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Arcatera: The Dark Brotherhood

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Arcatera: The Dark Brotherhood
Arcatera: The Dark Brotherhood cover
Developers
Westka Interactive
Publishers
Ubisoft
Release dates
Windows August 2000
Taxonomy
Modes Singleplayer
Genres RPG, Adventure
Art styles Realistic
Themes Detective/mystery, Fantasy
Arcatera: The Dark Brotherhood on MobyGames
Arcatera: The Dark Brotherhood on Wikipedia

Warnings

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see Availability for affected versions).
Can be made to run under Windows 10 and other modern systems by using a NoCD-patch, steps are listed here.

General information

Forum
Official website (Webarchive)

Availability

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

Patches

1.2 is the most current patch. Download German patch or select international patch (English / French / Spanish / Italian). If patch installation fails because of a problem with "unInstallShield", temporarily deactivate your antivirus program(s).[3]

Run on modern Windows

Because of SafeDisc DRM, the disc version by default can not run on Windows 10 or some previous versions of Windows. However, there are several ways around this:

Use a NoCD-patch (German)[4]
Note: The following is a guide based on the German version. Description for English version below.
  1. Install the game normally from the discs. If the installation gets blocked because of "unInstallShield", you have to temporarily deactivate your antivirus program(s) during the installation. Choose the full installation. Do not install any patches yet.
  2. Get the v1.2 [GERMAN] Fixed Update (e_arc12gercrkupd.zip), aka NoCD-patch, from here (download by clicking on the disk symbol). Extract the arc12gercrkupd.exe and put it into the game folder (where the darksun.exe is). Execute the arc12gercrkupd.exe there to install the patch, override all files when prompted. This patch also includes the offical (German) patch 1.2, so you don't have to install that seperately.
  3. From disc 3 (and only disc 3), copy all files except for the res folder that are not yet in the game folder into the game folder. These will be files like _sys1.cab etc.
  4. Now simply launch the game from darksun.exe in the game folder. The discs no longer have to be inserted.
Use a NoCD-patch (English)[4]
This is for the English version.
  1. Install the game normally from the discs. If the installation gets blocked because of "unInstallShield", you have to temporarily deactivate your antivirus program(s) during the installation. Choose the full installation.
  2. Install the English patch 1.2.
  3. From disc 3 (and only disc 3), copy all files except for the res folder that are not yet in the game folder into the game folder. These will be files like _sys1.cab etc.
  4. Get the Arcatera v1.2 [ALL] Fixed EXE (arcatera_1_2.zip) from here (download by clicking on the disk symbol) and extract the darksun.exe into your game folder to override the previous .exe
  5. From the extracted .zip, open the arcatera.reg with a texteditor and change the D:\Arcatera\ path to your game's installation directory (don't forget the closing \). Then add the entry to your Windows Registry by doubleclicking on the arcatera.reg (you need admin rights). You can also instead manually edit the Registry (see the Readme included in the download).
If you're on a 64 Bit system, then the path will be HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Ubisoft\ARCATERA instead of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Ubisoft\ARCATERA
Step 5 potentially could be skipped. You can try launching the game without this and see if it works.

Now simply launch the game from darksun.exe in the game folder. The discs no longer have to be inserted.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\arcatera.cfg[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\SAVE[Note 2]

Video

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Right-click and left-click on your character or move your mouse to the bottom of the screen to bring up the in-game menus. Click the small x on the top right of each menu to close it.
Left-click on something to open the interaction menu, right-click to examine things.
Left-clicking on your character or his/her portrait is the only way to open their inventory and combat menu.
Combat can be paused with Space

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Seperate slider for music volume. Other audio can't be changed.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
Arcatera: La Confrérie des Ombres (English audio)
German
Arcatera: Die Dunkle Bruderschaft (original language)
Polish
Arcatera: Mroczne Bractwo

Issues fixed

Installation from disc blocked because of "unInstallShield"

Deactivate your antivirus program(s) during the installation

Doesn't launch or says "access denied, please login with administrator privileges and try again"

Use NoCD-patch like described here

Start menu only shows option "Install"

The start menu (Startup.exe, this one gets set as default link in Windows' program menu) only shows the option "Install", but not to Start the game, despite the game being installed.

Launch directly from darksun.exe in the game menu
Alternatively, edit the Windows Registry (not recommended)
Editing the registry is generally not recommended, since it is unnecessary here (just use the solution above).
This guide is for 64-Bit machines.
  1. Open regedit (admin rights required).
  2. Go to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\VirtualStore\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Ubisoft\ARCATERA
  3. Change INSTALLSTATUS from "1" to "b" (= 11 in hexadecimal).

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 7
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
darksun.exe is the game executable, Startup.exe is the start menu

Middleware

No middleware information; you can edit this page to add it.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 95/98
Processor (CPU) Pentium II 233
System memory (RAM) 32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 600 MB


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]
  2. 2.0 2.1 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).

References