Arcturus - The Curse and Loss of Divinity

[LunaireticOmega]

Did you try setting the "Frames' setup" to 60 instead of Auto? As I mentioned, on my Windows 10 laptop it helped quite a bit.

I tried all manner of options, the first being the framerate setting, but it doesn't help the fact that battles are extremely sluggish...

[Thelostrune]

I tried all manner of options, the first being the framerate setting, but it doesn't help the fact that battles are extremely sluggish...

That sucks. I don't think it's Windows 10 specifically, as it runs fine on my laptop, although it is quite a beefy machine at that.
It's likely some other kind of complication, which isn't unheard of with Windows 7 to 10 updates.

[LunaireticOmega]

That sucks. I don't think it's Windows 10 specifically, as it runs fine on my laptop, although it is quite a beefy machine at that.
It's likely some other kind of complication, which isn't unheard of with Windows 7 to 10 updates.

My previous computer, which has a Windows 7 installation, is far more powerful than a pre-built and runs the game absolutely flawlessly (except for dialogue boxes that have character portraits). When I try to play the game on Windows 10 (on the same computer), it runs slower overall, and when battles start, the game drops to somewhere around 10 FPS and gets worse as the battles drag on.

I simply have no idea why that is, and what could've changed from Windows 7 to 10.

[Sara-chan]

Quite a few more than just 4. Pretty sure I figured out how to get the game to recognize the books. I mentioned getting a data.pak dump from someone else, which contains the books with improper unicode names. The game recognizes those.

Yeah, it'll recognize the filenames as long as they are in whichever codepage your system is currently running. So if you use Windows in English by default for example, it has to be mangled the same way Korean would be mangled by the English codepage. If you use Windows in Korean by default (or run the game through LocaleEmulator in Korean codepage), they have to be in proper Korean. Etc. It's that kind of situation. That said, I can only find 4 book text files in the latest version from Helly, so I'm not sure where the others have come from! If you have Helly's versions of them then that would be very useful for us to finish up Helly's patch. I know how to get the original files for all of them (as shown in your picture), it's Helly's translation that concerns me.

The game should "switch over" to a higher quality version of the soundtrack while it's running, from 11khz to (apparently) 24khz. At least, it does so for me.

The ADP files in the BGM.pak file are 22,050Hz, but this is still very low quality audio compared to what is common nowadays -- it just doesn't sound very good by modern standards. I'd personally gladly redo all of the music files using the official soundtrack as a source if I had a way to encode IMA APC ADPCM.

[Thelostrune]

That said, I can only find 4 book text files in the latest version from Helly, so I'm not sure where the others have come from! If you have Helly's versions of them then that would be very useful for us to finish up Helly's patch. I know how to get the original files for all of them (as shown in your picture), it's Helly's translation that concerns me.

Oh, my fault. Thought you meant how many books in the game itself and not the ones that were included in the translation patch. I don't think those were ever published and since he vanished without a trace to my knowledge, the books will probably have to be translated again.

[LunaireticOmega]

Oh, my fault. Thought you meant how many books in the game itself and not the ones that were included in the translation patch. I don't think those were ever published and since he vanished without a trace to my knowledge, the books will probably have to be translated again.

He's still active on the website RPG Codex, but I never bothered to contact him on there. It's possible he has his reasons, but I would've also preferred an explanation. <:3

[Thelostrune]

He's still active on the website RPG Codex, but I never bothered to contact him on there. It's possible he has his reasons, but I would've also preferred an explanation. <:3

Hey, good to know that he's alive at least. I'll take a shot at contacting him sometime soon.

[LunaireticOmega]

Hey, good to know that he's alive at least. I'll take a shot at contacting him sometime soon.

After going through the Arcturus thread on there, it seems there was a lack of motivation coupled with being troubled that he couldn't fix some of the errors, most likely the actor errors that pop up. Maybe with your contact and him seeing the spark on this forum might convince him to continue, even just a bit.

[Bonk]

Yeah, it'll recognize the filenames as long as they are in whichever codepage your system is currently running. So if you use Windows in English by default for example, it has to be mangled the same way Korean would be mangled by the English codepage. If you use Windows in Korean by default (or run the game through LocaleEmulator in Korean codepage), they have to be in proper Korean. Etc. It's that kind of situation. That said, I can only find 4 book text files in the latest version from Helly, so I'm not sure where the others have come from! If you have Helly's versions of them then that would be very useful for us to finish up Helly's patch. I know how to get the original files for all of them (as shown in your picture), it's Helly's translation that concerns me.
The ADP files in the BGM.pak file are 22,050Hz, but this is still very low quality audio compared to what is common nowadays -- it just doesn't sound very good by modern standards. I'd personally gladly redo all of the music files using the official soundtrack as a source if I had a way to encode IMA APC ADPCM.

Not sure if relevant:
https://github.com/dbry/adpcm-xq

[Thelostrune]

Fixed an issue with maria_desk.bmp, where it was somehow saved in v5 and not v3 and Arcturus doesn't handle v5. Sorry about that, download link is the same:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/awr5e29cshzbn8q/data.rar

Also bad news regarding the battle results roulette graphics.
The game does not check for these files, only bushrmks.tga and mvp.tga. Makes it impossible to replace those two, sadly. I checked thoroughly with Procmon, though maybe someone can find a solution.

dodnhage is 'Shared'
mlaajugi is 'Monopoly'

[LunaireticOmega]

Fixed an issue with maria_desk.bmp, where it was somehow saved in v5 and not v3 and Arcturus doesn't handle v5. Sorry about that, download link is the same:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/awr5e29cshzbn8q/data.rar

Also bad news regarding the battle results roulette graphics.
The game does not check for these files, only bushrmks.tga and mvp.tga. Makes it impossible to replace those two, sadly. I checked thoroughly with Procmon, though maybe someone can find a solution.

I appreciate you finding that quickly, and unfortunate for the battle roulette graphics, but we can't win them all.

I made an unintentional breakthrough with Win10 on the game's speed within battles. For some reason, if I glitch the graphics by changing focus away from the game and back to it, the game runs perfectly despite, well, the now-garbled graphics. Additionally, does anyone else also have an issue where they're forced to run the game in full-screen, yet there's still a title bar at the top of the window that cuts off a bit of the top of the client?

[Thelostrune]

Additionally, does anyone else also have an issue where they're forced to run the game in full-screen, yet there's still a title bar at the top of the window that cuts off a bit of the top of the client?

Borderless Gaming should fix that.

[LunaireticOmega]

Borderless Gaming should fix that.

Well that worked, thank you!

Now I just need to know how to get the game to run at full speed in battles, and I should be good to go!

[Sara-chan]

As an update on my own end, I found a way to encode music for the game.
Sadly Bonk's link wasn't useful at all -- different formats.
But I made a version of FFMPEG that can convert to the game's type of ADP through a lot of work, given I already knew FFMPEG could convert from it.
And the game does indeed support higher quality music (48kHz works fine) which especially surprised me...

[LunaireticOmega]

Well, I guess running the game with DxWnd at 1280x1024 solved my battle speed issues and everything else. I could've sworn I tried it before...

Anyway, that gives me time to run through the game again and do testing, maybe some work on asset edits.

I can also beat the game in about 8 hours, if someone needs me to test things in later chapters!

[stragusmagus]

This is a very interesting game!

[lhalves2018]

Thanks.

[Talien]

I've been waiting to play this in english ever since I found the english demo way back in 2000, I had been watching the Mirrormoon translation for a long time and it was really sad when it stopped. I recently was reminded of Arcturus so I did a search for an english translation and was totally shocked when this thread popped up, especially since it was a finished translation.

So first, huge props to everyone involved. This is f-ing awesome.

I got around some issues I saw several people mentioning so I figured I would post what I did just in case it helps someone else. First problem was the issue with nothing being shown in the display device and resolution in the config, I went into properties for arcturus.exe and set it to run in compatibility mode for XP SP2 and to run as administrator and it fixed that particular issue. Funnily enough if I tried running it as administrator through the right click options it did not work, only when I set it to run as admin in the compatibility settings.

Second issue was the error when boarding the ship in the Sizz/Maria prologue from a video file failing to play. I wouldn't have cared since it didn't actually crash the game, but it caused dialogue text to be offset and to be distorted and unreadable. Setting arcexe.exe the same as arcturus.exe (XPSP2 and run as admin in compatibility) plays the videos.

Third issue I had was the unholy slowdown in combat with win10. I ran the game through dxwnd as I had seen someone else post and it worked, but now the game was in windowed mode. Using borderless gaming to force it into fullscreen did not work if it ran through dxwnd but I found if I tabbed out then back into the game it returned to the faux-fullscreen mode with the bar at the top. Not ideal, but I'll take that over battles playing in slow motion.

Now....the issue I still have is not being able to compound magic. I tried the links that were posted in this thread but neither works directly in firefox or IE, and if I paste the link to the site itself into google translate I get a screen full of ascii symbols instead of a translated website. GT works with other websites so I'm not sure what is going on. If anyone has another site that has spell compounding info in english, or even just a .txt file with it I'd really appreciate it.

[zweihand]

I've been waiting to play this in english ever since I found the english demo way back in 2000, I had been watching the Mirrormoon translation for a long time and it was really sad when it stopped. I recently was reminded of Arcturus so I did a search for an english translation and was totally shocked when this thread popped up, especially since it was a finished translation.

So first, huge props to everyone involved. This is f-ing awesome.

I got around some issues I saw several people mentioning so I figured I would post what I did just in case it helps someone else. First problem was the issue with nothing being shown in the display device and resolution in the config, I went into properties for arcturus.exe and set it to run in compatibility mode for XP SP2 and to run as administrator and it fixed that particular issue. Funnily enough if I tried running it as administrator through the right click options it did not work, only when I set it to run as admin in the compatibility settings.

Second issue was the error when boarding the ship in the Sizz/Maria prologue from a video file failing to play. I wouldn't have cared since it didn't actually crash the game, but it caused dialogue text to be offset and to be distorted and unreadable. Setting arcexe.exe the same as arcturus.exe (XPSP2 and run as admin in compatibility) plays the videos.

Third issue I had was the unholy slowdown in combat with win10. I ran the game through dxwnd as I had seen someone else post and it worked, but now the game was in windowed mode. Using borderless gaming to force it into fullscreen did not work if it ran through dxwnd but I found if I tabbed out then back into the game it returned to the faux-fullscreen mode with the bar at the top. Not ideal, but I'll take that over battles playing in slow motion.

Now....the issue I still have is not being able to compound magic. I tried the links that were posted in this thread but neither works directly in firefox or IE, and if I paste the link to the site itself into google translate I get a screen full of ascii symbols instead of a translated website. GT works with other websites so I'm not sure what is going on. If anyone has another site that has spell compounding info in english, or even just a .txt file with it I'd really appreciate it.

thank you for your post, i actually just recently made an account here just because i wanted to follow the translation progress on this game, and your post helped quite a bit with solving a lot of issues i had getting to run this game and progress in it.

as for your website issue, do you mean this one: https://www.h-eba.com/gagharv/arcturus/magic2.html ? if so, might i ask what browser you're running it under? i can see the text in japanese text just fine on my desktop in firefox, but it does give me that ascii text issue you mentioned when i try to view the site on my mobile browser. if anyone would be interested, i could also copy this magic compounding guide into google docs and translate it for easier viewing.

also, i saw earlier on in this thread that were some other people experiencing an actor error upon getting a cutscene when trying to re-enter dome. i've just got this same issue, but unfortunately i'm completely unable to click ok, so i don't think that i can bypass it. is there some fix for this particular error, or at least some way in which i can make the game let me press ok? i'm a bit stumped, sadly, and i really want to see the rest of this game.

[Thelostrune]

Second issue was the error when boarding the ship in the Sizz/Maria prologue from a video file failing to play.

Install/activate Intel Indeo 5. You can find instructions and files here: https://soggi.org/misc/articles/Intel-Indeo-video-audio-codec.htm

Third issue I had was the unholy slowdown in combat with win10.

You could try play around with the frame rate options in the in-game settings menu. Lower frame rate has the quirk of speeding up gameplay, but you should check what option work best for you.

also, i saw earlier on in this thread that were some other people experiencing an actor error upon getting a cutscene when trying to re-enter dome. i've just got this same issue, but unfortunately i'm completely unable to click ok, so i don't think that i can bypass it. is there some fix for this particular error, or at least some way in which i can make the game let me press ok? i'm a bit stumped, sadly, and i really want to see the rest of this game.

If you are unable to click on anything or use the enter key on the error box even when hitting the Windows key or Alt+Tabbing, you can temporarily move the /data folder from the directory. As detailed in the thread, the tools used for editing the text for certain cutscenes is not working too well with exporting those files, so temporarily disabling the translation is the only solution if you aren't able to close the box in any way.