Arcanum High Resolution Patch

[TwinkieGorilla]

this is amazing, Drog. had to reinstall for this. :wink:

 

[hal900x]

This game was good when it was released. With Drog's patches, it's truly one of the best games of all time. I cannot wait for the next iteration of his content patch.

I will say, however, that it has two real flaws in the graphics department: character/equipment models, and combat animations. Blurry, jerky combat scenes is my one gripe with post-Drog Arcanum. And it's really only a gripe because I love it's similarities to Fallout 2, which had great combat. I wonder, though, what kind of herculean effort would be required to improve this aspect. I'm guessing it would be, um, herculean. Too bad I have zero artistic ability. I can learn just about any programming language, reverse engineering, really anything logical. But when it comes to visual art, I'm in the stick figure department. But I'd be interested to hear a codexian with some modding experience explain how this would be laughably impossible.

 

[Lycaon]

Possible but very fucking annoying. You'd need to replace characters and then animations, which to make un-choppy would mean more frames. Then you'd need to make the game use them somehow... I'm not sure on the limitations of the engine. Maybe use one of those 2d animation progs to speed up the process.

If you're so good with logical crap though, it might be better to help out with that remake thing everyone's so pessimistic about and use some non-keyframe animation model which would be quicker to animate but potentially slower to make.

 

[hal900x]

Remake you say? I guess I'm newer than I thought. I didn't see that one. You mean, beyond the WIP, Hard Arcanum etc? Like, a complete rewrite?

 

[Double Ogre]

Stay on topic or die.

 

[Luckmann]

This is awesome beyond belief. Thanks!
:D

 

[PhoenixFour]

So I installed the hi-res patch, and it works great except for one thing. When I talk to people, no text comes up next to them to tell me what they're saying. This is okay with Virgil, who is voiced, but most of the other characters in the game aren't. I've tried changing resolutions, running the game in -no3d and -doublebuffer (separately and at the same time), and running in XP compatibility mode (I'm running Vista 64-bit). When I run the game in -no3d, I get the missing text, but the frame rate is so crappy as to make the game pretty much unplayable. -doublebuffer doesn't really do anything but make the graphics really wonky (leaving trails and such), and XP compatibility mode doesn't do a damn thing.

Any suggestions?

 

[Mesqalito]

Needless to sat how cool is this creation, everyone knows this as it is.

So, like in UAP thread, I'd like to submit some feedback.
(To clear up a matter, I use WinXP SP2, C2D proc, GF8800GT and 2560*1600 res monitor)

1. Font 18 is a crap. It's my personal opinion, of course. I use font 14 (even on 2560*1600 res). Why? There are really two reasons:
   1) Because it's different from original - in general, there is nothing bad with it unless the difference is noticeable. And it is as it is now.
   2) Because only Dialogue fonts are 18 and all other are 14. This really annoys.
   I would really want to see huge 16-18 font in completely arcanum-style throughout all the interface.
   
2. Options Screen.
   At first, I don't get what did you mean by these words:
   "Added a new optional component: Compact Options Screen. This breaks the options screen into 3 parts (top, middle and bottom), just like with the other menus."
   Does that mean that original menus were modified somehow? All my menus look exactly the same as in original. As for options menu, here is...
   The Second: after installing res patch when I try to open my options menu game crashes. If there is something like debug info from which we could fetch information about a crash I would gladly provide it but I haven't found any (except res patch installation debug info).
   
3. 2560 resolution
   As was mentioned before a graphical glitch is occurred on very high resolutions in the form of black triangles. However, despite of The_Pope says, I had no performance issues. -no3d fixes the glithces and still I have no performance hit.
   However, as Drogg asked, in windowed mode I experience huge slowdown when scrolling regardless of scrollfps: value. In fullscreen scrolling works fine. Total scroll speed in window is about scrollfps:5. Tried many different options but with the same result.
   
4. doublebuffer option causes huge glitches: moving objects leave huge tracks on screen, fps jumps from 1 to about 100 and eventually crashes.
   
5. Concerning Alt+Tab, game slows down significantly if run in fullscreen regardless of resolution. Without -no3d option mouse cursor in game often disappears after return. Each time I return it takes more and more time to restore the game - I measured 2 minutes one time. So I prefer to play in window with resolution 2554*1515 (this perfectly fit into my desktop).

Also if anyone know what -vidfreed command line argument does?

Edit_
Some suggestions:

Is it even possible to remake menus? I would like to see character menu where Skill, Technological Disciplines and Spell Colleges are visible simultaneously. Something like this:
https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/957715/a_character_screen.png
Also, similar ideas go for other menus.

 

[Double Ogre]

doublebuffer option causes huge glitches: moving objects leave huge tracks on screen, fps jumps from 1 to about 100 and eventually crashes.

The doublebuffer option is not compatible with the windowed mode.

Concerning Alt+Tab, game slows down significantly if run in fullscreen regardless of resolution. Without -no3d option mouse cursor in game often disappears after return. Each time I return it takes more and more time to restore the game - I measured 2 minutes one time. So I prefer to play in window with resolution 2554*1515 (this perfectly fit into my desktop).

Pause the game (press the ESC button) before Alt-Tabbing.

Also if anyone know what -vidfreed command line argument does?

It increases the art cache, e.g. -vidfreed100 (no space). You can try playing with different numbers, but I'm not sure if it's any useful.

 

[infomercialabsfuckyeah]

where the FUCK is this patch and all the other Drogstuff the site gives me 404 :evil:

 

[Derper]

You should be able to find it at Terra Arcanum :idea:

 

[Haba]

I may try and help when I can, but just so everyone knows, Drog Black Tooth, the maker of UAP, is no longer a resident on these forums. He deleted his account a few days ago, and seems to have withdrawn some of his contributions, as well.

Hahaha, wtf?

 

[Derper]

Oh yeah, I was surprised as well, seeing my post over this and all. Drog upped and left with pretty modder princess huff.

 

[cynik]

Does anyone have a mirror link to this patch? Link in the first post doesn't work anymore.

 

[hal900x]

When you create something wonderful, hatred always follows. Haters=greatness. But if you then get butthurt and take your creation away from the world in a huff, you have shown that you are the weakest of all.

Me, I go with Katt Williams: "If you got 20 haters right now, you got to figure out how to get 40 of them motherfuckers".

 

[Satori (original)]

Does anyone have a mirror link to this patch? Link in the first post doesn't work anymore.

Yup yup

http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/section/arcanum

 

[LaFey]

Yup yup

http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/section/arcanum

Not working - High Res patch can't be found anywhere...

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

... fail much? its right there on the page.

 

[LaFey]

Well, I'll be damned...

I must be going crazy...

 

[Burning Bridges]

Your patch works with the latest UAP091225. Thanks Drog.

Good widescreen resolutions are 1365x768 and 1280x720 (16:9). Should be used with preserve aspect ratio, of course.

These resolutions work well because because they keep the height of the 1024x768 resolution (if height is > 768 everything gets to small) but they add a lot of screen space on the sides.



Unfortunately I didn't find a good 16:10 resolution yet. If I use a 16:9 resolution + preserve aspect a tiny black bar remains on the top and bottom. But it doesn't doesnt bother me. It's much less irritating than the huge black border with 4:3 aspect.

This patch is really great.

By the way, 1280x720 is also a great resolution for TOEE, for everything stays readable with it:

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Might as well necro this thread.

The high resolution patch now has bordering:

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Another status update. Main menu backgrounds are in!

Spent like half a day coding this, but it was worth it. The backgrounds can be as large as at least 4K Ultra HD, and the game will crop them for your resolution on its own, no need to prepatch anything!

Below is the fade-to-black background (currently lifted from the Russian version, just for posterity), I'm also planning to do a couple more, like maybe a wooden or metallic one, or maybe based on some of the official wallpapers.

In other news, I decided that black nothingness in pick/create character and options menus was a bit too much and replaced it with dirt tiles, which suprsigingly fit quite well with the wood texture. Any thoughts?

P.S. If anybody wants to help with the background images, please do. I'm currently using 3840x2460 images, where Arcanum's original 800x600 background goes right in the center.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Was the new version with dll hooking ever made?

 

[Glop_dweller]

What's the point of a high resolution patch that doesn't improve the graphics?
(Are they not the exact same graphics that ship with the game? With just a bit more loaded along the edges?)

The high-res patch for Planescape worked because Planescape's character sprites were twice the size of Baldur's Gate... and so with the patch, the screens looked about the same (scale) as Baldur's Gate 2... but with more detail.
That was pretty cool.

I would be more interested if the patch scaled the UI to match the screen aspect & resolution. I just don't like floating UI panels like the above, it's the same thing that was done for the Fallout 1&2's menus with their respective hi-res patches.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

I'd like the entire game to be scaled to modern aspect & resolution, except fonts. And I'd like it to be done as crisply as possible.

I feel like a fetishist cause nobody else ever says they want this.