The manner in which the coercivity, permeability and resistivity of films of Fe-M-X (Tvl : Ta, Hf, Zr, Nb; X: N, C, Ar;) and Permalloy varied because of particular conditions during DC magnetron sputter deposition has been determined. The effects of reactive gases and substrate bias during the sputtering process were studied and the measured values for H, p and p were compared with the results from formulae derived from gas impurity pinning and scattering theory. For Fe-M-X films, the coercivity could be modified from 1.2 Oe to 0.4 Oe and the permeability from 3