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Darkstone

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Darkstone
Darkstone cover
Developers
Delphine Software International
Publishers
Retail Gathering of Developers
GOG.com VectorCell
Steam Anuman Interactive
Release dates
Windows July 27, 1999
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view
Controls Point and select
Genres RPG
Themes Fantasy
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Darkstone on HowLongToBeat
Darkstone on IGDB
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Darkstone guide on StrategyWiki
Darkstone on MobyGames
Darkstone on Wikipedia
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General information

Darkstone Database community site
GOG.com Community Discussions
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
 SafeDisc DRM[Note 1].[3]
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
 Uses GOG's custom DirectDraw wrapper.
Windows
Steam
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Windows
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
A free demo version is available from Archive.org.

Monetization

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Journey in Uma Released for free. Included in digital releases.
Windows

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest patch is v1.05b. Some previous patches are required. The GOG.com version is already fully patched.

Framerate fix

For Windows 8 and later, use the low frame rate fix.

Peixoto's patch

Peixoto's patch allows high resolution, super-sampling anti-aliasing and gets the installer working on 64-bit systems.

Skip intro videos

Run the game with the -nointro command line argument.[citation needed]

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\config\*.txt[Note 2]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/320320/pfx/[Note 3]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\save[Note 2]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/320320/pfx/[Note 3]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

General settings.
General settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
 
 See the WSGF entry.
Multi-monitor
 
 See the WSGF entry.
Ultra-widescreen
 
 See the WSGF entry.
4K Ultra HD
 
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS
For Windows 8 and later, use the low frame rate fix.
120+ FPS
Capped at 60 FPS.[4]

Windowed

Use the -32bit -window command line arguments.[5]
The 32-bit parameter must be present or the interface will be broken.[5]

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Set in <path-to-game>\config\keyboard.txt.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
SFX, Music, Voices
Surround sound
Subtitles
Disabled by default.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Spanish
Swedish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
Not supported (Steam store page is incorrect).[6]
LAN play
2 Co-op
Online play

Connection types

Type Native Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Issues fixed

Broken graphics on AMD graphics cards

Characters and buildings display incorrectly on recent AMD drivers.
Characters and buildings display incorrectly on recent AMD drivers.
3D elements are broken on AMD drivers newer than Catalyst 13.1.[7][8] The -sortbyz command line argument will fix some issues but others remain.[9]
Use dgVoodoo 2[citation needed]
  1. Download dgVoodoo 2.
  2. Extract dgVoodooCpl.exe along with the DDraw.dll and D3Dlmm.dll from the MS\x86 subfolder to <path-to-game>.

Broken interface in windowed mode

Setting 32-bit color mode fixes the windowed mode interface.[5]
Use the -32bit command line argument[5]

Low frame rate in fullscreen mode

This game has frame rate issues on Windows 8 and later when running in fullscreen mode.
Apply necessary fixes[citation needed]
  1. Install the Darkstone low frame rate fix.
  2. Use the -32bit command line argument to avoid flickering/invisible graphics.

Issues unresolved

Music stuttering

The in-game music will frequently skip and stutter on modern hardware. There is no known fix.[10]

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 6
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio Xaudio MPEG Audio Engine
Cutscenes Windows Media Foundation

Quest Editor

The Darkstone Quest Editor supports adding or editing monsters, NPCs, buildings and quests.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95 98
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 233 MHz MMX
(or AMD equivalent) 		Intel Pentium II 350 MHz MMX
(or AMD equivalent)
System memory (RAM) 32 MB 64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 170 MB 380 MB
Video card (GPU) 4 MB of VRAM
DirectX 6.1 compatible 		4 MB of VRAM

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]
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/320320/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (320320) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

  1. ↑ Not Loading in Windows 10; this will break thousands of - Microsoft Community - last accessed on 2017-01-16
  2. ↑ Microsoft - MS15-097: Description of the security update for the graphics component in Windows: September 8, 2015 - last accessed on 2018-02-16
  3. ↑ Talk:Darkstone — StrategyWiki, the video game walkthrough and strategy guide wiki
  4. ↑ Verified by User:Expack3 on 2019-03-16
    Tested by using my monitor's 48 Hz refresh mode, disabling vsync, and simply running the game normally.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 A way to run this in windowed mode?, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com
  6. ↑ Local coop :: Darkstone General Discussions - last accessed on May 2023
  7. ↑ Game does not work, Cannot send support ticket either...., page 1 - Forum - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023
  8. ↑ Latest ATI drivers have broken some GOG games on Win7 (info inside), page 1 - Forum - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023
  9. ↑ Exhaustive List of Command Line Parameters, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023
  10. ↑ Music skipping, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023