Index ⇒ Games Support ⇒ Looking for hard to find game patches

[shadowcat]

Hi, not sure if this is the right sub-forum. I'm searching for some old patches that possibly no one has anymore.


I'll start with just this one: Forsaken 1998 - the history is a little odd.

1998-04-15 = Europe retail = first release (readme says April 2, 1998)
1998-04-24 = Italy / Usa / ? retail = final version (see readme faq, mentions indeo driver)
?? = Patch 1.00
1998-11-23 = Patch 1.01 (EFIGS = English - France - Germany - Italy - Spain) (mentions DX6)


This website mentions there's a 1.00 patch, of which I know nothing about
https://forsakenx.github.io/fsplanet/info.htm


I have zero idea whether it's the 04-24 hotfix or something created after that one. It's not important other than .. well archival completionist ocd research I guess. I'm usually interested in the readme itself to know what / when something changed.

regardless of whether you can dig up anything!

[annoyment]

Knowing the exact filenames would help (although the first twoentries sound to me like discs rather than patches) - this will have to do for now:
https://www.patches-scrolls.de/patch/1715/7/24953
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://ww ... /patches/*
Windows is shutting down

[HcH]

[annoyment]

[shadowcat]

Thanks everyone! You managed to find the mystery Usa Military patch I've heard about
http://www.forsaken.com/downloads/patches/MILITARY.ZIP (use archive)
- what's so weird about this one is that the files have 1998-04-15. It's like the usa one used some earlier build than the Europe counterparts.


EDIT:
ForsPatch09-29.exe is 1.00!


The 1.01 patches all have conflicting timestamp information
forsakenpatch101english.exe
forsakenpatch101french.exe
forsakenpatch101german.exe
forsakenpatch101italian.exe
forsakenpatch101spanish.exe
- most say June 1999 for installer but the files inside are dated 1998-11-23, except for the readme which says 1998-09-29



The wiki mentions 1.00 dumbed down the hardest difficulty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsaken_(video_game)


To make things more confusing for chronologists like me, the dates go like this:

- Europe retail
--- April 2, 1998 = readme
--- 1998-04-15 = exe PE header
--- 1998-04-15 = exe Win32 timestamp


- Europe re-release
--- April 14, 1998 = readme
--- 1998-04-14 = exe PE header (what???)
--- 1998-04-14 = exe Win32 timestamp


- Italy retail
--- April 2, 1998 = readme 1
--- Friday April 24th = readme 2, "Forsaken FAQ for Final version"
--- 1998-04-25 = exe PE header
--- 1998-04-25 = exe Win32 timestamp


- 1.00 patch = 1998-09-29
--- Includes new battle.dat levels, which 1.01 omits
--- Plus exe changes


- English 1.01 patch
--- 1998-09-29 = readme, "Forsaken Patch"
--- 1998-11-23 = exe PE header
--- 1998-11-23 = exe Win32 timestamp


I've yet to compare the Usa release, why only that one needs the Military patch.


===


Copy protection became more interesting when I learned how to dive into the asm. The crypto math for SecuROM 1-5 completely befuddles me though, it's a 9-byte key but the algorithm is Something I've learned I don't need to know.

[shadowcat]

[shadowcat]

Forsaken 1998 version history
https://pastebin.com/raw/wdw7vW9v


Thanks to annoyment for that original 1.0 find!

[shadowcat]

Didn't know that patches-scrolls.com still has archives not on the new patches-scrolls.de website

All 6 patches for Incoming (1998)
https://www.patches-scrolls.com/search. ... m=1&cnt=25


The web faq mentions that early OEM builds are not the full retail game
https://web.archive.org/web/19990223205 ... g/faq.html


More interesting to me is that many OEM builds I find (at least on the Archive) are the early release edition (4 maps, campaign-only mode) and the soundtrack is changed (no old MacDonald remix + slower longer tracks + synth instruments sound like a weaker patchmap). Usa Incoming Forces bundle is the "pre-retail" Incoming release too, but includes the missing farm track). Still, it's very neat to see how the development changed - the OST moreso compared to Retail final.


Were there other games that got this pre-release OEM "demo" treatment? Were the video card releases really that different from normal Retail 3D accelerated builds (texture cache, pop-up, flares, or what else) or just performance boost? I haven't noticed or heard anything for Incoming though - 3dfx Voodoo2 / Riva TNT vs Matrox G200 vs Retail.


And well, the Usa release got a few very minor bugfixes over the Europe retail one. And Usa got a bunch of new audio tracks with small mission narration (haven't tested yet if they're actually used in-game).


EDIT:
Turns out the models and textures changed also
https://www.resetera.com/threads/recent ... on.155341/

[annoyment]