Drakan: Order of the Flame Quick Start & Troubleshooting Guide -------------------- Table of contents: 1. About the keybindings in the Community Patch, 2. How to access the fanmade maps, 3. Remarks about the graphical and audio settings, 4. Note for nVidia users, 5. Note for Crossfire (or SLI) users, 6. Note for onboard (integrated) graphics adapter users, 7. Fix for the "blurred text problem" when using dgVoodoo2, 8. Stability problems on Windows 10, 9. Multiplayer connectivity issues, 10. Drakan crashing upon loading certain multiplayer maps (eg. The Keep v2), 11. Note to users running German version of Drakan, 12. Additional content in the Community Patch, 13. Running Drakan on Linux, 14. Possible fix for poor performance when running Drakan on Linux, 15. Even more information about running Drakan on Linux. -------------------- 1. About the keybindings in the Community Patch: Remember to check and adjust the in-game settings according to your preferences; especially the key bindings. Running Drakan after installing the Community Patch for the first time assigns the keybindings quite differently than what is listed in the game manual. One of the main reasons for that is ergonomy - it appears that no particular level of thought has gone into creating the original defaults, with a lot of the frequently-used commands assigned to keys which are out of reach from the left hand's normal position. Another reason is that the original defaults use the relatively uncommon ESDF layout, as opposed to the prevalent WASD arrangement - and they then totally squander that opportunity by not making use of most of the keys immediately surrounding ESDF; a highly questionable design decision. The new defaults for the game controller should work properly with an XBox-compatible gamepad, the control scheme being broadly similar to the one in Drakan: The Ancients' Gates. However, it's not possible to make the control scheme 100% identical, since some commands are specific to either the PC or PS2 version of the Riot Engine - eg. "target lock" is not available in Drakan:OOTF. -------------------- 2. How to access the fanmade maps: To play the fanmade singleplayer levels: hold SHIFT while clicking the shortcut to start Drakan. This will bring up the "Riot Engine Options" window, instead of starting Drakan directly. Click the "Developer" tab, tick the "Enable developer mode" box, then click OK to actually start Drakan. While in Developer Mode, clicking "New Game" will instead open a list of all the installed levels. To select a difficulty level when running in Developer Mode, hold CTRL while clicking "New Game". -------------------- 3. Remarks about the graphical and audio settings: Graphical quality settings: it's generally OK to set all the graphic quality settings to their maximum, even on relatively low-end systems; this is a 1999 game, after all. This is how the Community Patch presets the settings when it is first installed - or when the user opts to reset the Drakan settings to their recommended defaults in the Community Patch installer. (Linux users, take note: generally speaking, setting graphical settings to maximum tends to result in rather poor performance when running Drakan on Linux, since Drakan's engine is already CPU-bottlenecked - and running it through WINE incurs some additional CPU overhead.) Dark areas in the game: if you find that Drakan appears overall too dark to play comfortably on your display device, turning up the gamma setting in the in-game graphical options should help. Volume adjustment: unfortunately, due to Drakan's engine limitations, it isn't possible to adjust the speech volume independently of the other sound effects. Because of this, a music volume setting of around 40-50% is recommended for the optimal listening experience. -------------------- 4. Note for nVidia users: Some nVidia GPUs cause graphical artifacts to appear on bump-mapped surfaces, when Bump Mapping is enabled in the Riot Engine Options. This usually manifests as graphical corruption on the surface of bodies of water, although Arokh can also be affected by this bug. There are only 2 known solutions: either use the optional dgVoodoo2 DirectX wrapper (which fixes the problem completely), or disable Bump Mapping in the Riot Engine Options window. Note that disabling Bump Mapping will alter the appearance of both water surfaces and Arokh's scales; generally speaking, they look better with Bump Mapping enabled, although that's a matter of preference. -------------------- 5. Note for Crossfire (or SLI) users: If you experience unexpected crashes/BSODs with Drakan, make sure to disable SLI/CrossFire for Drakan.exe - it can't make any use of multiple GPUs anyway, and it suffers from known stability problems on multi-GPU systems unless SLI/CrossFire is disabled in the game's profile. -------------------- 6. Note for onboard (integrated) graphics adapter users: On some newer systems with both a dedicated graphics adapter as well as a non-disabled integrated adapter present, the dedicated adapter might not be selectable as a graphical output device in the Riot Engine Options. This is a known issue with Drakan, due to it being a pre-DirectX9 game. The only possible fix is to use the (included) dgVoodoo2 DirectX wrapper, which provides a workaround for that limitation. -------------------- 7. Fix for the "blurred text problem" when using dgVoodoo2: Selecting any level of anisotropic filtering in dgVoodoo2 results in the GUI text being blurred slightly. The only known workaround is to disable anisotropic filtering in dgVoodoo2 altogether. NOTE: antialiasing is unrelated to this issue, and can be left enabled for a good improvement in the display quality. The new default settings for dgVoodoo2 now feature anisotropic filtering being disabled by default because of this issue - but users who have installed the Community Patch before version 153.01 are still on the older settings. In that case, you can choose to reset the dgVoodoo2 settings to their new defaults during Community Patch installation, or change these settings manually at any time by using the provided dgVoodoo2 control panel. -------------------- 8. Stability problems on Windows 10: Because of the constant stream of Windows Updates, Drakan's compatibility with Windows 10 tends to vary quite randomly and unpredictably. Also, Windows 10 may erroneuosly declare some of the game's files (especially Drakan.exe and/or DrakanServer.exe) as being "potentially harmful"; this is a false positive, and needs to be manually set to ignore and run the game anyway. A similar problem happens with some brands of antivirus/antimalware software; if that happens, add the Drakan installation directory to the exclusion list, and remember to restore any files that might have been quarantined by the software. If you encounter any stability issues, or Drakan simply fails to start at all, try the following steps first: - set Drakan.exe to "Run as administrator" in the compatibility properties tab, - set the compatibility mode for Drakan.exe to "Windows XP" or older, - check your antivirus to see if it isn't falsely detecting Drakan as harmful, - if that is the case, add an exclusion for Drakan in your antivirus software (preferably excluding the entire Drakan folder), - also check the AV quarantine area and restore any Drakan files that might have ended up there. -------------------- 9. Multiplayer connectivity issues: If you can't see any currently active servers appear in the server list, or they appear to be offline even while they are in fact active - this is typically caused by Drakan getting blocked by your firewall. You need to configure the firewall to allow Drakan both TCP and UDP connectivity. A list of the public servers which are currently online can be found at the following location: http://www.qtracker.com/server_list_details.php?game=drakan NOTE: that list updates relatively slowly; there can be up to a few minutes of delay after starting up a server, before it becomes visible there. Servers refusing connection due to "invalid or corrupt files": that happens when the game data files (including the level files) aren't exactly identical on both the server and client sides. This is usually caused by a mismatch between the Drakan patch versions on both machines, or - far more uncommonly - by accidentally overwriting some of the level and/or database files through incorrect usage of the Level Editor. Hosting multiplayer games from behind a router or NAT requires setting up port forwarding first. There's a guide on how to do that on the Arokh's Lair forums (https://arokhslair.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3363). Note that your ISP may also be using NAT, in which case you need to contact them to set up port forwarding on their side, as well. Good ISPs will either do that for free, or charge only a nominal fee for such a service. Keep in mind that if there's more than 1 router/NAT between Drakan and the Internet, then EVERY device in the routing chain needs to be correctly set up with port forwarding, or it won't work at all! -------------------- 10. Drakan crashing upon loading certain multiplayer maps (eg. The Keep v2): This is caused primarily by incorrect settings in the Drakan.cfg file, which can be found in the following location: {user's Documents folder}\My Games\Drakan\Drakan.cfg (Note that this is NOT the same copy of Drakan.cfg as in the Drakan installation directory!) Normally the Community Patch installer will make those changes automatically, but in some cases this might fail for various reasons. In that case, please change these values manually, as outlined below. The settings which need to be modified are: set AnimationCacheSizeKB "3072" (NOTE: those are the WRONG values!) set SoundCacheSizeKB "3584" Correct values for these settings are as follows: set AnimationCacheSizeKB "16383" set SoundCacheSizeKB "16383" -------------------- 11. Note to users running German version of Drakan: The "violence" ("bloody mess") setting is now visible in the in-game graphics settings menu, however it is greyed out and can't be changed from the menu. If applied to a fresh install of Drakan, the Community Patch installer presets the violence setting to maximum (set Violence "2"). However, this will not work if Drakan (any language version) has been previously run on the current user account with an older version of the Community Pack, Gold Pack or AiO patch. To change the "violence" setting, it's required to manually edit the Drakan.cfg file, which is located in "\My Games\Drakan\". Valid values are "0", "1" or "2"; so to disable "violence", that line needs to be changed to: set Violence "0". WARNING: Do NOT, under ANY circumstances, replace the Dragon.rfl file with a different version! Dragon.rfl is a CRITICAL file for the functioning of Drakan, as it contains a lot of the game's code and is subject to version checking when attempting to connect to multiplayer servers. Altering it in ANY way WILL break the multiplayer functionality, making it impossible to connect to multiplayer servers! Additionally, it would also revert many of the fixes provided by the AiO patch, which also affect singleplayer gameplay - so it's strongly recommended to leave that file alone. -------------------- 12. Additional content in the Community Patch: Drakan soundtrack in the {INSTALLDIR}\Soundtrack folder. It's also linked to from the Start Menu. The optional mods can be found in the {INSTALLDIR}\Mods folder. Be careful with them though, they could break things. Depending on what files they replace, some cannot be mixed together unless you use the editing tools. Character model mods also tend to break savegames! Also included in the Mods folder is the alternate ending patch, which replaces the original ending with a fanmade version, while staying consistent with the events of both Drakan games. Note that applying this patch may cause some of the multiplayer maps to stop working! There are some pre-defined level-list files included for the multiplayer maps - these aren't intended to be fed directly to the game server, but rather as a reference to aid in creating custom level lists. Check out {INSTALLDIR}\Multiplayer folder. Registry settings for the game (graphics and developer settings), 10th Anniversary Mod and editing tools can be reset manually using the supplied Reset_All_Registry_Settings.reg file. Remaining settings are stored in Drakan.cfg in your Documents folder, in "My Games\Drakan". Editing tools are located in {INSTALLDIR}\Editor folder. Drakan 10th Anniversary Mod can be found in {INSTALLDIR}\Mod10th folder. Note that this mod is included mostly for completeness only, since it's rather poorly optimized - the performance isn't too great, even on very powerful modern systems, and it's plagued by many unfixed bugs. In particular, it requires disabling "Bump Mapping" in Drakan options to avoid severe graphical corruption/artifacts. Also, the 10th Anniversary Mod is NOT compatible with multiplayer servers - because of the different (and VERY outdated) version of Drakan.exe it uses, multiplayer servers will refuse any and all connections when running this mod! -------------------- 13. Running Drakan on Linux (information courtesy of Discord user hemebond): Officially, the Community Patch is not supported on Linux systems. However, apparently it can be made to work regardless, with some extra effort. Although it might start and work correctly, the performance suffers significantly compared to running Drakan in native Windows on the same hardware, due to the processing power overhead incurred by WINE. This is particularly obvious in some of the fanmade levels, especially in those with relatively high polygon count; the stock Drakan maps aren't affected nearly as badly. Read the next section below for a possible fix though. Unfortunately, providing a detailed step-by-step guide for running Drakan on Linux is beyond the scope of this document. Therefore, only the most important information is listed here, under the assumption that most Linux users are already familiar with WINE. The prerequisites are, primarily: 1. Drakan.exe needs to be run from the game directory for it to work properly. An example command string is as follows: ~/.local/share/wineprefixes/Drakan/drive_c/Program Files/Psygnosis/Drakan$ WINEPREFIX=~/.local/share/wineprefixes/Drakan wine C:\\Program\ Files\\Psygnosis\\Drakan\\Drakan.exe 2. It's important to use winetricks to install the appropriate DirectX components, like directmusic and dinput. Crashing as it goes into the main menu is because of missing directmusic. Keyboard not working anywhere (including in main menu) means missing dinput. -------------------- 14. Possible fix for poor performance when running Drakan on Linux (thanks UCyborg!): Drakan has been runnable on Linux through WINE for quite a while now, with some manual tweaking required by the user for correct, but slowish results. Not anymore! Recent development of the DXVK project now allow Drakan to run at much better speed when chained together with dgVoodoo2. This requires a modern AMD or NVIDIA graphics card, with support for Vulkan API with recent drivers, latest development version of WINE, both dgVoodoo2 and DXVK's DLLs placed in proper locations with correct DLL override settings. Download link for the DXVK project: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk -------------------- 15. Even more information about running Drakan on Linux (copied verbatim from UCyborg's AiO patch readme): Getting Drakan running on Linux via WINE requires modern GPU compatible with Vulkan for optimal performance. The following steps mainly cover specifics related to Drakan, please refer to online sources for general information about WINE: 1. Install WINE from your distro repository (at the time of this writing, the best choice was going with developer version from WINEHQ website). 2. You can create so called WINEPREFIX specifically for the game (it acts as sort of a Windows installation stored in your home folder). 3. Install the game as usual. 4. Install DirectMusic using winetricks (the latter can be installed from your distro software repository). 5. Import registry file Drakan_WINE_Settings.reg from this archive using WINE's Registry Editor (regedit.exe). 6. Downloads DXVK from https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases 7. Inside the archive, find the x32 folder and copy dxgi.dll and d3d11.dll files to your WINE's /drive_c/Windows/SysWOW64 folder (replace SysWOW64 with System32 if the former doesn't exist). 8. Download dgVoodoo2 from http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2.html (also download D3DCompiler_47 from there). 9. Inside downloaded dgVoodoo's ZIP file, open MS folder and copy DDraw.dll and D3DImm.dll files to your Drakan installation folder. 10. Extract d3dcompiler_47.dll from the second downloaded ZIP file to /drive_c/Windows/SysWOW64 (or System32 if SysWOW64 doesn't exist).