Making Darkstone Work In Windows 10/11.

darkstone_win_guide.md

How To Make Darkstone Work In Windows 10/11

These instructions worked on Windows 10/11 at the time this gist was written, on both AMD and nVidia, but that may have changed since. If it's not working for you, I may be able to help, but no promises.

Generalized Steps

1. Download from Steam. (GOG also works, but the launch option bits would be different.)
2. Right-click in Steam, go to "Properties", then under "Launch Options" put: -nocolorkey -sortbyz -nointro -32bit and then close properties.
3. Download dgVoodoo2 latest release (currently: https://github.com/dege-diosg/dgVoodoo2/releases/tag/v2.82.3)
4. Unzip dgVoodoo2 somewhere and navigate to that folder.
5. Inside the dgVoodoo2 folder, copy dgVoodooCpl.exe, dgVoodoo.conf, and everything from MS\x86 into the Darkstone folder. (You can get to the Darkstone folder by right-clicking in Steam, going to Manage -> Browse Local Files.)
6. From the Darkstone folder run dgVoodooCpl.exe.
7. On the "General" tab, in the "Appearance" section, change "Scaling mode" to "Stretched, keep Aspect Ratio". (5th from the top)
8. Go to the "DirectX" tab. Then change "Resolution" from "Unforced" to "Max ISF"
9. At the bottom of the window, click "Apply" at the bottom, then "OK".
10. CRITICAL STEP Leave the Darkstone folder. You can just browse one level up to Steamapps, but the game WILL NOT START if you are in the folder.
11. Try starting the game in Steam, it should work.

Running Windowed As a warning, Windowed mode may fight with Windows if you're scaling your desktop. In that case, you can either deactivate the scaling for Darkstone (instructions below) or change the scaling in dgVoodoo2).

1. Open dgVoodooCpl.exe in the Darkstone folder.
2. On the "General" tab, in the "Appearance" section, change the radio button to "Windowed" and the scaling to "Unspecified". Make sure "Keep window aspect ratio" and "Capture mouse" are both checked in the "Miscellanneous" section.
3. On the "DirectX" tab, in the "Behavior" section, make sure both "Application controlled fullscreen/windowed state" and "Disable Alt-Enter to toggle screen state" are unchecked. Change the drop down in "Resolution" to something you'd like, I suggest trying 2x first, and go up from there.
4. At the bottom of the window, click "Apply" at the bottom, then "OK".
5. CRITICAL STEP Leave the Darkstone folder. You can just browse one level up to Steamapps, but the game WILL NOT START if you are in the folder.
6. Try starting the game in Steam, it should start full screen, but as soon as you click something in the game it should window itself.