Myst IV: Revolution

Myst IV: Revelation

A quick guide on the Myst IV: Revelation utility Revolution. It's not all flight and space sims (well it very nearly is, but sometimes I play something else). I've just completed Myst IV: Revelation and only then did I try out the Revolution utility.

So to save you from doing something similar here's a quick guide on it.

What is it?

Best described by the author himself, Anthony Kleine, and taken from the Myst IV: Revolution GitHub page:

Myst IV: Revolution is a command line tool that can perform various fixes for the game Myst IV: Revelation. IMPORTANT: this tool requires the Visual Studio 2019 C++ Redistributable to be installed for both x86 and x64. If the tool or the game will not start, please ensure that both are installed. Currently, Myst IV: Revolution is only available for Windows. The DVD release, Steam release and GOG release are supported. Supports Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, with an SSE4-capable CPU and at least 1 GB of RAM. Although Myst IV: Revolution itself is only about 60 MB large, it will create a backup of your game files, which requires up to 3 GB of free disk space.

The core things it can fix include:

• Toggle Full Screen.

• Toggle Camera Inertia (disable mouse acceleration).

• Toggle Sound Fading (remove sound crossfading for faster navigation).

• Edit Transition Time (reduce/remove scene fade transition for faster navigation).

• Fix Loading (faster navigation).

Much of the navigation delay was 'designed in' by the development team. Anthony's Revolution utility makes changes to reduce/remove much/all of this delay! And it takes a backup before making changes so they can all be reversed, if desired.

You can read more at the Myst IV: Revelation GitHub.

Obtaining Myst IV: Revolution

The latest version (v1.2.4 at time of writing) is available from the GitHub Releases. Once obtained you simply need to extract the contents of the zip file to a folder. When you run it you should see the following (see screenshot).

Myst IV: Revolution, search for an installation and menu options.

Disabling dgVoodoo2

In a previous Myst IV article, Myst IV: Revelation running in Windows 10, it was recommended to use dgVoodoo2. Unfortunately dgVoodoo2 doesn't seem to be compatible with the Revolution changes and will cause the game to crash after the intro movie journey to Tomahna.

dgVoodoo2 was installed in the <Myst IV installation folder>\bin folder. The easiest method is to move (not copy) dgVoodoo2 files to a sub-folder in this folder. You can always switch back, if desired.

To disable dgVoodoo2:

• Go to the  <Myst IV installation folder>\bin folder.

• Create a sub-folder, e.g. dgVoodoo2.

• Move (not copy) the following files into this sub-folder:

D3D8.dll
D3D9.dll
D3DImm.dll
DDraw.dll
dgVoodoo.conf
dgVoodooCpl.exe

Note: In order to get Myst IV to run in full screen, it was required use the Revolution utility to toggle full screen off and then toggle it back on again.

Further info

For a background article on what it took to make these changes to Myst IV: Revelation, check out Anthony's Medium article: Fixing the Loading in Myst IV: Revelation, the first part of two part article.

It's quite the interesting read, on the work involved in making these changes!

Setup summary

This ia an updated summary on the preferred method to setup Myst iV: Revelation to run under Win10. For the location of various patches and advice see Myst IV: Revelation running in Windows 10. Steps are:

• Install retail version.

• Install official v1.00 to v1.03 patch.

• Install no cd patch.

• Install IndirectInput (for Win10 compatibility).

• Install Myst iV: Revolution (for optional speed fixes and Win10 compatibility).

Finally...

Huge credit and thanks to Anthony Kleine for the Revolution tool. This took substantial effort to change the 'baked in; transition delays inherent in this game.

Great work Anthony!