Download: ModDB (updated 26th December 2018)

I made a patch for these two games. Comparing GOG re-release with the retail release, the changes to the games (excluding DRM removal and unpacking of executable files) are increased field of view (which is originally hardcoded, FOV adjustment should be dynamic) and ability to select resolutions with aspect ratio greater than 4:3.

They also included older version of IndirectSound, which doesn't work properly and tends to make things crashy. The game has been patched to not require IndirectSound anymore, so it's best to delete dsound files from game folders.

The list of changes in this patch, straight from the ReadMe:

Common:

-Fixed the bug with game interpreting available hard disk space value incorrectly, preventing users from saving the game and the config file from being updated if they have more than 2 TB of free space on their hard drive.

-Widescreen support; all supported resolutions are selectable, FOV is adjusted according to the screen's aspect ratio, HUD and in-game FMVs are adjusted as well so they don't stretch with wide aspect ratios.

-Resolutions available in fullscreen mode are also available in windowed mode.

-Game's own threads are bound to run on the CPU's first core, this reduces the probability of 'black texture bug' occurrence.

-Game will now use the audio device selected in Riot Engine Configuration dialog instead of always using default device.

-Hardware accelerated DirectSound buffers are no longer explicitly requested and the default limit of sound buffers has been increased to prevent sound dropouts on typical modern PC.

-EAX option has been disabled in Riot Engine Configuration in Sound tab (EAX effects are not implemented).

-Added frame rate limiter which defaults to limiting the game to run at 59 FPS to workaround bugs that occur at higher frame-rates and provides better mouse response when monitor runs at 60 Hz and VSync is enabled.

-Game will set monitor's refresh rate to 60 Hz when in fullscreen mode.

-Mouse acceleration is disabled by default, but can be restored with a config option.

-Removed bad DirectX check, game will launch without error or DirectPlay pop-up dialog on Windows 8+ if DirectPlay isn't present (which is the default).

-Made game's message loop more conventional (PeekMessage called without message filtering) to workaround the bug in Windows' Desktop Window Manager, which causes oddities in windowed mode; window being declared unresponsive and replaced with a ghost window after 5 seconds when it loses focus. It even happens that the DWM tries to replace the game window with a ghost window during normal gameplay.

-Use GetMessage in the message loop for the Riot Engine Configuration dialog rather than PeekMessage, this normalizes CPU usage of said dialog.

-Embedded manifest in executables:
-Marked as compatible with all existing Windows versions.
-Marked as high-DPI aware.
-Marked as UAC (User Account Control) aware.

-Registry settings are written to HKEY_CURRENT_USER instead of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

-User files are redirected to Documents folder, in "My Games\The Suffering [TTB]".

-Removed all calls to RegFlushKey (not needed).

-Removed the call to OutputDebugString that was needlessly made every frame.

-Reordered icons in the .exe's resource so the Torque icon is the main one instead of the Riot Engine logo.

Prison Is Hell specific:

-Selecting anything but the first entry in the Display Driver drop-down list in Riot Engine Configuration dialog will no longer result in the empty Display Mode list, so the game can now be made to run on any monitor, not just the primary one.

-Fixed the bug with user gamma setting not being applied at game startup.

-Textures now appear clearer when looked at from the distance.

-Don't grab keyboard exclusively when in fullscreen; Start key works and Alt-Tab behaves normally on modern Windows versions.

-Added window caption.

-Disabled screenshot feature (F10 key) since it crashes.

Ties That Bind specific:

-Registry settings are stored in a separate value called SettingsDX106 rather than SettingsDX105, which is used by the first game since the binary structures between the games aren't 100% compatible between each other.

-Fixed the bug with some sounds being delayed when 3D sound buffers are enabled.

-Added file (Common\System\System.odu) that turns off censorship of Creeper's famous part of dialog (for English version only).

The patch also comes with config file called Torque.ini. Options are described in included ReadMe.

BTW, the game is distributed with a bunch of redundant files, some were used during development. Of those files, you may want to delete dbghelp.dll. This particular DLL is from Windows XP era and while not directly referenced by the game, it still gets loaded by something else. Deleting it will make the system version being loaded instead of the outdated version.

From my testing, it's the most important that the game doesn't run too fast. I've noticed anti-aliasing options in Riot Engine configuration dialog don't seem to do much, if anything at all visually, so it might be the best to turn it off and play with graphics drivers settings instead. One option is forced FXAA. For NVIDIA cards, it's possible to use Dynamic Super Resolution feature, which works well as an alternative to traditional anti-aliasing. Not sure about texture filtering options' effects neither.

First of all, congratulations for your work! I used your patch, because freezing was regular on 1, for me. Everything runs smoothly... But, the game, after patch application, seems to be locked in 800x600 resolution... Even if i changed it both from riot engine settings and inside game options. Is there something wrong? What should i change, in order for resolution to revert to my optimal/chosen one?

Thanks in advance and once again, nice work, friend!

If you enable windowed mode in Riot Engine settings and then change the resolution setting inside the game menus, does the window size change accordingly?

If yes, it could be related to refresh rate setting. Open the file Torque located in the game installation folder and change RefreshRate value to 0 then try the game again in fullscreen mode.

Thanks a lot, you are amazing!

So it was related to refresh rate setting? If so, it seems the default setting of 59 doesn't work universally. From testing on my two machines with different graphics cards (AMD and NVIDIA), plus a VMware virtual machine, value of 59 seemed like it would choose either 60 Hz or 59 Hz, depending on what's supported. Didn't know it was possible that it would freak out and even switch resolutions on some machines. So much for trying to come up with universal configuration that would give best results all over the board, eh?

SInce the game must run at around 60 FPS to avoid glitches, running the monitor at 59/60 Hz tends to give the best visual result. My second (older) monitor can run at 75 Hz and with that refresh rate, VSync and FPS limit at 60, motion on the screen doesn't appear smooth. Switching it to 60 Hz smooths things out. I guess it isn't any better on fancier monitors that can refresh even faster, like 144 Hz.

Hey, thank you for this great patch!

Do you know a fix for the geometry disapearing when not in "focus"? Constantly is somthing popping in and out when i move the camera.

Unfortunately, no. I'd like to see this fixed as well. Game seems to render certain objects only when in-game view is very close to them. You can also see game characters appear less detailed when moving away from them. I'll be sure to post an update if/when I figure something out.

Hey there. Can you do something about the fog?

Thanks.

Cant seem to get my game out of 4:3? Any idea why?

I installed the patch but my game seems to run really choppy now. If I turn off the vsync the game gets so much screen-tearing that it hurts my eyes. Any idea how to fix this?

Probably not as I don't know where the fog value is stored. And if this game is anything like Drakan, which uses older iteration of the engine, the level files might need to be-recompiled with new fog setting, which is impossible as Surreal never released editing tools for this game. Reverse engineering the level files is beyond my expertise. Did you set the correct resolution? The menus and cinematics will stay 4:3 regardless because that's the format they're in.

Try turning off the frame rate limiter by opening Torque.ini file and setting MaxFPS to 0. You will need some other method then to keep FPS at 60 as the game breaks when it runs too fast. Turning on Vsync accomplishes that and eliminates tearing, but also makes mouse input sluggish unless you limit the frame rate to 1 or 2 frames below refresh rate.

If you have NVIDIA graphics card, you can use NVIDIA Profile Inspector to activate driver's frame rate limiter and see if it works better. For other cards, I've had good experience with DxTory, it's actually paid recording software, it can be used for free with some limitations, it's certainly enough for limiting FPS. I've read somewhere MSI Afterburner can also be used for the purpose.

I just wanted to thank you for this patch; I was never able to finish the first Suffering back in the day because I installed Ties That Bind and that broke the first game (I didn't know I could have just edited the registry and make both games playable, so I ended up just uninstalling The Suffering). I insta-bought both games when they came to GOG because I couldn't pass up the chance to finally owning them legally, and I absolutely love these games (at least Ties That Bind, the only one I finished and played an insane amount of hours of, back in the day). Sadly, these GOG releases are very prone to crashes and just overall bugs and issues, and even though I wanted to play them, I basically never did because I was having too much trouble, saving the game every two minutes just in case it crashed or got locked, making me hard reset my machine.

Thanks to your AiO patch, I finally made progress in The Suffering, after all these years, and -- my god! -- it's an amazing game, indeed. I experienced one crash, but that's not something I complain about, considering it happened after 10 hours of play time, not every three minutes. I didn't try the Ties That Bind patch, yet, because I'm having no issues with that one, and I see no point in messing with something that's working just fine for me.

GOG should include this patch out of the box, if you ask me, or at least pin this thread, because you made an incredible job patching two amazing games that were broken to a lot of people and now aren't, anymore.

[EDIT] OK, once I finished the Good path in Prison is Hell, I moved on to Ties That Bind and found out it's as prone to crashing as the first game, and I was having trouble moving forward in the game... so, naturally, I tried the TTB part of the AiO patch. It basically broke the game for me, sadly... movement became sluggish, not fluid at all, with direction presses being "locked" at times (Torque kept moving in a direction long after I stopped pressing the key) and mouse aiming lagging like crazy if I wasn't standing still. I tried verifying/repairing the game via Galaxy, but it wouldn't even start, so I just reinstalled it, keeping the save but losing every Archives entry I had unlocked thus far. I downloaded Process Lasso, which permanently sets some programs to first core affinity, and set the game's executable to run on Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode, with desktop graphic elements off and administrator privileges. So far, it seems to be helping.

My advice would be to use the patch with The Suffering, since it does make the game playable and very stable, but find solutions for Ties That Bind elsewhere.

Thanks a lot!

I can play this great game again.

I have updated the patch about a month ago, please re-read the the first post for the changes. You will have to move your saved games and config file since the default location has been changed so every user of the computer can have their own saved games. If I remember correctly, GOG installer also sets games to run as admin. This is unnecessary and can be turned off by right-click on game shortcut->Properties and disable everything on Compatibility tab.

The visual bug that was reported some time ago when reading archives using resolution 1600x900 seems to be gone now, though the second game still has an issue where the right side of the screen is a garbled mess. It's not something that is easy to fix. There was also a bug that only happened at higher resolutions, eg. 3840x2160 where objects on the sides of the screen would disappear, this has also been fixed. That's all regarding undocumented changes.

Some people have reported additional issues with the second game. Unfortunately, I cannot help with those. The game works well on any machine I've tried it on and due to technical similarities between the games, the common patches are functionally identical between the two games.

Patches that are game specific are the simplest and don't cut deep so I don't see how they could cause any side effects.