This is NOT from the original authors, I used AI to trawl the mod and create a feature list/summary.

Wizardry 8 Fan Patch v1.28

A comprehensive community patch for Wizardry 8 that fixes over 50 bugs from the original game, adds quality-of-life features, significantly improves performance, and expands the game with new content and options. Compatible with the retail CD, GOG, and Steam versions of the game.

This README is a community-written English reference. The original patch is by a Russian-speaking developer; the official changelogs are in Patch128_README/.

Table of Contents

• Bug Fixes
  • Crash Fixes
  • Gameplay Fixes
  • Exploit Fixes
  • Text Fixes
• Features
  • Party and Mercenaries
  • Widescreen and Windowed Mode
  • Hotkeys and Controls
  • Combat
  • Inventory and Trading
  • NPC Dialog
  • Portraits and Voices
  • Quick Save and Load
  • Video and Startup
  • Performance
  • Crash Logging
  • Parallel World (Mod Switching)
  • Localization
  • Character Creation
  • In-Game Settings
  • Launcher
  • Cheats and Developer Tools
• Compatibility

Bug Fixes

Crash Fixes

The original game had many ways to crash. These are all fixed automatically:

• Creating an Android character no longer crashes when navigating locations or clicking portraits.
• Androids in the party no longer crash the game when attacking.
• The "AttackModeMod: ERROR - Invalid attack mode" error is fixed.
• Spells with zero mana cost no longer crash the spell list.
• Pressing "Mind Read" on an NPC with an unconscious, dead, lost, or paralyzed character no longer crashes.
• The Fuzzfas blunt wood hit sound on characters with light armor no longer crashes (was caused by incorrect sound file references in the original).
• The game no longer crashes after defeating Dark Savant and viewing the credits.
• Having 7 mercenaries no longer crashes when an NPC tries to say a PC quote.
• Pressing the repeat button after using the last of any item (potions, scrolls, etc.) no longer crashes.
• Pressing move during the "Loading a saved game..." screen no longer crashes.
• Random crashes in locations and battles caused by mesh model display failures are fixed.
• Hovering the mouse over an object or creature then minimizing/closing the window no longer crashes.
• Talking to an NPC then minimizing/closing the window no longer crashes.
• Closing the game from the taskbar (at the main menu or during gameplay) no longer crashes.
• Models with more than 128 frames no longer crash (limit raised to 255).
• NPC names exceeding 39 characters no longer cause a stack overflow.
• Characters with very long nicknames combined with long skill names no longer cause an "Error creating box" error.
• Loading a zero-size file no longer crashes.
• In "Assemble a Squad," pressing Enter on an empty character slot no longer crashes.
• Chatting with quotes, then immediately contacting an NPC and opening inventory no longer crashes.
• Several memory leaks are fixed: DEL key in text tabs, loading/starting new games, hovering over the automap/radar/squad formation (which leaked 28-180+ KB each time).

Gameplay Fixes

• Poison Cloud -- Negative effects now correctly apply to the party (were broken in the original).
• Magic Screen -- Now actually works on monsters (was unimplemented).
• Weapon "Seize/Possess" effect -- Now functions correctly (was never triggered in the original).
• Negative resistances -- Were broken in the original; now work correctly.
• Monster item drops -- Fixed duplicate item drops after killing monsters without NPCs present, and fixed items not dropping when the drop ID was the last in the database.
• Neutral NPC memory -- Neutral NPCs no longer randomly "forget" their state and become friendly.
• Potion brewing -- Characters no longer brew potions during rest while under Paralysis, Sleep, Web, Treason, Blindness, or Madness.
• Return to Portal -- Multiple consecutive teleports no longer record incorrect coordinates that could cause the party to fall through the floor.
• NPC Charm overflow -- NPC relationship values no longer overflow when charmed.
• Item bonus cap -- The sum of stat bonuses from equipped items was capped at 125; removed.
• Character stat overflow -- Stats (like mobility) could drop to 1 when total bonuses from effects exceed 128. A fix is available but disabled by default; enable it by setting FixCharacterValueOverflow=1 in wiz8.ini.
• Fact data overflow -- Fact data now supports more than 1000 IDs by using unsigned numbers.
• Base resistance display -- Character creation screen now shows the actual base resistance instead of always showing 25.
• Fatal Throw / Armor Piercing -- These two ability checks were swapped; corrected.
• Mass spell kill stats -- Mass destruction spells now properly count toward character kill statistics.
• NPC trading -- Switching characters no longer resets the scroll position and selected product.
• "You can't search on the run!" -- No longer spams the General Text tab.
• ALT+TAB -- Now correctly resets active CTRL/SHIFT/ALT hotkey states instead of leaving them stuck.
• Item names -- Now display with correct spacing before the quantity in chest lists.
• Mercenary health -- Seriously injured mercenaries no longer appear healthy when dismissed.
• Item combining -- The last item in squad items no longer disappears when combining.
• Alchemist message -- "The Alchemist created..." message during rest uses the correct color.
• Dark Savant swamp -- Two bugs fixed.
• Passive negative effects -- Now properly saved to save files.
• Windowed mode mouse cursor -- Overlapping or skipping windows no longer causes the game to fail to hide the system mouse cursor.
• DirectX 7 NVIDIA bug -- An original DirectX 7 rendering bug related to NVIDIA hardware is fixed (use the included srDD_DirectX7_1.dll).
• OpenGL rendering -- Main screen no longer drawn into squares with the OpenGL backend.
• Glide2x resolutions -- GOG/Steam versions now show all available screen resolutions instead of just two.

Exploit Fixes

• The party can no longer run endlessly in combat without losing energy.
• Using Identify on an item with unknown curse status no longer corrupts variables.
• Unconscious, dead, lost, or paralyzed characters can no longer pickpocket.
• It is no longer possible to avoid losing a party member when picking up the Idol by save-loading.
• RPC "favorite" items can no longer be stolen by right-clicking another character.
• Unidentified ammo and scrolls can no longer be split.
• Canceling the location transfer menu no longer repositions the party.
• Return to Portal and Set Portal are now blocked in the Cosmic Circle when Elizdes and Warlock are present. The ban is lifted once those NPCs leave.
• Area-targeting spells no longer cause certain monsters to walk to the target area.
• Giving the Umpani flag to Zant no longer grants a repeatable reward for the same action.

Text Fixes

• "Helm of Serinity" corrected to "Helm of Serenity."
• "Phoozang" corrected to "Phoonzang."
• Fixed a mistyped letter in the "Where is" English keyword.
• Skill names no longer truncated (e.g., "Modern" now shows as "Modern Weapons").
• A spell listed at 0 mana incorrectly colored white is now red.
• 142 typo corrections for the Russian Buka release (optional, Russian-language only; enable with StringDataBukaFixOrachin=1 in wiz8.ini).
• Corrected Russian spell descriptions for Bogatyr, Magic Armor, Speed, and Weak Armor from the Buka release (optional; enable with SpellDescBukaTechnicalAlexDautov=1 in wiz8.ini).

Features

Party and Mercenaries

• 7 mercenaries -- The patch fully supports having up to 7 mercenaries in the party at once (the original supported far fewer). All related systems (inventory, combat, dialog, favorite items) are updated to handle the larger party size.

Widescreen and Windowed Mode

• Automatic widescreen FOV -- The patch calculates the correct field of view at any resolution, eliminating the image stretching that plagued widescreen setups. Recalculates dynamically when window borders change.
• Full windowed mode -- Play in a resizable window at any resolution with aspect ratio preservation and custom positioning. Optional features (each requiring a toggle in wiz8.ini): always-on-top, background running (game continues when minimized), and position/resolution memory across sessions.
• CTRL+F12 -- Toggle between windowed and fullscreen from the main menu or inventory.
• DirectX 7 support expanded to resolutions up to 2048x2048.
• Bink video fullscreen -- Optional setting to play cutscene videos at native screen resolution instead of 640x480. Enable via the "Full screen video screensaver mode" checkbox in the launcher.

Hotkeys and Controls

The patch adds extensive keyboard controls. Three layouts are available: Default, WASD, and Extended.

Global:

Inventory (Extended layout):

Spell Book:

To target a specific party member with a spell, enable OnSHIFT123456789_TargetCharacterInSpellPanel=1 in wiz8.ini, then use SHIFT+1-8.

NPC Dialog:

Other:

• ALT+SHIFT protection -- The patch intercepts ALT+SHIFT in inventory to prevent accidental OS keyboard language switching during gameplay.

Combat

• Spell selection modes -- Configurable via SpeedMethodClickSelectSpell in wiz8.ini. The default (1) enables smartcast with automatic spell power selection based on most commonly used power level. Other modes: 0 = original interface, 2 = last green (safe) level, 3 = last yellow (moderate risk) level, 4 = last orange (high risk) level.
• Monster animation speed -- Fully configurable, eliminating the need for the third-party Wiz8fast tool.
• Additional combat speed -- Three acceleration options (unlocked after defeating the final boss): None, Very Fast, and Very Fast + No Sound Delay.
• Target selection -- Multiple improved targeting behaviors, including visibility-based selection with Spell Ambush support.
• Lockpick energy loss -- Optional feature where characters lose energy on failed lockpick attempts (disabled by default).
• Automatic battle save -- Optional automatic saving before each battle. Enable in the in-game settings.
• Friendly monster victory -- Shows "We won!" instead of "You won!" when friendly monsters participate.
• Resistance cap -- Can be doubled from 100 to 200 by setting ResistanceLimitMod=1 in wiz8.ini.
• Monster group size -- The original limit of 9 monsters per group is raised to 45 by default. Set MonsterGeneratorNumberOfAppearanceLimit=1 in wiz8.ini to restore the original limit of 9.

Inventory and Trading

• Store color coding -- Multiple color schemes that highlight items by type (weapons, armor, potions, scrolls, etc.) in shop interfaces.
• Merchant stock limits -- Only 3 of the same item category displayed per merchant.
• Long item names -- Second line no longer cut off.
• Unidentified item safety -- Unidentified items can no longer be combined.
• Ammunition curse status -- Now visible when set in the database.
• Configurable merchant restocking -- Separate timers for "always in stock" items and rotating stock.
• Pickpocket messages -- Theft successes and failures now appear in the Communication log ("Nick has stolen item!", "Nick has stolen X gold!", etc.).
• RPC favorite items -- Recruited NPCs can store their favorite items in Squad Items and take them when dismissed (supports 2nd and 3rd favorites too).
• Transparent radar -- Removes the black background from the minimap and party formation overlays (enabled by default).

NPC Dialog

• Keyword color coding -- Dialog keywords are color-coded by function: gray (doesn't exist), white (no script), pink (payment prompt), blue (conditional), purple (branching), green (fact transition), light green (unconditional), orange (classified), brown (story), and more. Enabled by default.
• Hide dead keywords -- Option to completely hide keywords that don't lead anywhere.

Portraits and Voices

• 85+ new portraits -- Dwarves, hobbits, felpurr, dragons, rawulfs, elves, humans, fairies, lizardmen, and more. Added without replacing any originals.
• 16-bit medium portraits supported (without animation); 8-bit for large and small.
• Free portrait selection -- Option to allow any portrait regardless of race and gender.
• NPC portrait access -- Unchecking the "NPC" option in portrait selection gives access to NPC portraits (e.g., Miles) for player characters.
• Improved animations -- Better mouth and eye-blink animations on portraits.
• Expandable voice packages -- Up to 5 voice selection checkboxes (the original had 2).

Quick Save and Load

• ALT+Q to quick save, CTRL+Q to quick load the most recent save.
• 1-3 rotating quick save slots (default: 3) with customizable filename prefix.
• Screenshot numbering -- Screenshot numbers are now remembered across game restarts, so new screenshots no longer overwrite old ones.

Video and Startup

• Granular video skipping -- Choose exactly which startup videos to skip: intro, prologue, new game video, or any combination. Set HideVideo to 8 in wiz8.ini to skip everything. The default (1) skips just the intro.
• Instant launch -- Skip the startup delay entirely.
• Loading screen -- A "Please wait" screen is shown before the main menu appears.
• No CD required -- The CD-ROM dependency is removed.

Performance

The patch includes significant engine-level optimizations:

• Battle freezes reduced ~50% -- Battles with many monsters that used to freeze for 40 seconds now freeze for ~21 seconds (or 21s down to ~10s).
• Graphics processing -- Up to 37% improvement on weaker CPUs.
• Monster database caching -- Loaded once into memory instead of repeatedly from disk.
• Main menu GPU usage -- Reduced from 100% to ~1% by capping the menu at 1 FPS.
• All interface render rates limited to reduce CPU/GPU load (game world unaffected).
• File I/O batching -- Multiple read calls merged into single operations (e.g., 11 reads down to 1 for textures, 7 reads down to 1 for mesh models).
• 3DSetup startup -- Reduced from 6 seconds to 2 seconds.
• Message file caching -- All message files loaded to memory.
• Renderer optimizations -- Multiple assembler-level mesh model improvements.
• Image cache control -- Configurable via ClearCacheFileSTI in wiz8.ini: 0 = persistent cache (default, best performance), 1 = clear game images on new/load, 2 = clear item images on new/load, 3 = clear all (original behavior).
• Memory leak fixes -- Event damage, text tabs, automap/radar hover, and more.

Crash Logging

When the game does crash, the patch now writes a detailed log including: exception type, address, and module; full register dump; current location; party items, gold, and character levels; monster counts and combat round; in-game time; graphics and sound configuration; window coordinates; OS version; active Parallel World mod; and fan patch build number.

Parallel World (Mod Switching)

A built-in mod management system that lets a single Wizardry 8 installation host multiple total-conversion mods. Instead of duplicating the entire game for each mod, shared files are stored once in the root and each mod only contains its unique files. The documentation notes 24 mods that would normally need ~46 GB can fit in ~6 GB.

• A GUI dialog lists all installed mods with metadata: items, icons, models, spells, locations, crafts, NPCs (broken down into merchants, RPCs, and voice actors), and facts.
• Each mod gets its own screenshots folder, music, localization, and banner images.
• Switch mods from the launcher, main menu, or command line (/ParallelWorld=<folder name>).

Localization

• Russian support for the English disc, GOG, and Steam versions.
• Polish localization included.
• Custom language packs -- Third-party translations can be added by placing files in Localization\Fan-Patch1.28\<LANG>\.

Character Creation

• Unlockable races -- Play as normally inaccessible races: Trynnie, T'Rang, Umpani, Rapax, and Android, with race-appropriate portraits shown during character creation.
• Umpani Camp fix -- An optional fix for the notoriously difficult building entrance step at Umpani Camp. Enable via the launcher checkbox or by setting UmpaniCampPorozhekFIX=1 in wiz8.ini.

In-Game Settings

The patch adds 6 extra settings pages to the in-game options menu, giving direct access to:

• Inventory hotkey layout
• Portrait selection mode
• Spell book behavior
• Monster movement and animation speed
• Store color scheme
• Combat speed acceleration
• Keyword color coding
• Automatic battle save

Launcher

An optional launcher dialog (shown by default; hide with DontShowDialogLauncher=1 in wiz8.ini) with:

• Language selection and Parallel World mod switching.
• Online update checking for new versions.
• Quick-access checkboxes for the most common settings: video skipping, transparent radar, text fixes, race unlocking, Umpani Camp fix, and more.
• 3DSetup integration for configuring graphics.

Cheats and Developer Tools

The patch restores and expands the original game's hidden developer tools:

• CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+D -- Enable developer mode.
• CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+C -- Enable cheat mode.
• Insert -- Learn all available spells; SHIFT+Insert to learn all 456 spells.
• CTRL+SHIFT+F2 -- Spell balance display test.
• CTRL+SHIFT+F3 -- Probability analysis mode (shows hit/penetrate chances).
• CTRL+SHIFT+F4 -- Diagnostic test mode.
• CTRL+SHIFT+F6 -- Lightning-fast running speed.
• ALT+J -- Save location state.
• CTRL+O -- View-cone culling toggle (developer mode).
• Draw distance, ambient lighting, collision toggle, and screen rotation controls.
• Status effect hotkeys for testing (apply Paralysis, Poison, Blindness, etc. to characters).
• Stat and skill modification hotkeys in inventory.

Compatibility

• Game versions: Retail CD, GOG, and Steam.
• Save compatibility: Save files from older game versions (e.g., 1.0.1) can be loaded.
• Operating systems: Windows 98 through Windows 11. Linux via Proton (compatibility fix included).
• Graphics backends: DirectX 7 (with NVIDIA fix), OpenGL, and Glide2x.
• Popular mods: Includes automatic compatibility patches for DoddTheSlayer, Deathstalkers, White Wolf's Mod, Return to Dominus, The Christian Coder's Mod, Reforged, and Ultimate Mod.