OpenGothic

Open source re-implementation of Gothic 2: Night of the Raven.

Motivation: The original Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 are still great games, but it's not easy to make them work on modern systems. The goal of this project is to make a feature complete Gothic game client compatible with the original game data and mods.

---

Work in progress

Development is focused on Gothic 2 and new features are not tested for Gothic 1 compatibility. While Gothic 1 is not officially supported pull requests that fix Gothic 1 — and general — bugs are welcome.

The original game has been replicated fully; you can complete both the main quest and the addon. Check out the bugtracker for a list of known issues.

OpenGothic is designed to utilize features of modern graphic hardware and api's like mesh shaders or ray tracing. While mesh-shader not mandatory, yet don't expect OpenGothic to run well on low-end or outdated graphic cards.

Prerequisites

Gothic 2: Night of the Raven is required as OpenGothic does not provide any built-in game assets or scripts.

Supported systems are:

• Windows (DX12, Vulkan)
• Linux (Vulkan)
• MacOS (Metal)

How to play

Windows

1. If not already done install Gothic. OpenGothic comes with auto-path detection if your Gothic files are in a common path.

   • "C:\Program Files (x86)\JoWooD\Gothic II"
   • "C:\Gothic II"
   • "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Gothic II"

2. Download OpenGothic and extract into a folder of your choice. Available options are:

   • A Pre-Release (recommended)
   • Alternatively a recent test build from CI

3. Run Gothic2Notr.exe.

   If nothing happens check log.txt and look for the line invalid gothic path. In this case OpenGothic fails to find your Gothic installation and you have to explicitly specify its location via -g paramter. Either you create a shortcut to Gothic2Notr.exe and change the target line in Properties to e.g.

   Gothic2Notr.exe -g "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Gothic II"

   or you can edit Gothic2Notr.bat and run this file instead.

Linux

1. If not already done install Gothic via Wine/Proton or copy the game files from a Windows installation.

2. You can download a build from CI and extract into a folder of your choice. Alternatively OpenGothic can be built manually. For Arch the AUR provides a 3rd party package.

3. Run Gothic2Notr.sh -g "~/PlayOnLinux's virtual drives/Gothic2_gog/drive_c/Gothic II" (example path, use path to your Gothic installation instead)

   You can edit Gothic2Notr.sh and change the line exec "$DIR/Gothic2Notr" "$@" to

   exec "$DIR/Gothic2Notr" "$@" -g "~/PlayOnLinux's virtual drives/Gothic2_gog/drive_c/Gothic II"

   to not have to enter path manually every time. Then run Gothic2Notr.sh without arguments to start.

MacOS

1. If not already done install Gothic. Instructions how to obtain the game files can be found here. OpenGothic comes with auto-path detection if your Gothic files are in "~/Library/Application Support/OpenGothic".

2. Download a build from Mac Source Ports and follow the installation instructions given there. Alternatively recent test builds are available from CI that can be extracted into a folder of your choice. You can compile a fresh build as well.

3. Run Gothic2Notr.sh

   If OpenGothic fails to find your Gothic files you have to explicitly specify its location via -g parameter. Change the line exec "$DIR/Gothic2Notr" "$@" to reflect your Gothic path e.g.

   exec "$DIR/Gothic2Notr" "$@" -g "~/PlayOnLinux's virtual drives/Gothic2_gog/drive_c/Gothic II"

---

Modifications

Mods can be installed as usual. Provide the modfile.ini to OpenGothic via -game: parameter to play. Example:

Gothic2Notr.exe -game:Karibik.ini

What's working?

Content mods (retexture/reworld/animations) that only rely on regular scripting and do not use memory hacking.

What's not?

• Ikarus/LeGo

There are ongoing efforts to support parts of it to make at least some popular mods like Chronicles of Myrtana playable. Progress can be tracked in the corresponding issue. An explanantion how Ikarus works is given here.

• Union (32 bit and Windows only, not possible)
• DX11 Renderer - same as Union, but don't worry - OpenGothic has nice graphics out of the box
• AST sdk
• Ninja

Build Instructions

Linux

Install dependencies:

• Ubuntu 20.04/22.04 and their derived distros

source <(cat /etc/os-release | grep UBUNTU_CODENAME)
# latest Vulkan SDK provided externally as Ubuntu packages are usually older
wget -qO - http://packages.lunarg.com/lunarg-signing-key-pub.asc | sudo apt-key add -
sudo wget -qO /etc/apt/sources.list.d/lunarg-vulkan-${UBUNTU_CODENAME}.list http://packages.lunarg.com/vulkan/lunarg-vulkan-${UBUNTU_CODENAME}.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install vulkan-sdk

# distro-provided packages
sudo apt install git cmake g++ glslang-tools libvulkan-dev libasound2-dev libx11-dev libxcursor-dev

• Arch

sudo pacman -S git cmake gcc glslang vulkan-devel alsa-lib libx11 libxcursor vulkan-icd-loader libglvnd

• Fedora

sudo dnf install git cmake gcc-c++ glslang vulkan-loader-devel alsa-lib-devel libX11-devel libXcursor-devel vulkan-validation-layers-devel libglvnd-devel

Compilation

# 1st time build:
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/Try/OpenGothic.git
cd OpenGothic
cmake -B build -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=RelWithDebInfo
make -C build -j $(nproc)

# following builds:
git pull --recurse-submodules
make -C build -j $(nproc)

Executables can be located at OpenGothic/build/opengothic.

MacOS

brew install glslang
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/Try/OpenGothic.git
cd OpenGothic
cmake -H. -Bbuild -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=RelWithDebInfo
cmake --build ./build --target Gothic2Notr

Executables can be located at OpenGothic/build/opengothic.

Video

Available Graphic options

Game menu in gothic is done by scripting. While orignal graphics settings do not apply to current-gen graphics, engine redefines meaning for some of tweakables:

• Settings -> Extended configuration
  • Cloud Shadows mapped to SSAO.
  • Radial Fog mapped to "Volumetric fog"
  • Reflections reused, for screen space reflections
• Settings -> Video settings
  • Internal rendering resolution, for 3D, can be altered here. UI and text is always rendered at full resolution.
• Application command line:
  • Ray tracing: setting affects only capable hardware, off by default for igpu's, add -rt 1 to enable

Rendering distance is not customizable.

Command line arguments

Argument(s)	Description
-g	specify path containing Gothic game data
-game:<modfile.init>	specify game modification manifest (GothicStarter compatibility)
-nomenu	skip main menu
-devmode	enable marvin-mode at start of the game
-w <worldname.zen>	startup world; newworld.zen is default
-save q	load the quick save on start
-save <number>	load a specified save-game slot on start
-v -validation	enable validation layers for graphics api
-dx12	force DirectX 12 renderer instead of Vulkan (Windows only)
-g1	assume a Gothic 1 installation
-g2c	assume a Gothic 2 classic installation
-g2	assume a Gothic 2 night of the raven installation
-rt <boolean>	explicitly enable or disable ray-query
-gi <boolean>	explicitly enable or disable ray-traced global illumination
-ms <boolean>	explicitly enable or disable meshlets
-fxaa <number>	enable FXAA anti-aliasing (number = 1-5, 5 = most expensive AA)
-window	windowed debugging mode (not to be used for playing)