View source for Duke Nukem 3D/DOSBox Plutonium Pak V1.4 and V1.5 Patch Installation

= 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.<br />
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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.<br />
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Thankfully, we can use any file timestamp utility to manually change the timestamps for all of the Duke3D files.<br />
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In a unix shell (or cygwin/mingw on Windows), change to the directory where Duke3D is installed, then run:<br />
  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.)<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can also install Duke3D and the Plutonium Pak in FreeDOS.<br />
The game installs and runs perfectly under VirtualBox running FreeDOS (save for music, which is harder to setup in VirtualBox).<br />
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.<br />
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= DOSBox V1.5 Patch Installation Instructions =
The patch included in the self-extracting PPACK15.EXE (version 2, available [http://dukertcm.com/knowledge-base/downloads-rtcm/duke3d-patchs/ here]) works with timestamp 10-21-1996 1:40PM.<br />
<br />
In a unix shell (or cygwin/mingw on Windows), change to the directory where Duke3D is installed, then run:<br />
  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.)<br />
<br />
3D Realms patch notes for V1.5:<br />
 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/<br />
Detailed patch info: http://dukertcm.com/knowledge-base/documents-online/setup-patch-guide-duke3d.html