Boiling Point: Road to Hell

Xenus
Boiling Point: Road to Hell	2005
Xenus II: White Gold	2008
Precursors	2009

Boiling Point: Road to Hell is a singleplayer third-person RPG, shooter and open world game in the Xenus series.

The game was released as Xenus: Точка кипения (Xenus: Boiling Point) in Ukraine and Russia and as Boiling Point: Cesta do pekel (Boiling Point: The Road To Hell) in Czechia. After several years of being unavailable digitally, it was later re-released onto Steam and GOG on November 14, 2023 by Ziggurat Interactive, with improvements by Big Boat Interactive.^[1]

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SecuROM 7 DRM. Czech copies use StarForce 3 DRM^{[Note 1]}.
Retail		Magazine covermounts. German ones are pre-patched to version 2.0.
Retail		Gold Edition. Pre-patched to version 2.2, contains dormant StarForce DRM protection components.
GOG.com
Steam

StarForce DRM for this game does not work on modern versions of Windows (see above for affected versions).

Essential improvements

Patches

Patch 2.0 fixes many crucial issues with the game.
The last build for game was version 2.2, included only in the Xenus Gold Edition exclusive to the Russian-speaking market.
Deleting d3dx9_24.dll, d3dx9d.pdb, d3dx9d_24.dll from game folder speeds up initial loading. This requires the full installation of DirectX 9.0c end-user runtimes, as the game substitutes these with system files.

Skip intro videos

Disable Engine AVI Player^{[citation needed]}
Open `<path-to-game>\Game.ini` with a text editor. Find the line `DISABLEAVIPLAYER=0`. Change the 0 value to 1.

Delete/rename video files^{[citation needed]}
Open `<path-to-game>\Game.ini` with a text editor. Find [Game] section and delete all four `'AVI%= ...'` lines. Go to `<path-to-game>\Avi`. Delete or rename all four files.

Modern Myers widescreen patch

2.2 patch (Gold Edition) is required. See Patches.

This mod aims at making the game look right on widescreen aspect ratios. It also increases the FOV and jump height, fixes an issue with hanging on exit, changes the headbob motion, and includes an Nvidia profile with better anti-aliasing.

There is another aspect ratio fix available but it breaks the HUD, inventory, menu scale, etc, and doesn't include an option to increase the FOV.

Installing Modern Myers wide screen patch
Download Modern Myers widescreen patch here. Extract the zip archive's contents into `<path-to-game>`.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\GAME.INI^{[Note 2]}
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2000760/pfx/^{[Note 3]}

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\save^{[Note 2]}
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2000760/pfx/^{[Note 3]}

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

In-game video settings.

In-game custom gfx settings.

In-game custom effects settings.

Graphics feature	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution		See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen		See Widescreen resolution.
4K Ultra HD		See Widescreen resolution.
Field of view (FOV)	See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)	Up to 7x
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)	See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Widescreen resolution

Use Modern Myers wide screen patch for proper widescreen support.

Notes

2.2 Patch is required. See Patches.

or

Use modified DLLs^[6]

Download the modified DLL files provided by WSGF and extract them.
Copy appropriate DX8RENDER.DLL to the installation folder replacing the original one.

Notes

2.0 Patch is required. See Patches.

Setting up custom resolution^{[citation needed]}

Edit <path-to-game>\GAME.ini.
Find lines ModeWidth= and ModeHeight=.
Replace their values with a desired game resolution and save the changes.

Notes

Changing in-game video settings will revert the changes.

Field of view (FOV)

Use game's console^{[citation needed]}

Edit <path-to-game>\GAME.ini.
Find a section [Console].
Below it, add a line enabled=1.
Save the changes.
While in game press ~ to open the console.
Type in FOV X where X is your horizontal FOV value, for example FOV 105.

Notes

The screen change is Vert-. Use this FOV calculator to calculate the proper horizontal FOV value (described as New hFOV in calculator).

Input

In-game control settings.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Audio

In-game audio settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Music and sound effects volume slider.
Surround sound		Up to 7.0 output. Requires DirectSound3D restoration software.
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English				Audio only available in European and American retail versions
Czech
French
German
Hungarian
Italian
Polish
Russian				Audio and subtitles only available in Russian retail/Gold Edition versions
Spanish

Issues fixed

Glow setting is lost each time when starting game

Glow setting is lost each time when starting game^{[citation needed]}
Go to the installation folder. Open `Game.ini` Find this line `Bloom=0`. Change the 0 value to 1.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9.0c

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows			Can work on 64-bit with some limitations

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	2000	XP
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium IV 2 GHz AMD Athlon 2 GHz	Intel Pentium IV 3 GHz AMD Athlon XP 3000+
System memory (RAM)	512 MB	1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	4 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 7500 LE AMD Radeon X300 Series 128 MB of VRAM	Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT 256 MB of VRAM
Other	6X DVD-ROM

Operating systems released after XP are not officially supported.

Notes

↑ This version of StarForce DRM does not work on Windows Vista or later.^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] For supported versions of Windows the StarForce driver may need to be updated manually using SFUPDATE.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/2000760/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (2000760) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 Boiling Point: Road to Hell Available Now / Ziggurat Games - last accessed on 2023-11-16
"In this PC re-release, you can enjoy an unfiltered narrative experience, more gunfire and explosions than you can shake a glowing red barrel at, and major improvements to the game’s stability from current developer Big Boat to make this the definitive Boiling Point experience."
↑ Windows Vista support - StarForce Support
↑ Windows 7 support - StarForce Support
↑ Windows 8.1 support - StarForce Support
↑ Windows 10 support - StarForce Support
↑ WSGF report - last accessed on May 2023

[6] This version of StarForce DRM does not work on Windows Vista or later.^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] For supported versions of Windows the StarForce driver may need to be updated manually using SFUPDATE.

[gamedir-7] 2.0 ^2.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

[Proton_path_note-8] 3.0 ^3.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/2000760/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (2000760) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

[bigboat-1] 1.0 ^1.1 Boiling Point: Road to Hell Available Now / Ziggurat Games - last accessed on 2023-11-16
"In this PC re-release, you can enjoy an unfiltered narrative experience, more gunfire and explosions than you can shake a glowing red barrel at, and major improvements to the game’s stability from current developer Big Boat to make this the definitive Boiling Point experience."

[StarForce_Windows_Vista-2] Windows Vista support - StarForce Support

[StarForce_Windows_7-3] Windows 7 support - StarForce Support

[StarForce_Windows_8.1-4] Windows 8.1 support - StarForce Support

[StarForce_Windows_10-5] Windows 10 support - StarForce Support

[9] WSGF report - last accessed on May 2023

[1]

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[Note 3]

[6]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

Developers

	Deep Shadows
Digital	Big Boat Interactive^[1]
Publishers
Retail (Russia, Ukraine)	Russobit-M
Retail (international)	Atari
Digital	Ziggurat Interactive
Engines
	Vital Engine 2
Release dates
Windows	May 19, 2005
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	RPG, Shooter, Open world
Vehicles	Automobile, Flight, Naval/watercraft
Art styles	Realistic
Series	Xenus