General information
- Wookieepedia - A huge wiki dedicated to the Star Wars universe
- DF-21 - Modding site[Note 1]
- GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
- GOG.com Support Page
- Steam Community Discussions
Availability
- A demo containing an earlier version of the first level is available. A longer demo which includes the finalized versions of the first 3 levels was also released.[Note 2]
Essential improvements
Patches
- The DOS version has no patches (the
Install.exe
listed on the support page is not for this game).
- The 1.2 Update patch fixes some issues with the Classic version of Dark Forces.
Run in DOSBox
To improve DOSBox performance make the following changes to the DOSBox configuration file:
- Change
fulldouble=false
to fulldouble=true
- Change
memsize=16
to memsize=32
- Change
blocksize
to 4096
and prebuffer
to 30
Dark Frontend is a utility that allows easier launching of mods and levels. Installation (of both the launcher and the mods you intend to use with it) isn't exactly the most straight forward; includes a digital manual (readme.exe), reading it is recommended before using.
Game data
Configuration file(s) location
- Config file is not human readable. A partial explanation on how to edit it can be found here.
- This game does not follow the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux.
Save game data location
Video settings
Template:Video settings
Input settings
Control options in INSTALL.EXE.
Template:Input settings
Keyboard remapper in setup.exe
Suggested controls shown.
Joystick remapper in setup.exe
Mouse remapper in setup.exe
Modern control scheme + v-look for mouse (DOSBox)
- Use Dark Forces Plus, compilation of DOSBox keymapper files and GlovePIE script.[4]
- Could use FreePIE as alternative to GlovePIE.
- GlovePIE and FreePIE are Windows programs, they do not work on Mac or Linux.
Audio settings
Sound card and MIDI options in
setup.exe
.
Suggested settings for
DOSBox shown.
Sound channel settings in setup.exe
.
Template:Audio settings
- This game supports the MT-32 and General MIDI for music.
Localizations
Language |
UI |
Audio |
Sub |
Notes |
English |
|
|
|
|
French |
|
|
|
|
German |
|
|
|
|
Italian |
|
|
|
|
Issues fixed
Game randomly changes colors
Change output method to DirectDraw or OpenGL[citation needed]
|
- Go to the Dark Forces installation folder.
- Edit
dosbox.conf
- In the
[SDL] section, change output=surface to output=ddraw or output=opengl (whichever works best)
- Save your changes.
|
Game appears stretched horizontally
Fix incorrect aspect ratio[citation needed]
|
- Dark Forces is designed to run at 320x200, but with a 4:3 aspect ratio. To set this, do the following:
- Go to the
[render] section of the DOSBox configuration file and change aspect=false to aspect=true .
- If you are using Boxer, you can also use the View - Use 4:3 Aspect Ratio item in the menu.
|
Run retail version without the CD
Run without the CD[5]
|
- Perform a full install within DOSBox.
- Copy the CD.ID file from your Dark Forces CD, to the folder you have mounted as DOSBox's C: drive.
- Use a text editor to open the DRIVE.CD file in your Dark Forces installation folder. It should contain one letter. Change it to C and save it.
- Disables the ability to change configuration in the setup.exe (says you must install the game first).
|
Create a dummy folder[citation needed]
|
- Perform a full install within DOSBox.
- Copy the CD.ID file from your Dark Forces CD, to a new folder (which you will later mount as drive D).
- Copy the BOOTMKR.EXE and IMUSE.EXE from the CD or the installation folder to this new folder (the IMUSE.EXE must be in a \Dark sub folder to be detected by the configuration utility).
- Mount the folder as drive D, then play!
- Slightly more involved than the above fix for simply the ability to use the configuration utility.
- Significantly leaner than having an ISO mounted to access setup.exe (GOG.com and Steam versions).
- Files can be mistakenly deleted using the "Remove modules" option, marking files as read-only is recommended.
|
Update Steam DOSBox version/Run without Steam
Run without Steam[citation needed]
|
- Install the game through Steam.
- Download the latest DOSBox version.
- Run the installer and point it to the Dark Forces installation folder.
- To run Dark Forces without Steam, run
dosbox.exe directly. To run with Steam, launch as usual.
|
Enable Steam overlay
Change DOSBox output method to OpenGL[citation needed]
|
- Go to the Dark Forces installation folder.
- Edit
dosbox.conf
- Change
output=surface to output=opengl
- Save your changes.
|
Other information
API
Technical specs |
Supported |
Notes |
Direct3D |
9 |
See DarkXL |
Software renderer |
|
|
DOS video modes |
MCGA, VGA |
|
Executable | PPC | 16-bit |
32-bit |
64-bit |
Notes |
Windows | | |
|
|
|
Linux | | |
|
|
Mac OS (Classic) | | | |
|
|
Middleware
|
Middleware |
Notes |
Audio |
iMUSE |
for music |
System speed settings in setup.exe
- Enables playing the game in modern Windows. Supports high resolutions, with enhanced visuals and proper mouselook.
- Sadly however, the project no-longer appears to be in active development, and the most-recent alpha version has some unresolved issues such as missing cutscenes, no music during cutscenes, a float/noclip function bound to the F key that cannot be rebound, and other issues that require workarounds to correct. However, the game can still be completed in this form albeit with a patch that doesn't work on Windows 10 (see Getting started with XL Engine).
System requirements
DOS | Windows | Mac OS (Classic) | Linux |
DOS |
|
Minimum |
Recommended |
Operating system (OS) |
5.0 |
6.22 |
Processor (CPU) |
Intel 386DX 33 MHz
| Intel 486DX 33 MHz |
System memory (RAM) |
8 MB | |
Hard disk drive (HDD) |
3.5 MB | |
Video card (GPU) |
MCGA, VGA | |
Notes
- ↑ This site is only up intermittently and is frequently rendered inaccessible. Links to archives with most of the content from the site can be found on this forum post
- ↑ Any references to "the demo" on this page refer to the first demo.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below
%PROGRAMFILES%
, %PROGRAMDATA%
, or %WINDIR%
might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore
on Windows Vista and later (more details).
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in
~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/32400/
in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (32400) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.
References