, or vice versa, then adjusting the individual Advanced options accordingly may give you better visual quality with no significant performance loss.

If you are experiencing a big framerate drop during fights, then you probably have a bottleneck caused by the CPU. If you have constantly low framerates, even when nothing is happening, then your performance is probably limited by the graphics card. (Of course, in reality, it's not this simple, but this is a good guideline.)

Ground Shadows Texture - this option affects the shadows that are projected on theground/floor from various static/semi-dynamic light sources. This option defines the resolution at which the shadows are drawn. If you set it to lowest setting, you'll have shadows with slightly jagged edges. If you set it to highest setting, the shadows should be sharp. Which setting is best for you, depends on your screen resolution, graphics card and preference... (If you have a very low screen resolution, raising the shadows texture quality very high won't make much difference.) This option will mostly just affect your graphics card performance, setting it to a higher setting will not add any CPU load.
Shadow Texture Quality - this option affects the shadows that you get from dynamic lights (player's flashlight being the most common one). Basically the effect is the same as with the above "Ground Shadows Texture". Low quality may give you shadows with jagged edges, high quality will not. Mostly affects graphics card performance, and not CPU.

Shadows Level - when set on very low, this option will disable most shadows. When set on low/medium, this will disable some shadows and render only the most apparently visible shadows (may cause some shadow "popping" at screen edges), when set on higher settings this option will render the maximum amount of shadows. Mostly affects graphics card performance, some effect on CPU too.

Misc - this option affects a lot of miscellaneous quality factors. Along with the "Weather Effects Level" option, this option probably has the most CPU performance effect... So if you have a slow CPU but a good graphics card, these 2 options are probably the ones you'll want to lower first. (In case of a slow CPU, you probably should not set these above the medium setting, or at most the high setting. Never very high.)

Distortion Effects - this will have a huge performance hit on your graphics card. Use it only if you have a powerful graphics card. Not-so-powerful graphics cards will most likely take a big hit if the Distortion Effects are on. (The Distortion Effects are used in explosions and in the water effects, and they also add significant coolness to the Flamethrower.)

It is possible to tweak some of the rendering options even more accurately than what the Launcher allows. You'll have to either manually edit the configuration files or use the game console to modify those options. However, there should be no need to do any such tweaking, as the Launcher already offers more than enough options to tweak.

The Launcher text does not fit the window!

There have been some problems with widescreen resolutions but those should be fixed. However, there is a known bug that makes the text and buttons go out of the Launcher window, like in the adjacent picture.

Most likely your DPI settings are turned up. Turning them down should fix the problem. We may fix the need for turning them down in an upcoming patch, but for now please do so.

The settings can be found in the Control Panel -> Display Properties -> Settings tab -> Advanced button -> General tab -> DPI Setting. The normal size is 96.

My game doesn't start!

Please make sure you have DirectX 9.0c or later installed. Also make sure you have the latest graphics card drivers and that you system meets the minimum system requirements.

The game runs really slow on my computer.

Try setting your graphics options to low settings. Also note that “Disappearing corpses” (dead monsters will disappear in 30 seconds after their death) improves the performance. Another such option is the “Distortion”, which means the beautiful Heat Distortion effect used with the flamethrower and explosions – Distortion should definitely be deselected on slow machines.

After playing for a while, my fps drops drastically.

This error may occur with certain graphics cards with certain drivers. Try visiting the operating system desktop once by pressing alt-tab (not by exiting the game). Then go back to the game in similar manner, or click the Shadowgrounds button in the Taskbar. This should fix the poor fps.

When I start the game it says "Version mismatch"?!

This error is due to a copied executable file. If you have bought the game from normal channels, this error should not happen. Please contact Support for more information.

I can't start a co-op game - how to do it?

To start a co-op gamepad game, follow these steps:

-> Check that your gamepads show up in your operating system’s Game Controllers (in Control Panel)
-> Launch Shadowgrounds
-> Go to Profiles and create a new player profile for each gamepad/player, or modify an existing profile.
-> Select one of the newly created profiles and go to Options menu.
-> Set up the button configuration and the X and Y axis (for aiming, usually mapped to the right analog stick).
-> Repeat the process for each player participating in the game
-> When all players have configured their gamepads and/or keyboard+mouse, select New Game (or Load Game if you have a previously saved Co-op game).
-> Select Co-Operative, then the difficulty level, and press Start.
-> That's it! Have fun!

I have very low FPS in missions with water.

The water effects use procedural textures, which may cause some problems. These will help:

- Set the Launcher to Low or Very Low settings, and play the game

OR

- In the Launcher Advanced menu, select Low or Very Low in the Misc box (lower-left corner).

There are some weird graphics sparkles on the screen when flashlight is off?!

This problem is very rare but may happen on some graphics cards. The problem is related to the glow buffer. It has been noted on at least GeForce FX5900 XT. This only happens when the flashlight is turned off.

However, the fix is very simple: Deselect "Render Glow" from the Launcher Advanced menu. If this does not help, then turn off "Distortion Effects" too. Now the problem should be gone.

The game can't play videos / WMV codec problems.

A very minor portion of players have some problems with the WMV codecs used by the game. Some of the cutscenes use rendered videos and these use WMV. The required WMV codecs should have been installed during the installation process, but it might be that they don't work on some computers.

You may also get a message like this when trying to launch the game or during the game: "The procedure entrypoint WMCreateReader could not be located in the dynamic link library WMVCore.DLL." (or similar).

Luckily there is a simple fix for this: Download Windows Media Player 10 from Microsoft.

I can't use all the keyboard buttons?

Shadowgrounds allows only certain keyboard buttons to be mapped as controls.

However, some people might want to use buttons that are not supported initially. Such could be the left and right brackets on the US keyboard (located next to the P letter).

This is possible but it requires that you manually edit the keybinds.txt which is located in Profiles\yourprofile\Config\ directory. Please take a backup copy of this file before you edit it.

Now, you should see lines of text with a keyboard button next to it, such as:
attack = button-1

Before you can map your desired button to the file, you need to know the correct number for it. This might be hard to obtain, because it's only included in the DirectX Input key codes names, and doesn't seem to be readily available on the Internet. The best way is to experiment or get in touch via the forums (Steam and/or Shadowgrounds). The key codes are related to their position on the keyboard.

In the case of the left and right brackets, their numbers are #26 and #27, respectively. So if you want the left bracket to shoot the primary fire, you would write:
attack = #26

That should work. However, with the original Shadowgrounds retail version, there is a bug when you quit the game the next time, that the keybinds.txt file gets messed up if you use the # character. So, before playing the game, set the file as "read-only" (in XP, right-click, select Properties, and give the read-only attribute). Of course, after this you can't change the controls in the game menus, so make sure you have otherwise good controls. (And of course you can always uncheck the read-only attribute.)

This # problem has been fixed and will be corrected in the next patch.

The game crashes at New Atlantis loading screen.

One user has reported that the demo played fine for the first two missions, but the New Atlantis level crashed right after the loading screen. In the Steam demo, the computer rebooted itself, and on the normal demo the New Atlantis introduction cutscene played ok but then crashed and the computer rebooted itself.

The problem went away when the user updated his graphics and sound card drivers.


GENERAL INFORMATION

Motherboard integrated sound chips

In some cases, if you are getting very low framerates during fights, even when you have selected the very low settings, a motherboard integrated sound chip may be the reason. If you are using an integrated sound chip, you should make sure you have installed the latest drivers for it. In certain cases, we've noticed a huge CPU performance loss due to integrated sound chips / old sound chip drivers.

Integrated graphics cards / laptop graphics cards

Shadowgrounds does not run on many integrated graphics cards of laptop graphics cards. Please also note that Shadowgrounds does not run on GeForce 4 MX cards.

Below is a list of tested integrated graphics chipsets that DO NOT run Shadowgrounds:

- Intel GMA900
- Intel GMA915
- Intel 82915g 128 MB (used in Sony Vaio VGC-FB53 etc)




If you require technical assistance, the forums (Steam and/or Shadowgrounds) are a great place to get answers, but you can also contact Meridian4 Support.

On behalf of Frozenbyte and Meridian4 we would like to thank you for your interest in Shadowgrounds.

Enjoy the game!

nice work.

mods sticky?

[-=Glasnost=-]

I have a question: Does the game function like an arcade (get as far as you can without dying, and start from beginning if you die) or are there save points?

[JoelFB]

If you die, you are respawned a little further back. So you don't have to start the mission over, unless you're playing on Hard, Very Hard or Impossible (which only have one life per mission).

However, the checkpoints are not permanent savepoints, so if you quit the mission, you'll have to start it over the next time.

I do wholeheartedly recommend you give the demo a try.

[goodBEan]

Here is how you set the game to widescreen. I just did it and it works with no problem.

Edit the following file with a text editor:

options.txt

In the game's base directory.

Look for the lines that say:

screen_height = 1200
screen_width = 1600

Change these to your desired resolution. Simple! FOV is corrected.

Originally Posted by JoelFB

If you die, you are respawned a little further back. So you don't have to start the mission over, unless you're playing on Hard, Very Hard or Impossible (which only have one life per mission).

However, the checkpoints are not permanent savepoints, so if you quit the mission, you'll have to start it over the next time.

I do wholeheartedly recommend you give the demo a try.

This is horrible. I figured, for $5, I can't go wrong, it'll at least be an enjoyable shooter.

So, I died to the first boss, then had to quit when I respawned, and now I'm learning I have to do the ENTIRE mission over?

I sighed the first time I tried to manually save, but this is an order of magnitude beyond even the lack of manual saves and dealing with checkpoints on a PC game.

Even the pre-boss checkpoint is a standard feature of every other game I've played that uses this method of saving.

[JoelFB]

Yeah, sorry about that. It was a big technical issue at the time (and in fact still is in all of our current games, but e.g. Shadowgrounds Survivor has much shorter missions so it's not a problem there).

To help you get through faster, you could enable the cheats (press F1+SPACE+1 simultaneously I think, should say "developer keybinds enabled" or something) and then use the F5 key to warp around the level. Not optimal but should be faster at least. You can also check the estimated mission length at
http://shadowgroundsgame.com/new/ind...#missionlength so you can see which missions require a bit more time. I hope this helps a bit.

Originally Posted by JoelFB

Yeah, sorry about that. It was a big technical issue at the time (and in fact still is in all of our current games, but e.g. Shadowgrounds Survivor has much shorter missions so it's not a problem there).

To help you get through faster, you could enable the cheats (press F1+SPACE+1 simultaneously I think, should say "developer keybinds enabled" or something) and then use the F5 key to warp around the level. Not optimal but should be faster at least. You can also check the estimated mission length at
http://shadowgroundsgame.com/new/ind...#missionlength so you can see which missions require a bit more time. I hope this helps a bit.

Well, I don't really want to enable the cheats, that defeats the purpose. It was mostly the unpleasant surprise, starting the game up again, of realizing I had to do the mission over again.

Looking at the FAQ, I guess I'm lucky I didn't learn this on one of the longer missions.

Thanks for the reply, it was both unexpected and appreciated.

[h@RT3r]

Originally Posted by JoelFB

Yeah, sorry about that. It was a big technical issue at the time (and in fact still is in all of our current games, but e.g. Shadowgrounds Survivor has much shorter missions so it's not a problem there).

To help you get through faster, you could enable the cheats (press F1+SPACE+1 simultaneously I think, should say "developer keybinds enabled" or something) and then use the F5 key to warp around the level. Not optimal but should be faster at least. You can also check the estimated mission length at
http://shadowgroundsgame.com/new/ind...#missionlength so you can see which missions require a bit more time. I hope this helps a bit.

Nope, I pressed F1+SPACE+1, nothing came out.

[JoelFB]

Yeah that may not work anymore, although I'm not sure if the combination was/is correct... You could try SPACE + 1 + F12 and other combinations which include SPACE (/or jump key), 1, left SHIFT, and F1 and F12.

Anyhow, might be it's since been disabled at some point. You can check some other cheats at GameFAQs.

[MADDOGGE]

I normally don't like iso game period and absolutely loathe when there isn't at least a manual save much less a QS. No developer or publisher should ever tell me where I can and can not save. They don't know under what conditions I am playing under or how I like to play.

That being said, I picked these games up during the Summer Seal I think, and these games were quite fun to play. The missions aren't all that long and as long as you don't quit there are interim temporary checkpoints along the way til you complete the mission.

[gonomodevil]

I was wondering how the save system worked in this game since there is no save menu anywhere. It's a bit of a letdown knowing the game is saved only after completing a mission and they can be lenghty. But I'll give it a try anyway.