First Impression Video: Dungeon Siege (PC/Steam)

This is the 41st instalment of our first impression video series. For this month’s Steam game, we are playing Dungeon Siege for the first time.

Welcome to the 41st instalment of our first impression video series. Today, we are playing the Steam game, Dungeon Siege for the first time. You can check out the video directly on YouTube or in the embed below:

A lot of people have experienced loads of problems playing this game. This includes myself who had problems getting this to run and, even more tricky, getting this to record properly. Luckily, I found a way. When I find a solution to a technical problem, I’m more than happy to share it.

Getting this running:

If you can’t get this game to run at all, these instructions are what got me to get this game to run.

First, you need access to the game files. For those who installed it via Steam, the default directory is here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Dungeon Siege 1

The first thing you’ll need to do is open up DSVideoConfig.exe. The first drop down menu is the Video Driver. Click on this and select your graphics card (I chose not to use anything with “TnL” in it as other gamers have recommended against using this option). After that, click “OK”.

Next, you’ll want to open up the DungeonSiege.ini file in notepad (should be default, but if not, open it in notepad via right clicking). At the beginning, you’ll see width and height values. This is supposed to reflect your screen resolution. Most monitors are 1024 x 768. If that is the case, then you need to change the width and height values to what you see below:

width = 1024
height = 768

Save and exit. This should allow you to play the game itself. If you experience a flicker, a possible solution is to turn shadows to “none” in the in-game video settings. That may help. Otherwise, you might be stuck with a flicker.

Using Windowed Mode:

Steam does have an option to open games in windowed mode, however, I found that adding this argument crashes the game once you get out of the menu’s. The alternative method is to use a non-Steam solution. For me, I used dxwnd which can be downloaded via SourceForge.

My understanding is that this program is very useful for old games such as this game.

After you extract the files, start the program. You should see a small blank window. Click on Edit and, in the menu, Add to add a new app. You can name your app after the game you are using (Dungeon Siege is what I named it). From there, add the file path for the main game executable (can be found in the aforementioned file path).

As an option, you can look at the launch options on the bottom right part of the window. This will give you the option to launch the game and have the window in the centre of the screen. I found no way to manually move this window, so adjusting this can make life a whole lot easier. By default, the program sets it to “X,Y coordinated. I personally prefer “Desktop center” to have the window appear in the middle of the screen. After that, click “OK” and you should see the Dungeon Siege icon appear. Double click to start your game in windowed mode! By this point in time, I had no flicker or screen tearing. So, I hope these instructions help someone else out there too!

Can’t promise that this will automatically work for you, but I wanted to share what worked for me (in this case, it enabled me to capture game footage for you).

For those who are keeping track of what I was talking about in the game, the RPG I was struggling to remember at that particular moment was the game Sacred. Murphy’s law, amirite?

Have you heard of this game? Does the initial footage make it look interesting to you or is this game too old for your taste? Does some of the concepts like swinging a sword enabling you to be more proficient with swords seem like an interesting concept? For those who have played this game or series before, what are your thoughts on this? Do you have fond memories playing this or was it a forgettable experience? Let us know in the comments below!

This video is part of our first impression video series. Below is a list of previously made first impression video’s we’ve made in the past:

As always, you can additionally check out our YouTube channel and subscribe to us. This will allow you to find out when we’ve uploaded another video directly on that site.

Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.