Unofficial Arcanum Patch (Original Thread)

[ghostdog]

Great news!

As to why they didn't implement it , most systems back in the day probably couldn't handle it since arcanum wasn't that well optimized anyway. I remember having slowdowns in certain areas back then, without any shadows.

 

[big_texan]

WOW I mean, wow. Drog I think I could actually hug you. Were the tb animations included in the new patch? I didn't see them, but maybe I just missed them?

 

[Durwyn]

In before Drog finds hidden tetris minigame in Arcanum...
Good work mate

 

[Whispering Darkness]

Feeling a bit silly asking this but here goes... How do I set the value to 1? I found the file but cannot access it. Must be doing something wrong... Or nothing right...

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Feeling a bit silly asking this but here goes... How do I set the value to 1? I found the file but cannot access it. Must be doing something wrong... Or nothing right...

It's a plain text file, you can open it with notepad.

 

[Ion Flux]

Cool. Thanks Drog!

 

[Woreczko]

A little warning: playing with shadows on did seriously slow down my PC (2ghz CPU 1 Gb RAM). It also messed something with area scripts in the Crash Site, as elven assasin didn`t walk up to me and Virgil didn`t give me a tip about traveling via world map.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

A little warning: playing with shadows on did seriously slow down my PC (2ghz CPU 1 Gb RAM). It also messed something with area scripts in the Crash Site, as elven assasin didn`t walk up to me and Virgil didn`t give me a tip about traveling via world map.

Nonsense.

1) Complex shadows are just 28 premade variants that appear instead of a normal circle. They can't really slow down your computer.

2) Since it's just a graphics change, it can't affect anything gameplay wise. I've been playing with them for quite some time, and haven't noticed any problems. Moreover, I just tested the assassin encounter with the current UAP + shadows, and, of course, it works.

 

[Woreczko]

I investigated thing more thoroughly. Indeed setting on dynamic shadows does nothing bad on its own. Problem seem to lay in a combination of a mobile light source (lantern) and shadows on. Carrying a lantern around had always caused some slowdowns on my PC, albeit nothing gamebraking. With lantern + shadows on, it gets much worse.

If you wish to check: Create a new character - sickly half elf male named " Numa Anemiczny ". In the industrial salvage box at the Crash site you will find a lantern. Equip it and proceed to the cave with ghost. In a fight with the rats (real time mode) I experienced a massive slowdown. Afterwards sounds got also focked up and I had to reload.

Don`t get me wrong - I thoroughly enjoy your patch Drog and not being able to play with dynamic shadows is a non-issue for me. If it works on your PC, then I`m glad, but if something is screwy - it might (or might not) be this.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

No slowdown with a lantern for me. And I have a crappy laptop. There may be a hardware compatibility issue, we'll see if anyone reports similar problems.

 

[Trash]

Awesome Drog. I'm amazed how much you manage to get out of this game and in how fast and thorough you do it. If I worked as a developer I'd hire you.

 

[MaskedMan]

Great stuff!

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Since this version was a major update (and I have no testers other than myself), a few bugs have been found. Please download this tiny fix to get rid of them. Just put the file into your Arcanum folder.
-Fixes problems with alcohol and poison prototypes.
-Fixes a problem with the mayor's dagger quest, now you can give the mayor his dagger in all necessary cases.

 

[Mareus]

God damn. You fixed so many bugs. I wonder how many more will you find..

I really hope you are close to finishing this. Still waiting to play the game completely fixed. I want to finish this game at least one more time in it's full glory.

Thanks again for doing this, Drog.

 

[redheadguy2001]

Possible bug in tarant

hey i ran across this huge patch and decided to dust my game off and play.

I installed the game, official patch, unofficial patch, the bug fixer ad on for the latest patch, the extra patch, 1024*768 patch and then modified shadows to 1.

I have gotten to Tarant and found that the town is mostly empty. there are guards on the sides of the road near the boil and 6 bandits in the boil but the entire rest of the town is empty, the buildings don't even have items in them, just empty buildings, i don't remember the game being like that. anyone else found that?

 

[Zea]

Damn!

Ah cripes, just my luck... I got it all patched up, and when I wanna move the cam around to look at the zeppelin crash, I get this junk.

It's always me!

Perhaps it's... just my system, since this is a "temporary" system of AMD Athlon 1,10Ghz using an nVidia GeForce FX 5200.

 

[Zea]

Tried it without the patch... Full Screen doesn't have that, but everything's stretched out so I can't see menus and all that, only little bits of bars.

Regular start-up has the same visual glitch as before.

I wonder what's up. :/

 

[Zea]

But why is the screen game screen messing up in 1024x768 mode?

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

People just don't read readme files, it seems. This problem was brought up at least a dozen of times already.

 

[Cadaver]

Re: Damn!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v671/Zeanu/ahhhwtf.jpg

After seeing that picture. I use(d) to have similair problems (the visuals) when I pressed alt+tab to do some surfing and then went back to the game. A restart solved it.
Vanilla+ 1.0.7.4.

No idea if it still does it on this pc. As I learned not to use Alt+tab.

 

[Grump]

I just recently used the patch and started gaving the game another go through, and Thorvald seems to be hyper sensitive about going to the Wheel Clan.

Yes, there was a mistake in the script. It will be fixed in the next version.

EDIT:

I've spent the whole day analyzing lots of ASM code in both final and demo versions of the game and it was fucking hard and frustrating, but I did it. I fixed the bug with grenades not costing any APs in the turn-based mode. There was indeed a bug on Troika's side, that was preventing the procedure from functioning properly. It was working (somewhat) in the demo version, so I had to analyze the APs subtraction process in both versions to find the cause. Throwing an item (but not a boomerang type weapon) in turn-based now takes 4 APs. (It was set to 2 APs originally, but I guess that makes little sense since spells take 4 APs, so I changed it. Perhaps they never bothered to balance this, since the function never really worked.)

Arcanum now has a hope of having actual balance, I guess. Someday.

P.S. The new version is coming very soon.

I guess its better that its fixed but I'd just like to point out for those thinking about starting a new game that this screws over technologists. Since all the early guns are about as good as pissing water, unpatched explosives (specifically molotov cocktails) are one of the very few ways a nonmelee technologist can keep from getting eaten alive in the beginning stages. But it's more a problem with Arcanum's innate lack of balance than anything else.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I fixed the bug with grenades not costing any APs in the turn-based mode.

I guess its better that its fixed but I'd just like to point out for those thinking about starting a new game that this screws over technologists.

OMG YOU FIXED ANOTHER EXPLOIT NOW I CAN'T CHEAT

The game is ridiculously easy. Even with DX5 you can throw two grenades in one turn, and you can throw 3 with DX9. Not that different from mages spamming Harm.

 

[Topaze]

Do you plan on releasing the next version anytime soon? I'm asking because if you don't, it could be more convenient to integrate that tiny fix into the patch itself. Not that I have any problem with it, it's just a thought.

Oh, and thank you for your tremendous work. I'm sure you're gonna be hearing that a lot.

 

[Mister Arkham]

Hey Drog, it's been a while since I've read through the whole thread, so I'll delete this post if I find the info I'm looking for... but do you (or anyone else for that matter) know of a level cap modifier that is compatible with your patch?

I'm kind of just running aorund and screwing about in the game right now, and I'm finding fifty to be a bit constrictive.

 

[Mister Arkham]

Hey Drog, it's been a while since I've read through the whole thread, so I'll delete this post if I find the info I'm looking for... but do you (or anyone else for that matter) know of a level cap modifier that is compatible with your patch?

I'm kind of just running aorund and screwing about in the game right now, and I'm finding fifty to be a bit constrictive.

there is only one, and it is incompatable with the patch.
edit: and don't expect one soon, drog has a strict 'no gameplay changes' policy.

Alright, thanks for the response.