Crimson skies windows 10

Crimson Skies is a title which you may love for the game it tries to be more than for the game it is. A cross between Red Baron and Star Wars: X-Wing, Crimson Skies puts you in the role of a daring air pirate, leading his crew to booty and glory.

The world-building in Crimson Skies is exceptional. Based on the tabletop game from FASA, CS aims to recapture the feel of aeronautics adventure pulps with a dystopian sci-fi twist. The mission briefings are filled with a colorful cast of quirky pirate companions and are intentionally reminiscent of old radio serials. While you’ll grow sick of a few of the canned lines during the missions themselves (“looks like you’ve got them all hot and bothered!”), the voice acting is top-notch and fun overall.

CS does have issues, both technical and gameplay. The original release was very buggy, but even with fixes, there are problems (the loading screen on the patched version flashes rapidly and could trigger epilepsy). CS has a screwy sense of scale that makes it more difficult than it should be. CS puts a focus on barnstorming and stunt-flying, demanding you do WWI-style trick flying stunts with planes the size of WW2 bombers. Not intentionally, of course; you’re supposedly flying nimble single-seaters, except the model sizes are drastically off when compared to the bridges, tunnels, and buildings you’re flying around. Ground textures are scaled to create illusions of flying high over buildings, but your plane’s model may be bigger than a residential block, so it can be difficult to tell just how close you are to the ground.

While the game gives you the ability to skip levels, you may keep trying in your frustration because you WANT to be able to do it. Just like you’ll want to love Crimson Skies, but it can be hard to do so.

Review By P. Alexander

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The game version 1.02 with CSfix has been tested on Windows 7 64-bit and Windows 10, works fine. Also, we tested the game with Widescreen fix and dgVoodoo as well, works good too. For more details check our Guide and Notes for details.

Also, you can ask technical questions or find players for multiplayer match on Discord server of Crimson Skies fans

Install & play guide (with CSfix):

• Mount the disc image. You will need the utility for mounting disc image files, like WinCDEmu, UltraISO, Alcohol 52%/Alcohol 120% or Daemon Tools Lite
• Install the game (if autorun doesn’t work — simply launch the installation from Setup.exe inside the disc)
• Once you installed the game — install the international patch version 1.02 (English version is already patched to v1.02, so you don’t need to patch it)
• After that install CSfix (simply copy files from the archive and put them in game directory, agree to replace original files)
• There’s two variants of fix — one with stretched HUD, that will stretch HUD elements in game if you select high resolutions, so HUD elements will look bigger in high resolutions. The other variant is just regular fix, it doesn’t stretch HUD elements, so they will look small. Choose one of variants on your taste
• Make sure that DirectPlay and Windows Media Player are enabled, otherwise the fix won’t work correctly. Open «Turn Windows Features On and off» in Windows setting, go to Legacy Components -> DirectPlay to enable DirectPlay, and Media Features -> Windows Media Player to enable WMP
• Open csfix.ini and find lines OverrideRes , ScreenWidth and ScreenHeight. If you want to play in widescreen or high resolution: write OverrideRes=1, then change ScreenWidth and ScreenHeight for desired display resolution (i.e. if you want 1366×768 resolution, make ScreenWidth=1366 and ScreenHeight=768
• Open the directory with the game and find Crimson.exe. Right click on Crimson.exe — Properties — Compatibility — Set «Run this app in compatibility mode with Windows 98» and «Run as administrator»
• Launch the game, don’t change any options in Launcher, press «OK» and play. If the game doesn’t work in compatibility mode with Windows 98 — try to launch it in compatibility mode with other version of Windows (Windows 95, 2000, XP, etc.)

That way you can easily play the game on modern systems. Here’s also similar guide by PlayOldPCGames how to run the game with CSfix.

But there’s also alternative method how to run the game, with Widescreen fix and dgVoodoo. That method allows to run the game without needing to configuring any .ini files, also, with that method you can run the game with anti-aliasing and texture filtering, thanks to dgVoodoo, and get the best graphics.

Install & play guide (with Widescreen fix and dgVoodoo):

• Install the game with patch 1.02
• Download Widescreen fix archive, open it and you will see two folders for two variants of fix — one with stretched HUD, that will stretch HUD elements in game if you select high resolutions, so HUD elements will look bigger in high resolutions, and the other variant is regular. Choose the one you need, open the folder and find your display resolution. Once you found needed resolution — copy crimson.exe from the folder and put to game directory, replace original file
• (If you cannot find the resolution you want — run exe-file in Custom Resolutions folder, show the path to game directory, select the resolution you need and click «Patch», then close it)
• After you installed Widescreen fix — download dgVoodoo, copy the dll-files from the MS/x86 folder, dgVoodooCpl.exe and dgVoodoo.conf to the game folder. Run dgVoodooCpl.exe, go to DirectX tab and select next settings: uncheck «dgVoodoo Watermark», check «Bilinear blit stretch», set «VRAM» value the same as your videocard have; set «Texture Filtering» — «Force anisotropic 16x» and «Antiasliasing (MSAA)» — «8x» (not really necessary, that options is for graphics, you can enable it for better graphics). Click «Apply» to save the settings, then close the app
• Now right click on crimson.exe — Properties — Compatibility — Set «Run this app in compatibility mode with Windows 98» and «Run as administrator»
• Launch the game, don’t change any options in Launcher, press «OK» and play. If the game doesn’t work in compatibility mode with Windows 98 — try to launch it in compatibility mode with other version of Windows (Windows 95, 2000, XP, etc.)

That method is recommended by WSGF community, also, many users said the game works better that way. Note that by default dgVoodoo stretches the display resolution in game, so game menu and videos will be stretched. By default the game menu and videos have 4:3 ratio, so we recommend to select «Scaling mode: Stretched, 4:3 ratio» in dgVoodoo settings, that way you will have in-game videos in correct 4:3 ratio, but the game itself will be working in Widescreen, thanks to fix

Please note that it is not recommended to use CSfix with Widescreen fix at same time, it may result in low performance and graphical glitches. However, it is possible to use both fixes at same time, so if you want to do that — copy csfix.ini and csfix.dll from CSfix archive and exe-file from Widescreen fix archive

Notes:

• If the installation doesn’t start — try to launch Setup.exe in compatibility mode with old version of Windows (98, 2000 or XP)
• The game is using SafeDisc DRM protection, which doesn’t work on modern systems. Use CSfix, Widescreen fix or NoCD to «break» DRM protection and allows the game to work on modern systems. All that fixes allows to play the game without the disc
• It is recommended to install all versions of Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for the correct work of the game
• Also it is recommended to install RAD Video Tools and K-Lite Codec Pack for the correct work of the game
• For the correct work of the game you need to enable DirectPlay and Windows Media Player, if you’re using Windows 8, 8.1, 10 or 11. To do that go to Control Panel, and select ‘Programs’. Select ‘Turn Windows features on and off’, click on ‘Legacy Components’ and select DirectPlay to enable DirectPlay, and Media Features -> Windows Media Player to enable WMP. Click OK, once the installation is done, restart your computer
• If you’re using CSfix and enabled widescreen in csfix.ini — game menu will be in 4:3 but the game itself will be working in widescreen
• If you’re playing the game with CSfix on Nvidia video card and has troubles, like low FPS — you will need to edit csfix.ini and configure Nvidia Control Panel setting, check this guide for details
• If you have graphical glitches, like black squares all over the screen — use the method with dgVoodoo, it should fix the troubles. Or just copy DDraw.dll and D3DImm.dll files from dgVoodoo archive, and put them in game folder
• If you have gaming mouse with high DPI, you probably will have troubles on «mouse+keyboard» controller type. Try to lower DPI/frequency of your mouse, to have better control over the plane, or play on «keyboard only» controller type
• The game has some compatibility problems with controllers, for details check this guide
• It is possible to run the game in windowed mode through DxWnd, for details check this thread
• For Russian version — you may have troubles with fonts in game, for solution check this thread
• Don’t forget to check PCGamingWiki page if you have troubles, it’s very useful!