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Reinstalling Drakan on Windows 7

Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2017 10:33 pm
by Peregrynn
One other thing: when you go to download 7-Zip extractor, which one do you need, the 32 bit or the 64 bit? I wasn't sure which one, so I got both.
Also, the file for the game, when I clicked on it, resulted in a message saying that the file was too large for Google's antivirus program to scan it, so I had clicked on "Install anyway". How much hard drive space is necessary to download and run your version of the game? I have my version back online; I did a system restore to before attempting the AiO patch file...

Peregrynn

Reinstalling Drakan on Windows 7

Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2017 11:12 pm
by Peregrynn
I don't think it was your file's AiO patch, I think it was a different one that I had already, from a while back, that was causing the trouble. Plus I did something to make the different files go into the wrong folder which messed up my game. I had to delete copies of the patch and start fresh, but that seemed to unclutter it. The game goes on,

Peregrynn

Reinstalling Drakan on Windows 7

Posted: Sun Apr 30, 2017 1:01 am
by Peregrynn
If you do get your fixed game re uploaded, that would be a great fix for people who are wanting to get back into Drakan right away! Looks like quite a few people on the board are a bit stuck due to hardware or software issues. Thank you for posting your game,
Peregrynn

Re: Reinstalling Drakan on Windows 7

Posted: Sun Apr 30, 2017 2:13 pm
by UCyborg
Regarding 7-Zip, if you have 64-bit operating system, install 64-bit version, otherwise get 32-bit version. You can check that information by right-clicking Computer in Start Menu and selecting Properties. You can always try 64-bit version first and if it doesn't match, it won't install at all.

The game I have on Google Drive consumes 347 MB of space, it was a little larger before today. So that's how much you actually download, for some reason, downloading files off Google Drive doesn't show the file size so you only see it when it's finished downloading and for the same reason, you don't see how much time is left until it's downloaded. The Google Drive links for both the full game and the patch itself are always the same, so if I update any file, the same link will point to updated file. When you unpack the file with 7-Zip, the unpacked Drakan folder consumes 567 MB of space.

Another thing about 7-Zip, if I remember correctly, it doesn't alter any file associations by default, so unless you open its settings and make some changes there, you can open .7z and other types of archives by right-clicking on the file and selecting the desired option in the 7-Zip sub-menu.

You said you ran System Restore and you now have freshly installed game that is at version 445, correct? If so, if you extract my version on top of it, that will bring it to version that's patched with AiO Patch and contains tons of player-made levels. Then you'd just need to run Disable_Drakan_Compat_Fixes.reg from AiO Patch ZIP to prevent Windows from blocking alt-tabbing when you're in the game.

Also consider using dgVoodoo 2 from here. It can improve performance, especially noticeable if you set Max Fog Distance to 200% in game's graphics options menu. This increases the visibility dance for all stock levels except Ruined Village and Volcano which haven't been updated yet.

There is extensive documentation on its website, but basically, you just throw DDraw.dll and D3DImm.dll files from the MS folder in the ZIP to Drakan's folder and see if it works. And since you're on Windows 7, you also need to download D3DCompiler_47 from its download page and extract the file d3dcompiler_47.dll to Drakan folder as well. And just in case your Windows installation isn't updated, I think installing Windows 7 update KB2670838 might also be needed. Unless your graphics card is very old, it should work OK.

Reinstalling Drakan on Windows 7

Posted: Fri May 05, 2017 4:50 am
by Peregrynn
Correct about the patches. Thanks, this is a little out of my league, but worth a try if I get a chance to download again soon,

Peregrynn

Reinstalling Drakan on Windows 7

Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2017 5:14 pm
by Peregrynn
Trying it out on another computer where it is installed on, so far working great, just occasionally crashes. Thanks all, it's good to have this back online again!