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The Elder Scrolls: Arena

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
The Elder Scrolls: Arena
The Elder Scrolls: Arena cover
Developers
Bethesda Softworks
Release dates
DOS March 25, 1994
Windows (DOSBox) September 10, 2013[1]
Taxonomy
Monetization Freeware
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives First-person
Controls Direct control
Genres ARPG, Open world
Themes Fantasy
Series The Elder Scrolls
The Elder Scrolls: Arena on HowLongToBeat
The Elder Scrolls: Arena on IGDB
The Elder Scrolls: Arena guide on StrategyWiki
The Elder Scrolls: Arena on MobyGames
The Elder Scrolls: Arena on Wikipedia
The Elder Scrolls: Arena 1994
The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall 1996
An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire 1997
The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard 1998
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind 2002
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion 2006
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 2011
The Elder Scrolls Online 2014
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition 2016
The Elder Scrolls: Legends 2017
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR 2018
The Elder Scrolls: Blades TBA
The Elder Scrolls VI TBA

The Elder Scrolls: Arena is a singleplayer first-person ARPG and open world game in the The Elder Scrolls series.

Key points

Floppy disk version re-released as a free download in 2004 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Elder Scrolls series.
ArenaSetup is a pre-packaged installer for Windows, including the CD version of the game.

General information

Official forum
The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages
UESP forum
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Prompts for answers from manual, code wheel, etc.
Floppy version: Requires manual to answer Shift Gate copy protection questions.[2] Use DOSBox.
DOS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
CD version: Disc check. Use DOSBox.
DOS
Official website
DRM-free
This is the CD version pre-packaged with DOSBox.
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Prepackaged with DOSBox.
Windows
Microsoft Store
Microsoft Store
Free download.
Windows
Steam
DRM-free after installation through Steam client (notes may include more details)
Free download and bundled with DOSBox.
Windows
Official website (unavailable)
DRM-free
The floppy disk version from the official site (without DOSBox).
DOS

Version differences

The CD version has voice acting during cutscenes, removes the Shift Gate's copy protection questions,[2] a remastered ending, and small graphical changes to items like shields. The two versions are otherwise identical.
The Elder Scrolls Anthology includes the floppy version.[3]

Essential improvements

Patches

Patch 1.06 is the latest patch for the retail floppy version. The CD version and the freeware floppy version are already fully patched.

Run in DOSBox

To play Arena properly under DOSBox, make the following changes to the DOSBox configuration file[4]):
  • Change core=auto to core=dynamic
  • Change aspect=false to aspect=true
  • (OPTIONAL) Change scaler=normal2x to scaler=normal3x
  • Change fullresolution=original to fullresolution=desktop
  • Change cycles=auto to cycles=max or (OPTIONAL) cycles=fixed 20000
  • Change output=surface to output=opengl or output=ddraw (Windows)
If output= isn't changed from surface and the aspect= command is turned to true, the game will become unplayable.
Changing scaler= to "normal3x" will emulate the game in windowed mode at twice the resolution, staying faithful to the original's size. Paired well with aspect=true.
Changing the cycles= command to max will force DOSBox to emulate the game at a higher framerate with high detail settings, but animations will be sped up, making NPCs very hard to talk to, as they move too fast. This also applies to enemies.
Changing the cycles= command to "fixed 20000" will force the game to play as it should on release, but will become unplayable on higher detail levels due to slowdown.
Changing the core= command to "dynamic" will allow the game to run at a higher framerate when using high detail settings, as opposed to "auto."

Enhanced Music

When installing the game under DOSBox, the guide provided by Bethesda recommends SoundBlaster 16 for the music and sound emulation. This provides faithful, but worse musical-quality. For increased musical quality, the Soundcard settings must match these:

  • SOUND: Sound Blaster or SB16 (or compatible) - I0:220 IRQ:7 DMA:1
  • MUSIC: General Midi or MPU-401 - I0:330 IRQ:2 DMA:1
While improving musical fidelity, GeneralMIDI will make various dungeon tracks sound "awkward" due to the new instrument sounds.
Some dungeon music won't play if GeneralMIDI or SoundBlaster is used, as both modes have special music. GeneralMIDI seems to have the most variation.
When using SoundBlaster, some overworld music, like the snowing music, will have odd, warping-sounding instruments in the background.

Increase View Distance

By editing your save file, you can set the view distance ("Detail" in the game menu) to well above the max setting of 19.

  1. Back up your game save.
  2. In the in-game menu, change the "Detail" slider to 0 and save the game in the top slot of the save menu.
  3. Close the game.
  4. Open SAVEENGN.00 with a hex-editor and change line 186 from:
7ef8 e8c6 6080 e566 050a 152a 57ad 58b0 (default)
    to
cf90 36fa 6080 e566 050a 152a 57ad 58b0

Save and launch the game. When you load that save, the detail bar should be extremely long and wrap around your screen. Further saves created will preserve this new setting, so long as you don't change the detail setting.

  • The example setting here is one that is arbitrarily high enough that you cannot see any more details given the 320x200 resolution.

Game data

Save game data location

System Location
DOS <path-to-game>\*.0*
<path-to-game>\NAMES.DAT
Windows <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1812290/pfx/[Note 2]
Each save is comprised of multiple *.0* files, with the extension's number matching the slot it was saved to.[5]
NAMES.DAT stores the save file names (saves can still be loaded without it).
In-game settings are stored in each save rather than shared.
GOG version places save files in <path-to-game>\cloud_saves instead if cloud saves are enabled.

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud
Xbox Cloud

Video

General settings.
General settings.

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
320x200 only, see the DOSBox page for more information.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
For DOSBox toggle with Alt+ Enter (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
For DOSBox use an unofficial build (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
60 FPS
Capped at 70 FPS.
120+ FPS
Capped at 70 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Key remapping only available while pressing Alt+F1 in DOSBox. Also see the "TES Arena Remapped" mod, which supplies a Dosbox control file enabling modern WASD controls.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
For DOSBox set in the DOSBox configuration file.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Touchscreen optimised
Touchscreen rarely works, and only for menus.
Controller
Controller support
For DOSBox use the DOSBox Mapper (see the glossary page for other workarounds).

Audio

Supported SoundCards for MIDI
Supported SoundCards for MIDI

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Sound and Music.
Surround sound
mono; only one sound can be played at the same time.
Subtitles
All dialogue is text.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
For DOSBox change the priority background value in the DOSBox configuration file.
Royalty free audio
General MIDI audio
This game supports the MT-32 and General MIDI for music.

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Only cutscenes are voiced.
French
Use Projet French Arena or ArenaSetup. Some text is English.
Russian
Fan translation download
Spanish
Fan translation by Clan Dlan, download.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
DOS video modes VGA

OpenTESArena

Reverse engineered fan-made port of the game based on SDL2 which supports Linux and Windows. However, it is still in alpha.

System requirements

DOS
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 5.0
Processor (CPU) Intel 386 25 MHz
System memory (RAM) 4 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 25 MB
Video card (GPU) VGA
Sound (audio device) General Midi, Roland, SoundBlaster, Ultrasound, Aria, Ensoniq, ESS, Wave Blaster


Notes

  1. File/folder structure within the installation folder reflects the path(s) listed for DOS game data. For the GOG.com release, file changes in DOSBox are redirected to <path-to-game>/cloud_saves/ even if GOG Galaxy is not used (this folder contains all redirected files, so some files in the cloud_saves folder might be temporary files or other files that do not contain saves or settings).
  2. 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>/1812290/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (1812290) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References