Overview
The single and most important guide you need for improving your experience with Tomb Raider: Underworld. Options, features, and fixes in regards to gameplay and graphics are covered.
Introduction
When it comes to “old school” classics, I probably not only know of them, but also played them at some point. With that, I’ve come to face the reality that many of these wonderful titles were not designed with future improvements in mind. Because I have the knowledge (and almost obsession) to go about fixing these games, I’ve decided to write the “Definitive Improvement Guide” series to improve the experience people have with the games. While I strongly recommend playing the game without any modifications first, it’s obviously your choice.
In this guide you will find every aspect covered, whether it be gameplay or graphics, I’ve tried to include as much as I can.
Unlike my other guides, this one deals exclusively with the Windows Registry. I’m not sure how this transfers over to Valve’s Proton system, but I will find out after my move to Linux once Windows 7 support is cut.
Registry entries have a location, marked with a Key, data, and type. You can modify the Windows Registry with regedit, a built-in Microsoft provided utility. Within the start menu type “regedit.exe” and it should be the first option.
The location for the game’s configuation is:
Please enjoy, and comment any improvements you would like to see.
To-Do List/Change Log
Here’s my To-Do list. Comment below if I have missed anything.
4:02 PM 04/08/2019
- Revised grammar in several sections.
11:43 PM 28/03/2019
- Added bug notice for “Tomb Raider: Underworld Error – Out of memory”.
- Added “Other Common Bugs” section.
- Added links to Stella’s website, with lots of information about the game.
1:59 AM 27/03/2019
- Game completed, will revise guide at later point with more details.
- Added note for Nvidia users to first try turning off “Threaded Optimization”.
23/03/2019 (Release)
- After some light frustrations with the game, decided to write up the guide.
- Combed over some other common issues, most should be included.
Fix: Game Crashes
So far I have yet to get a game crash, but there does appear to be one floating around.
This is an error in reference to the local game files. Tomb Raider: Underworld has its files packed in a proprietary format called “CDRM”. These are compressed files, which contain the actual meshes and textures the game uses. The files contain internal table headers and data which the game loads into memory.
Fixes for this include:
- Verifying the game integrity from Steam.
- Checking for Antivirus interference (try disabling it).
- Running the game as an administrator (via running Steam as an administrator).
- Running the game in a compatibility mode (tru.exe, and a right click).
- Updating software/drivers.
- Reinstalling it from scratch.
A user reported that software may interfere with game startup. Any software that displays an overlay should be disabled to determine if they are causing an issue.
Known software that causes issues:
- Asus Sonic Studio 3
Tomb Raider Underworld has crashed only once with the error “ERROR: Out of memory requesting X bytes”. This is interesting since my system has 32GB of RAM.
This appears to be minor as it was a single, one off event. Restarting the game as is worked out alright, and the autosave loaded as expected.
Fix: Gameplay Bugs
There are quite a few bugs, and it’s not surprising because the game is a console port. However, they can be addressed.
In this section, the following is covered:
- Flying Blocks / Broken Physics
- Unable to Save
- Can’t Save Game With Proton
- Other Common Bugs
This is the first bug you will encounter. The game’s physics system uses the frame rate for calculations (likely as “ticks”). This isn’t surprising, due to console port nature of the title.
There are three major ways to address this:
- Enable V-Sync.
- Set a low refresh rate (30 or 60).
- Enable V-Sync, and set a low refresh rate (30 or 60).
These can all be done in the game’s internal menu, otherwise, delete the registry tree for the game and use the initial setup dialog to change it.
Some users find that they are unable to save their games, or the save files don’t appear.
The root cause of this appears to be Antivirus software. You can either:
- Disable it while playing the game.
- Switch to another free vendor that has their act together (such as Avira).
Save files should appear in this folder:
If you are using Valve’s Proton solution to play on Linux, you may find that you are unable to save.
A user reported that changing from Proton3.7-3 to 3.7-5 Beta solved the problem.
There were quite a few potential bugs that I was only made aware of by Stella at tombraiders.net. As long as you don’t rely on the autosave, you should have a good time playing Underworld. The handful or so bugs are summed up as follows:
- Cut scenes don’t stop/start/trigger as expected, breaking level completion.
- Critical items go missing due to level triggers, preventing level progression/completion.
- Health items go missing on character respawn.
- Critical items go missing on character respawn, preventing level progression/completion.
- Levels have bugs where once the triggers are tripped, it requires a level restart to reset them.
I’ve found that some of the PC version bugs described don’t seem to trigger. At some points, I’ve gone out of my way to trigger them, only to find they would never trip. Generally speaking, if you play the game in some sensible way, you will be hard pressed to find bugs (besides poor engine design). If you are unsure that you have come across a bug, I would consult the walkthrough on Stella’s website, [link].
If you are just looking for a somewhat spoiler-free bug list, Stella’s website comes in handy again: [link].
Fix: Graphical/Sound Bugs
So far, the initial frame rate appears to be the only issue. However, if you do find others, make sure you are running a supported graphics card.
In this section, the following is covered:
- Unsupported Graphics Cards
- Sudden Frame Rate Drops
- Frame Rate Drops From Water
- Other Frame Rate Issues
These cards are known to be UNABLE to run the title:
- ATI Rage series (128, Pro, Fury etc)
- Intel (810, V3800)/Intel Integrated video chips
- SIS (650/750 etc)
- S3 (Pro Savage, Twister)
- Matrox (Mystique, Millenium etc)
- Voodoo 3DFX (3, 5 etc)
- ATI Radeon 7000
- Geforce TNT, TNT2 (Ultra, Pro etc)
- Diamond Viper
I discovered this fairly quickly, with less than a hour into the game.
Turning the water effects off, seemed to fix it. Below I describe how to do this from the game’s internal options menu.
NVIDIA USERS: I’d personally recommend turning off “Threaded Optimization” inside Nvidia’s Control Panel for the game. By doing that, I could keep the “water effects” setting on, and the game would run well. To do this, right click the desktop, select the Control Panel option, and under “Manage 3D Settings”, select the “Program Settings” tab. Search for, or add Tru.exe, and change “Threaded Optimization” to off.
If you find other causes/potential sources of frame rate issues, please comment below.
It seems some environments with water causes issues, but others do not. Turning off water effects fixes this, and doesn’t appear to cause a great deal of change to the game’s looks.
You may need to delete the registry tree for the game to bring up the “first time setup” dialog if you can not do it through the game’s internal options menu.
If you just want to do it in the registry, change the “EnableWaterFX” from 1 to 0 (REG_DWORD) inside the “Graphics” subtree.
Users have reported other issues, and potential fixes.
Within the game’s graphics configuration at:
Change the keys DontDeferShaderCreation and DisableDynamicTextures to 0.
Fix: Widescreen Patch Issues
Widescreen should be supported somewhat out of the box, but in some cases there might be issues.
If you use the recommended patchers, ensure that you:
- Have up to date or required C++ Redistributables.
- Aren’t trying to set the game to a resolution where the width above or equal to 4096.
Graphical Improvements: Widescreen
As the previous section indicates, Widescreen should just “work”, but if you find this isn’t the case, you will have to use a memory or binary patcher.
The two options are Flawless Widescreen or Widescreen Fixer. I personally recommend Flawless as it just seems to work out of the box and works with Nvidia’s 3D Vision.
One user reported that disabling Desktop Composition helped with Widescreen resolutions. You can do this by right clicking the game’s executatble (tru.exe) ➞ Compatibility➞ Check “Disable Desktop Composition”.
The game’s executable is located:
If you don’t want to use a 3rd-Party patcher, and have an aspect ratio of 21:9, you can modify the registry entries for the game.
Again, if the display’s width is equal to, or above 4096 the game may not run.
With regedit, modify the AspectRatio key under the game’s tree:
If you are using 5040×1050:
- Select 3840×800 in the initial setup screen.
- Change the AspectRatio to 48000 (decimal).
Using 5760×1080:
- Select 3840×720 in the initial setup screen.
- Change AspectRatio to 53333 (decimal).
In other scenarios, use the formula:
Graphical Improvements: Other
In this section, the following is covered:
- High Refresh Rate
- Window Mode
- Using the Steam Overlay
The game supports a high refresh rate, but be sure to use V-Sync to prevent physics bugs.
This is an interesting one. The game has actual registry keys to support running it in a window, and adding a “-w” to its launch options should be supported, but the Steam version doesn’t like it.
Users also sing the false song that running the game in a Window mode isn’t possible. This isn’t true, as you will see below.
Running the game in a window via DxWnd.
There are a few ways of doing this, but I tend to use DxWnd.
After downloading DxWnd from SourceForge, extract the zip. Run DxWnd from DxWnd.exe, and add a profile for the game by Edit ➞ Add. You will fill out the fields as I have in the screenshot, while changing any values you see fit. After pressing OK, keep the initial DxWnd screen open, and then run the game. You will now see that the game runs in a window.
By specifying the wildcard asterisk (*tru.exe), DxWnd will wait for that process and then manipulate it.
Again, it is possible to get the Steam overlay to work with the game, unlike how users purport otherwise.
This is a little “hacky” because of how Steam works. This is likely to change in the future, when there is a serious update to the overlay. For now, everything seems to work as expected.
First we will need to create a batch file, so open Notepad or your favourite text editor. Paste the following in:
Then save the file as underworld.bat, making sure to change the “Save as Type” to “All files”.
As for what the batch file is doing:
- Set some initial options (remove clutter/changing interpretation in the script).
- Run steam with the shortcut url that holds Underworld’s game ID.
- Wait 5 seconds.
- Run the tasklist command, and in the output, search for tru.exe and its Process ID.
- If it was able to find a PID for it, run Steam’s game overlay directly, injecting into the game’s PID.
If you run the game like this (a double click on this newly saved file), you will find the overlay works as expected:
Steam overlay working as you will want it.
Gameplay Improvements
These are general “quality of life” improvements that you can try out to your liking.
There are two ways to get this done:
- Keep the right mouse button pressed (forcing a lock onto nothing).
- Use the mysterious UWESCU5/TR8 utility.
This utility which seems to be only available from a dropbox link and a portugese website, allows users to modify game memory and acomplish certain things (like changing outfits and locking the camera).
You can find it at the two URLs below, or by searching for “UWE_SCU.zip”, “UWESCU5”, or “TR8 utility”. How clean it is, or how well it works is unknown, so you assume all risk by running it.
Here are some URLs that have mods, or modding information. Generally speaking, like Mass Effect, texture mods will be applied with “TexMod”.
From my understanding, Crystal Dynamics uses its own engine, which fairly little is known about it. Other games follow the same .000 to .003 file structure, where all the game content sits. These are compressed files, split at certain points, and probably passed over with an XOR key. The Nextax link seems to offer a way to open these files, but how clean or how well it works is unknown from my vantage point.
The location for saved games is:
It’s important to note that this title does not support save syncing with the Steam Cloud.
Delete the “tree” containing the game’s registy keys, see above for that location.