My Game Settings & Mods

The exact setup I play on.

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Per game

Settings & mods, game by game.

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Set up, not yet played

Death Stranding Director's Cut

4K with a slightly widened field of view, using a community fix configured deliberately narrowly - only the parts that help a 16:9 screen are enabled, and the ultrawide-specific fixes are left off.

Display

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Display device my monitor

Community fix (DeathStrandingDCFix)

Intro Skip false

Custom Resolution false

Force Entity Updates true

Gameplay FOV multiplier 1.10

Center HUD false

Fix Movies false

Fix FOV false

Fix HUD false

ReShade

Disabled add-ons Generic Depth, Effect Runtime Sync

Read directly from DeathStrandingDCFix.ini and ReShade.ini in the game folder.

Mods

DeathStrandingDCFix Community fix. Only the field-of-view multiplier and entity-update fix are enabled; the ultrawide, movie and HUD fixes are deliberately off because they are for aspect ratios this setup does not use.

ReShade Installed with the add-ons that conflict with capture switched off.

Process Lasso CPU set pinned to the cache-heavy core cluster.

HDR correction for this one is still outstanding - unlike Returnal, its native HDR needs work, and that has not been done yet. It is listed here rather than left out, so the gap is visible.

Set up, not yet played

I Hate Running Backwards

4K with scRGB HDR retrofitted by Special K onto the existing swap chain.

Display

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Window mode Exclusive fullscreen

Display device my monitor

HDR (Special K)

16-bit swap chain true

scRGB luminance 12.5 (= 1000 nits)

scRGB paper white 2.5 (= 200 nits)

Read directly from the Special K profile beside the game.

Mods

Special K Loaded as dxgi.dll beside the executable.

Played on stream (2 sessions, last 5 Jul 2026)

Resident Evil Requiem

Maxed-out path-traced 4K with a clean, grain-free image tuned for streaming. Every single setting from the game's own config is listed below so you can replicate it 1:1 - display, ray tracing, image quality, HDR sliders, the engine/render block, the exact DLSS versions I swapped in, and the driver profile. Film grain, motion blur, bloom, and lens distortion are off so the picture stays sharp on the encode.

Display & window

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Window mode Borderless

Display device my monitor

Refresh rate 60 Hz

Frame rate Variable (uncapped)

V-Sync On

Color space Rec. 2020

Display gamma 10

Display safe area 10

Button icon type Xbox Series (XBS)

Image quality rate 5

HDR & brightness (in-game HDR - read the notes below)

HDR On (mode: Auto)

Max Brightness Slide fully RIGHT to the max stop (= +20)

Min Brightness Slide fully LEFT to the min stop (= -20)

Brightness HDR Leave the slider centered / middle - the default (= 0, ~300 nits)

Upscaling & frame generation

Upscaling algorithm DLSS

DLSS quality Max Quality

Frame generation DLSS 4x

Reflex low latency (DLSS) On

Upscaling sharpness 0 (off)

FSR1 upscaling quality (fallback) Quality

Ray tracing & lighting

Ray tracing On - Path Tracing (Standard)

Screen-space reflections (SSR) On

Contact shadows On

Dynamic shadows On

Shadow quality Highest

Shadow cache On

Ambient occlusion (AO) quality High

Volumetric fog quality Highest

Particle lighting On

Image quality

Overall draw-quality preset Custom

Visual quality level High

Texture quality High

Texture filtering Anisotropic 16x

Transparent buffer quality Standard

Mesh quality High

Effect quality High

Subsurface scattering (SSS) quality High

Lens flare quality High

Hair / strands On

Anti-aliasing TAA

Depth of field On

Turned off for a cleaner stream image

Film grain Off

Motion blur Off

Bloom Off

Lens distortion Off

Engine / render (advanced - the game's render block)

Graphics API DirectX 12

Mesh shaders Allowed (force off)

Parallel command-list build On (8 worker threads)

Compute queue pairing On

Independent render worker On

Tight-fit shader cache On

Eco shader cache On

Render worker thread priority above normal Off

Why my HDR sliders look like that (and why yours might differ)

Resident Evil Requiem uses IN-GAME HDR - you calibrate it inside the game, not just in Windows. The catch: the in-game calibration image is misleading. The sliders show no numbers, and the picture you adjust against doesn't reflect what the game actually outputs, so it nudges you toward the wrong values on a bright display.

My monitor is an OLED that peaks around 1000 nits in HDR. Analysis of the game's actual output shows the Max Brightness slider reaches roughly 950 nits when pushed fully right (+20), while the default center (0) only puts out around 700 nits. So on a ~1000-nit screen I slide Max Brightness all the way right to use the full range my panel can show - the calibration image makes that look 'too bright,' but the real output is right where it should be.

Min Brightness goes fully left (-20) to hold a true black point. On an OLED, black pixels are genuinely off, so keeping the floor down preserves real inky blacks instead of lifting shadows into grey.

Brightness HDR I leave dead center at the default (0, about 300 nits). That's the mid/paper-white balance for the tone-map - the cleanest, easiest-on-the-eyes middle ground; pushing it just crushes or washes the mid-tones.

Important: these are tuned to MY 1000-nit OLED. If your monitor peaks lower (say 400-600 nits) you should NOT slam Max Brightness fully right - match it to your own panel's peak. Treat my numbers as the reference for a 1000-nit OLED, not a universal preset.

driver control panel settings

These are my actual driver control panel settings, read straight off my screen - not defaults. I do most of the tuning at the global level so every game inherits it, and Resident Evil Requiem reads from that same global profile (no separate per-game overrides). Driver: GeForce Game Ready 610.62. The headline ones: Power Management on Prefer maximum performance, Texture Filtering on High quality, V-Sync On with G-SYNC, a 237 FPS frame cap, and the DLSS model-preset override below.

DLSS version swap (via DLSS Swapper)

I updated all of Requiem's DLSS DLLs to the latest version using the DLSS Swapper app - upscaling, Ray Reconstruction, and Frame Generation - then set DLSS to Max Quality and Frame Generation to DLSS 4x in-game. The game shipped with the 310.3 DLLs; these are what I run now:

DLSS Super Resolution (nvngx_dlss.dll) v310.7 (game shipped with v310.3)

DLSS Ray Reconstruction (nvngx_dlssd.dll) v310.7 (game shipped with v310.3)

DLSS Frame Generation (nvngx_dlssg.dll) v310.7 (game shipped with v310.3)

In-game DLSS preset Max Quality

In-game Frame Generation DLSS 4x

Every setting above is read directly from the game's own config (config.ini, GameOption + render blocks), the NVIDIA driver profile database, and the DLSS Swapper database - so it matches exactly what runs on stream. Resident Evil Requiem keeps its audio levels, language, and subtitle settings inside the encrypted Steam Cloud save rather than the readable config file, so those few aren't listed here. Audio for the stream is handled on the mixer side (SM7B + RODECaster), not in-game.

Mods

REFramework The modding framework for RE Engine games - required to load the script mods below. Installed here as dinput8.dll in the game folder.

No Film Grain (REFramework script) Disables the film-grain filter at runtime for a clean, sharp picture on stream - on top of the in-game film grain already being off.

Requiem FOV (REFramework script) Adds the field-of-view control the game ships without. Set wide but not fish-eye: 100 degrees horizontal for both Leon and Grace; aim-down-sights left at stock so it still zooms in. Per-character Leon/Grace profiles, and the interaction prompts and item markers stay anchored across the camera change.

Single-player, offline only. Every one of these is a PRESENTATION or capture adjustment - film grain, motion blur, lens distortion, vignette, field of view - never content, art, enemies, or difficulty. Same principle as running the game sharper than the hardware of its day could: the game the developers built is untouched; only how it reaches the camera changes. Installed with Vortex plus hand-placed REFramework scripts.

Now playing

Returnal

4K with native HDR and every image-smearing effect disabled through engine overrides rather than by lowering quality. Texture streaming is switched off because it was the actual cause of textures failing to load in long sessions.

Display & window

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Window mode Exclusive fullscreen

Display device my monitor

In-game V-Sync False

Frame rate limit 0.000000 (uncapped in-game; the driver owns the cap)

Dynamic resolution False

HDR

HDR output True

HDR peak brightness 1000 nits

Note Native HDR is good here, so nothing is layered on top of it.

DLSS

Mode DLSS_Quality

Sharpness 0.000000

Frame generation True

DLL preset Preset K, updated with DLSS Swapper

Effects disabled by engine override (Engine.ini)

Depth of field (default feature) 0 - off

Lens flare (default feature) 0 - off

Motion blur (default feature) 0 - off

Depth of field 0 - off

Lens flare 0 - off

Motion blur (max) 0 - off

Motion blur 0 - off

Chromatic aberration (max) 0 - off

Chromatic aberration 0 - off

Tonemapper extras (grain, vignette) 0 - off

Launch options

-notexturestreaming Texture streaming off. This is a FIX, not a quality change: with streaming on, textures stopped loading correctly after several hours of play.

Read directly from the game's GameUserSettings.ini and the [SystemSettings] block of its Engine.ini.

Mods

DLSS Swapper Used to keep the DLSS libraries current and to pin the preset.

Process Lasso A CPU set pins the game to the cache-heavy core cluster, and its automatic priority balancing is excluded for this game.

Nothing here reduces visual quality. The disabled effects are the ones that blur or dirty the image - motion blur, depth of field, lens flare, chromatic aberration and grain - and everything else stays maxed.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam 2

4K with a derived 16:9 field of view and Float16 scRGB HDR through dgVoodoo2. Its config file is deliberately read-only, because the engine deletes any line it does not recognise the moment it saves.

Display & window

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Display device my monitor

Graphics API 2

Engine HDR rendering On

Image quality

Texture quality 0 (highest)

Lightmap quality 0 (highest)

Dynamic shadow quality 3

Lens flare quality 3

View

Field of view 96.4183 (derived for 16:9)

Weapon FOV fix On

Menu safe zone 544 x 408

dgVoodoo2 (D3D9 to D3D11 wrapper)

Output API d3d11_fl11_0

Colour space argb16161616_hdr (Float16 HDR output)

Presentation model flip_discard

Emulated VRAM 2GB) MB

Filtering appdriven

Read directly from Sam2.ini and dgVoodoo.conf. Field of view is derived, never copied between games: hfov(16:9) = 2*atan(tan(hfov(4:3)/2) * 3/4 * 16/9). Every engine has a different 4:3 default, so the same number is a different view in a different game.

Mods

dgVoodoo2 D3D9.dll in the Bin folder, outputting Float16 scRGB HDR.

Large Address Aware patch Same 2 GB address-space fix as the HD games.

One quirk worth knowing: because a wrapper changes the reported graphics device, the game shows a 'your graphic card has been changed' notice on every launch unless the stored device name in its config is updated to match.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam 3: BFE

4K with every post-processing effect that smears the image switched off, and a derived 16:9 field of view. HDR is added by the graphics driver, since the game has none.

Display

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Platform PC

Display device my monitor

Tuned settings (from the game's own user.cfg)

gfx_bFullScreen 1 - exclusive fullscreen - lowest latency

gfx_pixResWidth 3840 - 4K is the floor

gfx_pixResHeight 2160

gfx_iWaitVSyncs 0 - in-game VSync OFF - the driver owns it

gfx_iMaxFPSActive 10000 - cap unlimited - driver owns the 237 cap

ren_fMax3DRenderingMPix 8.3 - QL5 caps 3D at 2.0 MPix (~1885x1060); 4K needs 8.2944

tex_iAnisotropy 16 - 16x anisotropic

tex_pixMaxSize 4096 - allow 4096 textures

efx_bMotionBlur 0 - BANNED

efx_bDepthOfField 0 - BANNED

sha_bAllowZoomBlurring 0 - BANNED - blur

plr_fFOVOverride 106.2602 - derived: base 90 -> 16:9

Read directly from the game's user.cfg. The comments are the actual reasons the value was chosen, not added afterwards. Field of view is derived, never copied between games: hfov(16:9) = 2*atan(tan(hfov(4:3)/2) * 3/4 * 16/9). Every engine has a different 4:3 default, so the same number is a different view in a different game.

Nothing is modded here - these are the engine's own console variables, written to user.cfg so they load after the saved settings and win.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam 4

4K with the game's own native HDR switched on. Worth knowing: the GOG build is a version AHEAD of the Steam one.

Display

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Platform PC (GOG)

Display device my monitor

Tuned settings (from the game's own user.cfg)

gfx_bFullScreen 1 - exclusive fullscreen - lowest latency

gfx_pixResWidth 3840 - 4K is the floor

gfx_pixResHeight 2160

gfx_iWaitVSyncs 0 - in-game VSync OFF - the driver owns it

gfx_iMaxFPSActive 10000 - cap unlimited - driver owns the 237 cap

ren_fMax3DRenderingMPix 8.3 - QL5 caps 3D at 2.0 MPix (~1885x1060); 4K needs 8.2944

tex_iAnisotropy 16 - 16x anisotropic

tex_pixMaxSize 4096 - allow 4096 textures

efx_bMotionBlur 0 - BANNED

efx_bDepthOfField 0 - BANNED

gfx_bHDROutput 1 - NATIVE HDR ON (then RTX HDR must be OFF for this exe)

Nothing is modded here - these are the engine's own console variables, written to user.cfg so they load after the saved settings and win.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam Advance

The Game Boy Advance entry - an original story, not a port - on a cycle-accurate emulator.

Emulation

Emulator NanoBoyAdvance (cycle-accurate)

Scale 2

Fullscreen true

Filter sharp

Colour correction agb - matches the original handheld screen's colour response

LCD ghosting false

Display device my monitor

Read directly from the emulator's own config file.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam Classics: Revolution

The classic 2001 engine running at native 4K with hardware-accurate EAX reverb restored and real scRGB HDR added on top. Every value below is read from the game's own PersistentSymbols.ini.

Display & window

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Window mode Fullscreen

Display device my monitor

Renderer OpenGL

Colour depth Desktop default

Textures & filtering

Texture filtering Anisotropic, highest quality (21)

Anisotropic filtering 16x

Texture quality Maximum the 32-bit engine allows (3x); 4x is not reachable

Audio

Sound interface DirectSound (wrapped by DSOAL)

Sound format 3

EAX reverb Enabled - confirmed by 'EAX: Enabled' in the game's own log

Input & view

Field of view 106.2602 (derived for 16:9, not copied)

Mouse filtering Off

Horizontal sensitivity 1

Vertical sensitivity 0.75

Invert vertical Off

HDR (added by Special K)

16-bit swap chain true

scRGB luminance 12.5 (= 1000 nits)

scRGB paper white 2.5 (= 200 nits)

How Special K as OpenGL32.dll. On this one it is load-bearing beyond HDR - without it the game renders a black screen under Windows HDR, because it is an OpenGL-only fork with no Direct3D fallback.

Read directly from PersistentSymbols.ini and the Special K profile. Field of view is derived, never copied between games: hfov(16:9) = 2*atan(tan(hfov(4:3)/2) * 3/4 * 16/9). Every engine has a different 4:3 default, so the same number is a different view in a different game.

Mods

Special K Renamed to OpenGL32.dll in the game's Bin folder. Supplies the 16-bit scRGB swap chain.

DSOAL dsound.dll + alsoft.ini. Restores the EAX hardware reverb that Windows Vista removed when it deleted hardware audio mixing. Without it these games are dry.

Both are restoration layers, not enhancements - they put back what modern Windows took away. Nothing about the gameplay is altered.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam Double D (2011 original)

The original 2011 release, which has to be played alongside the later expanded version because that one removed things. It is a 2D game built on an old framework, so the work here was getting real HDR out of it and choosing the best aspect-correct mode it will accept.

Display

Full Screen On

Resolution 1600 x 900 — the highest 16:9 mode the game offers

Vsync Enabled

Draw Shaders On — it ships disabled, which quietly drops the game's visual effects

HDR

Output Real scRGB high dynamic range

Swap chain format R16G16B16A16_SFLOAT (16-bit float per channel)

Colour space Extended sRGB linear

How it is reached A translation layer converts the game's old graphics calls to a modern one and upgrades the swap chain to floating point.

Two things about this game are worth knowing, because neither is obvious. The first is where the graphics layer has to live. Games built on this framework do not load their graphics library from their own folder — the framework pulls it from a shared system location instead, so a file dropped next to the game is simply ignored. The layer therefore has to sit in that shared location. But its configuration file is read from the game's own folder, so a game with the layer available but no configuration beside it gets no high dynamic range at all and gives no warning. That was the entire difference between this version and the expanded one: one file. The second is the resolution ceiling. The list of resolutions is built into the game itself rather than read from the screen, and it stops at a size that was generous in 2011. The display offers far more, and the game will not show any of it. 1600 x 900 is the largest 16:9 option available, so it is the one that keeps everything the correct shape with nothing stretched, and the graphics card scales it up to fill the screen. The later expanded version has an updated list and does not have this limit.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam Double D XXL

An XNA game in HDR, which took a third approach entirely: DXVK translates Direct3D 9 to Vulkan and upgrades ONLY the swap chain, so the game itself never sees a change.

Display

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Display device my monitor

DXVK (D3D9 to Vulkan, HDR build)

Swap chain upgrade true

Swap chain format rgba16_sfloat

Swap chain colour space scRGB

Window mode enforcement disabled

Why this one needed a different tool

XNA validates its back buffer format strictly. Any HDR method that reformats the buffer makes the .NET runtime throw and the game closes instantly - both 16-bit and 10-bit attempts failed that way. A D3D9-to-D3D11 wrapper failed differently, crashing on a device reset the game cannot handle.

The DXVK HDR build upgrades only the swap chain - the surface actually handed to the display - and leaves the game's own render targets untouched. The game is none the wiser, and the output is Float16 scRGB.

One placement detail: XNA loads its Direct3D from a shared framework folder rather than the game folder, so the wrapper has to live where the framework looks, not next to the executable.

Read directly from dxvk.conf.

Mods

DXVK (HDR build) Translates D3D9 to Vulkan and upgrades the swap chain to Float16 scRGB.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter

A DirectX 9 game with no HDR of its own, running 4K HDR anyway: dgVoodoo2 re-implements D3D9 on top of D3D11 and emits a Float16 scRGB swap chain itself.

Display & window

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Window mode Fullscreen

Display device my monitor

Refresh rate 240 Hz

In-game V-Sync Off

Frame cap 10000 (effectively uncapped in-game)

Image

Post-processing On

Engine HDR rendering On

Gamma 1

Output levels 256

dgVoodoo2 (D3D9 to D3D11 wrapper)

Output API d3d11_fl11_0

Colour space argb16161616_hdr (Float16 HDR output)

Presentation model flip_discard

Forced resolution max, refrate:60

Emulated VRAM 2GB) MB

Filtering appdriven

Anti-aliasing appdriven

Watermark false

How a 2009 DirectX 9 game ends up in HDR

Direct3D 9 has no concept of an HDR swap chain, so there is nothing for an HDR injector to attach to. The trick is to change the API underneath the game: dgVoodoo2 re-implements D3D9 on Direct3D 11, and then emits a Float16 scRGB swap chain of its own.

The important detail is that dgVoodoo does the HDR itself. Layering a second HDR injector on top to override the buffer format is what crashed this engine for weeks - the game cannot survive its back buffer being reformatted under it.

The other half is memory. A 32-bit game only gets 2 GB of address space, and at 4K with a wrapper holding its own resources the engine runs out and reports 'Direct3D: Out of memory' while tens of gigabytes are still free. The executable is patched Large Address Aware to raise that ceiling.

Read directly from the game's own config and from dgVoodoo.conf.

Mods

dgVoodoo2 D3D9.dll beside the executable. Translates the game to Direct3D 11 and outputs Float16 scRGB HDR.

Large Address Aware patch A single header flag on the executable, raising the 32-bit address-space ceiling from 2 GB to 4 GB.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter

The 2009-era remake of the second campaign, running at native 4K with real high dynamic range and its add-on campaign installed. Every value below is read from the game's own configuration file.

Display & window

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Window mode Fullscreen

Display device my monitor

Refresh rate 240 Hz

In-game V-Sync Off

Frame cap 10000 (effectively uncapped in-game)

Image

Post-processing On

Engine HDR rendering On

Gamma 1

Output levels 256

Tuned settings (from the game's own user.cfg)

gfx_bFullScreen 1 - exclusive fullscreen - lowest latency

gfx_pixResWidth 3840 - 4K is the floor

gfx_pixResHeight 2160

gfx_iWaitVSyncs 0 - in-game VSync OFF - the driver owns it

gfx_iMaxFPSActive 10000 - cap unlimited - driver owns the 237 cap

ren_fMax3DRenderingMPix 8.3 - QL5 caps 3D at 2.0 MPix (~1885x1060); 4K needs 8.2944

tex_iAnisotropy 16 - 16x anisotropic

tex_pixMaxSize 4096 - allow 4096 textures

efx_bMotionBlur 0 - BANNED

efx_bDepthOfField 0 - BANNED

sha_bAllowZoomBlurring 0 - BANNED - blur

inp_bMouseAcceleration 0 - BANNED

inp_bMouseSmoothing 0 - BANNED

plr_fFOVOverride 106.2602 - derived: base 90 -> 16:9

HDR

Output Real scRGB high dynamic range

How it is reached A single compatibility layer beside the game, which upgrades the presentation path — nothing else is needed

Peak luminance 1000 nits

Paper white 200 nits

Measured result Brightest pixel reaches 3.0 where standard range tops out at 1.0, with roughly 1.4% of the picture above standard white

Content

Add-on campaign Installed — three extra levels plus additional versus and survival maps

First Encounter pack Installed — lets the earlier campaign be played inside this game

Verified Both confirmed mounted by the engine at startup, marked as official content

How a 2009 DirectX 9 game ends up in HDR

Getting high dynamic range out of this game took three attempts, and the two that failed are worth recording because they look correct on paper. The first attempt put a wrapper in front of the game to translate its old graphics calls to a modern interface, and told that wrapper to produce a floating-point output. It ran, and measuring the picture showed the brightest pixel sitting at exactly 1.0 — the ceiling of standard range. So the container was high dynamic range while the contents were not. That is the trap: the pipeline reports success and the image is unchanged. The second attempt kept the wrapper but handed the output stage to a second layer, which did produce genuine high dynamic range. It also crashed, repeatedly and with a divide-by-zero inside the wrapper, which no amount of configuration fixed. The third attempt removed the wrapper entirely and used the second layer on its own. That is the arrangement in place now: one file beside the game, real floating-point output, and two consecutive clean launches with no crash reports. Fewer moving parts turned out to be both more correct and more stable. One practical note that is easy to lose an evening to: this game must be started through the store client rather than by running the executable directly. Launched directly it exits immediately with no window and no error, because the engine unpacks part of itself at startup and needs that context. The failure looks exactly like a crash and is not one.

Mods

dgVoodoo2 D3D9.dll beside the executable. Translates the game to Direct3D 11 and outputs Float16 scRGB HDR.

Large Address Aware patch A single header flag on the executable, raising the 32-bit address-space ceiling from 2 GB to 4 GB.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack!

4K with scRGB HDR retrofitted by Special K onto the existing swap chain.

Display

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Window mode Exclusive fullscreen

Display device my monitor

HDR (Special K)

16-bit swap chain true

scRGB luminance 12.5 (= 1000 nits)

scRGB paper white 2.5 (= 200 nits)

Read directly from the Special K profile beside the game.

Mods

Special K Loaded as dxgi.dll beside the executable.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam: Next Encounter (GameCube)

Emulated at six times the original internal resolution, in its true 4:3 shape.

Emulation

Emulator Dolphin

Graphics backend Direct3D 12

Internal resolution 6x native (about 4K)

Aspect ratio Auto - the game is 4:3 and stays 4:3

Widescreen hack False - it clips the game's own menu, so it is deliberately off

Anisotropic filtering 4x

In-emulator V-Sync False

Safe texture cache 128

System BIOS Not required to play

Read directly from the emulator's own graphics config.

The widescreen hack does render a genuinely wider view rather than stretching, but this game's menus are authored for 4:3 and get pushed off screen, so it is left off. Pillarboxing is handled on the stream side instead.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam (Palm OS)

The handheld version, emulated. Its screen is square, not widescreen or 4:3.

Emulation

Emulator RetroArch, Mu core

Emulated device Palm m515/Palm OS 4.1

Graffiti input area enabled - hiding it leaves a true 1:1 square image

CPU speed 1.0

Joystick as mouse enabled

Window mode Exclusive fullscreen

Read directly from the emulator core's option file.

Because the image is square rather than 4:3, it leaves a wide empty band on each side of a 16:9 screen. That is filled on the stream side with a dark, blurred extension of the game's own edge colours, so nothing is stretched or cropped.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem

Same engine and the same treatment as Serious Sam 4, with native HDR on.

Display

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Platform PC (GOG)

Display device my monitor

Tuned settings (from the game's own user.cfg)

gfx_bFullScreen 1 - exclusive fullscreen - lowest latency

gfx_pixResWidth 3840 - 4K is the floor

gfx_pixResHeight 2160

gfx_iWaitVSyncs 0 - in-game VSync OFF - the driver owns it

gfx_iMaxFPSActive 10000 - cap unlimited - driver owns the 237 cap

ren_fMax3DRenderingMPix 8.3 - QL5 caps 3D at 2.0 MPix (~1885x1060); 4K needs 8.2944

tex_iAnisotropy 16 - 16x anisotropic

tex_pixMaxSize 4096 - allow 4096 textures

efx_bMotionBlur 0 - BANNED

efx_bDepthOfField 0 - BANNED

gfx_bHDROutput 1 - NATIVE HDR ON (then RTX HDR must be OFF for this exe)

Nothing is modded here - these are the engine's own console variables, written to user.cfg so they load after the saved settings and win.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam: The First Encounter (Gold)

The classic 2001 engine running at native 4K with hardware-accurate EAX reverb restored and real scRGB HDR added on top. Every value below is read from the game's own PersistentSymbols.ini.

Display & window

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Window mode Fullscreen

Display device my monitor

Renderer OpenGL

Colour depth Desktop default

Textures & filtering

Texture filtering Anisotropic, highest quality (22)

Anisotropic filtering 16x

Texture quality Maximum the 32-bit engine allows (3x); 4x is not reachable

Audio

Sound interface DirectSound (wrapped by DSOAL)

Sound format 3

EAX reverb Enabled - confirmed by 'EAX: Enabled' in the game's own log

Input & view

Field of view 106.2602 (derived for 16:9, not copied)

Mouse filtering Off

HDR (added by Special K)

16-bit swap chain true

scRGB luminance 12.5 (= 1000 nits)

scRGB paper white 2.5 (= 200 nits)

How Special K loaded as OpenGL32.dll, which replaces the presentation path and gives the classic engine a real HDR swap chain.

Mods

Special K Renamed to OpenGL32.dll in the game's Bin folder. Supplies the 16-bit scRGB swap chain.

DSOAL dsound.dll + alsoft.ini. Restores the EAX hardware reverb that Windows Vista removed when it deleted hardware audio mixing. Without it these games are dry.

Both are restoration layers, not enhancements - they put back what modern Windows took away. Nothing about the gameplay is altered.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam: The Random Encounter

A pixel-art game that draws through plain Windows GDI - no 3D swap chain at all - running in HDR through a two-stage chain.

Display

Forced resolution max, refrate:60

Display device my monitor

dgVoodoo2 (GDI capture to D3D11)

Output API d3d11_fl11_0

System hook gdi (routes GDI drawing into D3D11)

Filtering pointsampled (keeps the pixel art crisp)

Emulated VRAM 2GB) MB

HDR (Special K)

16-bit swap chain true

scRGB luminance 12.5 (= 1000 nits)

scRGB paper white 2.5 (= 200 nits)

Read directly from dgVoodoo.conf and the Special K profile.

Mods

dgVoodoo2 Hooks GDI drawing and re-presents it through Direct3D 11, which creates the swap chain that did not exist before.

Special K Retrofits Float16 scRGB HDR onto that swap chain.

Point sampling is deliberate. Any smoothing filter would blur pixel art that is meant to stay hard-edged.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam: The Second Encounter (Gold)

The classic 2001 engine running at native 4K with hardware-accurate EAX reverb restored and real scRGB HDR added on top. Every value below is read from the game's own PersistentSymbols.ini.

Display & window

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Window mode Fullscreen

Display device my monitor

Renderer OpenGL

Colour depth Desktop default

Textures & filtering

Texture filtering Anisotropic, highest quality (22)

Anisotropic filtering 16x

Texture quality Maximum the 32-bit engine allows (3x); 4x is not reachable

Audio

Sound interface DirectSound (wrapped by DSOAL)

Sound format 3

EAX reverb Enabled - confirmed by 'EAX: Enabled' in the game's own log

Input & view

Field of view 106.2602 (derived for 16:9, not copied)

Mouse filtering Off

HDR (added by Special K)

16-bit swap chain true

scRGB luminance 12.5 (= 1000 nits)

scRGB paper white 2.5 (= 200 nits)

How Special K loaded as OpenGL32.dll, same as the First Encounter.

Mods

Special K Renamed to OpenGL32.dll in the game's Bin folder. Supplies the 16-bit scRGB swap chain.

DSOAL dsound.dll + alsoft.ini. Restores the EAX hardware reverb that Windows Vista removed when it deleted hardware audio mixing. Without it these games are dry.

Both are restoration layers, not enhancements - they put back what modern Windows took away. Nothing about the gameplay is altered.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam: Tormental

4K with scRGB HDR retrofitted by Special K onto the existing swap chain.

Display

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Window mode Exclusive fullscreen

Display device my monitor

HDR (Special K)

16-bit swap chain true

scRGB luminance 12.5 (= 1000 nits)

scRGB paper white 2.5 (= 200 nits)

Read directly from the Special K profile beside the game.

Mods

Special K Loaded as dxgi.dll beside the executable.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam (Original Xbox)

The Xbox version, which contains both campaigns plus content that exists nowhere else, patched for real anamorphic 16:9.

Emulation

Emulator xemu

Renderer Vulkan

Internal resolution scale 8x

Aspect ratio 16:9

Disc image Converted to the format the emulator reads directly

Read directly from the emulator's own config.

Mods

Widescreen patch Applied to the game executable inside the disc image, in place. This renders a genuinely wider view rather than stretching a 4:3 image - verified by measuring a circular HUD element and confirming it is still round.

This version is not a straight port. It adds a weapon and an item that the PC versions do not have, and a lives system, but has fewer enemies on screen and smaller levels.

Set up, not yet played

Serious Sam's Bogus Detour

4K with scRGB HDR. This one ignores any library placed next to it, so the HDR layer has to be injected a different way.

Display

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Display device my monitor

HDR (Special K, global injection)

Swap chain format Float16 (R16G16B16A16_FLOAT)

Colour space scRGB (G10_NONE_P709)

scRGB luminance 12.5 (= 1000 nits)

scRGB paper white 2.5 (= 200 nits)

Confirmed from Special K's own log for this game.

Mods

Special K (global injection) The engine resolves its graphics libraries by absolute system path, so a renamed library in the game folder is never even looked at. A system-wide hook is the only thing that reaches it - armed at launch and removed again when the game exits, so nothing stays resident.