Hardwar. The future is Windows & ReShade
- DarkenedRoom
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
A guide to running the 1998 Software refinery space sim/shooter, 'Hardwar. The future is greedy' (to give it, it's full title) in Win10. Not well marketed on release it's not a well known space sim but has gained a cult following over the years and there's still a small but active community present today, a testament to the game.
The setting is the off-world settlement of Misplaced Optimism located in the craters of Saturn's moon, Titan. Ignored and abandoned by the rest of the solar system, the inhabitants have been left to fight and survive as best they can, giving the game a grimdark setting.
This guide will cover, installation, configuration and patching enhancements to optimise use with modern Windows and give it a graphical makeover.
Media
Hardwar was distributed on two cds, but as usual cd images will be used in preference to physical media, to save wear and tear on discs and drive. Physical cd's should be ripped to the cue/bin image pair format, as cd audio tracks are on the disc.
This guide will be based on a ripped retail cd version but should also be applicable to Steam and ZOOM platform digital releases.
HOTAS config
Joystick, throttle and rudder pedals are supported. Configuring axes may not be required if your HOTAS has 4 axes or less. When using a combination of devices totaling more than 4 axes, a virtual controller can be configured (with vendor software or Joystick Gremlin), limited to 4 axes. The physical axes to Windows axes were configured as follows:
Physical axis | Windows axis |
Joystick x-axis | DX_X_AXIS |
Joystick y-axis | DX_Y_AXIS |
Throttle | DX_Z_AXIS |
Rudder | DX_ZROT_AXIS |
Note: In game, the rudder can be configured to swivel the pilot's view left and right.
Installation
Installation with cd images is a straightforward process, once the appropriate compatibility options are applied. The first cd should be mounted in Win10/11. The installer app (setup.exe) on the first Hardwar cd should be set to Windows 95 compatibility and run as Administrator.
The installation should run and complete without issue. The first cd should left mounted until all of the patches/configurations are applied.
Digital releases should use the appropriate client to install.
Patching
There are three set of patches that are available for Hardwar. All the patches mentioned below are available from the Captain Zedo Hardwar Community Site under Downloads.
Official patches
The officially released patches from The Software Refinery. These patches are named U<version no.>. The final U2.04 Patch is an optional recommended patch, as it provides a stable base version for Beta patches. It can be skipped if the final unofficial patch is applied instead.
It is assumed that digital releases would already be patched to this version.
Official Beta patches
A set of beta patches from The Software Refinery that were not officially released, but later made available to the community. These patches are named U3.00 Beta <X> Patch.
These patches were not considered polished and/or stable enough for official release. These are not recommended for an initial vanilla playthrough, however veteran players may wish to experiment with them.
Unofficial patches
Work has continued in patching Hardwar by Ian Martin (thanks and credit to Ian). The UIM patch series make essential changes to video components for later Windows versions and make fixes to the in game economy.
The patches are cumulative so only the last UIM06 Patch needs to be installed. This patch is key to getting Hardwar to run under Win10 and is a strongly recommended patch for an initial playthrough.
It should be downloaded to the Hardwar installation folder, unzipped and the installer (HardwarUIM06.exe) run.
Configuration
This section of the guide covers configuration through the Hardman game launcher, dgVoodoo2 configuration which provides some limited upscaling and allows ReShade to hook into the DirectX libraries and provide graphical enhancements.
Hardman
It recommended to change the compatibility mode of Hardman.exe to Windows XP (Service Pack 2).
Configuring the game through Hardman requires setting the Display, Audio and Controls options.
Display
The Display options are those required to allow dgVoodoo2 to process graphics without issue. The key settings (see screenshot) are:
Game resolution: Must not exceed 1920 x 1080.
Use software mouse pointer: Enabled.
MipMaps: Enabled.
Image Quality
32 Bit Textures: Must be disabled.
Audio
All settings can be enabled, the 'Sample rate' can be set to the maximum of '22 Khz' (see screenshot).
Note: The Levels button is no longer functional in modern Windows but this can be addressed in the Hardwar music pack.
Controls
The key is to set the 'Flight' control to your physical or virtual controller (whichever is required by your HOTAS setup, to limit it to 4 axes), The example screenshot shows a Thrustmaster Virtual Game Controller selected, the configuration is described in HOTAS config).
dgVoodoo2
This guide assumes the latest version of dgVoodoo2, which is v2.86.1 (at time of writing), available from Dege's dgVoodoo2 GitHub repository, under Releases. Once again credit and thanks to Dege for the amazing dgVoodoo2 tool.
Using dgVoodoo2 allows ReShade to hook into the graphics libraries and provide enhancements. Without dgVoodoo2, ReShade is unable to initialise.
Installation
The UIM06 Patch removes Glide rendering, so only the DirectX components of dgVoodoo2 are required. The following files should be extracted from the zip archive and copied to the Hardwar installation folder:
dgVoodoo.conf
dgVoodooCpl.exe
\MS\x86\D3D8.dll
\MS\x86\D3D9.dll
\MS\x86\D3DImm.dll
\MS\x86\DDraw.dllNote: only the files need to be copied into the installation folder, the \MS\x86 path is not needed.
Configuration
The settings for dgVoodoo2 are shown in the screenshots below, the key settings being:
General
Output API: Direct3D 11 (feature level 10.0), higher versions introduce lag and reduce frame rates.
Appearance
Full Screen is selected.
Scaling mode: Stretched, keep Aspect Ratio. Hardwar works well with a widescreen aspect ratio.
DirectX
Videocard:
dgVoodoo Virtual 3D Accelerated Card is selected.
VRAM: 1024MB.
Resolution:
Max QHD ISF is selected, or the highest setting applicable to your monitor. Integer Scaling Factor (ISF) is recommended to prevent scaling issues
Antialiasing (MSAA):
8x is selected, although this is a personal preference.
MIscellaneous:
dgVoodoo Watermark: Checked, to confirm dgVoodoo2 is being used. Once confirmed, it can be disabled.
Reshade
ReShade provides graphical enhancements to a wide variety of games using modern graphical libraries available to today's high performance GPUs. This guide assumes the latest version of ReShade, v6.5.1, available from the ReShade site.
Installation
Once downloaded the ReShade installer (ReShade_Setup_6.5.1.exe) should be extracted into the Hardwar installation folder.
Download the ReShade preset zip file and extract the presets (HardwarReShade.ini) into the Hardwar installation folder.
Note: These are the nearly all the shaders used in the testing video at the end of this guide. They are not definitive, you should feel free to try out different shaders to find a set you prefer.
Run the ReShade installer,
Select the Hardwar game executable (HardwarW.exe) from within the Hardwar installation folder.
Select the rendering API, as we are using dgVoodoo2, this will be DirectX 10/11/12.
Select the effects to install. An individual effect or collections of effects can be installed, however it is easier to use the ReShade preset file instead. Click the browse button at the bottom and select HardwarReShade.ini from the Hardwar installation folder.
Note: Running the ReShade installer again will provide options to 'Update ReShade', 'Update Reshade and effects' or 'Uninstall ReShade'.
Selecting 'Update Reshade and effects' will allow additional or alternative shaders to be installed. This will allow you to try out different combinations to find a set of shaders you prefer.
There are alternative ray tracing shaders like COMPLETE_RT or RTGI, however you may need to join the Patreon and a donation is suggested.
Configuration
Nearly all of the configuration is contained within the HardwarReShade presets file. However there is a further recommended config change. To open ReShade and configure:
Start the game from the Hardman game launcher.
When the ReShade banner appears, open reshade with the <Home> key.
Go to 'Settings' and in the 'General' section (see screenshot):
Change the Start-up preset to HardwarReShade.ini.
Check the option 'Load only enabled effects', to reduce the memory overhead.
Further patching
There are couple of additional changes to make, to remove the need to mount a cd or cd image. It is assumed these changes are not required for Steam or Zoom platform digital releases.
Copying movies/removing cd check
Despite the UIM06 patch removing the cd check, a cd/cd image may still be requested if the in-game videos are not available within the Hardwar installation folder. The Hardwar videos are in the Gremlin Digital Video format (.gdv).
To prevent this, all video .gdv files should be copied from both cds or cd images into the Hardwar installation folder.
Note: some video .gdv files are duplicated on both cds, so if you are asked to overwrite existing files, do so. This will result in a complete set of videos in the Hardwar installation folder.
Note: the Gremlin Digital Video format can be played with the ffplay utility in the ffmpeg toolset.
Credit and thanks go to darkphoenix for the post on Captain Zedo's Hardwar Forum and to Bladez1992 on the Hardwar Discord.
Hardwar music pack
Credit and thanks go to solidox for the post on Captain Zedo's Hardwar Forum. From solidox:
I looked about and couldn't find any existing solutions to get the soundtrack working other than emulating CD drives or using external media player. So I took this ogg-winmm wrapper and modified it to work with Hardwar. This allows the soundtrack to be played in-game from ogg vorbis files instead of the CD.
The zip archive found in the post should be downloaded and the contents extracted into the Hardwar installation folder.
There are also additional instruction included in the readme (HardwarMusicPack.txt), to set the music volume independently of the main volume, with a registry edit.
This completes the patching and configuration of Hardwar.
Documentation
The manual is available as a pdf on the first cd/cd image. A second version of the manual containing in-game screenshots, is also available.
They were originally distributed as cd jewel case sized manuals. Both are relatively short for a space sim manual, so it is recommended to consult the following section for additional information.
Further information
The first stop for any Hardwar information, patches, tools, mods, moth skins and much more is Captain Zedo Hardwar Community Site. This has been the definitive Hardwar site for many years. From this site you can also reach...
Captain Zedo's Hardwar Forum, the forum for the Hardwar community.
Tim Howgego also hosts a huge amount of background material and other resources at the Hardwar section of his site.
There's also /r/hardwar on Reddit.
And last, but certainly not least, is the Hardwar Discord.
Finally...
Here's a video of me testing out Hardwar dgVoodoo2 and ReShade. In this video I'm actually using the COMPLETE RT shader but the DH_UBER_RT shader looks very similar.
Remember, the future is greedy!
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