Installation

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Important (Windows users)!

You'll need to install the Doom 3 patch 1.3.1 and copy the DevIL.dll (shipped with Darkmod) library to your C:\Windows\system32 folder otherwise D3 will crash.


Requirements

In order to install The Dark Mod, you need to have the v1.3.1 patch for Doom 3 installed. See the download section below for links.

Make sure that the install path for Doom 3:

  • does not contain any blanks (e.g. C:/doom3 is ok, C:/Programm files/Doom3 is not)
  • is in all lowercase (e.g. /usr/local/lib/doom3 is ok, /home/username/MyDoom is not)

The latter point is especially important for Linux.

Doom 3 currently supports Windows, Linux and Mac platforms, but The Dark Mod currently supports only Windows and Linux.

Installing The Dark Mod

Install on Windows

  1. Download the DarkMod package, see below.
  2. In the distribution is a DLL contained named DevIL.dll which is required for image handling. Since as the time of writing there is no installer, so the user must install this library himself. To do this the DLL must be copied in the windows/system32 directory. The DLL can also be put in any other directory where a path is pointing to (meaning that the directory is included in the PATH environment variable when Doom 3 is run). If the library is not found when the mod is loaded, Doom 3 will show its blue window and can not be started.
  3. The downloaded archive must be extracted directly into the Doom 3 folder, which will create a darkmod folder in there, with all files necessary to run the mod.

Install on Linux

  1. You need the native version of Doom 3 installed and patched to v1.3.1, see below for download links and install instructions.
  2. Since there is no 64 bit version of either Doom 3 or The DarkMod, on 64 bit systems you also need the 32 bit compatibility libraries installed. On some distributions like SuSE, these are included in the default installation, but on Kubuntu/Ubuntu you need to install the package called ia32-lib and all its dependencies. Otherwise, even the installer for Doom 3 will fail to run.
  3. The downloaded DarkMod archive must be extracted into your own user's Doom 3 folder, which is usually under /home/username/.doom3/ (substitute "username" with your own username, of course). This will create a darkmod folder in there, with all files necessary to run the mod.

Running the Mod

Changing the screen resolution

You can choose from the various screen resolutions in the main menu under "Settings". You'll have to restart the game for the changes to take effect.

Note to widescreen users: Doom 3 resolutions default to 4:3 screen aspect ratios. If you're running wide screens (e.g. 1280x800, 1440x900, 1680x1050) you'll need to adjust that ratio. Open the file DoomConfig.cfg and add/change the line

seta r_aspectRatio "2"

A value of 2 corresponds to 16:10, whereas setting this to 0 refers to 4:3 ratios (which is the default). The value can also be changed during runtime via the console, no restart required.

Loading the mod manually

In order to run The Dark Mod, Doom 3 can be started normally. In the lower right corner you can see a button saying "MOD". Clicking on this button will cause a dialog to appear listing all the mods currently installed. You can select Darkmod by choosing the appropriate entry from the dialog and load it. This will cause Doom 3 to load the mod data and initialze the mod.

Using the command line or a shortcut (recommended)

Alternatively, The Dark Mod can be initialized directly from the command line (or via a shortcut from the desktop) by using the command line:

  • Windows: "<path to Doom 3>/doom3.exe set fs_game darkmod"
  • Linux: "<path to Doom 3>/doom3 +seta com_allowConsole 1 +set fs_game darkmod"

It is recommended to use this way of running The Dark Mod, as it appears that Doom 3 will handle paths more consistently then loading the mod manually.

Please see also the articles about Doom3 command line and Creating Desktop Shortcuts for Doom3.

Performance Tweaks

To make TDM run a little bit faster:

  • Run it in fullscreen - about a 4fps increase.
  • Turn down anisotropic filtering (in DoomConfig.cfg), because it defaults to 8. - ~1-2fps increase.

Of course there is the "Low/Medium/High/Ultra" settings, but do NOT use the"Ultra" graphics setting, as this will result in many textures not being shown.

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