AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
You should be able to edit dark.fix in notepad or any other text editor. This is a separate file than darkfix.exe
New Privateer 2 Patch Adds Deinterlace Feature & Makes Numerous Improvements (October 1, 2013)
- Thread starter AD
- Start date
You should be able to edit dark.fix in notepad or any other text editor. This is a separate file than darkfix.exe
*Blush* I guess I need to brush up on my basic reading skills. You, kind person, are an absolute hero! Thank you so much taking the time to reply. Finally I can enjoy this classic with the graphics it deserves.
Now all I have to deal with are the random crashes after making jumps, but at least those are quite rare so I still get to play the game.
Now all I have to deal with are the random crashes after making jumps, but at least those are quite rare so I still get to play the game.
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AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
Are you trying to download the latest version? Is it the zip file you are trying to download (I could see it not wanting to download an EXE file directly)? I have no issues with this file in chrome: http://download.wcnews.com/files/p2/p2_patch_test3.zip
Yes it was a zip but it was p2_patch_test1_ogl......zip as listed in the chrome download bar at the bottom of the browser. I successfully downloaded the file you linked to with no complaints from Chrome so thanks. Obviously somehow I found an older or corrupt version. Thanks for the reply. Any advice you can give on the install and setup?
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
Glad the download worked this time. IIRC you just unzip the file into your P2 install directory. Then, when you want to play, run darkfix.exe instead of the original dark.exe to launch the game.
If you installed the game anywhere other than the default directory on your C: drive you will want to edit dark.fix (basically a config file for the patch) to point to your installation drive and directory of choice.
Hello everyone,
I scoured the thread in hopes for a solution.
I use GOG, installed the game, the game works fine, mouse works, sounds/midi, graphics and inverted spaceship flight mouse control but effectively the de-interlacing is really hard on my eyes.
So I looked in GOG support for the game and I found the unofficial patch "p2_patch_test1_ogl_sidebyside.zip".
Darkfix.exe fixed the de-interlacing. It is great to look at those animations and actors. unfortunately, I am no computer wizard, my mouse does get stuck right away, down at the bottom and somewhere to the right. I found a post mentioning Norton, I turned off all norton functions for 30 minutes, re-launched darkfix.exe but the mouse issue persists, the mouse get stuck way at the bottom and somewhere to the right, so that solution was not for me
Is there a way to apply darkfix.exe from or to GOG launcher and using DOS emulator that comes with the game on GOG?
Incredible to find such oldies still with great appeal, thanks in advance.
I scoured the thread in hopes for a solution.
I use GOG, installed the game, the game works fine, mouse works, sounds/midi, graphics and inverted spaceship flight mouse control but effectively the de-interlacing is really hard on my eyes.
So I looked in GOG support for the game and I found the unofficial patch "p2_patch_test1_ogl_sidebyside.zip".
Darkfix.exe fixed the de-interlacing. It is great to look at those animations and actors. unfortunately, I am no computer wizard, my mouse does get stuck right away, down at the bottom and somewhere to the right. I found a post mentioning Norton, I turned off all norton functions for 30 minutes, re-launched darkfix.exe but the mouse issue persists, the mouse get stuck way at the bottom and somewhere to the right, so that solution was not for me
Is there a way to apply darkfix.exe from or to GOG launcher and using DOS emulator that comes with the game on GOG?
Incredible to find such oldies still with great appeal, thanks in advance.
ChrisReid
Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
Hey, I'm not sure about your mouse issues, but there does seem to be a newer version of the patch you should try: https://www.wcnews.com/news/2014/09/30/the-darkening-s-enhancement-patch-gets-even-better
And most anything can be applied to GOG games in a DOSBox environments. Buried within the package/launchers for the DOS WC games is a DOS version of the game.
And most anything can be applied to GOG games in a DOSBox environments. Buried within the package/launchers for the DOS WC games is a DOS version of the game.
1. Any info/help on this particular error message when running darkfix.exe?
application could not be initialized 0xc0150002
Getting this on a fresh installation of WinXP on an old laptop, which I set up just to get the game to run. I may be missing dlls or whatever? I did download msvcr100 and msvcr110 into the DARK directory, and I think the crash code has changed as a result of that, but it's still crashing regardless. Also, since it's 2019, I cannot use Windows Update on this XP machine, and I suspect there may be some OS components missing, which the patch requires.. ideas?
^resolved that by installing Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package.
Darkfix now crashes with yet another new error message:
entry point "GetTickCount64" could not be located kernel32.dll
and apparently, googling suggests that this is simply not supported under XP....
So in other words the patch doesn't even work on XP at all? Nice to realize.....
PS:
2. This brings me to the reason I'm using the above ancient laptop to begin with: FIRST I played it (fine) on my main machine (Win 7), where Darkfix seemed to run nicely and -I thought- at the right speed.. for a while! After a few hours of gameplay however, it has become sadly unplayable: I am getting blasted out of the sky within about a second of anyone starting to fire on me (despite upgraded ship). Even single ships with nothing special in terms of weapons obliterate my shield and armor almost instantly. This leads me to believe darkfix is either generally running too fast on this machine, or is at least applying laser damage too quickly. It probably has been like that from the start, but I didn't notice because the enemies previously had Imperial Stormtrooper aim. Now, as the game progresses, difficulty (and enemy accuracy) seems to have increased and I'm instantly toast almost every time.
In short, the patch is not running the right speed on my system, never has.
(This is on an i5-4460 with Win7x64, I tried various compatibility options to no avail)
^resolved that by installing Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package.
Darkfix now crashes with yet another new error message:
entry point "GetTickCount64" could not be located kernel32.dll
and apparently, googling suggests that this is simply not supported under XP....
So in other words the patch doesn't even work on XP at all? Nice to realize.....
PS:
2. This brings me to the reason I'm using the above ancient laptop to begin with: FIRST I played it (fine) on my main machine (Win 7), where Darkfix seemed to run nicely and -I thought- at the right speed.. for a while! After a few hours of gameplay however, it has become sadly unplayable: I am getting blasted out of the sky within about a second of anyone starting to fire on me (despite upgraded ship). Even single ships with nothing special in terms of weapons obliterate my shield and armor almost instantly. This leads me to believe darkfix is either generally running too fast on this machine, or is at least applying laser damage too quickly. It probably has been like that from the start, but I didn't notice because the enemies previously had Imperial Stormtrooper aim. Now, as the game progresses, difficulty (and enemy accuracy) seems to have increased and I'm instantly toast almost every time.
In short, the patch is not running the right speed on my system, never has.
(This is on an i5-4460 with Win7x64, I tried various compatibility options to no avail)
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AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
Interesting. It does sound a bit like one of the original game bugs though. The game originally shipped with an error where the game tries to ramp up the difficulty as you progress and get better... So you end up with endless streams of pirates and so on. If it works differently without the patch, that would be good to know, but I'm thinking it's more likely an old bug rather than anything to do with the darkfix patch which IIRC starts with the original Windows patch from Origin as a base.
LurkerExposed
Spaceman
Hello. I have the DOS Privateer2 I downloaded from GOG.com. I dl'd onto an old WinXP PC I have. I downloaded your above patch, but how does it work? I use a shortcut to DOSBox provided in the GOG.com download, that only gives me one option to select, which is number "1". Are you suggesting to use the RUN feature to select and run "darkfix.exe" instead of using the DOSbox start-up?? I directly selected the executable that came with your patch, and all it did was open that "Insert CD 1" screen that came with the deluxe game. I may need some additional noob instruction for this, I guess. Any help is appreciated.
PS: minus the patch - just straight from the GOG.com download - the game runs pretty good, although as you said the cut-scenes are interlaced, and they run a little laggy. Also the audio is scratchy for the cut-scenes. The game overall seems to run laggy, especially the more action and graphics there are (when there's a ton of enemies or other objects during missions, as opposed to just 1 or 2 enemies/objects). I used to have the deluxe game when it came out and played it on a Win95 PC I used to have, so I know what comes later towards the end of the game, with huge battles involving dozens of ships, so I am worried about how the game will play at that time. I have 2GB of RAM on this machine, compared to just 16MB of RAM on that Win95 box I had, so not sure why it should lag so much.
Anyways, any help would be greatly appreciated.
PS: minus the patch - just straight from the GOG.com download - the game runs pretty good, although as you said the cut-scenes are interlaced, and they run a little laggy. Also the audio is scratchy for the cut-scenes. The game overall seems to run laggy, especially the more action and graphics there are (when there's a ton of enemies or other objects during missions, as opposed to just 1 or 2 enemies/objects). I used to have the deluxe game when it came out and played it on a Win95 PC I used to have, so I know what comes later towards the end of the game, with huge battles involving dozens of ships, so I am worried about how the game will play at that time. I have 2GB of RAM on this machine, compared to just 16MB of RAM on that Win95 box I had, so not sure why it should lag so much.
Anyways, any help would be greatly appreciated.
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AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
Yes, to run the patched version you launch the game using darkfix.exe. If you have installed the game anywhere other than c:\dark you will probably have to use notepad to edit dark.fix (not darkfix.exe... a separate file) to specify the path so the patch can find the game, which is probably why you're getting the "insert CD" error.
LurkerExposed
Spaceman
Thanks for responding, AD! Yeah, I had to replace my original HD with a new one, and when it was given its drive designation, it was auto-designated as the H: drive. So it would show now as h:\dark. So I'll see about editing the dark.fix file, and try it then. Thanks - I'll report back my results!
LurkerExposed
Spaceman
OK, so here are my updated results. I downloaded the above patch and changed the directory source in the dark.fix file to direct to my source directory
(the original hard drive crashed a few years back, and I got a new replacement. When I re-installed the BIOS and WinXP OS, it auto-assigned a new directory prefix of H: to the new HD, instead of using the original C: - I guess with all the USB ports and memory card slots already assigned, "H:" was the next available letter in the alphabet LOL. I later found out that I could have forced it to take the C:, but oh well)
and then now I open it with the "darkfix.exe" instead of the "dark.exe". The patch fixes most of the stuff great! The video cut scenes are no longer interlaced, and the audio doesn't crack and scratch. The pace of the game is much faster as well, more like the original CD game. Before the play speed was something like 60%-70% the true speed - now it's so fast its harder to kill the enemy than it was before - they zip and zap all over the place, but I remember that to be more like how it should be. There are some issues I've found with the patch however:
1) very minor one - the in-space flight music no longer plays. When you land on a planet the background music audio still plays, but when you launch into space, the 2-3 different background audios that played, including an ominous one when you reach a mission nav point or come into a nav point where there's pre-existing enemy, are now gone.
2) in some cases, when you're fighting enemy or there is military fighting enemy, there will be little comment audios that play, like the enemy calling you out ("prepare to die, fool!", "come and get some!"), or the military killing the enemy ("another law breaker meets his maker!"). The would play along with a little avatar image in the upper left corner, letting you know who's doing the talking. The image plays, but the audio doesn't. This only happens randomly, as other times it plays fine.
The top 2 are minor things, and do not really impact the game-play of the game. The following issues are bigger issues:
3) At times when in the midst of playing the game - usually in the middle of fighting enemies - the screen will quickly go black, and when it returns, the little Windows "Doink" noise sounds off:
When this happens, and the screen graphics return, everything seems fine in the game-play. However, should I have to go to any of the secondary screens, like "alt-d" (the mission direction and info screen), "alt-n" (the navigation screen), or "alt-o" (the game options screen), I need the use of the mouse because there is a curser that is used to select the options, but the curser no longer works. Its as if the mouse got unplugged or something. This is troublesome as a player needs the alt-d to check on pending missions and what nav points to set to go to them, and the alt-n to set the course in order to fly to the destinations. WIthout them, I can no longer play the game - just stay in that lone nav point and fly around in it. The "alt-x" still works, because that is the QUIT option in-game, and doesn't require the mouse - just type alt-x, and when the "Quit Game? Y/N" pops up, just hit the "Y" key, and the game quits. I can quit the game, and then restart it, and the mouse works again for a while. Now, if the nav point where I'm stuck on happens to be a planetary nav point, I can simply land on the planet, and quit the game from there. But I also cannot access the booths or transit, because all those require the use of the mouse to select options. I use a plain-jane logitech M100 wired optic mouse, but also have a logitech M310 wireless, and a microsoft wired, and none of them work when this happens.
4) lately a new way for the game to crash has been happening: Instead of the above - again, typically while I am in-game in space, and fighting enemy, the screen goes black and the game crashes, and I get the Windows XP error message dong:
There's no error message that appears, however. But when this happens, the game freezes and the screen is black, so I have no options for quitting the game, and can only hard-shutdown the computer from the CPU power button.
That's it, and if anyone can figure out fixes for these issues - especially the last 2 issues - it would be greatly appreciated. When these crashes do not happen, the game-play is great and flows like when it was the CD game. There have been times when it crashed only 3-4 missions in the play, and others when I went hours playing it before it crashed, so there's been no pattern or rhythm to it. I just recently got to the point just past where normally you put in the 2nd CD if it was the deluxe game, but I've been mostly just trying to do missions a lot, to build up credits and upgrade my ship, as often I've gotten my butt kicked by the enemy when the game isn't crashing. Thanks in advance!!
(the original hard drive crashed a few years back, and I got a new replacement. When I re-installed the BIOS and WinXP OS, it auto-assigned a new directory prefix of H: to the new HD, instead of using the original C: - I guess with all the USB ports and memory card slots already assigned, "H:" was the next available letter in the alphabet LOL. I later found out that I could have forced it to take the C:, but oh well)
and then now I open it with the "darkfix.exe" instead of the "dark.exe". The patch fixes most of the stuff great! The video cut scenes are no longer interlaced, and the audio doesn't crack and scratch. The pace of the game is much faster as well, more like the original CD game. Before the play speed was something like 60%-70% the true speed - now it's so fast its harder to kill the enemy than it was before - they zip and zap all over the place, but I remember that to be more like how it should be. There are some issues I've found with the patch however:
1) very minor one - the in-space flight music no longer plays. When you land on a planet the background music audio still plays, but when you launch into space, the 2-3 different background audios that played, including an ominous one when you reach a mission nav point or come into a nav point where there's pre-existing enemy, are now gone.
2) in some cases, when you're fighting enemy or there is military fighting enemy, there will be little comment audios that play, like the enemy calling you out ("prepare to die, fool!", "come and get some!"), or the military killing the enemy ("another law breaker meets his maker!"). The would play along with a little avatar image in the upper left corner, letting you know who's doing the talking. The image plays, but the audio doesn't. This only happens randomly, as other times it plays fine.
The top 2 are minor things, and do not really impact the game-play of the game. The following issues are bigger issues:
3) At times when in the midst of playing the game - usually in the middle of fighting enemies - the screen will quickly go black, and when it returns, the little Windows "Doink" noise sounds off:
When this happens, and the screen graphics return, everything seems fine in the game-play. However, should I have to go to any of the secondary screens, like "alt-d" (the mission direction and info screen), "alt-n" (the navigation screen), or "alt-o" (the game options screen), I need the use of the mouse because there is a curser that is used to select the options, but the curser no longer works. Its as if the mouse got unplugged or something. This is troublesome as a player needs the alt-d to check on pending missions and what nav points to set to go to them, and the alt-n to set the course in order to fly to the destinations. WIthout them, I can no longer play the game - just stay in that lone nav point and fly around in it. The "alt-x" still works, because that is the QUIT option in-game, and doesn't require the mouse - just type alt-x, and when the "Quit Game? Y/N" pops up, just hit the "Y" key, and the game quits. I can quit the game, and then restart it, and the mouse works again for a while. Now, if the nav point where I'm stuck on happens to be a planetary nav point, I can simply land on the planet, and quit the game from there. But I also cannot access the booths or transit, because all those require the use of the mouse to select options. I use a plain-jane logitech M100 wired optic mouse, but also have a logitech M310 wireless, and a microsoft wired, and none of them work when this happens.
4) lately a new way for the game to crash has been happening: Instead of the above - again, typically while I am in-game in space, and fighting enemy, the screen goes black and the game crashes, and I get the Windows XP error message dong:
There's no error message that appears, however. But when this happens, the game freezes and the screen is black, so I have no options for quitting the game, and can only hard-shutdown the computer from the CPU power button.
That's it, and if anyone can figure out fixes for these issues - especially the last 2 issues - it would be greatly appreciated. When these crashes do not happen, the game-play is great and flows like when it was the CD game. There have been times when it crashed only 3-4 missions in the play, and others when I went hours playing it before it crashed, so there's been no pattern or rhythm to it. I just recently got to the point just past where normally you put in the 2nd CD if it was the deluxe game, but I've been mostly just trying to do missions a lot, to build up credits and upgrade my ship, as often I've gotten my butt kicked by the enemy when the game isn't crashing. Thanks in advance!!
LurkerExposed
Spaceman
OK, I just read this thread again from the top, and somehow didn't realize before that there are TWO different patches referenced in this thread. The OP has the "p2_patch_test1_ogl_sidebyside.zip" and this Page 4 of the thread references an updated "p2_patch_test3.zip" patch. I installed the initial "sidebyside" patch. You might want to update the OP to show that there is an updated version of that patch, so others won't think the one listed in the OP is the most updated version. Maybe everyone else is just smarter than I am
So I guess I need to download the "test3" patch. Should I delete the first patch from the Privateer2 directory, and replace it with this one?
LurkerExposed
Spaceman
I have also gotten this "dwrap_debug" text document file that says the exact same thing, but mine ends with a "WM_PAINT" after the "pal16 = 00000000" part.
OK, lets see how the game plays with the updated test3 patch.....
* OUCH!! *
I got the same "Entry Point Not Found" error msg that wahnsinn got above:
The procedure entry point GetTickCount64 could not be located in the dynamic link library KERNEL32.dll
Hmmm. I even made sure to edit the darkfix. file to direct to the proper HD directory....
I noticed that the test3 patch has an additional "darkfix_setup" application file that the test1 patch did not have, in addition to the "darkfix.exe" file. Do I have to run the set-up file?
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Update: {Fixed "Insert CD 1" message as well as reference read error}
I was able to get the game running. This would have worked for the old, normal version of the game as well as the Deluxe version I used it on this time.
>>>>>>>Old issues/post that are fixed now:
"Also just to be clear, do not run any install program. I'm mentioning that because you keep saying "a folder within the game installation". Don't install anything. Just copy the CDs to a directory, and run the patch." <<<<<<<<
That works! (It does have to be on your C:\ drive or you'd have to change the file paths in Dark.Fix file.)
Patch: https://www.wcnews.com/news/2014/09/30/the-darkening-s-enhancement-patch-gets-even-better
===================
I used the patch you linked to (HCl Darkening Enhancement patch) and copied my CDs to a folder in my game installation ("P2Dcds") then set Dark.FIX file as
C:\Dark\P2Dcds
C:\Dark
I still get the reference memory error after a few cut-scenes. I'm trying the Deluxe version of P2D now. I use the No CD fix which let's me get past the "insert CD 1" issue. But whether I have DarkFix installed ("p2_patch_test3 _Enhancement patch (non-Dos Box) ") I still get this reference memory error. Help?!
I was able to get the game running. This would have worked for the old, normal version of the game as well as the Deluxe version I used it on this time.
>>>>>>>Old issues/post that are fixed now:
"Also just to be clear, do not run any install program. I'm mentioning that because you keep saying "a folder within the game installation". Don't install anything. Just copy the CDs to a directory, and run the patch." <<<<<<<<
That works! (It does have to be on your C:\ drive or you'd have to change the file paths in Dark.Fix file.)
Patch: https://www.wcnews.com/news/2014/09/30/the-darkening-s-enhancement-patch-gets-even-better
===================
I used the patch you linked to (HCl Darkening Enhancement patch) and copied my CDs to a folder in my game installation ("P2Dcds") then set Dark.FIX file as
C:\Dark\P2Dcds
C:\Dark
I still get the reference memory error after a few cut-scenes. I'm trying the Deluxe version of P2D now. I use the No CD fix which let's me get past the "insert CD 1" issue. But whether I have DarkFix installed ("p2_patch_test3 _Enhancement patch (non-Dos Box) ") I still get this reference memory error. Help?!
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Just one problem now. I can't get anything to fire weapons. Spacebar doesn't work to fire like it should. Also my joystick which actually configured in-game for basic up-down right-left control works (but not the buttons it seems either). I'm almost there but no dice.. Any ideas?
I know it has been ages since this was posted, however I wanted to ask if there had been any thought put into this since then?
I run a DOS preservation project. One of the primary goals of the project is to make games playable. The issues described above have been a thorn in our side for some time, and if there was any chance of solving it for the DOS version I would be incredibly interested.
Thank you =)