Talk:Painkiller

So, original Painkiller game Black Edition seems to lag on new Windows OS, like Windows 10 or 11 a lot. Thus while googling the solution someone said that turning off Bloom in game settings could help. But it didn't. Heck, I saw people saying that turning off bloom does a little to nothing to reduce or completely remove the lag, and that's why I started experimenting with in-game graphical settings. And I guess that I found the solution to the problem. But, I'm not 100% guarantee that this will help you but you could try and see if it does anyway.

NOTE: This was tested on latest GOG version of the game!

So, the solution to the lag is not just by turning off bloom, but also turning off frigging Weather Effects and lowering down Particle Effects to Low. Mostly the weather effects, cause they are to blame, somehow, in this old game, for the lag. Thus, just start the game, then go to: Options/Video/Advanced/ and turn OFF weather effects, bloom AND reduce particle VFX to LOW, then apply the settings by clicking on the "Apply" in the lower right bottom of the screen. Done! Now your game should run smoother.

And yeah, it helped me personally because, back on Windows XP or Windows 7 this game didn't lag at all. It worked fine with all of that turned ON and on maximum graphics settings, but on Windows 10 however this game starts to lag for some reason. Go figure!

Also, as the last resort you can try out applying a compatibility with Windows 7 or even XP Service Pack 3 for this game and running it as the administrator. Just in case! But again, for me, turning off weather effects, bloom and reducing particle effects to low, did the trick.

Try installing DXVK and check if that helps (with all settings cranked up as high as possible of course).

Okay, I just googled about DXVK and it's not for Windows, it's for Linux and Vine. So how would it help me if it's not even made for Windows? And then, I don't have Vulkan support cause my PC is older than that. So again, how will it help me anyway?

How will it help and what does it do? Cause, as far as I know, only what DXVK does is it allows you to run games in windowed mode or change the resolution if game does not have your specific screen resolution. So yeah, how it would help me to reduce the lag anyway???

It's a DirectX to Vulkan translation layer and it works perfectly fine on Windows and does more than "run games in windowed mode or change the resolution if game does not have your specific screen resolution". It often helps with problems that modern versions of Windows have when trying to run DirectX 8 or 9 games (Painkiller is actually both). From my experience, it helps with framerate issues and allows my machine to achieve higher framerates in old games.

Also, if your machine doesn't support Vulkan, then your GPU has to be very old and performance issues that you're experiencing might not be software related. You could try DgVoodoo2, if your GPU supports DX11 or even DX12 and see if that leads to any improvements.

My PC is not that old to not run this game good and like I said, before getting on to Windows 10, there were no lags on Windows 7 or XP before that. Only on Windows 10 I noticed lag problems in old video games. But yeah, my PC doesn't support Vulkan but again, it doesn't mean that it's that old that it can't run the game. Cause again, Painkiller worked fine on OS before Windows 10. So yeah, it's not GPU problem, because most of the old games works completely fine. Games like Rogue Trooper, Serious Sam or, I don't know, TimeShift for example. So if it were GPU problem then all of the old games would had the lag problem but they don't. And that tells me that the problem is with Windows 10 and Painkiller game itself.

Also, as a matter of fact, people had problems with Painkiller Black Edition WAY back in the days. Just google it as "Painkiller Black Edition lag". There is tons of posts on different forums and even on steam throughout the years from people, who had tons of problems with Painkiller Black Edition specifically. So yeah, all of that proves that it's not my GPU problem for sure!

This game & Painkiller Overdose, max video settings, work like a charm on Arch Linux KDE via Proton Hotfix, my review https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970875478/recommended/39530/

About Window$ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVzppWSIFU0&lc=UgwlFF53A9hD9vnXAml4AaABAg

Okay so, after installing this fix, the game itself started to lag even more on Windows 10 than usual. Like, I'm playing GOG version and during the gameplay when switched between weapons, before it switched to the selected weapon, the game freezes, loads something and then switched to the weapon. Same with enemies spawn, with smoke or fog effects, explosions and particle effects. And then the HUD is broken. Like, the text in options are too large and misaligned, as well as for example bosses health that displays on top of the screen. Yes, I'm using a square 1280x1024 monitor but still, the game should not do this and it should match my resolution. But with these fixes it doesn't and thus it breaks the experience with this game for me. I can't even play normally without suffering from lag or misaligned HUD or text. It's just uncomfortable and unplayable.

Could you share your PC specifications? Also, have you tried using DXVK to improve performance?

Can I create an article about fixes from unofficial patches (1.65-6)? About what files are needed for editing, finding and replacing scripts.

You can do it similarly like here: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Topic:Y1z2k1qmmacxg9w1

Fixed in the latest version

I posted this on ModDB as a guest but I'm doubtful of a hotfix so I'll post it here in case anyone knows a quick .ini fix.

Basically the Fix Compilation does almost everything right other than making the ammo counter squished and unmovable, making it an eyesore regardless of your UI settings, reinstalling, etc.

Should specify this is with the Steam copy of Black Edition, for all I know the GoG version works fine but I wouldn't know.

This has not been anywhere close to solved, I will be making an edit to let others know in advance so they don't have to waste a week. I would include a link to a screenshot depicting the problem but I am not allowed to link an image file here for some reason.

Fixed in the latest version. very nice

I changed the name as suggested.

Mega Patch is also known as Randomguy7's Fix Compilation. This was previously uncredited and lacking the EAX re-enabler.

In my opinion the file should be renamed. I initially assumed that this is a release exclusively for PC Gaming Wiki, when in reality the mod is from Mod DB as you said.

Done, i changed it

Cheat Engine's speed hacking won't work on Painkiller.Black.Edition, is there any way to fix that? or any other way to slow the game speed down?

How to disable fog?

https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Painkiller#Randomguy7.27s_Fix_Compilation

Randomguy7's Fix Compilation ("Mega Patch" on PCGW) already adds proper widescreen support, Widescreen HUD Fix could be removed from the article (https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Painkiller#Video_settings).

I don't know if the implementation differs, personally I play in 4:3 as every fix appears to stretch at least FMVs and menus.