hexen.cfg(5)

📦 version 6.0, in debian bookworm, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble

✨ hexen.cfg — the File Formats Manual moment 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the hexen.cfg glow-up, straight out of the File Formats Manual 📖✨

🎀 NAME 🎀

hexen.cfg — it's the Crispy Hexen configuration file, no cap 💅

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So hexen.cfg is literally the configuration file for crispy-hexen(6). The options living in it are the exact same ones that the original DOS Vanilla Hexen stored — same energy, same vibe 🫶. The extra Crispy Hexen-specific options? Those get their own separate file, crispy-hexen.cfg, because they need their own space, main character behavior honestly ✨.

Normally hexen.cfg chills in your home directory at:

~/.local/share/crispy-hexen/hexen.cfg

but you can override that path with the XDG_DATA_HOME environment variable (see the XDG Base Directory Specification, iykyk) 🦋.

And if editing this by hand sounds like a chore — and ngl it might — the crispy-hexen-setup(6) tool is a simple to use front-end for editing hexen.cfg 👑.

🌈 FILE FORMAT 🌈

It's a plain-text file, bestie. Just a list of configuration options and their values, separated by whitespace, with each option on its own separate line 📝.

Options have different types: an option can have either an integer, floating point or string value. And if the option is a string type? The value gets surrounded by quotes (") 💅.

For example:

integer_value                1
integer_value2               1
floating_point_value         4.2
string_value                 "hello world"
⚠️ Invalid lines or comments in the file will be ignored, but fr fr it's advisable not to put them in there. The file gets rewritten from scratch every time the game exits, so any invalid lines or comments will be lost. gone. poof. 💀

Some options are used for keyboard key bindings — those are stored as integer values containing the keyboard scan code of the key to be bound to. Boolean values are also stored as integers, with a value of zero usually meaning "false" and a non-zero value meaning "true" ✅❌.

💜 CONFIGURATION VARIABLES 💜

okay here's the whole list, every single one, no skipping 🫡

  • mouse_sensitivity — Mouse sensitivity. This value multiplies input mouse movement to control the effect of moving the mouse. The "normal" maximum value available for this through the in-game options menu is 9. A value of 31 or greater will cause the game to crash when entering the options menu 😭💀
  • mouse_sensitivity_x2 — Horizontal mouse sensitivity (strafe).
  • mouse_sensitivity_y — Vertical mouse sensitivity.
  • sfx_volume — Volume of sound effects, range 0-15 🔊
  • music_volume — Volume of in-game music, range 0-15 🎵
  • key_right — Keyboard key to turn right.
  • key_left — Keyboard key to turn left.
  • key_up — Keyboard key to move forward.
  • key_down — Keyboard key to move backward.
  • key_alt_up — Keyboard key to move forward (alternative).
  • key_alt_down — Keyboard key to move backward (alternative).
  • key_strafeleft — Keyboard key to strafe left.
  • key_alt_strafeleft — Keyboard key to strafe left (alternative).
  • key_straferight — Keyboard key to strafe right.
  • key_alt_straferight — Keyboard key to strafe right (alternative).
  • key_jump — Keyboard key to jump.
  • key_flyup — Keyboard key to fly upward.
  • key_flydown — Keyboard key to fly downwards.
  • key_flycenter — Keyboard key to center flying.
  • key_lookup — Keyboard key to look up.
  • key_lookdown — Keyboard key to look down.
  • key_lookcenter — Keyboard key to center the view.
  • key_invleft — Keyboard key to scroll left in the inventory.
  • key_invright — Keyboard key to scroll right in the inventory.
  • key_useartifact — Keyboard key to use the current item in the inventory.
  • key_fire — Keyboard key to fire the currently selected weapon.
  • key_use — Keyboard key to "use" an object, eg. a door or switch.
  • key_strafe — Keyboard key to turn on strafing. When held down, pressing the key to turn left or right causes the player to strafe left or right instead.
  • key_speed — Keyboard key to make the player run.
  • key_demospeed — Keyboard key to fast-forward through a demo.
  • use_mouse — If non-zero, mouse input is enabled. If zero, mouse input is disabled.
  • mouseb_fire — Mouse button to fire the currently selected weapon.
  • mouseb_strafe — Mouse button to turn on strafing. When held down, the player will strafe left and right instead of turning left and right.
  • mouseb_forward — Mouse button to move forward.
  • mouseb_speed — Mouse button to turn on running. When held down, the player will run while moving.
  • mouseb_jump — Mouse button to jump.
  • use_joystick — If non-zero, joystick input is enabled.
  • joyb_fire — Joystick virtual button that fires the current weapon.
  • joyb_strafe — Joystick virtual button that makes the player strafe while held down.
  • joyb_use — Joystick virtual button to "use" an object, eg. a door or switch.
  • joyb_speed — Joystick virtual button that makes the player run while held down. If this has a value of 20 or greater, the player will always run, even if use_joystick is 0 🔥
  • joyb_jump — Joystick virtual button that makes the player jump.
  • screenblocks — Screen size, range 3-11. A value of 11 gives a full-screen view with the status bar not displayed. A value of 10 gives a full-screen view with the status bar displayed.
  • snd_channels — Number of sounds that will be played simultaneously.
  • snd_musicdevice — Music output device. A non-zero value gives MIDI sound output, while a value of zero disables music.
  • snd_sfxdevice — Sound effects device. A value of 0 disables in-game sound effects, a value of 1 enables PC speaker sound effects, while a value in the range 2-9 enables the "normal" digital sound effects.
  • snd_sbport — SoundBlaster I/O port. Unused.
  • snd_sbirq — SoundBlaster IRQ. Unused.
  • snd_sbdma — SoundBlaster DMA channel. Unused.
  • snd_mport — Output port to use for OPL MIDI playback. Unused.
  • usegamma — Gamma correction level. A value of 0 disables gamma correction, while a value in the range 1-4 gives increasing levels of gamma correction ✨
  • savedir — Directory in which to store savegames.
  • messageson — Controls whether messages are displayed in the heads-up display. If this has a non-zero value, messages are displayed.
  • chatmacro0 — Multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+0 is pressed.
  • chatmacro1 — Multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+1 is pressed.
  • chatmacro2 — Multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+2 is pressed.
  • chatmacro3 — Multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+3 is pressed.
  • chatmacro4 — Multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+4 is pressed.
  • chatmacro5 — Multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+5 is pressed.
  • chatmacro6 — Multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+6 is pressed.
  • chatmacro7 — Multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+7 is pressed.
  • chatmacro8 — Multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+8 is pressed.
  • chatmacro9 — Multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+9 is pressed.

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

and that's the whole page bestie, ate and left no crumbs 💅✨ this little cutie lives under the manual name hexen.cfg(5), filed under the File Formats Manual — and yeah, the sign-off at the bottom is literally just hexen.cfg(5) again, because it's that iconic 👑💖

📦 where this page comes from