Hi there!

This guide will detail how to enable projector shadows on Splinter Cell. This guide is only aimed at PC runners.

Why projector shadows?

According to PCGamingWiki,

Relying on a now-obsolete feature of Nvidia GPUs, the default "buffer" shadows are broken on modern hardware."

For the most part, this causes no trouble when playing the game. However, there are some crucial details that buffer shadow mode doesn't display, like the searchlight radius on the ground in levels like Abattoir and Presidential Palace. Such things are of upmost importance to us speedrunners.

As an alternative, use the Widescreen Patch by ThirteenAG - it works in conjunction with dgVoodoo 2 to emulate the buffer shadow mode on modern hardware.

📎 Link: Widescreen Patch

Enabling projector shadows

The easy way

The fastest way is to simply add this launch argument:

-shadowmode=projector

However, if for some reason this does not work, here's a more detailed guide on how to set the game to "projector shadows".

1. Go to your game's directory

2. Open "system" folder

3. Open & edit "SplinterCell.ini" file

This is usually located right under the .exe file of the game. Feel free to open it in your favorite text editing software.

4. Find "ForceShadowMode" and set it to 0.

Scroll down or use CTRL+F to find "ForceShadowMode". By default, this value should be set to 1. Please note, if you're using the Widescreen Patch, it will force it to be on 1, but as mentioned above, this shouldn't concern you when using the patch. However, if you'd still like to force it on 0 with Widescreen patch, make sure to set the .ini file to be read-only.

Also make note of the comment above the "ForceShadowMode" line, it details what each value means.

5. You're all set!

To test if projector shadows have been enabled, the fastest way is to load up Abattoir or Presidential Palace. If you can see the searchlights on the ground, that means you've enabled them successfully. Keep in mind, different shadow render mode can cause different behavior, but this has not yet been definitively proved, and the only anecdotal occurrence is one guard's body being detected in Defense Ministry.

Have fun speedrunning!