Heya Dragon fans!

Thanks for reading my guide, first of all. I played IotD back in the day, but alas, never completed it until this year when it hit Steam. I created this guide because there are many hidden tweaks available to increase the graphical goodness that are inaccessible in-game. I hope my work here furthers your enjoyment of this classic title, or possibly tempts you to play the game again if you were initially turned off by the graphics. Your eyes will definitely be pleased after applying these configuration tweaks, that I can assure you.

There are a few important things to note:

1. The FoV (Field of View) changes I have made in this patch will NOT take effect if you load a previous save-game with the default FoV. What does this mean? It means you will need to start a new game, from the beginning, if you want to reap the benefits of the much improved FoV. I know this can suck, but it really is worth it for the extra visibility and eye candy. There is nothing I can do to force it to apply the new FoV on a previously saved game, unfortunately.

2. The registry tweaks and provided file found in my guide were made using my own Windows 7 x64 registry. If you are using Windows 7 32-bit, Windows XP, Vista, 8, or 10, keep in mind that the registry format could be different, and thus applying these changes may or may not work. Again, these tweaks came from my Windows 7 x64 registry! You have been warned! Do not come back here and yell at me if you corrupt your registry. That said, none of these tweaks should harm your system; the worst possible case scenario is that they don't take effect due to registry entry location differences between different operating systems.

Without further ado, let's move on to the good stuff.

You can see by the following screenshots what some of the "new and improved" graphics look like after applying the "GFXe patch." All of the screenshots have 8x MSAA applied, but the final two shots really showcase the improvement of the AA changes.


Shadow detail, original and unmodified:


Shadow detail, new with GFXe patch:


FoV (70), original and unmodified (with original shadows), at max zoom distance:


FoV (100), new with GFXe patch (with GFXe shadows), at max zoom distance:


Here a couple shots showcasing the 8x MSAA visual quality and new Level of Detail setting.
Note the absence of "jaggies" or pixelation on edges of objects.
Also note how all of the town buildings are now drawn at the highest LoD:





Since the draw distance and LoD stepping tweaks I've made are hard/impossible to discern from static screenshots, I haven't bothered to post any. Take my word when I say that the shadow LoD transitions and visual quality is much improved with the GFXe patch vs. the originals.

Here's a quick rundown of the changes I've made in my "GFXe patch," complete with descriptions:

1. Fixed LoD-popping on 3D objects. I.E., LoD changes are now disabled entirely. There remains only one LoD quality, which is the highest. This is a VERY noticeable change in the quality of objects drawn at a distance. Towns, buildings, trees, etc., will no longer "pop" or draw higher-polygon models as you fly towards them, or lower-poly models as you fly away. They will remain at the highest detail level regardless of distance.
2. Increased horizontal FOV to 100. The default of 70 is much too low for modern high-resolution widescreen displays. 100 hFOV is close to ideal for a high-resolution 16:9 display, with none to minimal extra added distortion (otherwise known as the "fishbowl" effect).
3. Enabled Vsync with Triple Buffering. The result of this is no more weird camera sensitivity issues, a silky smooth picture with no tearing, and the capability of a variable frame-rate while using Vsync.
4. Enabled Bump Mapping. Adds to visual fidelity.
5. Enabled Uncompressed Textures. Adds to visual fidelity.
6. Increased Max Lights to 256. Enables the game to render more simultaneous light sources.
7. Increased Shadow Texture Size to 256. Allows for higher quality shadow rendering.
8. Increased Shadow Detail/Shadow LoD increased on all creatures/monsters/dragons. Sharper (but still soft!) shadows for all 3D objects, and the obvious LoD-popping on shadows is now a much smoother transition. The shadow LoD transition will also now occur at a much higher distance.
9. Shadow intensity scaled back a bit. In my opinion, the original shadows are over-dark. This was also a necessary change when tweaking shadow detail/LoD and distances, otherwise things looked weird, especially in the distance. Overall, with my changes, it's visually a very small reduction in the gamma for shadows, with the positive effect of MUCH more detailed shadows all around.
11. Enabled 8x MSAA. This will break the internal screenshot capability. Steam screenshots still work, so continue reading to discover how to take Steam screenshots.
12. Disabled Mouse Acceleration. This is pretty obvious, and I won't go into detail here about the negatives of mouse acceleration. :)
13. 3 spells per group instead of 4, with 4 total spell groups instead of 3. In my opinion, this helps to visually organize spells better. This does not impact gameplay in the slightest, other than a reorganization of the spell bar.

Contrary to popular belief, Steam screenshot capability *DOES* indeed function. It is how I captured the comparison screenshots above. For some reason, it is bound to the first keybind for "PAUSE" in-game. You can rebind this key to whatever you like, but keep in mind it will still act as both a PAUSE function and the Steam screenshot button. That doesn't really create too much of an issue, though: bind the first "PAUSE" key to what you want your Steam screenshot key to be, and the secondary "PAUSE" key to your desired actual pause key, and you will then have a function for both Steam screenshot and PAUSE.

To download the GFXe patch for The I of the Dragon, simply click this Dropbox link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tgjy4thy7993wrk/IotD_GFXe_patch.rar?dl=0

It will download an uncompressed RAR archive entitled "IotD_GFXe_patch.rar" containing one "IotD_GFXe.reg" registry patch file, and one "dimap.dll" file used for saving keybinds.

1. Download the RAR archive "IotD_GFXe_patch.rar" from the link above.
2. Extract both files from the RAR archive.
3. Double-click the "IotD_GFXe.reg" file and then accept/click "OK" to add the information to your registry. Optionally, you may first right-click the file and click "edit" (with Notepad) to verify the registry entries are not malicious.
4. Simply place the "dimap.dll" into your The I of the Dragon installation folder. Typically for the Steam version, you can find this at "Steam\SteamApps\common\The I of the Dragon".
5. Run the game.
6. Relax your eyes.
7. Profit.

Here I will list every single configuration tweak, in it's pure form, so that you know what is inside the "GFXe patch." Feel free to also verify the contents of my registry patch by first opening it with Notepad. You can also use the following code to create your own registry patch, if for example you only want to apply one or two tweaks, etc.

WARNING: The registry tweaks and provided file found in my guide were made using my own Windows 7 x64 registry. If you are using Windows 7 32-bit, Windows XP, Vista, 8, or 10, keep in mind that the registry format could be different, and thus applying these changes may or may not work. Again, these tweaks came from my Windows 7 x64 registry! You have been warned! Do not come back here and yell at me if you corrupt your registry. That said, none of these tweaks should harm your system; the worst possible case scenario is that they don't take effect due to registry entry location differences between different operating systems.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Primal]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Primal\Dragon\Debug]
"SpellsInGroup"="3"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Primal\Dragon\Graphics]
"ColorBits"="32"
"MultiSampling"="8"
"TripleBuffer"=dword:00000001
"VSync"=dword:00000001
"VerticalFOV"="-1"
"CompressedTextures"=dword:00000000
"HorizontalFOV"="100"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Primal\Dragon\Graphics\Lighting]
"MaxLights"="256"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Primal\Dragon\Graphics\Models]
"DisableLOD"=dword:00000001
"LODBlendDistance"="0"
"BumpMapping"=dword:00000001
"BumpDistance"="1000"
"LODMultiplier"="1"
"Processing"="0"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Primal\Dragon\Graphics\Shadows]
"Downsample"=dword:00000001
"TextureSize"="256"
"FilterType"="2"
"Intensity"="1.2"
"RemoveBackFaced"=dword:00000000
"FastShadowDistance"="105"
"FilterDistance"="1000"
"LODs"="3"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Primal\Dragon\Graphics\VertexProcessing]
"SoftwareVertexProcessing"=dword:00000000
"MixedVertexProcessing"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Primal\Dragon\Input]
"ResetActionMapping"=dword:00000000
"MouseAcceleration"=dword:00000000
"SkipEnumeration"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Primal\Dragon\Options]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Primal\Dragon\Options\Video]
"Gamma"="0.5"
"GeometryQuality"="2"
"Sky"=dword:00000001
"StaticShadowsQuality"="2"
"EffectsQuality"="2"
"CloudsQuality"="2"
"Quality"="1"
"CustomQuality"=dword:00000001

Though this game isn't very popular (and never was), I have always found it original, creative, and entertaining. Besides, what other game lets you be a dragon? I mean, come on! :)

I've spent a few days finalizing this and getting all the visual tweaks and distances and stuff to play nicely together, so drop me a line in the comments if you like (or dislike) these changes, have questions or comments, etc. Any feedback is good feedback in my book.

Now get out there and slay some monsters - maybe save some humans while you're at it...if you aren't too hungry, that is.