Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura

Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura

Developers
	Troika Games
Publishers
	Sierra Entertainment
	Activision
Release dates
Windows	August 21, 2001

Key points

Greatly improved experience on newer systems thanks to unofficial mods.

General information

Terra Arcanum Forum - a large fansite

GOG.com Community Discussions

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		Disc check.
GOG.com		Patched to official patch v1.0.7.4.
Steam

Essential improvements

Patches

Official patch

1.0.7.4. Not needed for the GOG.com release.

Unofficial patch

Highly improved townmaps and soundtracks (from the vanilla 128kbit/sec to 320 kbit/sec) can be found alongside this patch.

Not compatible with older savegames.

091225 by Drog Black Tooth. Highly recommended bug fixes.

High Resolution Patch

If you are unable to pan the camera past the edge of the screen with the high resolution patch enabled, add -scrolldist:0 -scrollfps:70 to the target line in the shortcut of the game.

1.5 by Drog Black Tooth. Allows any user-set resolution, UI tweaks, larger fonts.

Game data

Game options

Configuration file(s) location

Template:Game data/row

System	Location
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/500810/pfx/

Save game data location

Template:Game data/row

System	Location
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/500810/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video settings

Video options

Windowed

Set windowed mode[citation needed]
Download and install the unofficial patch Add -Window in the target line of your Arcanum shortcut

If the game stops responding with windowed mode[citation needed]
Go to the installation folder and find ddraw.dll and rename it to draw.dll.old or something like that. Launch the game and this should solve the problem with the game not responding.

Audio settings

Sound options

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Polish				Local retail version only.
Spanish

Issues fixed

Files not installed properly

Recommended to avoid default installation folder, as this can lead to issues where certain files are not properly installed.

Run installed as administrator[citation needed]
When running the installer, be sure to right-click on the .exe, and select "Run as Administrator".

Loading screen freezing

Freezing known to happen on systems with multi-core CPUs.^{[citation needed]}

Set CPU affinity[citation needed]
Setting CPU affinity should solve this problem. Create a shortcut, and in the shortcut's "Target" field, insert %WINDIR%\System32\cmd.exe /C start "ARCANUM" /D "C:\ARCANUM" /high /affinity 1 "C:\ARCANUM\arcanum.exe" Be sure to replace C:\ARCANUM with your actual Arcanum installation folder. If needed, you can add additional command-line parameters to the end.

Graphical issues

Set target field[citation needed]
Adding -no3d -doublebuffer to the end of your Arcanum shortcut's "Target" field.

Delete or rename ddraw.dll[citation needed]
Delete or rename ddraw.dll.

Other information

API

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	95
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium II
System memory (RAM)	64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	1.2 GB
Video card (GPU)	VGA capable Card 8 MB of VRAM