Elder Scrolls Arena/Daggerfall source port

[Rampy470]

As my interest in the Elder Scrolls was renewed recently, I downloaded Arena & Daggerfall from the official dl links. Since DOSBox is a headache to setup, are there any source ports or anything similar for these two games?

[Gez]

No.

The source codes of these games were never released, so no source ports.

There are partially implemented clones of the engines, namely WinArena and DaggerXL. Neither are close to finished, and WinArena's been abandoned for years.

[Aliotroph?]

DOSbox is easy to set up, but shame on Bethesda for making you patch their games manually.

[Avoozl]

edit: nevermind

[meapineapple]

What I'm waiting on is OpenMW. That's gonna be awesome.

[Rampy470]

I was afraid of that. It is rather dumb making people patch your own games, I agree. Maybe if people bug them enough about it they'll release them on GoG...

[Sqrrt121]

It's simple enough to install(just search it up) BUT it is extremely hard(the game) and will most likely fry your brains or rage.

[Bucket]

If either is released on GoG, it'll be with a tweaked version of DOSbox. Besides, it would be kind of a dick move to sell your product after you've given it away for free.

DOSbox isn't that hard to set up. I'm sure there's a "quick start" guide somewhere. Create a DOS folder on your hard drive, navigate to that folder and then run the program. I find that the hardware setting defaults suffice for most games.

[Aliotroph?]

Bucket said:

If either is released on GoG, it'll be with a tweaked version of DOSbox. Besides, it would be kind of a dick move to sell your product after you've given it away for free.

DOSbox isn't that hard to set up. I'm sure there's a "quick start" guide somewhere. Create a DOS folder on your hard drive, navigate to that folder and then run the program. I find that the hardware setting defaults suffice for most games.

They could release it for free on GOG. I got ten free games when I signed up for GOG, so it's not without precedent.

Defaults don't work very well for Daggerfall. You need to crank up the cycles, but there's no perfect consensus among players as to the best setting. This is because Daggerfall has horrendously buggy physics. If your computer (or DOSbox) is too fast the player becomes very difficult to control properly.

Arena seems to be an easier case. Most players seem happy with it when they get it running fast enough.

[Sqrrt121]

Go here (http://www.pcworld.com/article/239340/how_to_play_daggerfall_on_your_windows_7_pc.html)

[Aliotroph?]

Why does that guide not suggest the most recent patch? Bethesda's guide has better patching info.

[Doominator2]

http://theelderscrolls.wiwiland.net/Fichiers/DaggerfallSetup.exe
http://theelderscrolls.wiwiland.net/Fichiers/ArenaSetup.exe
These are simple installers that install the game for you without needing to install dosbox, it comes with all the official patches and addons already installed.

[Aliotroph?]

Packages like that make me think gamers who like old games and are uncomfortable with DOSbox must have 20 copies of DOSbox installed. I'm tempted to try the Daggerfall one some time and see what settings it uses. Based on the number of people who show up on Bethesda's forums complaining the game lags, I think it's suboptimal.

[Belial]

I've never had trouble running anything with my default DosBox setup, including games like Crusader and Daggerfall.

The only game that I needed a special setup for was Zone 66, for obvious reasons.

[Doominator2]

Aliotroph? said:

Packages like that make me think gamers who like old games and are uncomfortable with DOSbox must have 20 copies of DOSbox installed. I'm tempted to try the Daggerfall one some time and see what settings it uses. Based on the number of people who show up on Bethesda's forums complaining the game lags, I think it's suboptimal.

The exe comes with all the settings set to be compatible with newer operating systems instead of manually doing it in dosbox, it also installs a desktop shortcut for easy access.

[Aliotroph?]

Doominator2 said:

The exe comes with all the settings set to be compatible with newer operating systems instead of manually doing it in dosbox, it also installs a desktop shortcut for easy access.

I just tested it on my laptop. It uses a crummy setting for cycles in dosbox.conf (cycles=max), which doesn't work well in Daggerfall because when the CPU is too fast the player physics has precision issues. It has this to an extent anyway, but on a fast computer the controls are unresponsive and things like climbing and jumping don't work reliably.

The game works better with the setting set to something like "cycles=max limit 50000", but the best number is disputed among players. Some go as high as 90000.

At least I know how that tool installs that now. The dosbox.conf file is just in the folder where it installs Daggerfall, so it's easy to direct people there if they need to change anything. Maybe that explains why so many players who use that thing complain about the controls on the forums.

[Avoozl]

One thing I remember is that they didn't choose the best possible midi device for Daggerfall.

I currently found Ensoniq SoundScape on midi port 330 a better midi device selection.

[lazygecko]

OpenMW has recieved a sizeable update. You can check out a pretty informative video demonstration here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoeIaYkc0Do

[tourniquet]

GeckoYamori said:

OpenMW has recieved a sizeable update. You can check out a pretty informative video demonstration here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoeIaYkc0Do

ahh Balmora, Vicec..nostalgia is haunting me...
didn't know about this project, i'll gonna check it out. thx