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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone cover
Developers
KnowWonder
Mac OS (Classic) Aspyr Media
macOS (OS X) Aspyr Media
Publishers
Electronic Arts
Engines
Unreal Engine 1
Release dates
Windows November 15, 2001
Mac OS (Classic) February 28, 2002
macOS (OS X) August 15, 2005
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone guide on StrategyWiki
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on MobyGames
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on Wikipedia

Warnings

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see Availability for affected versions).
The Mac OS X version of this game does not work on Mac OS X Lion (version 10.7) or later due to the removal of support for PowerPC apps.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone 2001
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets 2002
Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup 2003
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 2004
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 2005
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 2007
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince 2009
Lego Harry Potter (series)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 2010
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 2011
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them VR Experience 2018
Hogwarts Legacy 2023
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions TBA

Key points

Released as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in North America.

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
CD key
SafeDisc v2 DRM[Note 1]
Windows
Mac OS
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

Essential improvements

Graphical Tweaks

Unreal Engine DirectX 11 Renderer

A fork of Kentie's Direct3D 10 renderer that adds more graphical features.
Run games at HD resolution.
Improved lighting.
Adds ambient occlusion, screen space reflections and higher quality HDR post-processing.
Places a temporary watermark in the bottom right, and copies the developers PayPal link to your clipboard. Follow these instructions to disable the watermark and remove the PayPal link from being inserted into your clipboard.
Disable DirectX 11 renderer's PayPal watermark and disable the link from being inserted

Removing watermark: Set SupportMETextEnabled to False through Advanced OptionsRenderingDirect3D 11 support. If the render crashes while attempting to access the Advanced Options, modify this value manually through the game's <game>.ini with a text editor (see configuration file(s) location).

Preventing the renderer from inserting the developer's PayPal link into your clipboard:

  1. Download a hex editor such as HxD, install it, launch HxD and open d3d11drv.dll in HxD.
  2. Search for this hex value:
    • 77 77 77 2E 70 61 79 70 61 6C 2E 6D 65 2F 64 61 72 6B 6E 6F 76 69 73 6D 63
  3. Replace the value with this:
    • 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
  4. Save the changes. The renderer will now only clear your clipboard instead.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Harry Potter\
Mac OS (Classic)
macOS (OS X)

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Harry Potter\Save\
Mac OS (Classic)
macOS (OS X)

Video settings

In-game options menu.
In-game options menu.

Template:Video settings

Widescreen resolution

Use the Unofficial Widescreen Patch[3]
  1. Download the Unofficial Widescreen Patch and extract it to <path-to-game>\System\.
    • Download this patch instead for the localized Russian version.
  2. Go to configuration file(s) location.
  3. Edit HP.ini.
  4. Set the FullscreenViewportX and FullscreenViewportY values to your desired resolution.
  5. Optionally, edit User.ini and set the DesiredFOV value to compensate: 100 for the 16:10 aspect ratio, and 105 for 16:9.

Notes

Alternatively, you can use the Harry Potter Settings Utility to set the resolution and FOV without having to manually edit the configuration files.

Input settings

Template:Input settings

Controller support

Layout for Xbox gamepads (XInput compatible)

Lack of Deadzone in Right Thumbstick, makes camera spinning. See Camera spinning with Xbox 360 Controller.

Proper mouselook and strafing

Use the Mouse Fix and Strafing mod
  1. Download the Mouse Fix and Strafing mod and extract it to <path-to-game>\System\.
  2. If you have already installed the Unofficial Widescreen Patch, also download the Widescreen Fix and extract it to <path-to-game>\System\.

Audio settings

Template:Audio settings

Localizations

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

Issues fixed

Fails to start on Windows 8.1 and earlier

The game requires a form of DRM, known as SafeDisc implemented in secdrv.sys. Unfortunately, it is a gaping security flaw, and evidently couldn't be fixed without being removed. Microsoft disabled it in Windows 7 and removed it in Windows 10. The following has been tested in Windows 7 to work.
Temporarily start SafeDisc service[citation needed]
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Create a new Windows batch file (extension .bat) and insert the following:
@echo off
sc config secdrv start= demand & sc start secdrv
start System\HP.exe
timeout /NOBREAK /T 1
sc stop secdrv & sc config secdrv start= disabled
@echo on

Notes

This effectively reopens the security hole, starts the game, and then patches the vulnerability again after 1 second. You'll likely need to run the script in Administrator mode.
You can experiment with different timings if 1 second turns out to be too short on your system.

Low frame rate on Windows 8 and later

Instructions[citation needed]
  1. Download dgVoodoo2.
  2. Copy dgVoodooSetup.exe and the contents of the MS folder into the <path-to-game>/System folder of the game
  3. Run dgVoodooSetup.exe, select DirectX, uncheck dgVoodoo Watermark (and change some settings if you want to force higher res)
  4. Run HP.exe as administrator, or apply a cracked exe if you don't have a CD drive.

Notes

If you change resolution from the game settings, dgVoodoo2 switches to windowed mode, and you have to press Alt+ Enter to get back to fullscreen. To avoid this, just force the resolution you want from dgVoodooSetup.exe. Keep in mind that the game does not like very high resolutions (>1080p) or widescreen.

Certain transparent effects and textures are not rendered properly

Edit configuration file
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open Game.ini.
  3. Change the UsePrecache= value under [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice] to False.
(alternative) Use console code
  1. Go to configuration file(s) location.
  2. Edit HP.ini.
  3. Set the bDebugMode value to True.
  4. While in-game, press ~ to access the console.
  5. Type flush and press Enter to recache the textures.
(alternative) Use dgVoodoo2

Camera spinning with Xbox 360 Controller

Instructions[4]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open HP.ini.
  3. Locate [WinDrv.WindowsClient] section and change DeadZoneRUV=False to DeadZoneRUV=True.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 7 DirectX 9 is hackable via dgVoodoo2, Direct3D 11 support is hackable using Unreal DirectX11 Renderer (with features like tessellation, SSR or etc, but with some bugs and slow rendering in a quest with Filch)..
It is compatible with both the Widescreen Patch and Mouse and Strafing Fix.[5]
Software renderer
ExecutablePPC16-bit 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Mac OS (Classic)

Colored intro

Use the Story Book mod
  1. Download the Story Book mod and extract it to <path-to-game>\Textures\.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium II 266 MHz
AMD K6-2 266 MHz
System memory (RAM) 32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 500 MB
Video card (GPU) 4 MB of VRAM
DirectX 8.0 compatible
Supported chipsets: Nvidia GeForce3, Nvidia GeForce2, Nvidia GeForce 256, Nvidia Riva TNT2, Nvidia Riva TNT, 3dfx Voodoo5, ATI Radeon, ATI Rage 128 Pro, ATI Rage 128, Matrox MGA-G550, Matrox MGA-G450, Matrox MGA-G400, Matrox MGA-G200, PowerVR3 Kyro II, PowerVR3 Kyro, S3 Savage2000
Mac OS
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 8.6
Processor (CPU) PowerPC G3
System memory (RAM) 96 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)

Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[1] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[2]

References