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Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick ObscuraWindows 8 (solved)(57 posts)(57 posts)
(57 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted June 04, 2014
I have this game but can not for the life of me figure out how to get it to play. The instructions here are not step by step enough for someone that doesn't know a think about computers.

I've tried setting the compatibility to all of the older versions. I've tried deleting or renaming the ddraw.dll . None of this stuff works for me. And I have no idea what any of that "commandline" stuff means or where to find it.

I need someone to give me step by step instructions on what to do. I miss playing this game a lot. I feel like Windows 8 is nothing but a huge headache.
Posted June 04, 2014
Cleanse your pc of windows 8 by using fire.
Posted June 04, 2014
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ewmarch: Cleanse your pc of windows 8 by using fire.
Fire, and then an acid bath, and then boil the acid. :p
Posted July 07, 2014
I just wanted to chime in here and say a huge thanks to whoever suggested the Wine DLL fix. Works a charm.

I had to download an earlier release from 2013, as the newer release seemed to be missing ddraw.dll. I'm only using the hi-res patch (forgot about the unofficial patch prior to playing, and don't want to lose my save game), but it works flawlessly in Win8 64-bit.

Thank you sir, you've saved me the hassle of using a VM!

edit: forgot to mention, I'm using the -no3d flag as well.

For anyone trying to find the DLLs, just Google "wined3d.dll site:nongnu dot org" (replace dot with, you know, an actual dot), and go to the top link. Go to the full directory, and go for one of the 2013 releases - I think I went for 1.1.38. Download the installer .exe, and use 7zip to extract it. Go to the extracted $SYSDIR directory, and copy the libwine.dll, wined3d.dll, and ddraw.dll files into your Arcanum folder (might want to rename the existing ddraw.dll file, just in case). Launch the game with the -no3d flag by modifying the shortcut and that should do it.
Post edited July 07, 2014 by adfielding
Posted July 16, 2014
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adfielding: For anyone trying to find the DLLs, just Google "wined3d.dll site:nongnu dot org" (replace dot with, you know, an actual dot), and go to the top link. Go to the full directory, and go for one of the 2013 releases - I think I went for 1.1.38. Download the installer .exe, and use 7zip to extract it. Go to the extracted $SYSDIR directory, and copy the libwine.dll, wined3d.dll, and ddraw.dll files into your Arcanum folder (might want to rename the existing ddraw.dll file, just in case). Launch the game with the -no3d flag by modifying the shortcut and that should do it.
This is the only thing that solved the issue for me, thank you so much for submitting and finding this odd fix!
So happy to be able to play without VM!
Posted September 19, 2014
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themendios: Alright, finally found something that works and it's pretty simple

Just add "-window" to the shortcut. Also tell it to do maximized on the shortcut if it's below native.

I did this in addition to the stuff I just posted and it's now perfectly fine.
All I did was add the "-window" to the target name and it seems to have fixed my issues for running in Windows 8. Thanks!
Posted October 22, 2014
Running Windows 8.1 64 bit, used -no3d -doublebuffer along with 3 3 dll from June 2013. Works amazing! Thanks all.
Post edited October 22, 2014 by BlueMerlin
Posted November 14, 2014
Same here, game works perfectly with those files. You saved me from system reinstallation :) . Thanks.
Posted February 26, 2015
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adfielding: I just wanted to chime in here and say a huge thanks to whoever suggested the Wine DLL fix. Works a charm.

For anyone trying to find the DLLs, just Google "wined3d.dll site:nongnu dot org" (replace dot with, you know, an actual dot), and go to the top link. Go to the full directory, and go for one of the 2013 releases - I think I went for 1.1.38. Download the installer .exe, and use 7zip to extract it. Go to the extracted $SYSDIR directory, and copy the libwine.dll, wined3d.dll, and ddraw.dll files into your Arcanum folder (might want to rename the existing ddraw.dll file, just in case). Launch the game with the -no3d flag by modifying the shortcut and that should do it.
Yeap, this one works for me also (high end PC, Windows 8.1 x64). Now my framerate remains somewhat stable, I don't incur anymore framerate drops. Thanks a lot mate, I really wish to play this game, it's indeed something special.
Posted February 27, 2015
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JohnColburn: Hey, the WineD3D solution in this thread helped me, but the posts here were really confusing! I'm posting this to try to clarify for anybody having the same problem. Part of the problem is that GOG doesn't seem to want anybody posting links on the forum, so I'll try to work around that maybe somehow?

* Download wined3d.exe from: nongnu (dot) org (slash) wined3d

* The DLLs are kind of hidden away inside the installer. You'll need 7zip installed to get to them (also free and open source) available from: 7-zip (dot) org

* Go to the folder where you saved wined3d.exe; right click on it, go to the 7-Zip sub-menu, and select "open archive".

* In the new 7-zip window, go into the "$SYSDIR" folder, where there are lots of DLLs and other files. You only want three of them.

* Copy "wined3d.dll", "libwine.dll", and "ddraw.dll" into your arcanum directory. (This is the same folder that has Arcanum.exe, and might be something like "C:\GOG Games\Arcanum\"). You can simply drag-and-drop them from the 7-zip window to your arcanum folder.

* Tell it to replace existing files, namely the original ddraw.dll (or you could move or rename the original ddraw.dll if you feel like it)

* Start the game and it just might run a lot smoother now! It worked for me at least.

(Obviously you should only attempt this process if you're comfortable doing so; worst case scenario, you might need to reinstall Arcanum if something really strange goes wrong. Attempt at your own risk, not reviewed by the FDA, for external use only, and so on)
This totally worked for me though i also added the -no3d to the arcanum executable. I'm running Win 8pro on a Microsoft surface pro 2.
Posted March 16, 2015
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themendios: Alright, finally found something that works and it's pretty simple

Just add "-window" to the shortcut. Also tell it to do maximized on the shortcut if it's below native.

I did this in addition to the stuff I just posted and it's now perfectly fine.
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kingphish: All I did was add the "-window" to the target name and it seems to have fixed my issues for running in Windows 8. Thanks!
That -Window tricked did it for me thx mate finally can play Arcanum again
Posted March 16, 2015
For any Galaxy alpha testers with Arcanum display problems, have a look at http://mantis.gog.com/view.php?id=1159 (I suspect it's most likely another Win8/DirectDraw problem anyway, although it seems to be the .exe rather than ddraw.dll that changed... A nasty detail, at any rate, is that it stops the WineD3D DLLs working.)
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This is my favourite topic
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Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick ObscuraWindows 8 (solved)(57 posts)(57 posts)
(57 posts)