It looks like there's been no announcement here in the forums yet, but @Ferital recently made the first release of DaggerFX, which is a project similar to KeeperFX and allows to play Daggerfall natively in Windows without the use of emulators like DOSBox.
The difference from Daggerfall Unity (DFU) is that you're essentially playing the same vanilla Daggerfall, just hooked directly into Windows OS (thus bypassing any performance issues arising from emulation). This means that gameplay is exactly the same (save for some bug fixes for now), and there is 100% saved game compatibility. The current release has been tested to play the main quest from start to finish.
DaggerFX -- vanilla DF in Windows
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Ferital
- Layman
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Wed Apr 20, 2011 12:02 pm
- ES Games: Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion
- Platform: PC
Re: DaggerFX -- vanilla DF in Windows
Thank you for the announcement, MrFlibble!
The release is still in beta, and so far I’ve only announced it on a few Discord servers. I’m currently working on Beta 2, which will include several bug fixes as well as quicksave functionality.
The release is still in beta, and so far I’ve only announced it on a few Discord servers. I’m currently working on Beta 2, which will include several bug fixes as well as quicksave functionality.
Re: DaggerFX -- vanilla DF in Windows
Lovely, good luck with perfecting your port!Ferital wrote: Sat Jul 25, 2026 10:28 pm The release is still in beta, and so far I’ve only announced it on a few Discord servers. I’m currently working on Beta 2, which will include several bug fixes as well as quicksave functionality.
I haven't gotten around to test it yet, I have a custom DOS Daggerfall setup for playing, which does not bypass CD copy protection -- Medium install with patches and fixes on the virtual HDD mounted in DOSBox and a separate virtual CD-ROM folder. I suppose I'd need to create a cumulative AREA2 folder with everything from the CD added to it to play DaggerFX?
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Ferital
- Layman
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Wed Apr 20, 2011 12:02 pm
- ES Games: Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion
- Platform: PC
Re: DaggerFX -- vanilla DF in Windows
Thanks! Beta 2 has just been released (https://ferital.itch.io/daggerfx), with quicksave/quickload as a new QoL feature, fixes for several bugs inherited from the original game, and various improvements to DaggerFX native backends, among other changes.
Indeed, for now, it is best to run DaggerFX from a full DF install. However, you can also copy the contents of the Daggerfall CD to a separate directory, then manually edit ZFX.CFG (DaggerFX equivalent of Z.CFG) so that pathCD points to the appropriate ARENA2 directory in that copy. For the final 1.0 release, I will make sure DaggerFX works with any install size.MrFlibble wrote: Sat Aug 01, 2026 1:04 pm I haven't gotten around to test it yet, I have a custom DOS Daggerfall setup for playing, which does not bypass CD copy protection -- Medium install with patches and fixes on the virtual HDD mounted in DOSBox and a separate virtual CD-ROM folder. I suppose I'd need to create a cumulative AREA2 folder with everything from the CD added to it to play DaggerFX?
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Adda
- Associate
- Posts: 19
- Joined: Sat Nov 22, 2014 7:55 pm
- ES Games: Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim
- Platform: PC
- Status: Undead
Re: DaggerFX -- vanilla DF in Windows
This is all very promising, just the kind of thing I'd like for DaggerFall, which looks great in it's original state, something I feel is lost in the Unity version.
I tested the beta out and it works, donno about quests and such, I just did a quick test as I have played DaggerFall too much, I'll return though.
However the framerate seems low, I think I might understand there is a reason for this other then that I use an older computer.
The framerate seems the same everywhere, even in the menus, my guess is that this is because the game get increasingly buggy as framerate goes up in the original version, a fast computer running the original DaggerFall crashes all the time.
But maybe there is a way to make it higher.
Edit: framerate goes up with lower resolutions, so it's my old W510 that is slow, it plays rather well at 640x480 though (CRT in use).
Another ting is the aspect ratio, I would like the original setting (16:10) as well as the new one as I prefer squared pixels.
And one last thing, it would be nice to have separate mouse sensitivity settings for the mouse cursor and mouse look modes.
As for dreams, it would be nice if the map that is included in the game but not used could be used, maybe as an optional feature.
Oh and what about further view distance, I once used a hack for that.
Almost forgot, it would be nice if you could move forwards/backwards and to the side at the same time.
Anyway thanks for the good work!
I tested the beta out and it works, donno about quests and such, I just did a quick test as I have played DaggerFall too much, I'll return though.
However the framerate seems low, I think I might understand there is a reason for this other then that I use an older computer.
The framerate seems the same everywhere, even in the menus, my guess is that this is because the game get increasingly buggy as framerate goes up in the original version, a fast computer running the original DaggerFall crashes all the time.
But maybe there is a way to make it higher.
Edit: framerate goes up with lower resolutions, so it's my old W510 that is slow, it plays rather well at 640x480 though (CRT in use).
Another ting is the aspect ratio, I would like the original setting (16:10) as well as the new one as I prefer squared pixels.
And one last thing, it would be nice to have separate mouse sensitivity settings for the mouse cursor and mouse look modes.
As for dreams, it would be nice if the map that is included in the game but not used could be used, maybe as an optional feature.
Oh and what about further view distance, I once used a hack for that.
Almost forgot, it would be nice if you could move forwards/backwards and to the side at the same time.
Anyway thanks for the good work!
Re: DaggerFX -- vanilla DF in Windows
I finally got around to play a bit and had a crash. Here's my crash log:
For some context, I loaded and continued playing one of my characters, level 11 Ranger. I got two side-quests, one immediately botched (stolen book) -- there was only one tavern in the town, and the quest apparently wanted another tavern than the one where I got the quest to place an NPC.
However, while I was looking for clues, I found an "indoor coven" and took a quest there instead. The quest was to rescue an imprisoned witch from a dungeon, which I did. Once I got her the game started spawning Knights, I dispatched one right in the dungeon, and two more trailed after fast-travel in the town.
Now all Knights had identical gear, some Elven stuff plus an item called "Glass bottle" that looks identical to a potion bottle, but can't be used. I don't think I ever found this item in the DOS version. Anyway, I collected the weapons and sold them in a nearby general store, but kept the bottles in my inventory. Then I travelled to a random town with a bank (asked an NPC about one and went there), hired a room in the nearest inn. The game crashed when I tried to move the bottles from my inventory to the wagon, while being in a rented room.
Also during the same playthrough, I rested in the quest dungeon and levelled up my long blade skill -- and the message never went away, it stuck on the screen. I certainly did encounter the same bug in vanilla DOS game, although not very often. Do you think you could fix it?
Also during questing I had a few replies from NPCs (in the dialogue menu where you pick topics and tone, not the messages displayed in a parchment style text-box) that lack spaces between certain words. Again, this is something that happens to certain dialogue text in vanilla DF as well, I wonder if this could be fixed too?
UPD: I loaded a previous save where I had the bottles in my inventory and tried moving them into the wagon while being indoors (in a store). No crash.
Spoiler:
However, while I was looking for clues, I found an "indoor coven" and took a quest there instead. The quest was to rescue an imprisoned witch from a dungeon, which I did. Once I got her the game started spawning Knights, I dispatched one right in the dungeon, and two more trailed after fast-travel in the town.
Now all Knights had identical gear, some Elven stuff plus an item called "Glass bottle" that looks identical to a potion bottle, but can't be used. I don't think I ever found this item in the DOS version. Anyway, I collected the weapons and sold them in a nearby general store, but kept the bottles in my inventory. Then I travelled to a random town with a bank (asked an NPC about one and went there), hired a room in the nearest inn. The game crashed when I tried to move the bottles from my inventory to the wagon, while being in a rented room.
Also during the same playthrough, I rested in the quest dungeon and levelled up my long blade skill -- and the message never went away, it stuck on the screen. I certainly did encounter the same bug in vanilla DOS game, although not very often. Do you think you could fix it?
Also during questing I had a few replies from NPCs (in the dialogue menu where you pick topics and tone, not the messages displayed in a parchment style text-box) that lack spaces between certain words. Again, this is something that happens to certain dialogue text in vanilla DF as well, I wonder if this could be fixed too?
UPD: I loaded a previous save where I had the bottles in my inventory and tried moving them into the wagon while being indoors (in a store). No crash.