1. Purchase Breath of Fire IV on GOG.com.
2. Install GOG Galaxy on your PC.
3. Select the GOG.com tab in the sidebar and click on Breath of Fire IV.
4. Click the Purple Install button at the top.
5. Select your directory (Default is C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games), Language (English or Japanese), and options, then click the purple Install button.
6. Once installed, click the “More” button to the right of “Play” > “Additional executables” > “DirectX Settings”
7. The DirectX configuration wrapper window will launch. From here, you can configure visual settings.
   • 
   • Note: If your wrapper looks like this, you need to update your game on GOG Galaxy.
8. Here are Dragnier’s recommended settings:
   • General Settings
     • Display Mode: Think of this setting as your “canvas” for which the game’s display will show on. Set this to your monitor/screen’s resolution. You can select “Same as desktop (Default)” or specifically select your resolution and refresh rate:
       • If playing on Steam Deck, select 1280×800.
       • If you have a 1080p monitor, select 1920×1080 along with the appropriate refresh rate (Hz) your monitor supports.
       • If on a 1440p monitor, select 2560×1440.
       • If on a 4K screen, select 3840×2160.
       • If you’re unsure of the resolution or refresh rate, go to your Windows Display Settings and confirm the resolution and Hz there.
     • Presentation: Select “Full Screen” or “Windowed” depending on your preference.
     • Aspect ratio correction: Select “Enabled (Default)”.
     • Scaling Method: Select “Integer scaling”. This way, you can pick an in-game resolution that best matches your tastes and it will scale appropriately based on your above display mode selection.
     • Vertical synchronization: If you experience screen tearing while playing, set this to “Enabled”. Otherwise, “Set by application (Default”) should be fine.
     • Gamma correction: Keep it at 1.0 (Default).
   • Enhancements
     • Texture filtering
       • Set by application (Default): This will have the game’s inherent bilinear smoothing filter applied to the 2D sprites and 3D environment.
         • See Aspect Ratio and Filtering Comparisons.
       • Point sampled: This will force the game to use point sampling to give the 2D sprites a sharp, pixellated look reminiscent of the original PlayStation version. Dragnier recommends this setting.
         • See Aspect Ratio and Filtering Comparisons.
         • Note: If you use the previous dgVoodoo2 external wrapper method for forcing point sampling, make sure to remove any files associated with that wrapper.
       • Bilinear: This is the same setting as “Set by application (Default)” above.
       • Anisotropic filtering (2x, 4x, 8x, 16x): This option intends to make distant objects in games look sharper. In our experience, we did not notice any discernible changes, so we recommend not using it.
     • Antialiasing: This option intends to smooth jagged edges on curves and diagonal lines, however in our findings we found it messed with the game’s environmental lighting, with some parts of the environment being darker than they should be. We recommend keeping it at “Set by application (Default)”.
9. Save your settings and exit the DirectX wrapper.
10. Launch Breath of Fire IV.
11. From the title screen, press Enter (‘Options’ on PS5/PS4, ‘Menu’ on Xbox, + on Switch) and go to Options.
12. Under “Screen”, select your game resolution. This will be the resolution which will be integer scaled to fit on your display.
    • IMPORTANT: Breath of Fire IV was designed with a 4:3 aspect ratio in mind, with the original PlayStation native resolution being 320×240 (4:3). The minimum resolution for the game on PC is 640×480 (also 4:3), which is a 2X scale of the PS1 native resolution. Therefore, any resolution you select that is not a 4:3 aspect ratio will result in stretching the image, leading to a skewed look. In order to maintain the aspect ratio, select one of the following resolutions in-game:
      • 640x480x32 (2X Scale) (Recommended)
      • 800x600x32 (2.5X Scale)
      • 1024x768x32 (3.2X Scale)
      • 1152x864x32 (3.6X Scale)
      • 1280x960x32 (4X Scale) (Recommended)
      • 1440x1080x32 (4.5X Scale) (Recommended)
      • 1600x1200x32 (5X Scale) (Recommended)
      • 1920x1440x32 (6X Scale) (Recommended)
    • We do NOT recommend using any of the other in-game resolution settings due to improper stretching.

Aspect Ratio and Filtering Comparisons

Breath of Fire IV PC natively forces a bilinear filter on the game screen, thus giving the game’s 2D pixel art a smooth, blurred look. It’s a often debated and controversial choice and completely dependent on your personal preferences. For those of us retro game enthusiasts that don’t like our retro game screens smeared with vaseline, you can use point sampling in the GOG version of the game through the included DirectX wrapper.

Click the images below to enlarge and better compare them.

1280×960 (4X) Point sampled Integer Scaling on a 1080p monitor (Pillarboxed; only recommended for 1080p if you prefer even integer scaling)	1920×1080 Point sampled Stretching on a 1080p monitor (Not Recommended!)
1280×960 (4X) Bilinear Filter Integer Scaling on a 1080p monitor (Pillarboxed; only recommended for 1080p if you prefer even integer scaling)	1920×1080 Bilinear Filter Stretching on a 1080p monitor (Not Recommended!)
1440×1080 (5X) Point sampled Integer Scaling on a 1080p monitor (Recommended for 1080p)	1920×1080 Point sampled Stretching on a 1080p monitor (Not Recommended!)
1440×1080 (5X) Bilinear Filter Integer Scaling on a 1080p monitor	1920×1080 Bilinear Filter Stretching on a 1080p monitor (Not Recommended!)
1920×1440 (6X) Point sampled Integer Scaling on a 1440p monitor (Recommended for 1440p)	2560×1440 Point sampled Stretching on a 1440p monitor (Not Recommended!)
1920×1440 (6X) Bilinear Filter Integer Scaling on a 1440p monitor	2560×1440 Bilinear Filter Stretching on a 1440p monitor (Not Recommended!)

Controller Setup (PC)

Controls for Breath of Fire IV are configured in-game, in the Options menu (accessible from the title screen and/or in-game sub-menu).

Due to the age of the game, controller buttons are labeled as numbers. Configuring them is easy; just hover over the command you wish to change and press the controller button you’d like to have the command bound to. Press Enter on your keyboard to confirm the bindings.

Do note that on-screen prompts will still show up as keyboard prompts. This might not be too problematic for interacting with the world map, however it will prove to be tricky for any prompts related to the mini games and the Super Combo skill, which require quick button presses. For these instances, it may be best to switch to keyboard. Alternatively, consider this workaround.

Keyboard Controls (Default) and Default Button Equivalents

Command	Keyboard	Button Number	PlayStation 5 / PlayStation 4	Xbox Series / Xbox One	Nintendo Switch	PlayStation (USA/Europe)	PlayStation (Japan)
Move Character / Move Cursor	Arrow Keys	N/A
Talk / Confirm	C	1
Action / Cancel	V	4
SubScreen	Z	3
Dash	X	2
Camera Turn Left	A	7
Camera Turn Right	D	8
Change Rank (Reverse)	N/A	N/A
Change Rank (Forward)	Tab	6
Start / Help	F1	N/A
Exit Menu (PC Only)	F9	N/A	F9 (Keyboard)	F9 (Keyboard)	F9 (Keyboard)	N/A	N/A
Pause (PS1 only)	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Soft Reset (PS1 only)	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	+	+

On-Screen Button Prompt Workaround

Here’s a helpful workaround posted by Mr.lameandwatch on the Breath of Fire IV GOG forum which should help for anyone using controllers with A B X Y buttons (i.e. Xbox and Switch).

Set the keyboard controls in-game to the controller button equivalents for A B X Y, and the in-game on-screen keyboard prompts will change to those key letters. While not as ideal as colored button prompts, this should still make reading the on-screen prompts easier.

Xbox Workaround

Command	Reassigned Keyboard	Button Number	Xbox Series / Xbox One	PlayStation (USA/Europe)
Talk / Confirm	A	1
Action / Cancel	Y	4
SubScreen	X	3
Dash	B	2
Camera Turn Left	L	7
Camera Turn Right	R	8

Nintendo Switch Workaround

Command	Reassigned Keyboard	Button Number	Nintendo Switch	PlayStation (USA/Europe)
Talk / Confirm	B	1
Action / Cancel	X	4
SubScreen	Y	3
Dash	A	2
Camera Turn Left	L	7
Camera Turn Right	R	8

PlayStation Workaround

While PlayStation uses X, Circle, Triangle, and Square buttons, you could still assign the keyboard keys to match these in a different way:

Command	Reassigned Keyboard	Button Number	PlayStation (USA/Europe)
Talk / Confirm	X	1
Action / Cancel	T (for Triangle)	4
SubScreen	S (for Square)	3
Dash	C (for Circle)	2
Camera Turn Left	L	7
Camera Turn Right	R	8

Save Data

We’re happy to report that save data from the original PC release of Breath of Fire IV works just fine in the GOG re-release. Not only that, but cloud saves are supported through GOG Galaxy. Keep in mind that save data naming scheme and file location have been modified since the original release.

CD-ROM Save File Default Location: \Program Files (x86)\Capcom\Bof4
CD-ROM Save File Naming Scheme: BOF4-##.DAT (## being numbered from 01 to 15)
GOG Save File Default Location: \Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Breath of Fire IV\SAV\
GOG Save File Naming Scheme: ##.DAT (## being numbered from 01 to 15)

Archived

Archived

Forcing Point Sampling for Sharp Pixels (The following method is no longer necessary thanks to GOG’s 1.0 hotfix2 update)

Breath of Fire IV PC forces a bilinear filter on the game screen, thus giving the game’s 2D pixel art a smooth, blurred look. It’s a controversial choice depending on your preference. For those of us retro game enthusiasts that don’t like our retro game screens smeared with vaseline (and we really hope GOG patches the DirectX wrapper to let you choose), there is a way to force point filtering in the GOG version of the game, although it will require some additional steps.

1. Follow steps 1 – 9 in the above “Graphics (PC)” to install the game in GOG Galaxy and configure the DirectX wrapper.
2. Download the latest version of dgVoodoo2, another kind of DirectX wrapper.
3. From within the zip, copy and paste the following to Breath of Fire IV’s GOG installation folder. Default: \Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Breath of Fire IV\
   • dgVoodoo.conf
   • dgVoodooCpl.exe
   • MS > x86 > D3D8.dll, D4D9.dll, D3DImm.dll (just those 3; the install folder already has ddraw.dll)
4. Launch dgVoodooCpl.exe from within the install folder.
5. Click the “.\” button next to “Add” in the upper-right corner to save this folder location to the wrapper.
6. Under the General tab > Appearance > Scaling mode, select “Stretched; 4:3 Aspect Ratio”.
7. Go to the DirectX tab. Under Texturing, change “Filtering” from “App driven” to “Force point sampled”.
8. Uncheck the “dgVoodoo Watermark”.
9. Click “Apply” then OK to exit.
10. Run BOF4.exe and enjoy those blur-free pixels!

Breath of Fire IV (PC) (GOG) with Inherent Forced Bilinear Filter (Click to open in new window)	Breath of Fire IV (PC) (GOG) with Forced Point Sampling via dgVoodoo2 (Click to open in new window)