1. Purchase Breath of Fire IV on Steam.
2. Install Steam on your PC if it’s not installed already.
3. In your Steam client, click the “LIBRARY” tab and select Breath of Fire IV.
4. Click the Green Install button.
5. Once installed, click the green “Play” button
6. The “4249150_Launcher.exe” window will open. From here, you can configure visual settings.
   • 
7. Here are Dragnier’s recommended settings:
   • Graphics Setting
     • Display: 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.
       • If using an ultrawide monitor, you may find your resolution is not in the drop-down list. In this case, select “Set by Desktop(Default)”.
     • Presentation: Select “Full Screen” or “Windowed” depending on your preference.
     • Aspect Ratio correction: Put a check in the box next to “Enable”.
     • Scalling (sic) 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.
     • Language: Select English or Japanese, depending on your linguistic abilities.
     • 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).
     • Anisotropic filtering: 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)”.
8. Click the “GameStart” button to launch the game.
9. From the title screen, press Enter (‘Options’ on PS5/PS4, ‘Menu’ on Xbox) and go to Options.
10. 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

Breath of Fire IV PC on Steam 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 ), there is a way to force point filtering in the Steam version of the game, although it will require some additional steps.

The problem is, unlike the GOG.com version’s DirectX wrapper, the Steam version’s launcher doesn’t include an option to change from “bilinear” to “point filtering.” Fret not, because there is a workaround!

To enable point filtering in the Steam version of Breath of Fire IV, follow the steps below. Dragnier recommends this setting.

1. Go to the installation folder. Default location is \Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\4249150_BreathofFire4\english
2. Open dxcfg.ini in Notepad.
3. Add the following 2 lines to the document:
   • [enhancements]
   • filtering=point
4. Save and close the document.
5. Launch the game and enjoy those sharp pixels! Many thanks to Steam user おやま for this solution.

We really hope Capcom patches the launcher to let you choose, just like the GOG.com version.

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	+	+

*In the Steam version of Breath of Fire IV, the “Change Rank” controls option allows 2 bindings to be used to simulate changing rank in reverse and forwards. For this to work, 1 binding must be on the controller while the other must be bound to keyboard.

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 and GOG reissue of Breath of Fire IV works just fine in the Steam re-release. 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 & Steam Save File Naming Scheme: ##.DAT (## being numbered from 01 to 15)
Steam Save File Default Location (English): \Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\4249150_BreathofFire4\english\SAV
Steam Save File Default Location (Japanese): \Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\4249150_BreathofFire4\japanese\SAV