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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban cover
Developers
KnowWonder
Publishers
Electronic Arts
Russia 1C-SoftClub
Engines
Unreal Engine 2
Release dates
Windows May 25, 2004
Reception
Metacritic 67
IGDB 74
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Microtransactions None
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Adventure, Platform, Puzzle
Art styles Realistic
Themes Contemporary, Fantasy
Series Harry Potter
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on HowLongToBeat
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on IGDB
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban guide on StrategyWiki
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on MobyGames
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on Wikipedia
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone 2001
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets 2002
Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup 2003
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 2004
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 2005
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 2007
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince 2009
Lego Harry Potter (series)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 2010
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 2011
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them VR Experience 2018
Hogwarts Legacy 2023
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions TBA

Warnings

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see Availability for affected versions).

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
CD key
SafeDisc v3 DRM[Note 1]
Windows
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
This game is not available digitally.

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Delete/rename video files[3]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\Movies
  2. Delete or rename the eag_***(*).bik and wb_***(*).bik files.
(Alternative) Set a widescreen resolution[3]

See Widescreen resolution.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Harry Potter™ and the Prisoner of Azkaban\

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Harry Potter™ and the Prisoner of Azkaban\Save\

Video

Sound & Video Settings
Sound & Video Settings
Advanced Settings
Advanced Settings

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
See Widescreen resolution.
Ultra-widescreen
See Widescreen resolution.
4K Ultra HD
The fonts scale poorly.
Field of view (FOV)
See the WSGF entry.
Windowed
Toggle with Alt+ Enter or use -windowed command line argument.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Edit the LevelOfAnisotropy value under [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice] in hppoa.ini.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Use dgVoodoo 2 and choose between 2x-8x MSAA.
High-fidelity upscaling
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
Edit the UseVSync value in hppoa.ini
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
High frame rate may cause certain scripted sequences to break. See Frozen Imp.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Widescreen resolution

Set widescreen resolution[4]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open hppoa.ini.
  3. Change the FullscreenViewportX= and FullscreenViewportY= values under [WinDrv.WindowsClient] to the desired resolution.

Or use the utility.

Input

Input Settings
Input Settings

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Edit the value MouseYMultiplier for Y-axis and MouseXMultiplier for X-axis under [WinDrv.WindowsClient] in hppoa.ini.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Mouse Sensitivity Issues

Gaming mouses with customizable DPI settings do not work correctly. The mouse sensitivity changes (supposedly switching between the mouse's default an custom dpi) when entering certain locations (e.g. when leaving the great hall and entering the courtyard). The mouse will temporarily differ in sensitivity till the spell button (left mouse button) is pressed. This does not happen with standard mouses that do not have customizable dpi settings.

Use a mouse without dpi controls

Connect a mouse to your computer that doesn't have its own dpi settings.

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Music, Effects
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Czech
Only available in Czech retail release. download.
Dutch
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Local retail version only.
Polish
Local retail version only.
Portuguese
[5]
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Only available in Russian retail release.
Slovak
Fan translation, download.
Spanish
Swedish
Only available in Swedish retail release.

Issues fixed

Error at Launch on Windows 8 and later

By default the game uses a Direct3D render device. In recent versions of Windows this may cause an error at launch: LockRect failed: D3DERR_DEVICELOST. The following has been tested on Windows 10 to work.
Instructions[citation needed]
  1. Use dgVoodoo 2.
Change Render Device[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\system\
  2. Open Default.ini.
  3. Or, if the game has already been launched for your user, you can also go to the configuration file(s) location and open hppoa.ini.
  4. Go to the [Engine.Engine] section.
  5. Add a ; in front of RenderDevice=D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice
  6. Remove the ; in front of RenderDevice=OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice

Frozen Imp

During Ron's first Carpe Retractum challenge, the player will be introduced to the imp enemy which may become frozen after its intro cutsceen finishes, preventing further progress. The likely problem is a timing error with the cutscene's script.
Limit FPS[6]
  1. Cap the framerate to 60 FPS.
  2. Once the imp becomes active, the limiter can be disabled.
Change to OpenGL Renderer[7]
  1. See Change Render Device.
  2. Some report crashes at auto-save points with the OpenGL renderer, so consider changing it back after passing the imp section.
Use dgvoodoo2 Wrapper[citation needed]
  1. Download [1] dgvoodoo2.
  2. Copy D3D8.DLL from the \MS\x86\ folder to the game install directory.
  3. Set monitor on 60hz
Toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode[8]
  1. Press Alt+ Enter as soon as the cutscene starts to toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode.
  2. Toggle back.
  3. Once the cutscene ends, the imp should move as usual.

Secret Portraits not Opening

During the game, Harry will need to collect passwords to open some portraits. Some of them will fail to open above 60 FPS. Likely the same reason as the Imp.
Limit FPS[9]
  1. Cap the framerate to 60 FPS.
Use dgvoodoo2 Wrapper[citation needed]
  1. Download [2] dgvoodoo2.
  2. Copy D3D8.DLL from the \MS\x86\ folder to the game install directory.
  3. Set monitor on 60hz

Vsync (Enabled by default) not working correctly on Windows 10

Instructions[citation needed]
  1. Use dgVoodoo 2.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 8
OpenGL
Software renderer
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio OpenAL
Cutscenes Bink Video

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98, 2000, ME, XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium III 600 MHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 820 MB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 2
ATI Radeon
Matrox Parhelia
32 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0 compatible


Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[1] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[2]

References