Upgrade from Pure Faction to Dash Faction

Thanks for using Pure Faction!

• Pure Faction is no longer being developed, and no further updates are planned.
• The Pure Faction development team highly recommends you upgrade to Dash Faction.
• If you're ready to upgrade now, click the button below for simple instructions on installing Dash Faction. If you'd like to learn more about what Dash Faction is, and the benefits of upgrading, please reference the what is Dash Faction section below.
• Dash Faction Installation Guide

Join the community!

• Red Faction Community Discord
  • The community is approachable, and very welcoming to both new and old school players alike. If you like Red Faction, you'll fit right in.
  • Join by clicking: RFChat.com

What is Dash Faction?

• Dash Faction is an open source Red Faction patch developed by rafalh and designed to fix original game bugs, improve compatibility with modern hardware and software, extend functionality and improve graphics quality and engine performance.
• Dash Faction has been in active development since 2016, and is all around the most fully featured Red Faction patch ever released.

Why should you switch to Dash Faction instead of continuing to use Pure Faction?

• In addition to receiving active updates, Dash Faction offers far more bug fixes and useful features than Pure Faction, and just generally provides a better experience. Read below for the key benefits of upgrading to Dash Faction.

Key benefits of Dash Faction as opposed to Pure Faction

In general:

• Steam compatibility: Dash Faction fully supports Steam. If you're using a Steam version of Red Faction and select the option during installation, the Steam overlay will work with Dash Faction, and Steam will correctly track your time spent playing the game.
• Graphics improvements: Dash Faction offers many additional graphics options such as anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, true color textures, high resolution and sharp HUD elements, and a higher frame rate (FPS) limit.
• Performance improvements: Dash Faction has countless additional performance optimizations and fixes for bugs that cause performance issues with the game.
• Bug fixes: Dash Faction offers fixes for countless other miscellaneous bugs and security issues.
• Hardware/OS compatibility: Dash Faction runs properly on all known modern hardware/Operating System configurations, while Pure Faction is known to be incompatible with some versions of Windows 10.
• Additional functionality: Dash Faction offers additional features such as configurable camera FOV, enhanced lighting, enhanced mouse input, and EAX sound.
• PF functionality: Aside from some minor items (listed in the section below), Dash Faction maintains all important functionality Pure Faction has - such as the level autodownloader, widescreen support, hardware compatibility fixes, and multiplayer anticheat.

For single player:

• Fixes for gamebreaking bugs: Some sequences in the RF official single player campaign won't work properly unless you're using Dash Faction. As an example, on Pure Faction (and official versions of the game), the submarine after the Geothermal Power Plant is likely to explode when you try to release it from the crane. Dash Faction suffers no such problems.
• Enhanced functionality: Some functionality in the RF official single player campaign is improved in Dash Faction, such as the water and lava level rising when you destroy the Geothermal Power Plant.
• Fixed cutscenes: Cutscenes don't play properly unless you're using Dash Faction. On Pure Faction (and official versions of the game), audio often becomes out of sync with animations, resulting in ugly behaviour in cutscenes. Additionally, Dash Faction gives you the option to press a button to skip cutscenes you don't wish to watch.
• Proper widescreen support: While Pure Faction does support widescreen resolutions, it was designed strictly for multiplayer. This means single player-specific HUD elements like radio messages don't work properly when using widescreen resolutions. Dash Faction has no such issues - both single player and multiplayer are fully supported at any resolution.

For multiplayer:

• Custom map compatibility: Many multiplayer maps don't work properly on Pure Faction (or official versions of the game), but have no such problems on Dash Faction. If you're using Pure Faction, you may encounter game crashes or other strange behaviour like parts of maps not loading.
• Autodownloader improvements: The Dash Faction map autodownloader is much smoother than PF's autodownloader. With Dash Faction, you won't get kicked from games and have to rejoin after the map is downloaded - it'll just be downloaded as you join.
• Click-to-Join: Dash Faction supports "click to join" via the #rf1-whos-playing channel on the community Discord, which means you'll be able to see who's playing Red Faction directly in the Discord, and join them with a single click.
• Higher tick rate: Dash Faction clients by default run at a higher update rate (tick rate) than Pure Faction (or official versions of the game), plus the option to set it even higher if you choose.
• Improvements for run maps: In Dash Faction run map servers, Dash Faction allows you to use the quicksave & quickload keybinds to save and load your progress.

For dedicated server hosts:

• Higher tick rate: Dash Faction servers by default run at an update rate (tick rate) almost 3x higher than Pure Faction, plus the option to set it even higher if you choose. This makes the game much more responsive and improves the gameplay experience substantially.
• Bug fixes: Dash Faction resolves all commonly encountered server bugs like items respawning at the wrong time.
• Additional configurable options: Dash Faction offers numerous additional configurable options for servers such as hitsounds, MOTD, map voting, setting player spawn weapon, and allowing players to use quicksave/quickload in run map servers.

For level designers:

• Bug fixes: Dash Faction's level editor fixes countless bugs that result in crashes and unpredictable behaviour.
• Additional editor enhancements: Dash Faction's level editor is fully compatible with all screen resolutions and aspect ratios, plus features additional useful hotkeys and options to make level design more streamlined.

Are any features of Pure Faction unavailable in Dash Faction?

For players:

• F1 menu: Dash Faction does not have a visual in-game menu like PF's F1 menu as of now. All of the important functions in PF's F1 menu are accessible by other means, however.

For dedicated server hosts:

• Dedicated server GUI: Dash Faction's launcher does not have a visual server configuration tool like PF's launcher. Dash Faction dedicated servers do offer far more customization options than PF, but they must be configured in the dedicated_server.txt file rather than via a visual interface in the launcher.

Ready to upgrade?

• Click the link below for simple instructions on installing Dash Faction.

• Dash Faction Installation Guide