System Shock 2 Fix Guide

Welcome.
This guide will help you to get System Shock 2 running on your computer.

Installing The Game
First of all, you'll need the System Shock 2 CD. Pirated versions are NOT supported by this guide. If you really value the game, please go out and buy it! Insert the Install CD in the Drive and run Setup.exe to start the installation.

This guide will assume that you are installing to "C:\Games\System Shock 2" but you can install it wherever you like, just substitute the directory for your own directory. Do a FULL INSTALL of the game.

Do a full install now, you bag of flesh!

When the installer asks you to install DirectX 6.1, Select NO. You should have DirectX 9.0 already installed. If you don't or are unsure, feel free to grab the DirectX Web Installer. This will grab all the latest DirectX files you need from Microsoft directly.

When the Shock 2 launch window appears, click Close at the bottom of the window as the game is not in any sort of condition to be started yet.

If you wish to install the System Shock 2 editor then download this and be sure to correctly unzip the zip file inside it that contains the editor into your System Shock 2 install directory. You do NOT need the editor to get the game running on your machine.

Installing the 2.3 Patch
OK, You have System Shock 2 version 1.15 installed. The last patch to be released for System Shock 2 was 2.3.
Please note if you either have the Original 'Big Box' version or the re-released version of the game. System Shock 2 - 1.15 to 2.3 Patch

If you have the re-released version of the game (it came in a plastic case) then you do not need this patch.

Shock2.exe and DromEd.exe files
Next, we need to overwrite the Shock2.exe and (If you have the editor installed) DromEd.exe files that are in the System Shock 2 directory.
Shock 2 New EXE - ShockEd New EXE
Put this file/these files (depending on if you have the editor installed) into your Shock 2 directory overwriting the old ones.

If you're going to use the editor, you will need to rename the shocked.exe file to dromed.exe and THEN put it in your Shock 2 directory.

These help correct errors on newer computers with ATI and nVidia cards.

Modifying INSTALL.CFG
Open your Install.cfg file with Notepad located in the System Shock 2 directory (Right Click on the file and click Open With... Select Notepad and click OK). It should look something like this:

cd_path E:\
install_path C:\Games\System Shock 2
language english
resname_base C:\Games\System Shock 2\res+E:\shock
load_path C:\Games\System Shock 2+E:\shock
script_module_path C:\Games\System Shock 2+E:\shock
movie_path C:\Games\System Shock 2\cutscenes+E:\shock\cutscenes

Change it so that it looks like something a long the lines of the following:

install_path C:\Games\System Shock 2
language english
resname_base C:\Games\System Shock 2\res
load_path C:\Games\System Shock 2
script_module_path C:\Games\System Shock 2
movie_path C:\Games\System Shock 2\cutscenes

Save the file and close it.

CRF Files
This is NOT a necessary step to getting System Shock 2 to work.
In the Shock 2 directory are 2 sets of crf files. These contain information that the game uses such as Textures, Music, Sounds, Voices etc. One set of crf files is inside the root directory of the game. The other set is inside a directory called Patch. Firstly, make a new folder called "res", take every crf file that's in the root directory and move it into the new 'res' folder. To make the game more 'mod friendly', we can combine these files into 1 bigger file.

After the Shock 2 2.3 patch has been applied. A smaller 2nd set of crf files are placed in the Shock 2 "Patch" directory. It would be best if these files were merged together with the ones in the res folder. CRF files are basically ZIP files. The difference is their file extension. The file extension is the ".crf" part at the end of the file name. You can change this file extension to any extension you want. You can change .crf files into .zip files by changing their file extension, simply renaming something from BOOKS.crf to BOOKS.zip will work fine.

With this in mind, you can extract the contents of both the BOOKS.crf in the /res folder and the BOOKS.crf in the "Patch" directory into separate folders, overwrite the contents of BOOKS.crf in the /res folder with the contents of the BOOKS.crf in the "Patch" directory.

Once you have done this, you can repackage up the combined files as a .zip file, rename its extension back to .crf and put the new BOOKS.crf you've created into the /res folder and delete the smaller BOOKS.crf in your "Patch" directory. Now, you can repeat this process for all of the matching crfs!

Enabling EAX
This part requires that you have a sound card or some sound device that can handle EAX effects in games.
EAX DLL files
Put these two files inside your Shock 2 directory. Later, in the main menu, you can enable EAX effects in the Options menu! (If you are on Windows XP or lower)

For Windows Vista/Windows 7 users with Realtek Onboard Sound.
Software called Realtek SoundBack allows you to regain lost EAX functionality in System Shock 2.
Realtek SoundBack Page
Install this and follow the instructions it gives you to get everything working.

For Windows Vista/Windows 7 users with a Creative Sound Card.
First, grab the files in the Enabling EAX section above and put them in the Shock 2 directory. Windows Vista/Windows 7 handles sound differently. Old games will not have the ability to have EAX enabled because Microsoft removed DirectSound from Vista/7. DirectSound allowed EAX to work.
Fortunately, Creative have created software called Creative ALchemy. This software allows OpenGL sound to be translated back into DirectSound.
Creative ALchemy Homepage
Depending on what card you have, Download the relative software and add Shock2.exe to the list. Once you have done that, the software will automatically pick up on when you start the game and will begin translating the audio!

DDFix
Now, things become a little more advanced from here on in.
You will need to download DDFix from one of the two links below.
TTLG Official Forum -- 1.5.11
My Website -- 1.5.11
Extract all files into your Shock 2 installation. Open DDFIX.INI in Notepad and you'll be faced with a number of options. These options are very fragile: Altering ANYTHING you don't understand may mess up your entire game and may even, though not likely, cause some kind of system damage.

Nowadays, this file has been configured to be at its most effective on most computers so a lot of the settings in here don't actually need changing or altering. People have been digging deeper and have unearthed so many configurable options that the DDFix.ini full of with customizable settings.

Here is how you do it. Simply remove the ; from before the line below the setting in which you want to enable. For example.

;Prevent multicore related crash. Boolean.
;MultiCoreFix=1

becomes

;Prevent multicore related crash. Boolean.
MultiCoreFix=1

Note the missing ; before the line MultiCoreFix=1. This is how you enable them for use!

Booleans are simple On/Off settings like a lightswitch. 1 is On, 0 is Off.
Integers are whole numbers. You don't put anything like 98.3 or 62.6 in these.

In DDFix.ini, you NEED to enable the following settings in the following settings to get a smooth playing experience.

;Prevent multicore related crash. Boolean.
;MultiCoreFix=1
;Register lgvid.ax every time game is started. Boolean.
;VideoFix=1

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you remove the ; from the beginning of these two commands. The Multi-Core fix will allow you to run Shock 2 on any computer that contains a CPU that processes using more then 1 CPU thread (In other words, If you are running Shock 2 on a Dual Core, Quad Core, i3, i5 or i7 machine).

The Video Fix will register a unique codec every time Shock 2 is launched so the videos for the game will play properly instead of not being played at all.

Here are some settings you might want to change in the DDFix.ini (Open it with Notepad and Save once you are done. Be sure to remove the ; from the beginning of the command in order to enable it to be read by DDFix.DLL):

;Disable the Windows key. Boolean.
;DisableWindowsKey=1

This allows you to 'window key' out of the game to maybe answer an e-mail or annoy someone on MSN. Change it to 0 or 1 to toggle this setting (1 is ON, 0 is OFF)

;Use vsync. Boolean.
;FlipVSync=1

If you find the game running too fast on your machine, then enable VSync. This restricts the number of frames per second the game runs at to your monitors refresh rate and Shock 2 will no longer run fast.

;Bloom intensity. 0-255. (0 = disable all bloom processing.)
;Bloom=255

If you like that sort of thing, System Shock 2 has Bloom now. Remove the ; to enable. There are a lot of Bloom settings further down the page and they all do many different things.

Once you have changed all the settings you like, move on to the next step.

Modifying CAM.CFG
Open CAM.CFG with Notepad (Just like you did with INSTALL.CFG) and you will see something like this:

Add these three lines to the bottom of the document:

always_play_intro
safe_texture_manager
skip_starting_checks

Now the document should now look something like this:

Don't worry about all these extra lines that might not be in yours. They'll be added to the file by the game once it starts.

Other optional lines include:
ObjTextures16
MeshTextures16
If you install any mods that improve graphics, models, textures etc. then these two lines will enable them to appear in game. If they are not present, textures will simply not work and those items will appear all white!

Changing Resolution
One will you might see however, is game_screen_size 640 480 or some variation of that. Change the 640 480 to what resolution you want Shock 2 to run at. I personally have mine set as 1680 1050 because that's my max screen resolution. If you don't have this line, just add it above the edits that were made previously.

So now my game_screen_size line looks like the following:

game_screen_size 1680 1050

Feel free to add your resolution here. As long as it's a valid 4:3, 16:9 or 16:10 screen resolution, it will work just fine.

In Game Movies Not Playing
If those game videos aren't playing for you, you should download the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack from CodecGuide.com
This is a pack of codecs that allow you to play movie files on your PC. This pack has something called ffdshow which handles the playback of Shock 2's AVI files which are encoded with Indeo codec technology (which is very old).

Other Issues: Mono Sound
If you find that, when testing the sound and speakers inside the Thief Audio menu, the Left/Right speaker test sounds to be coming from the front, you need to turn down the number of Audio Channels. Not in Shock 2, but on your audio/sound device.

Obviously, I cannot cover every single device out there so you will have to look at your audio software on contact your audio software/hardware manufacturer for more information.

If you can, set the number of Audio Channels on your sound device to 4. Any number higher then 4 will not work.

The number of Audio Channels in the Shock 2 Audio menu can be set to whatever number you prefer. I prefer 16 as it sounds to produce the clearest sound of all the settings.

That's it!
OK, you should now have a fully working copy of System Shock 2. It should now be playable on Windows XP/Vista/7 in glorious widescreen!
Here are some pictures of the first mission in 1680x1050 I took after following my own guide.

Big props go to the guys and girls at Through The Looking Glass. They found a lot of this stuff, a huge guide just needed to be made to make sense of it all :)

This guide is Copyrighted © Saleck. Feel free to print/re-post this guide anywhere but please give credit where credit is due. That's all I ask :)