Overview
This guide explains how to install fan-made patches to get Deus Ex running well on modern hardware.
Notes
By the end of this guide, you’ll probably be able to run this game smoothly on common integrated graphics. Everything has been tested on my system and works fine, although your setup may give you different results.
Before replacing any files in your Deus Ex installation, you may want to consider storing backup copies in a separate folder. While you could always re-download the files via Steam, if you screw something up or something doesn’t work it will be much faster to copy the files back from your own hard drive than re-download them.
It is important that you perform these steps in order, since each step is dependent on the previous ones having been completed.
I did not create any of the patches or files described herein, and for in-depth information you should contact their respective creators.
Installing a Renderer
If you are having trouble getting Deus Ex to run well, the first thing to do is download a better graphics renderer for the game. I recommend Kentie’s Direct3D 10 Unreal renderer. This guide will cover only the installation of Kentie’s renderer, but the process for installing others you may find online will be similar.
First, get the game to at least run on your system, even if performance is terrible. Next, download the Direct3D 10 renderer from Kentie’s site here[kentie.net]. There is also a Direct3D 11 renderer available, but at the time of writing it is pretty much identical to the D3D10 version (and has less configuration options). Extract the files and copy everything that is inside the Deus Ex subfolder (which should be two files and a folder with more files in it) into your Deus Ex installation’s Deus Ex>System folder. This folder (and your Deus Ex installation in general) is probably found in C:>Program Files (x86)>Steam>SteamApps>common>Deus Ex.
The next time you boot up Deus Ex, head to the game’s display options menu and select “choose rendering device”. The game should restart and prompt you to select a graphics renderer. Choose the option that says “all devices” (that is, so “preferred/trusted devices” is NOT selected). From here, you should see “Direct3D 10” support in the menu. Select this option, load the game, and then exit (we will configure the Direct3D 10 renderer in a later step).
Installing Patches
In this step we will be installing various fan-made patches which fix annoying bugs in the GOTY Edition release. First, navigate to this ModDB page and download the Deus Ex v2 patch .zip archive. Unzip this archive and replace the DeusEx.u file in your Deus Ex>System folder with the DeusEx.u file you just downloaded. Remember to back up the old file so you don’t have to redownload anything if something goes wrong!
Next, we will be fixing version issues with the Game of the Year Edition’s (GOTY) map files. Go to [link] and download one of the “DeusEx_MapsPatch10” files. I recommend the Win32 binary (.exe) version since it guides you through the installation. Once the download completes, run the .exe file and hit “next” until you are prompted to enter your Deus Ex installation directory. The installer should already have detected the proper directory, but if it hasn’t then tell it to use your common>Deus Ex directory (discussed earlier in this guide). From there, hit “Next >” and let the installer do its thing.
Installing the New Launcher
In this step we will be installing a new launcher for the game called Deus Exe, created by Kentie, which will provide additional bugfixes, graphical resolutions and other options. Go to [link] and download the “DeusExe-vX.Y.zip” file. Once the file has downloaded, unzip it and copy the files inside into your Deus Ex>System directory (this will overwrite the old files, remember to back up). Launch Deus Ex from Steam again, and you should see a new launcher pop up.
The Configure button will take you to a screen where you can select your preferred graphics renderer (choose “Direct3D 10 Support” once again) as well as change other graphical options such as resolution, color and texture quality, field of view, and raw mouse input (which you should DEFINITELY enable). The “GUI scaling fix” option is there in case you encounter problems with the user interface size while playing the game at a higher resolution, but otherwise you probably don’t need it.
If the game is running too fast after you’ve finished this guide, you can use the launcher options to fix this problem as well. Set the “FPS limit” option in the “video options” section to some value between your monitor’s refresh rate (e.g. 60, 120, 144…) and about 200. You might have to play around with this setting to get good results.
Kentie’s site ([link]) contains more complete info on all of the launcher options.
Configuring the Renderer
You may still be encountering graphics problems at this point, but don’t worry, this is the final step. Load a saved game or start a new game, and skip through until you are in the environment, looking around. You will need to press the “Send message to all” key (which is “T” by default, you can check this in Settings>Keyboard/Mouse). A small line of text should pop up in the lower left corner of the screen which reads “> Say “. Use backspaces to delete “Say” and instead type “preferences”.
Hit Enter, and the game will switch to windowed mode and a small box will pop up.
Expand the “Rendering” heading, then expand “Direct3D 10 support”. Here, set “Classic Lighting” to “true” if you are experiencing significant framerate problems. (“false” uses a newer and more graphically demanding High Dynamic Range lighting scheme. I can’t stand the look of it, but maybe you like it). There are a bunch of other options you can configure here, both in the Rendering heading and in the other headings, and I’ll leave it up to you to fool around with them. Descriptions for some of them can be found on the same page where you downloaded the Direct3D 10 renderer, on Kentie’s site.
Conclusion
That’s it! to play the game, just launch it as normal and click the big “play” button in the launcher.
I created this guide so people could enjoy one of the best games ever created without the 90 minutes of hassle it took for me to get it running right. If I have left anything out or given inaccurate or unclear instructions, please let me know. Your feedback is much appreciated.
Enjoy Deus Ex!