DOSBox Plutonium Pak (V1.4) Patch Installation Instructions

As of version 0.74, DOSBox does not support file timestamp operations properly. For this reason, file operations in DOSBox will update the timestamp to the current date rather than maintain the original file's timestamp, which is an undesired behaviour for archive files/installers. Further, the latest DOSBox Daum version (Jan. 27, 2014) despite improving this, does not seem to handle time zones properly.

The Duke3D Plutonium Pak patch requires that the timestamps for the Duke3D files be set to 04-19-1996 1:30PM, otherwise the patch will immediately fail.

Thankfully, we can use any file timestamp utility to manually change the timestamps for all of the Duke3D files.

In a unix shell (or cygwin/mingw on Windows), change to the directory where Duke3D is installed, then run:

 touch -d "1996-04-19 13:30:00" ./*

Note: if you do not wish to update the timestamps on all files within the present working directory, you should instead manually choose which files to set. (All Duke3D related files should have this date though.)

Alternatively, you can also install Duke3D and the Plutonium Pak in FreeDOS.
The game installs and runs perfectly under VirtualBox running FreeDOS (save for music, which is harder to setup in VirtualBox).
Additionally, you could also move the files out of the virtual machine and into DOSBox after the installation; this method is far more involved though.

DOSBox V1.5 Patch Installation Instructions

The patch included in the self-extracting PPACK15.EXE (version 2, available here) works with timestamp 10-21-1996 1:40PM.

In a unix shell (or cygwin/mingw on Windows), change to the directory where Duke3D is installed, then run:

 touch -d "1996-10-21 13:40:00" ./*

Again, note: if you do not wish to update the timestamps on all files within the present working directory, you should instead manually choose which files to set. (All Duke3D related files should patch properly with this date though.)

3D Realms patch notes for V1.5:

NOTE:

Save games and configuration files from older versions of Duke 3D
will be deleted if they exist.  They are not compatible with the
new version of the game, and you will need to reconfigure after
installation.

-----------------------------------
December 11, 1996

Here is a quick list of the changes from v1.4 to v1.5.

1. The major bug was fixing a memory corruption error that definitely
   caused the 'slowdown' bug.  This bug probably fixed various other
   things like some random crashes, and save/load problems.  While it
   might not fix everything, memory corruption is the worst possible
   bug, and this one was fixed and the slowdown/massive caching
   seemed to go away.  If you still experience lots of disk caching
   when playing the game, load SmartDrv at DOS before you play the
   game.  Typing "smartdrv 4000" works well.
   NOTE: You will need more than 8 megs to do this.

2. Fixed a bug where the game would pop up the "Mighty Foot" weapon,
   when other weapons were available.  Really annoying.

3. Fixed the bug where if you save a game, exit to DOS and reload
   from the main menu, you got E1L1 music, no matter what level
   it was.

Thanks to many people online that tested special versions for us,
or helped provide more information very quickly.  It enabled us to
get this patch done as fast as we did.

--The Duke Nukem Team

Additional Resources

Patch related downloads: http://dukertcm.com/knowledge-base/downloads-rtcm/duke3d-patchs/
Detailed patch info: http://dukertcm.com/knowledge-base/documents-online/setup-patch-guide-duke3d.html