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Dungeon Keeper 2

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Dungeon Keeper 2
Dungeon Keeper 2 cover
Developers
Bullfrog Productions
Publishers
Electronic Arts
Re-release Sold Out Software
Release dates
Windows June 25, 1999
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, Subscription gaming service
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view, First-person
Controls Multiple select, Point and select
Genres Building, RTS
Art styles Cartoon
Themes Fantasy
Series Dungeon Keeper
Dungeon Keeper 2 on HowLongToBeat
Dungeon Keeper 2 guide on StrategyWiki
Dungeon Keeper 2 on MobyGames
Dungeon Keeper 2 on Wikipedia
Dungeon Keeper
Dungeon Keeper 1997
Dungeon Keeper 2 1999

Dungeon Keeper 2 is a singleplayer and multiplayer bird's-eye view and first-person building and RTS game in the Dungeon Keeper series.

The game received multiple official patches after release, the last two of which included new creatures, but inadvertently broke the enemy AI and creature spawns in some levels.

On modern systems, the game requires the General Improvement Mod (GIM) and the level fix to reduce compatibility issues and bugs.

General information

Dungeon Keeper Wiki
Keeper Klan - a fansite for the series
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
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].
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Packaged with a custom Direct3D renderer for compatibility with modern systems.
Windows
Microsoft Store
Microsoft Store
Origin
Included exclusively with Xbox Game Pass for PC as part of its version of EA Play.
Windows
Origin
Origin
Included with EA Play.
Manual link for EA App purchase.
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Pre-packaged with DDrawCompat. Included with EA Play (Steam).
Windows
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
Free demo versions are available from ModDB: singleplayer, multiplayer.

Monetization

Type Notes
One-time game purchase The game requires an upfront purchase to access.
Subscription gaming service Available via EA Play.

Essential improvements

GOG version quick configuration - instructions on changing game resolution, enabling extra graphical options (EMBM, Sine Wave Waters), command line arguments, editing config.ini, restoring EAX audio option, optional alternative DirectX wrapper (dgVoodoo 2).
DKII-MouseWheel Remapper allows for zooming and turning the camera via mousewheel.

Patches

v1.7 is the latest official patch available. The GOG.com version of game includes latest patch, and is compatible with modern systems. If the patch executable fails to run on modern Windows, open it with 7-Zip and extract its contents to <path-to-game>.
General Improvement Mod (GIM) - community made, fixing some issues on modern systems. Includes the v1.51 executable for DKII.exe (last version with functional AI) alongside a fixed v1.7 DKII-DX.exe, combined with GOG's fixed graphics renderer.

Level fix

Version 1.7 (including digital releases) has an issue where some creatures do not enter the player dungeon. For example, Dark Angels can not be attracted during the campaign.
Apply this fix[citation needed]
  1. Navigate to <path-to-game>
  2. Download this fix
  3. Unzip it into <path-to-game> and overwrite existing files.

Skip intro videos

Instructions[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\Data\Movies\
  2. Delete or rename the following files: BullfrogIntro.tgq, INTRO.TGQ

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Data\Settings[Note 2]
Microsoft Store
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2616460/pfx/[Note 3]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Data\Save[Note 2]
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Bullfrog Productions Ltd\Dungeon Keeper II\Configuration\Player
Microsoft Store
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2616460/pfx/[Note 3]
Campaign data located in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Bullfrog Productions Ltd\Dungeon Keeper II\Configuration\Player

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Origin
Steam Cloud
Xbox Cloud

Video

In-game video settings.
In-game video settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
The game crashes at resolutions beyond 1920x1080.[citation needed]
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
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.
High-fidelity upscaling
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
Some animations are framerate dependent and seem to be intended for 30 FPS, playing twice as fast as they should at 60 FPS and four times as fast at 120 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Widescreen resolution

Edit registry files[3]
  1. Open the Registry Editor and browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Bullfrog Productions Ltd\Dungeon Keeper II\Configuration\Video. If the \Configuration\Video key path does not exist, create it manually.
  2. Change the Screen Height and Screen Width string values to the desired resolution (decimal base).

Notes

Changing the aspect ratio to anything other than 4:3 will break the text scaling, resulting in small text rendering.

Input

In-game control settings.
In-game control settings.

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
For 1st-person view (possession) only.
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Audio

In-game audio settings.
In-game audio settings.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Master, Voice, Music, Sfx.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Important messages have associated text.
Briefing, debriefing have absent subtitles, and some are overridden when the Horned Reaper collects the portal gem.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Danish
Local retail version only.
Dutch
Local retail version only.
French
Local retail version only.
German
Censored (registry entry "Torture Detail" set to 0). Local retail version only; download for digital releases.
Italian
Local retail version only.
Polish
Local retail version only.
Russian
Unofficial translation: audio or text
Spanish
Local retail version only.
Swedish
Local retail version only.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
4
Online play
4 The official multiplayer service has been shut down.

Connection types

Ports

Protocol Port(s) and/or port range(s)
TCP 7575
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.

VR support

3D modes State Notes
vorpX
Z3D
User created profile, requires DGVoodoo2 v 2.6, read important settings hints here. Note: Profile may not work with the latest wrapper, in case of issues please report to the vorpx forum.

Issues unresolved

Main menu frame rate

The main menu (and anything associated with that area) has a generally poor frame rate. It is most likely caused by the display of the menu or overlay. This can be circumvented by using a wrapping program like dgVoodoo 2.[citation needed]

Issues fixed

Lag and low FPS - Windows 7 and newer (64-bit)

Instructions
  1. Download wndmode.zip from this Steam guide.
  2. Unzip the archive to <path-to-game>. There are three files in the archive: directdraw.dll, wndmode.dll and wndmode.ini.
  3. Run the game.

Lag in first-person possession mode only

Set core affinity of the DKII-DX.exe or DKII.exe to one processor core.[citation needed]

Mouse cursor behaves strange

Download this [file] and throw the dinput.dll into the installation directory

Windows Vista compatibility

Known issues include startup crash, a black cover over what should be visible, and in-game crashes. The following steps fix most of these problems.

Instructions[4]
  1. Set DKII.EXE to run in compatibility mode for Windows XP SP3 or Windows 2000.
  2. Run the game with -32biteverything and -disablegamma command line arguments.
  3. Disable Hardware Acceleration in the graphics menu (takes effect when you start a new map).
  4. Set resolution to 640x480.
  5. Disable QSound in the audio menu.

Crashes

Install the General Improvement Mod (GIM).

Map editor installation

The instructions for installing the map editor are incorrect.
Editor installation[citation needed]

Extract the files within DK2Editor.zip to <path-to-game>\Data\editor instead of the folder described in the readme.

Notes

If it was installed in the installation folder, an error message about being unable to find GlobalVariables.kwd will appear, and the process will need to be terminated (as it will otherwise remain at 100% CPU usage).

Other information

API

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

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio QSound 4.14 (QMixer.dll)

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95, 98
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium MMX 166 MHz
System memory (RAM) 32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 285 MB
Video card (GPU) 2 MB of VRAM
DirectX 6.1 compatible


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>/2616460/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (2616460) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References