Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Developers
	KnowWonder
Publishers
	Electronic Arts
Russia	1C-SoftClub
Engines
	Unreal Engine 2
Release dates
Windows	May 25, 2004
Reception
Metacritic	67
IGDB	74
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Adventure, Platform, Puzzle
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Contemporary, Fantasy
Series	Harry Potter

Warnings

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see Availability for affected versions).

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a singleplayer third-person adventure, platform and puzzle game in the Harry Potter series.

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SafeDisc v3 DRM.

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Delete/rename video files
Go to <path-to-game>\Movies\. Delete or rename the eag_***(*).bik and wb_***(*).bik files.

(Alternative) Set a widescreen resolution
See Widescreen resolution.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Harry Potter™ and the Prisoner of Azkaban\

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Harry Potter™ and the Prisoner of Azkaban\Save\

Video

Sound & Video Settings

Advanced Settings

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor			See Widescreen resolution.
Ultra-widescreen			See Widescreen resolution.
4K Ultra HD			The fonts scale poorly.
Field of view (FOV)		See the WSGF entry.
Windowed		Toggle with Alt+↵ Enter or use -windowed command line argument.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Edit the LevelOfAnisotropy value under [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice] in %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Harry Potter™ and the Prisoner of Azkaban\hppoa.ini.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
High-fidelity upscaling		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		Edit the UseVSync value in %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Harry Potter™ and the Prisoner of Azkaban\hppoa.ini.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		High frame rate may cause certain scripted sequences to break. See Frozen Imp.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Widescreen resolution

Set widescreen resolution
Open %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Harry Potter™ and the Prisoner of Azkaban\hppoa.ini. Change the FullscreenViewportX= and FullscreenViewportY= values under [WinDrv.WindowsClient] to the desired resolution.

Use the utility[citation needed]

Input

Input Settings

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity		Edit the value MouseYMultiplier for Y-axis and MouseXMultiplier for X-axis under [WinDrv.WindowsClient] in %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Harry Potter™ and the Prisoner of Azkaban\hppoa.ini.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Mouse sensitivity issues

Gaming mouses with customizable DPI settings do not work correctly. The mouse sensitivity changes (supposedly switching between the mouse's default and custom DPI) when entering certain locations (e.g. when leaving the great hall and entering the courtyard). The mouse will temporarily differ in sensitivity till the spell button (left mouse button) is pressed. This does not happen with standard mouses that do not have customizable DPI settings.

Use a mouse without customizable DPI controls[citation needed]

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Music, Effects.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Czech				Only available in Czech retail release. download.
Dutch
French
German
Italian
Japanese				Local retail version only.
Polish				Local retail version only.
Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian				Only available in Russian retail release.
Slovak				Fan translation, download.
Spanish
Swedish				Only available in Swedish retail release.

Issues fixed

Error at launch on Windows 8 and later

By default the game uses a Direct3D render device. In recent versions of Windows this may cause an error at launch: LockRect failed: D3DERR_DEVICELOST. The following has been tested on Windows 10 to work.

Use dgVoodoo 2[citation needed]

Change render device[citation needed]
Open <path-to-game>\system\Default.ini, or if the game has already been launched for the current user, also open %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Harry Potter™ and the Prisoner of Azkaban\hppoa.ini. Go to the [Engine.Engine] section. Add a ; in front of RenderDevice=D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice. Remove the ; in front of RenderDevice=OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice.

Frozen Imp

During Ron's first Carpe Retractum challenge, the player will be introduced to the imp enemy which may become frozen after its intro cutsceen finishes, preventing further progress. The likely problem is a timing error with the cutscene's script.

Limit FPS
Cap the framerate to 60 FPS. Once the imp becomes active, the limiter can be disabled.

Change to the OpenGL renderer
See Change render device. Some report crashes at autosave points with the OpenGL renderer, so consider changing it back after passing the imp section.

Use dgVoodoo 2[citation needed]

Toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode
Press Alt+↵ Enter as soon as the cutscene starts to toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode. Toggle back. Once the cutscene ends, the imp should move as usual.

Secret portraits not opening

During the game, Harry will need to collect passwords to open some portraits. Some of them will fail to open above 60 FPS. Likely the same reason as the Imp.

Cap the framerate to 60 FPS

Use dgVoodoo 2[citation needed]

Vsync (Enabled by default) not working correctly on Windows 10

Use dgVoodoo 2[citation needed]

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	8
OpenGL
Software renderer

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	OpenAL
Cutscenes	Bink Video

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	98, 2000, ME, XP	XP SP3
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium III 600 MHz	Intel Pentium 4 1.5 GHz
System memory (RAM)	256 MB	512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	820 MB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 2 ATI Radeon Matrox Parhelia 32 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0 compatible	64 MB of VRAM