Nox Modernized

Nox Modernized

An unofficial mod for Nox (Westwood Studios, 2000) that brings the original game up to date: full gamepad play, modern resolutions, a sharp UI scale, world zoom, a smooth camera, high frame rates and a set of fixes. It runs the original GOG Game.exe with two replacement DLLs, so the game itself stays exactly as it was. It also runs on Android through Winlator.

Nox Modernized is a fan project. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Electronic Arts, Westwood Studios or GOG. You need your own copy of Nox from GOG; no game files are included.

Features

Gamepad (XInput)

• The whole game on a gamepad: move with the left stick, attack and cast with lock-on aiming, every action assignable.
• Menus, dialogues, shops, the inventory and the book of knowledge are worked with the pad through the game's own windows.
• Inventory tabs (L1 / R1), item comparison panels, a consumables wheel (L3) and conjurer creature orders.
• Hold Select in the game for the full list of gamepad controls, hold L1 for the L1 combinations; the HUD shows the pad buttons next to its own buttons (gamepad hints, can be switched off).
• The right stick moves a mouse cursor when you need one.

Graphics (Nox Modernized's own Direct3D 11 renderer)

• Any resolution from 1024x768 up to 3840x2160, or your desktop size; borderless full screen or a window.
• UI scale: the HUD, inventory and menus drawn bigger while the world stays at full resolution, up to what the resolution allows (1920x1080: 2.25x, 2560x1440: 3x, 3840x2160: 4.5x).
• World zoom (numpad + / - / *, or hold R3 and push the right stick) with Lanczos, bicubic or bilinear filtering.
• High frame rate: 60, 90 or 120 pictures a second; the game itself keeps its 30 ticks, the camera and moving units are smoothed between them.
• Smooth (dampened) camera, sprite / wall / floor edge smoothing, gentler fire light flicker, adjustable map darkness.
• PNG screenshots (Print Screen).

Comfort and fixes

• An in-game settings menu (F7, or Select + Start) whose changes show at once.
• A settings tool (NoxModernized-Settings.exe) with an explanation for every setting, a button mapper with gamepad detection, and a Play button.
• Rolling autosaves (the last three are kept), an adjustable carry weight limit, beneficial spells such as Lesser Heal castable on allies.
• A fix for a bug of the original game: a force shield was lost about a second after loading a save.

Requirements

• Nox from GOG, version 1.2 (installer setup_nox_1.2_gog_v2_(93536).exe; its Game.exe is dated 2000-07-21, MD5 62cce922af5f6b5a02109d45859a738d). The settings tool checks this when it sets the game up. Other versions may work partly: the mod checks the game's code before every change and leaves out what does not match.
• Windows 10 or 11 with a Direct3D 11 graphics card, or an Android device with Winlator (the Ludashi build is recommended).
• A gamepad is optional; keyboard and mouse work as in the original game.

Installing (Windows)

1. Install Nox from GOG (version 1.2) and start it once.
2. Download the latest release and unpack it into a folder of its own, for example C:\Games\NoxModernized. Do not unpack it into the Nox folder.
3. Start NoxModernized-Settings.exe. On its first start it finds your Nox folder (or asks you for it), checks the game, and copies Game.exe from there into the mod's folder. Your Nox folder is not changed.
4. Choose your resolution and other settings, then Save.
5. Press Play in the settings tool, or start Launch.bat.

Always start the game with Play or Launch.bat, not with Game.exe: they make the game use your Nox folder's data and saves. Saves are shared with the plain game.

To uninstall, delete the mod's folder. Nothing else was changed.

Installing on Android (Winlator)

1. Copy your Nox folder (the GOG install) to the device, for example to D:\Nox as Winlator sees it.
2. Copy the Nox Modernized folder next to it.
3. In Winlator, start NoxModernized-Settings.exe from the mod's folder. It asks for the Nox folder and sets everything up, this time for Launch-Winlator.bat.
4. Press Play in the settings tool, or start Launch-Winlator.bat.

Winlator uses its own settings file (nox-modernized-winlator.ini) with lighter defaults (bicubic filter, no edge smoothing). On a phone or tablet, a resolution such as 1280x800 with 1.5x to 2x world zoom keeps 60 frames a second on recent devices. You can also edit the Winlator settings on a PC: the settings tool's file selector at the top switches between the two files.

Default gamepad controls

All of these can be changed in the settings tool (Buttons page), per class.

Button	In the game
Left stick	move (push lightly to walk)
Right stick	mouse cursor (push firmly)
A	attack / use (aims at the nearest enemy in front)
R1 (hold)	aim in place
R3	talk / trade / pick up
L3	consumables wheel
X / Y / B	spell or ability slots 1-3
L1 + X / Y / B	slots 3-5
LT	jump
RT	quick save
D-pad up / down	health potion / swap weapons
D-pad left / right	map / next spell set
L1 + D-pad up / down	mana potion / cure poison
L1 + R1	previous spell set
L1 + A	trap (wizard) / bomber (conjurer)
Select	inventory (hold: all gamepad controls)
L1 + Select	book of knowledge
Start	pause menu
Select + Start	Nox Modernized settings
R3 (hold) + right stick	world zoom

Conjurer: D-pad right gives creature orders, the next spell set is on L1 + RT. The warrior has no spell sets, mana or traps, so those combos are free for him.

In menus, the inventory and shops: D-pad or left stick to choose, A to press, B to go back, L1 / R1 for tabs.

Keyboard extras

Key
F7	Nox Modernized settings
Numpad + / - / *	world zoom in / out / back to 1x
F8	frame counter
Print Screen	screenshot (into Screenshots next to Game.exe in the mod's folder)
Insert / Delete	brightness (the game's own, also in F7)

The pause menu (Esc) shows these, and the gamepad ones, in a box beside it.

Testing and known limitations

• The single-player game has been tested extensively with a gamepad, on Windows and on Android with Winlator (Ludashi build).
• Multiplayer has not been tested. Online and LAN play use the original game's networking and may work, but expect problems. One known limit: as a client in someone else's game, the gamepad still picks and marks targets from your own view, but it cannot wait until your character has turned to face the enemy, so arrows and thrown weapons fired straight after locking on may miss more often.
• Spells aimed at a spot land where the enemy was when the cast ended (no leading), as with the mouse.

Building from source

The source code is in the src folder of the GitHub repository. It is plain C, built with MinGW-w64 (32-bit) on Linux or in MSYS2; see docs/BUILDING.md.

The other files in docs (01-input.md to 04-game-notes.md) are working notes on the game's internals: addresses, structures and findings. They were written for an AI coding assistant during development, so they are terse and not really meant for human reading. They are included in case you want to continue or improve the project yourself, with or without an AI's help.

Credits

• proxydllvines: author. Nox Modernized was written with the help of Claude (Anthropic).
• OpenNox (noxworld-dev): its reverse engineering of Nox was the reference for finding the game's functions, addresses and structures. No OpenNox code is included.
• Westwood Studios made Nox; it is owned by Electronic Arts and sold by GOG.

Licence

Nox Modernized is free software under the GNU General Public License v3.0. Nox and its data are not part of this project and remain the property of their owners.