PtD source code download link

[asfasdf]

I found a link to the 1.41 installer https://web.archive.org/web/2004120...al/temp/306443/PreludeInstall.exe&asid=306443

You can find a 1.50 patch at https://www.patches-scrolls.de/patch/3213/7/

Dunno if that gets you what you need.

Edit: there is a fixed exe for 1.41 at https://gamecopyworld.com/games/pc_prelude_to_darkness.shtml if you need that as well.

All right, this worked. I managed to play the game a bit, fix a few more render issues, it is looking fine.

I created a gitlab here:

https://gitlab.com/ptd3/ptd-1

You can now build your own versions. The game is currently fixed to fullscreen with native desktop resolution. I haven't tried it in 4k yet, so if anyone volunteers I would be curious as how it turns out. Whatever you do, do not tamper with the gui.ini (leave it at non windowed), changing the resolution may cause weird issues. Running at anything other than 1.5 will cause some weird stuff.

Enjoy.

 

[vazha]

checking this thread to administer well deserved brofists has become my new morning routine

 

[notpl]

Have you guys made this good yet

 

[asfasdf]

I committed a few more things:

• Lighting is fixed
• Added a case insensitive search thing for Linux, so no need to fiddle around with filename cases
• Several fixes for memory issues, game accessed lots of non initialized memory which caused lots of crashes
• Fixed some issues with texture mapping, scaled stuff now interpolate correctly, and look better

I haven't found any other bug so far, I need to play more.

 

[asfasdf]

I was thinking on where to take this to, but I don't like any of my ideas. So, it will stay as it is for now.

 

[Konjad]

I need to learn C++ first so I guess I won't start doing anything before 2023

 

[Darth Canoli]

I committed a few more things:

• Lighting is fixed
• Added a case insensitive search thing for Linux, so no need to fiddle around with filename cases
• Several fixes for memory issues, game accessed lots of non initialized memory which caused lots of crashes
• Fixed some issues with texture mapping, scaled stuff now interpolate correctly, and look better

I haven't found any other bug so far, I need to play more.

Wait what?

Are you releasing some kind of patch?

Where is my diamond fist button?

 

[asfasdf]

It is several fixes for the 1.5, yes (also opengl and linux porting). It is still a branch though so, for better or worse, it will diverge from the 1.7+.

I have run this quite a few times through valgrind and it had a ton of strange memory accesses and behaviours, no wonder it crashed all the time. Fixing those probably went a long way for stability. Too bad game is awfully slow on valgrind, so I couldn't run it very exhaustively.

 

[Darth Canoli]

It is several fixes for the 1.5, yes (also opengl and linux porting). It is still a branch though so, for better or worse, it will diverge from the 1.7+.

I have run this quite a few times through valgrind and it had a ton of strange memory accesses and behaviours, no wonder it crashed all the time. Fixing those probably went a long way for stability. Too bad game is awfully slow on valgrind, so I couldn't run it very exhaustively.

I see, may I ask why you didn't work on 1.7 or 1.8?
Was the source code for 1.5?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It is several fixes for the 1.5, yes (also opengl and linux porting). It is still a branch though so, for better or worse, it will diverge from the 1.7+.

I have run this quite a few times through valgrind and it had a ton of strange memory accesses and behaviours, no wonder it crashed all the time. Fixing those probably went a long way for stability. Too bad game is awfully slow on valgrind, so I couldn't run it very exhaustively.

Does it compile with gcc or clang? You could probably use their sanitizers instead of valgrind for less of a performance hit.

 

[asfasdf]

It is several fixes for the 1.5, yes (also opengl and linux porting). It is still a branch though so, for better or worse, it will diverge from the 1.7+.

I have run this quite a few times through valgrind and it had a ton of strange memory accesses and behaviours, no wonder it crashed all the time. Fixing those probably went a long way for stability. Too bad game is awfully slow on valgrind, so I couldn't run it very exhaustively.

I see, may I ask why you didn't work on 1.7 or 1.8?
Was the source code for 1.5?

Precisely, we would need a benevolent dev releasing those versions.

It is several fixes for the 1.5, yes (also opengl and linux porting). It is still a branch though so, for better or worse, it will diverge from the 1.7+.

I have run this quite a few times through valgrind and it had a ton of strange memory accesses and behaviours, no wonder it crashed all the time. Fixing those probably went a long way for stability. Too bad game is awfully slow on valgrind, so I couldn't run it very exhaustively.

Does it compile with gcc or clang? You could probably use their sanitizers instead of valgrind for less of a performance hit.

g++. I tried asan a bit but it doesn't seem to catch uninitialized memory accesses for some reason, which this thing has a lot. Might try it again now that the most egregious stuff is fixed.

 

[Tramboi]

Does somebody have annotated IDA (or radare or Ghidra) databases for the 1.5 and the latest version ?
As asfasdf said, the porting effort will diverge from the ZeroSum improvements, so we need to know what has changed in the binary, on top of the data.
It's now quite easy to annotate the DBs, now that we have the sources, but it still takes time and work.
QA would be great too if somebody can try a build with the updated data from 1.7+ !

PS: I consider asfasdf's the reference port and I'm working on it

 

[Tacgnol]

Does somebody have annotated IDA (or radare or Ghidra) databases for the 1.5 and the latest version ?
As asfasdf said, the porting effort will diverge from the ZeroSum improvements, so we need to know what has changed in the binary, on top of the data.
It's now quite easy to annotate the DBs, now that we have the sources, but it still takes time and work.
QA would be great too if somebody can try a build with the updated data from 1.7+ !

PS: I consider asfasdf's the reference port and I forked it to help a bit, if our visions turn to be compatible

Is there a thorough set of patch notes for 1.6/1.7? Would help to know exactly what was fixed in each version.

 

[Konjad]

Does somebody have annotated IDA (or radare or Ghidra) databases for the 1.5 and the latest version ?
As asfasdf said, the porting effort will diverge from the ZeroSum improvements, so we need to know what has changed in the binary, on top of the data.
It's now quite easy to annotate the DBs, now that we have the sources, but it still takes time and work.
QA would be great too if somebody can try a build with the updated data from 1.7+ !

PS: I consider asfasdf's the reference port and I forked it to help a bit, if our visions turn to be compatible

Is there a thorough set of patch notes for 1.6/1.7? Would help to know exactly what was fixed in each version.

1.55 & 1.6
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...y-damn-awesome-rpg.132443/page-6#post-7930856

1.8:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...y-damn-awesome-rpg.132443/page-6#post-7930804

Idk about 1.7 though

 

[Modron]

The change logs aren't super detailed but here is: 1.55, 1.6, and 1.8. 1.7's changelog is probably lost to the sands of times.

Can't find any info pertaining to 1.7 but they had this as their notes from when 1.6 was the downloadable version:

Improved user interface.
New screen resolution options, including 1280 by 1024.
Improved journal.
Improved terrain texturing.
Additional NPC portraits.
Additional unique items.
Additional quests.
New cutscenes pertaining to the main plot.
Multiple fixes to scripts/quests.
New music.
New creature sound effects.
Playbalancing.
Walkthrough (available online).

Retrievable from here http://www.zero-sum.com/download.html using archive.org

Also I think there was 1.55 patch before those as well http://www.zero-sum.com/downloads.html

1) Intro
2) Pickpocket
3) Multi-tile creatures
4) Improved Pathing
5) Better Regioning
6) Improved Magic
7) Shadows
8) Improved Help Text
9) Music and Sound

Known issues:
1) No limit on interaction. You can talk/interact with things that are several screens away
2) Spell aura does not surround casters properly 3) You cannot use the thaumaturgy and river spells you get in Kellen 4) Any race can use any magic

This was the changelog for 1.8:

- No more invisible characters
- Bless Dagger event fixed
- Random encounter crash fixed (body encounter)
- Dying does not send you back to Olvar's Tavern
- Telus bug fix
- Can now run in 1024x768
- Smoother scrolling/mouse speed

 

[Tacgnol]

The change logs aren't super detailed but here is: 1.55, 1.6, and 1.8. 1.7's changelog is probably lost to the sands of times.

Yes, the vague "fixes" is unfortunately not very helpful but I guess it is what it is.

 

[Twiglard]

So you didn't even fix the barter crash bug? Meh...

 

[asfasdf]

What is the story with these patches, were they made by different people/studios?

 

[asfasdf]

I have been working with Tramboi and he seems to be some kind of master reverse engineer. We have been working some magic into backporting the 1.8 binary into our source, and we got some early results, in fact game seems to be working fine with 1.8 data.

Tramboi also added full support to 64-bits, which seems to be working fine.

Now, I would appreciate if codex could provide us with some QA in 1.8, we need to see if it is fully compatible, or if things are missing.

You can get the releases here:

https://gitlab.com/ptd3/ptd-1/-/releases/1.0

It would be nice if you could test both versions, see if there bugs happening in 32-bits version but not on 64 and vice versa, etc.

 

[Modron]

Might want to include these bits from the readme: https://gitlab.com/ptd3/ptd-1

Dependencies​

• BASS 1.5 for Windows, 2.4 for Linux;
• GLFW 3;
• GLEW 2.0;
• OpenGL support for at least compatibility profile 3.1.

 

[asfasdf]

Fine, I added a zip with the deps. 64-bit version currently has no sound, as we have no decent BASS version in that architecture. But we might have something else soon.

 

[Modron]

I just meant in your install instructions here but that works too.

Edit: Not getting audio in the 32 or 64 bit exes but base 1.8 exes works fine. Haven't finished creating chracters yet but lots of keyboard input doesn't seem to work right in the new exes: can't capitalize names, can't bring up the help menu with F1, and hitting escape exits the game instead of just closing menus/going back.

Found a way to crash the updated exes. In character creation if you scroll through the character portraits a lot you will reach a point where it will be blank no matter which direction you go, returning to the main party window and trying to replace the default characters again after this will crash the game.

 

[Modron]

You sure I shouldn't be playing this on top of 1.5 install instead of the 1.8 I am running? It crashed after the starting dream combat with the strange creatures. Was in the tavern and 1 npc had a missing texture and bam ctd on the 64 bit exe before the scripted dialog starts up. I'll test it on the 32 bit one tomorrow.

 

[asfasdf]

No, that is good feedback. More work to do.

 

[Tramboi]

Thanks for the QA, and thanks to asfasdf for his great porting work. I think we'll have something great soon.
The 64 bit support is very sketchy, it was more a PoC, especially save/restores are probably completely wrong for now
But we're working

 

[Modron]

Well I got through the battle and into the tavern in the 32 bit went and retried the 64 bit and it worked as well this time went to save and forgot to avoid the escape key and closed the game :D. Hopefully i got an autosave in there.

 

[asfasdf]

I will remove the esc thing on next release. It is useful for debugging, but detrimental to actually playing it.