Skip to content

Diablo

Jump to bottom
Elisha Riedlinger edited this page Oct 13, 2023 · 8 revisions

Diablo

Status

Supported on Windows 10/11

I am using the retail CD version of Diablo, with the latest update v1.09.

Patch updated: October 13th, 2023

Problem

The first problem I had with Diablo was that the colors looked messed up on Windows 10.

Diablo Color

Initial Solution

There are other patches for Diablo like this one here. However I found out that Diablo also worked fine with the DdrawCompat libraries.

Current Solution

The current solution no longer requires DDrawCompat. Instead I am using Dd7to9, which is able to convert the DirectDraw APIs to Direct3D 9.

No-CD Patch

I still had one issue. Diablo required the CD in order to run. Many modern computers (like my laptop) no longer have a CD drive. The game will work if you create an ISO and mount the ISO but that requires extra space (to store the ISO) and it is a hassle to ensure that the ISO is mounted (even though DxWrapper can do this for you). So I opened the game in OllyDbg and IDA Pro to debug it.

After some debugging I found out that if you change the code from a PUSH 1 to a PUSH 0 at address 0041ACF0 and you change the code from a PUSH 0048E7B4 to a PUSH 0048E740 at address 0041ACF7 you could tell Diablo to look for the DIABDAT.MPQ file locally rather than off the CD. All I needed to do was to copy the DIABDAT.MPQ file from the CD to the Diablo folder. This would allow the game to run without the CD.

However after testing Diablo I quickly discovered that this patch prevented me from joining a multi-player game on Battle.net. After some additional troubleshooting I found out that if I undid the hot patch after the CD check but before I joined the multi-player game it would allow me to play the game without the CD and still join a multi-player game on Battle.net.

Diablo Multi-player

Note: please only use this no-CD patch if you own the Diablo game legally. I am against piracy of any form!

Installation

In order to install the Windows 10/11 patch for Diablo you can follow these steps:

  1. Download the fix below.
  2. Unzip the files to your Diablo installation folder (where the Diablo.exe file exists).
  3. Copy DIABDAT.MPQ from the CD to Diablo installation folder.
  4. Start the game and enjoy!

If you run into issues check the compatibility settings. I am running with the following compatibility settings:

Compatibility Settings

Download

Here is the Download for the patch to fix Diablo on Windows 10/11. This also includes a hot fix to remove the CD check.

This download contains 3 files:

  • ddraw.dll
  • dxwrapper.dll
  • dxwrapper.ini

Other Links

Also check out the Diablo DirectDraw Patch.

Clone this wiki locally