GAUNTLET: DARK LEGACY native port — known issues and limits
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Supported release
  Only the USA PlayStation 2 release, SLUS-20047, is supported. Other
  releases (PAL, Japanese, GameCube, Xbox) are refused by the installer
  rather than misread.

Platforms
  - Linux is the development platform. The game and the installer use X11
    (on Wayland desktops through XWayland). The Linux programs need the GNU
    C library 2.31 or newer and GCC 10's C++ library (distributions from
    2020 on: Ubuntu 20.04, Debian 11, Fedora 32, RHEL 9 and newer).
  - Windows: tested on Windows 11 — installing from the disc in a drive,
    from an image file and from an image mounted as a disc drive, and
    playing, with release 1.0.0. The owner installed 1.3.0 on Windows
    (2026-11-05) and found that its movies needed FFmpeg and opened a
    console window each (fixed since: the game decodes them itself). With
    1.3.1 on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 the game stopped when the New/Load
    screen appeared, whatever the settings (releases 1.1.0 to 1.3.1 give
    NVIDIA's driver a shader it refuses; fixed since, and checked on that
    machine with every graphics option and HD textures on). On that machine
    the game could also lose the graphics device, rarely, during a slow
    first load after an update (a frame of several seconds); fixed in 1.3.2
    and checked there with ten loads from an empty driver shader cache.
    Network play ran between that machine and a Linux computer on a home
    network (1.3.2, both ways); generating HD textures is still untested
    there by a person. Older Windows versions are untested.
  - A graphics card with Vulkan (or DirectX 12 on Windows) is required.

Movies
  The game decodes its movies itself (releases up to 1.3.0 needed FFmpeg).
  Their pictures are the ones FFmpeg decodes, frame for frame;
  their colours follow the PCSX2 emulator's model of the PlayStation 2's
  conversion, which has not been compared with a PlayStation 2 itself.

What is not yet the original's own
  - A new game starts from a recorded copy of the original's session values
    (measured on a PlayStation 2 session), not from the original's own start-up
    code. Play matches the development builds exactly; it is listed because it
    was measured rather than reconstructed.
  - Versus play and team moves are built from the original's code but have not
    been compared against the original running.
  - While the realm map is shown, the game keeps the finished level loaded;
    only the map's voice lines and sounds use the destination.

Performance
  On the tested machine (Radeon RX 580, Ryzen Threadripper 1950X) with every
  graphics option on at 1920x1080, the game holds 60 frames per second in five
  benchmark levels, with no frame over 33 ms when nothing else is using the
  machine. The options leave less headroom than 1.0 had: the slowest 1 % of
  frames take up to 25 ms. A 15-minute four-player session ran without a
  crash and its memory stayed steady, with about three frames per thousand
  over 33 ms while another program also used the machine. If frames are late,
  turn off Character shadows and Ambient occlusion first (README.txt, Settings).

Network play (new in 1.2.0, not in the original)
  - Tested with two copies of the game on one Linux computer (also a Linux
    host with the Windows build joining it under Wine), with internet-like
    delays simulated (round trips of about 150 to 300 ms with jitter), and
    (1.3.2) between a Linux computer and a Windows computer on a home
    network, each hosting once. Not yet over the internet.
  - Players join before the host begins; a game in progress cannot be
    joined.
  - Each computer draws the game slightly ahead of the others' buttons
    (from 1.3.0): over a long route another player can jump back a little
    when they change direction, and a sound can now and then play for an
    attack that did not happen. The game itself is never affected.
  - A computer whose picture runs well below 30 frames a second slows the
    menus and the select screen for everyone.
  - The host listens on IPv4 only (joining an IPv6 address works, in
    brackets).
  - The Tower menu's Shop, Inventory and Manage Character act for player 1,
    as they do on one computer in this port.

Enhancements (not in the original)
  - With the widescreen view, enemies in the widened margins are outside the
    original game's view; they may wait until they come into it, as they would
    have off the edge of a TV picture.
  - No HUD scaling and no controller button remapping (keyboard keys can be
    rebound).
  - Ambient occlusion needs the 3D view without MSAA, so anti-aliasing is then
    SMAA, which is softer on fine detail. The settings page says so.
  - HD textures: some world fire and a few glow overlays that the generator
    does not recognise as effects are upscaled like ordinary surfaces, and a
    few animated items keep their original textures. Turning the row off
    restores the originals from the next level.
  - Xbox button prompts: the Options → Controls picture still shows a
    PlayStation 2 controller (its labels sit on the same positions of an
    Xbox controller). Nintendo-layout controllers get the Xbox letters by
    position, which differ from the letters printed on them; choose
    PlayStation prompts in the settings if that is clearer.
