Sorcery: I'm not running windows 10 but I just started playing the game today and noticed that my framerate is pretty shitty. it wasnt like this on my XP machine. is this a known issue and is there a way to increase performance?

Jasque101478: Thanks, guys. Worked like a charm. Good to see the community is still alive.

Dampflok95: Hello,

I've got the same problem and read the solution. But it didn't work for me. Especially the adding in the target with -no3d. With this addition arcanum won't start at all. -doublebuffer works, but didn't solve the problem alone.

Has someone an idea, what's going wrong? Could it be the video card?

Waltorious: Did you also try the other solutions listed in this thread? Some players report that installing the Unofficial Patch (highly recommended to do anyway) fixes the problem, others report that using replacement ddraw files fixes the problem when coupled with the -no3d and -doublebuffer flags. Have you tried these?

Dampflok95: Thanks for the answer

After installing the Unofficial Patch the game cannot be started. Message: An unexpected eroor occured.
After wihtdrawing the ddrae file the game do not start without any comment.

TwoHandedSword: No shame in not knowing; doesn't make you an idiot. Someone had to walk me through it as well.

Right-click the Arcanum icon, and select Properties. Click the Shortcut tab, and add the commands to the end of the text in the Target box. If done correctly, it should look something like this (including the quotes, which are important):

"C:\GOG Games\Arcanum\Arcanum.exe" -no3d -scrolldist:0 -scrollfps:70

Hope that helps.

corwyn77: Just started playing again and I just wanted to say this did the trick for me as well using Win 10

TwoHandedSword: I'm relieved to hear it worked. I've heard so many bad things about older programs and Win 10, that I just couldn't bring myself to chance the upgrade.

silviuf: Hi, I had the same issue, while trying to play Arcanum on Windows 10 (on a AMD 290x card). Guys, I just want to say this: this game is not worth playing on W10, even though somehow you might succeed in making it run fine (somehow); this game runs flawless (with the same run commands) on Windows XP.

So, what I did:
- I started up a VMware Windows XP instance (easy to find, fast to install).
- Be sure to set the VMware preferences\Display screen option to "Stretch guest"; otherwise, if you leave it on automatic, the OS might run fine, but the game will run centered (actually, that is the 640x480 size, I think). With "Stretch guest" it will run full screen, like on a normal OS installation.
- I installed Arcanum with the same commands I found here: -no3d and -triplebuffer (or double, I am not sure if the latter really helps). Without these commands, even on WinXP, the game exhibits cursor trailling; I think the reason for this is that I am using a modern graphic card, even though I am using now XP; as I read over the internet, this game was meant to be played on a Voodoo card, or equivalent.
- I deleted the ddraw.dll file from Arcanum game folder (mandatory). With this file ON, the image was still corrupted. Still I am not sure how this game works, without that ddraw.dll: does it use the ddraw.dll from the system folder? Does it revert to DX (highly unlikely)? Why doesn't it work with the original ddraw.dll, why must I remove it?

I tried to make this game run on W10, with the above commands, and even after I deleted the ddraw.dll. Eventually I could play it on W10, but the cursor was laggy in the conversation text lines, the screen scrolling (both mouse and keys) was awkward and, worst of all, I experienced low fps in certain areas (to a downright bloody slideshow). Example: I started the game, I played like 5-10 minutes, and when I entered in the first cave from the first map (that one with the cursed spirit), my screen was turning into a slideshow, literally. It would come back to normal whenever I would Alt+Tab to desktop and back into the game (although this usually crashed my game). This issue appeared every time on W10.

Now this game runs flawless on WinXP: no low fps, no scrolling issue, normal cursor behavior, it's perfect. If I am to blame someone, I blame GOG, for they were not able to modify the installation files so that this game works proper out of the box. This game needs fixes also on WinXP, which is not normal. As a comparison: I installed yesterday Fallout 1 (GOG) on Win 10, it works absolutely flawless, it even has a 1024x768 resolution. How can Fallout 1 work better than Arcanum, which was released 4 years later?