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Requiem: Avenging Angel


Genre: First Person Shooter
Release Year: 1999
Developer: Cyclone Studios
Publisher: 3DO
Age Rating: 18+
Playability Status: Playable (with significant issues)
Tested On: Windows 7 x64, Windows 8 x64
Availability: Copyright retained - Out of print/unavailable

When your boss isn’t happy, it can be a stressful time for anyone at work. While most of us can go and hide in the toilets and pretend to have a poo, poor Malachi isn’t so lucky. You see, his boss is none other than God, THE God, who knows all and sees all. As humanity gets ever more greedy and stupid, God’s displeasure grows and so Malachi takes it upon himself to go to earth and fight the totalitarian regime of the Fallen. Apparently, God isn’t too keen on mortal man paying a visit either, so he must also destroy a space ship mankind has been working on to prevent them reaching heaven before they die. Released in 1999 to a somewhat lukewarm reception, Requiem is languishing in limbo now that the original publisher, 3DO, is no more. Despite its lack of critical and commercial success, the game does have a number of interesting ideas, most notably the inclusion of various magical angelic powers that Malachi can unleash on his foes.

Installation

Requiem: Avenging Angel will install on most modern PCs without a hitch. The installer will, amusingly, tell you that your system is not up to spec, but this can safely be ignored. The installer will also offer to install DirectX 6.1, this step should be skipped. If the installer crashes before you can successfully install the game, browse to the CD on your computer and locate the “SETUP.EXE” file on the root of the CD. Right click on this file and set the compatibility options to run the game in Windows 98 compatibility mode then try again.

Like many old games, Requiem will place save game files in the same directory it is installed to. This can cause problems when running on more modern versions of Windows, so you might want to change the games default installation directory (to C:\Games or something similar) or manually set the read/write permissions on the folder after installation.

Patching

There were two patches released for the game and you should install both. The first patch can be downloaded here and the second patch here. Unfortunately, both patch programs are incompatible with 64 bit versions of Windows. The second patch (patch 1.2) updates only one file for DirectX 8 compatibility. If you are unable to apply this patch, simply download the executable here (link broken? Let me know here) and copy it into your Requiem installation folder. As our copy of the game was pre-patched to version 1.2, we were unable to determine which files are changed in the first patch and so unfortunately we are unable to offer any assistance with applying this first patch.

Running the game

Requiem: Avenging Angel was never the most bug free game even when running on the hardware it was originally designed for. When running it on more modern systems, you can only hope and pray it will work.

In Windows 7, the game can be made to run by browsing to the Requiem folder in Windows Explorer (which is located by default at c:\program files\3DO\Requiem). Once in this folder, firstly change both Requiem.exe and D3D.exe to run in Windows 98 compatibility mode. Next, open the Media sub folder, then open the Movies sub folder. In this folder there should be one file only, called “SMACKW32.DLL”. Delete this file. The game should now run, however this will completely disable the games introduction video and any cut-scenes. This workaround did not work for us when using Windows 8.

One workaround for these problems is to use Windows XP. If you have a copy of XP and you can set it up on a spare hard drive, or as a dual boot system, we found that Requiem ran well under Windows XP using the same modern hardware we used to test and run Windows 7 and 8. The only issue we had was with occasional colour corruption on some of the movies and menus.

Another workaround is to use the DXWnd compatibility tool. Download and configure the tool and use the Requiem Avenging Angel profile as per our tutorial here. Sadly, this workaround only works with software mode rendering, which limits you to 640×480 resolution and low visual quality. The latest version of DXWnd also includes an export file for the Direct3D version of the game, but we were not able to get it working on our test machine. If you want to give the Direct 3D version a try, remember you need to start the “D3D.exe” file in the Requiem folder, rather than the “Software.exe” file.

Can you submit a fix?

Know how to get this game working better in Windows 7 or 8? Help the community by submitting a comment and letting us know!

31 comments

  1. alan says:

    You hace the game?

    Linos not Ford

  2. William says:

    Hey Bucko! I was following this tutorial and it is great. Unfortunately when I try to launch the game it says “Unable to initialize DirectDraw. Try installing DirectX 6.1. Is there any way I can fix this?

    Thanks!

  3. William says:

    Hi Bucko! I have trouble updating to 1.3 because it pops up a patch error saying “Neither command line parameter specified is an existing directory. It would be amazing if you could help me out! Thanks!

  4. xamelfo says:

    This solution work for me, but im still having the problem with the clipping sound when enter in new areas.

  5. User 19191 says:

    I installed the game correctly and it works with the two patches however the game is running at 5 fps. Is there a fix for it.

  6. J says:

    Could you post the 3dfx patched executable so I can use a Glide wrapper?

    Thanks!

  7. teleguy says:

    I made a compatibility patch to get around the DirectX 6 error message in 1.0 and 1.2.
    You might need a DirectDraw Wrapper like DgVoodoo2 or WineD3D for the menus.

    http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=34931&start=980#p435381

  8. Justin says:

    So any ideas on windows 10? Requiems installer hangs on running setup.exe.

  9. teleguy says:

    “Requiems installer hangs on running setup.exe.”

    I had the same problem so I used Universal Extractor.
    http://legroom.net/software/uniextract

    • Justin says:

      Cool program, how exactly did you use it on Requiem? I figured out how to extrat the cab file in the setup folder, but beyond that…

  10. teleguy says:

    Almost all the required game files are in the data1.cab file. That’s all you have to extract. Then copy the Maps folder from the CD into the folder where Universal Extractor put the extracted files.
    You have to launch 3DFX.exe, D3D.exe and Software.exe directly, Requiem.exe and the configurator won’t work because the registry entries are missing.

  11. Justin says:

    So just to be clear, did you get the game running in Windows 10, or just use the recommended program when you couldn’t get setup to work on another OS? I keep getting (under 10) Could not initialize 3d graphics if the res is too high, and if i lower it I get not enough memory or it crashes.

  12. teleguy says:

    Windows 7. I’m also using Windows 98 compatibility mode and dgVoodoo2. This way Direct3D and software mode work fine for me but 3DFX mode required a bit more effort.

  13. teleguy says:

    No, seems to be identical to D3D mode.

    • J says:

      I would still be really happy if someone could post the prepatched 3DFX executable as I’d like to play the game with integer scaling…

      • BuckoA51 says:

        I don’t think that will make much difference on a 3D game.

        • J says:

          It’s noticeable in other early 3D games. Already blurry textures + more blurring from bilinear scaling. If you don’t like that reason, let’s say that I’m running Windows 8/10 and dgVoodoo 2 for some reason does not work on my PC. Given this pitiable situation, I am limited to ~30 fps framerate in native D3D mode because Windows 8/10’s broken DirectDraw support is ignoring flip flags. Can you help me out with the 3DFX 1.3 executable?

    • teleguy says:

      3DFX.exe, D3D.exe and software.exe prepatched to version 1.3.

      • J says:

        Perfect. Thank you! I thought I had checked there a few months ago, but apparently not.

        • Justin says:

          Ah, you beat me to it, I found the 3dfx 1.3 patch on http://www.patches-scrolls.de/.
          A good site for patches. Incidentally the first patch link on this page is messed up on filefronts end. I couldn’t get the game to work so I installed windows 98 se on an old PC to play, SE had Directx 6.1a and the game wouldn’t recognize it, had to use the patch and upgrade directx to 8.

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