Vivisector: Beast Within

How to Play

The game v1.1 has been tested on Windows 7 64-bit and Windows 10, it works fine. You may experience some small troubles when you play the game on modern systems, check our Guide and Notes for details

NoCD for English & German versions showed few generic warnings on VirusTotal, here's the scan report. All warnings are generic, about suspicious file, the usual case with "cracked" executables, NoCD is safe to use. The game with patch v1.1 should work without the disc, so you don't need to use NoCD. But some users said that the game still asks to insert the disc even with the patch v1.1, so we added that NoCD just in case

Install & play guide (for English version):

• Mount the disc image. You will need the utility for mounting disc image files, like WinCDEmu, UltraISO, Alcohol 52%/Alcohol 120% or Daemon Tools Lite
• Install the game. It is recommended to install the game not in default path but in some other, non-system folder, like C:/Games/Vivisector Beast Within, so you won't have troubles with NoCD or fixes
• For CD release: when the installation process will ask for CD2 - mount the disc image of CD2. All discs must be mounted in the same drive, so first un-mount the disc image of previous disc and only then mount the next disc image
• After you installed the game - install the patch v1.1, the installation istruction is inside the archive
• Optionally install ViviFixer - it is the Widescreen Fix that allows to play the game on high screen resolutions and set the custom FOV
• Open the directory with the game and find Vivisector.exe. Right-click on Vivisector.exe -> Properties -> Compatibility - Set "Run this app in compatibility mode with Windows XP" and "Run as administrator"
• Launch the game and play. If the game doesn't work in compatibility mode with Windows XP - try to launch it in compatibility mode with other version of Windows (Windows 2000, Windows 7, etc.)

Notes:

• If the installation doesn't start - try to launch Setup.exe in compatibility mode with old version of Windows (98, 2000 or XP)
• It is recommended to install all versions of Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable and NET Framework for the correct work of the game. Also it is recommended to install K-Lite Codec Pack for the correct work of in-game videos
• The game works on DirectX 9, so if you're using Windows 8, 8.1, 10 or 11 - you need to enable DirectPlay: Go to Control Panel, and select 'Programs'. Select 'Turn Windows features on and off', click on 'Legacy Components' and check the box 'DirectPlay'. Select OK, once the installation is done, restart your computer
• About the patches: patch v1.1 was originally created for German version but it is also compatible with English version, check the installation instruction inside the archive. Also, patch v1.1 removes DRM protection, so you can play without the disc. In case if the game is still asking to insert the original disc - use NoCD. Russian version has its own patch v1.1 which is not compatible with other versions
• The game was using infamous StarForce DRM, so don't run the game right after the installation! Make sure to install the patch v1.1 or NoCD before the first launch of the game! Drivers of StarForce DRM can break your system, especially if you use 32-bit variant of Windows OS! If you accidentally ran the game and installed StarForce drivers - we added StarForce drivers removal tool in Downloads
• If you want to play Russian version - make sure to install patch v1.1 first, and then use NoCD for Russian version v1.1, to remove StarForce DRM
• The game doesn't support widescreen. If you want to play the game in wide screen resolution, use ViviFixer. To use it simply copy all files from the archive to the game directory, next to Vivisector.exe. Next time you will launch the game, the launcher of ViviFixer will ask what screen resolution and FOV you want to use, you can also change that settings in ViviFixer.ini file. ViviFixer is compatible with dgVoodoo 2, so you can use the both tools together to get the best in-game graphics!
• Another method to run the game in wide screen resolution is to edit config.cfg file in game directory and run the game with dgVoodoo 2, check this guide for instructions. Please note that if you run the game in widescreen with this method, in-game videos will be having 4:3 letterboxing
• If you have any graphical glitches or simply want to have the best in-game graphics, we recommend to run the game with dgVoodoo 2. To install dgVoodoo 2 copy the dll-files from the MS/x86 folder, dgVoodooCpl.exe and dgVoodoo.conf to the game directory, next to Vivisector.exe, then run dgVoodoo Control Panel (dgVoodooCpl.exe) as administrator to change dgVoodoo 2 settings. You can enable Texture filtering, Anti-aliasing or other graphics settings in dgVoodoo 2 to get the better graphics. The game with dgVoodoo 2 has been tested on Windows 10, it works fine
• If you want to change Field of View (FOV) in the game (default FOV is 90), use ViviFixer, you can set the new FOV factor in launcher or in ViviFixer.ini file. Another method to change FOV is to edit config-files as in this guide. Also, you can change FOV when you play the game: open console by pressing ~ and type in render_fov X where X is your desired horizontal FOV value (e.g. render_fov 90)
• When FOV is higher than 120, the may game start rapidly changing the weapons, it is a bug. To fix it set the FOV number to 120 or below
• If you turn on the Anti-aliasing setting in game, it will automatically disable High quality shadows. If you want to play the game with both High quality shadows and Anti-aliasing, force Anti-aliasing in control panel of your video card or run the game with dgVoodoo 2 and force Anti-aliasing in dgVoodoo Control Panel (dgVoodooCpl.exe)
• The game doesn't have Vertical sync (Vsync) settings, if you want to enable Vsync in the game force Vsync in control panel of your video card or, if you play with dgVoodoo 2, force Vsync in dgVoodoo Control Panel (dgVoodooCpl.exe)
• There's no framerate cap in the game, the maximum framerate is limited at 500 FPS. High framerate may affect the in-game physics, if you notice that - try to cap the framerate to 60~120 FPS in control panel of your video card or with one of framerate limiter utilities. For example, if you play with dgVoodoo 2, you can set the framerate limit in dgVoodoo.conf file by editing FPSLimit line
• The game has support of Surround Sound and EAX 4.0. If you want to use Surround Sound in the game, you will need to restore DirectSound in your system with DSOAL or one of other similar utilities
• Corpse and decal lifetime are controlled by Marks stay time setting in game options. But you can also set the higher corpse and decal lifetime by editing config.cfg file in game directory. To do that open config.cfg in Notepad and change @hitfx_lifetime value as desired (30 by default). Remember, that high value may cause the random crashes! If you started having random crashes after changing corpse and decal lifetime - lower the value of @hitfx_lifetime
• Originally, the game had the advanced body dismemberment system when player could shoot off body parts from the enemies bodies. But that 'gore' feature had been removed in European release of the game, use Gore Mod if you want to restore that feature. Gore Mod is also included in the patch v1.1 as the option
• The game should have weapons upgrade system but it was replaced with a leveling system during the development. If you want to play with weapons upgrade system, use this mod to restore it
• About German version. It was censored on the original release - blood was completely removed, 'gore' features are not presented. Later the game was released in Germany in uncut variant; for the full list of changes check this page. If you want to restore blood in German version, use Blood Patch. If you want to restore 'gore' features, use Gore Mod; the installer for Gore Mod showed some warnings on VirusTotal scan, so if you worry use sandboxie or virtual machine to install the mod
• Don't forget to check PCGamingWiki page if you have troubles, it is very useful!