Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell

247 ratings
Improvements for Splinter Cell
By Joshhhuaaa and 1 collaborators
This guide will show you how to improve your experience in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, and optimize it for modern computers.
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Widescreen Support and Shadow Buffers
Downloads:
ThirteenAG's Widescreen Fix with dgVoodoo2 included[drive.usercontent.google.com]

How To:
Copy content of archive to the Splinter Cell folder.

You may configure additional settings from:
system \ scripts \ SplinterCell.WidescreenFix.ini
[MAIN] ResX = 0 ResY = 0 ForceShadowBufferMode = 1 // Use with d3d8 wrapper that comes with this fix or any other that fixes the issue. HudWidescreenMode = 1 // Makes certain hud elements offset to screen edges. WidescreenHudOffset = 120.0 // This is the default offset for 16:9. For lower aspect ratios adjusted automatically, for higher you may change it manually.
DLC Missions
Downloads:
DLC Missions [drive.usercontent.google.com]

How To:
Copy content of archive to the Splinter Cell folder.

Three new missions will be added: Kola Cell, Vselka Infiltration, and Vselka Submarine.

Note: The DLC missions are pre-installed on the GOG and Ubisoft Connect (Uplay) versions of the game.
Textures
The PlayStation 3 HD Textures are known to cause certain shadows to not render correctly through alpha textures (see below). Some of the replacement textures that Ubisoft decided to use weren't always great either. Some may prefer the new textures, but it definitely is debatable to use them or not.

Downloads:
PC Original Textures [drive.usercontent.google.com]
PlayStation 3 HD Textures [Not Recommended] [drive.usercontent.google.com]

How To:
Copy content of archive to the Splinter Cell folder.

Comparisons:








Example of the PS3 HD Textures not rendering shadows correctly:


Texture Fixes
In the levels, Defense Ministry and CIA HQ, there are surfaces that contain shaders that often break depending on the position of your camera. The only fix currently is to disable the shaders for these particular textures.

These texture fixes are going to be using the original PC textures and not the PlayStation 3 HD textures.

This issue also occurs when Splinter Cell is emulated on a Xbox 360 or Xbox Series X, currently only the Original Xbox handles these shaders correctly.

Additionally, loading screens from the September 2002 prototype have been included that improve the accuracy of the story.

Downloads:
Texture Fixes[drive.usercontent.google.com]
Original Post for the Texture Fixes[www.vogons.org]

How To:
Copy content of archive to the Splinter Cell folder.

Comparisons:




The prototype loading screen no longer references the Nuclear Power Plant level, as it was cut before the final release.


Frame Rate
Splinter Cell was developed with a target frame rate of 30 frames per second. Exceeding this frame rate can cause problems with AI pathing, physics, and other elements that are dependent on frame rate. To minimize these issues, it is recommended to cap the frame rate at 60 FPS, even when using a high refresh rate monitor.

By default, Splinter Cell allows for a maximum frame rate of 200 frames per second, often leading to significant issues.

How To:
There are many programs to use to lock your game at 60 frames per second. Both NVIDIA Control Panel and AMD Radeon Settings have an option to lock the frame rate for a particular game.



As an alternative, we also can recommend using the latest version of NVIDIA Profile Inspector [github.com] (for NVIDIA graphics cards only), or using MSI Afterburner.[download.msi.com]

Comparisons:
Mouse Polling Rate
Currently, many mice come with polling rates that can reach 1000 Hz or higher. However, in Splinter Cell, higher polling rates may cause issues with your mouse aim. If your mouse allows it, try setting the polling rate to 125 Hz through software. This issue also applies to all games in the series, from the original Splinter Cell to Splinter Cell: Blacklist. It is possibly related to the use of the Unreal Engine 2.

61 Comments
Joshhhuaaa  [author] Nov 21 @ 12:19pm 
You can play the game without dgVoodoo in shadow projector mode but it doesn't look as good. dgVoodoo allows you to emulate a GeForce 4 card and play with shadow buffers again. There's no lighting bugs in this game unless you might've forced on shadow buffer mode by accident and don't have dgVoodoo installed properly.

You can send screenshots so I understand what you're talking about if it's something different.
ALBATROSS Nov 20 @ 11:55pm 
So, I was under the impression that some of this stuff would fix the absence of light in certain areas, but it didn't. Is that something that this is supposed to take care of or is that something different entirely?
Joshhhuaaa  [author] Sep 25 @ 12:50pm 
The CIA HQ could be a lighting bug from dgVoodoo2, not sure if it's always been the case or a regression, I'd have to check it out sometime. Probably would want to do comparisons between the Xbox version to see the intended effect.

The sound bug might've just been part of the game. Loading from a save game can affect audio such as skipping active dialogue, but not sure about pausing.
Proaxel Sep 24 @ 11:09pm 
Thanks for this! I'm on the third to last level now, the only visual issue I noticed so far is the projection in the presentation room on the CIA Agency level, only a circular portion of the center of the projection is showing up correctly instead of the whole thing.

Also another issue I noticed is music and some looping sfx stopping whenever you open the pause menu or quicksave, is there any fix for that?
DarkSlayer Aug 11 @ 4:09am 
Ah, ok. Thanks anyways. 👍🏻
Joshhhuaaa  [author] Aug 11 @ 12:03am 
I'm not aware of any ways to force max LOD at further distances, not sure if its possible for these games
DarkSlayer Aug 10 @ 11:40pm 
Hey dude. I've used your guides for the various SC games with great success. Thanks for your work. I have just one question. Is there a way to improve draw distance in SC 1? For example, in the intro scene, before the training mission, Lambert approaches the room and punches in the door code. As he approaches his head morphs from a low polly mess to his normal, in-game appearance. Can that be fixed, or is it hard-coded? This happens with many characters.
a9overmind Jun 18 @ 1:27pm 
After reinstalling the game and following these instructions, it still doesn't work for me.

-There are no in-game graphics options that go higher than medium. Even when going into the ini and trying to force it.
-The graphics are extremely glitchy: Textures turn or remain pitch black when facing certain directions. Lighting on the game characters is incorrect, with overly bright weird pixelated-looking highlights. The shadows themselves seem to be (mostly) correct and volumetric lighting works though.

It seems forcing GF2 mode is the only way that works, but setting it to that disables buffer shading and volumetric lighting. No guides have worked for me so far. I guess I have to settle for projector shadows and no volumetric light unless someone can help me out.

Specs:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-3227U CPU @ 1.90GHz 1.90 GHz
Installed RAM: 6GB
64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000
Windows 10
cubabori Apr 16 @ 4:57pm 
Question tho. I max all the in game options after letting Steam restore the default .ini files but the sunrays don't look as good as the last image in the link I sent. Anything fix?
cubabori Apr 15 @ 10:33pm 
Thx for swift reply. After undoing the changes to the files, made sure graphics were maxed out and yeah it really didnt improve anything, I just probably had something lowered cause before it looked like how it did on Xbox.