SpellForce 3 - Fixes, Errors, Workaround and Damages

[Unrealmaster]

This game is sadly known for its many issues and design problems in execution and maintenance. Here you can find the most common issues and their fixes/workarounds (if there are any).

SpellForce 3 is not the same as SpellForce 3
SpellForce 3 was ported and thrown at any platform and store that has the potential to throw money back and most of these have their own versions and player base. Originally it was released back in December 2017 as one of the biggest bugged clusterfucks the world has seen since Bethesda. It was patched and improved with some little modding tools over the time. Because of the very bad feedback the game got reworked and a little redesigned (so far the engine allowed), what resulted in a stand alone addon called “Soul Harvest” that was followed later on by “Fallen God” an also stand alone addon, because the sales numbers for the base game were not good enough to chain them to it. Later in an attempt to push their PVP focus of this game, they created the “Versus Edition” that was the pure MP client of the game. Later it was decided to rework all games around this client and make it based on that “free” version. They did that with the name “Reforced”. The old and now unsupported versions were now called “legacy” and the now “supported” ones “Reforced”.
The biggest problem out of this is that this was not done everywhere at the same time. So could say Steam, GoG, Origin(killed), Microsoft Store and Epic games have now their very own version of the game and each with its own problems. In 99% of all cases only Steam has support and the others were left to rot.

SF3_RF_cross_play_overview_2022_06_07_info_new.png

SpellForce 3 Legacy does not start up
Make sure your GPU drivers are up to date and the game has the needed permissions to write in your “My Documents” folder with no OneDrive interfering. IF that does not help you, you are sadly fucked since the game has no support anymore. Yes I am serious.

SpellForce 3 Legacy can not connect to the online lobby and lan mode does not work
The Servers has been shut down in 2020 with no support anymore. Yes I am serious.

SpellForce 3 Reforced does not start
1. please make sure "SpellForce 3 Versus Edition" is added to your libery and installed
2. please make sure the game is started with admin permissions
3. please make sure the game is not blocked by any 3rd party apps like antivirus
4. please make sure the game is not blocked by any windows security settings
5. please make sure the game has the needed permission to read and write in your local "My Documents" folder
6. please make sure your "My Documents" folder is not overwritten/replaced by a cloud "onedrive" folder/app

I can not play SpellForce 3 Reforced offline “Network request failed. (unknown error)”
Yepp that’s design intended. Please consider SF3 an always online game. If the game can on hosting a game session not connect to its “home Server” it does not allow you to play any game/mode. Its is not possible to play SF3 100% offline. Since this is not fixed for years by now, it must be intended design.

I get “Network request failed. (unknown error)” when trying to play online
Looks like you have an IPv6 based online provider. Sadly the Netcode of SF3 is only designed to work with an older IPv4 basis. Try to disable the IPv6 support on your network adapter to force IPv4 usage.
Also make sure your networkadpater that is connected to the internet has the “1st place” in your network environment. Sometimes it helps to switch from lan to wlan and reverse to make the “1st” network adapter the online connection. I know its horrible, but that’s how this netcode was designed sadly.

deactivate IP v6.png

!!! I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS - THIS WILL CAUSE ISSUES WITH A LOT OF OTHER APPS ON YOUR SYSTEM - PLEASE RECONSIDER IF THIS GAME IS TRULY WORTH IT !!!

My game stutters and has microlags on Nvidia Hardware
Just stop the windows service "NVIDIA Display Container LS" if you still encounter laggs by the mouse or ingame based on Nvidia Hardware.

No visable text in SF3
After our experience this can/is/was caused by 3 things so far:

1. GPU driver side forced settings like scaling, AA and reshading (disable all and let the game run with its own default settings with no external graphical optimization injected into it)
2. Windows Defender or Windows security settings blocked some files of the game
3. you use the application "reshade"

Making sure that all 3 points are done and then the issue should be solved.

How to detect blocked gameports for MP?
Ok for everyone who wants to know if some SF3 ports could be blocked by other games then please do this:

Step 1: Open the Start menu, and type "cmd" in the "Search programs and files" field at the bottom.
Step 2: Right-click the "cmd" icon when it appears on the result list. Select "Run as Administrator" on the context menu. Type an Administrator password and press "Enter" if the computer prompts you for administrative credentials.
Step 3: Type "netstat -a" in the Command Prompt window, and press "Enter." The computer displays a list of all open TCP and UDP ports.

What are the minimum system requiremnts of SpellForce 3 Reforced?

Minimum System
OS Windows 7, 8, Windows 10 (64 bit)
CPU Intel Core i7-6700K or AMD Ryzen 5 2600X
GPU NVIDIA GTX 660TI or AMD Radeon R7 270
GPU-VRAM 2 GB
RAM > 8 GB
DirectX v11
HDD (free storage) 55 GB
Note Under Windows 10 and 11 admin permissions are required for writing permissions in the documents folder of the system.

Why does SpellForce 3 Reforced perform so poorly with lags, low framerates and my system heats up like crazy?
The short version would be the engine and its horrible design when it comes to sad lack of proper multithreading. As you can see the game does not take many CPU threads to work with but uses these like crazy.

SF3_load.jpg

This means the game is in 90% of all cases CPU bottlenecked and will most likely fully load these few cores (100%) the whole time what causes enormous heat creation that killed a few systems in the summer already. We highly recommend to enable V-Sync to try to limit the load of the CPU at least a little bit if possible. As you can see here in this little test-video, it takes quite the strong CPU to at least deliver stable 60 fps with some headroom to it.

Can SpellForce 3 Reforced damage my system to a critical point?
Yes there have been some reports about system breaking down after longer play sessions of SF3. Most of the times its mobile system, next to GPU’s and sometimes even CPU failures(shutdown) all related to long time heat and massive loads on the system.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/311290/d ... 481432329/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/311290/d ... 422585630/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/311290/d ... 488635738/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/311290/d ... 488589518/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/311290/d ... 488575927/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/311290/d ... 007841653/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/311290/d ... 849841185/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/311290/d ... 767434144/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/311290/d ... 716567066/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/311290/d ... 624809505/

Try to limit the load of your system as much as possible or the game will most likely cook it to death.
There is a point where you should ask yourself if its truly worthy taking this risk for such a game.

[0z2y]

Thank you for trying to explain why the servers are sometimes down... mainly if you play on consoles.

[NeoX]

Some time ago i made a performence test of all available engine-versions of the game. Lets just say, you can see the badly optimised engine that is not truly GPU bound but very heavily CPU singlethread bound that also roasts the hardware.

Text-video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yIcoLGgvl8

Results:

Sf3FG_performence_test_79600.PNG

Disableing the Shaders will also not only increase the performence, but also help the game visualy:

mulandir_shader_vs_no_shader.png

Spellforce_3_shaders_performence_sheet.png