Installation

Available versions

Demo (PC & Mac)

You can still get the PC demo HERE, the Mac demo HERE, and both demos HERE (the demos will be backed up on oni2.net if other sources are discontinued)

Retail (PC, Mac & PS2)

Mac version available from Feral. PS2 version available from Take 2. PC version no longer available from Take 2. Consider eBay and Amazon.

There are also documented beta versions of Oni for the Mac that have not been released publicly. You can read about them HERE.

---

Installation process (PC & Mac)

If Oni does not run properly (or at all), be sure to see the section below, "Upgrades and patches", for a possible solution, then check out the Troubleshooting page if problems persist.

Windows

When the Oni CD is inserted, the installation will automatically start with the following steps :

• Language selection : for example, if you happen to have the European TakeAdvantage edition of Oni, you can choose between English/German/French
• Installation process itself : usual stuff (software licence agreement, installation folder selection...)
• Installation of DirectX/OpenGL : skip this, as the versions of DirectX or OpenGL provided with Oni are very old.

A shortcut is automatically generated and placed on your desktop.

Windows demo

The installation process does not start automatically, as there's no CD. The demo's installer extracts the engine and game content to a temporary folder and deletes everything when you exit the game. If you want a persistent demo, try THIS.

Mac OS X

The installer requires OS 9 to run. If you are on an Intel Mac, OS X does not have the Classic environment it needs to run this Installer, so simply open the CD and drag the "Oni ƒ" folder to the desired place on your hard drive; it contains everything you need. See the section "Upgrades and patches" below, and if Oni still does not run properly after installing the latest upgraded engine, see Troubleshooting.

---

Installation folder

All of Oni's files will be found in a folder called Oni (default is C:\Program Files\Oni on Windows /Applications/Oni on the Mac). The name does not have to be Oni, however: you can rename it to anything you want (see below for customization notes).

Windows notes

1. Oni does not create any registry entries, so an installation of Oni is essentially a copy of the Oni folder; this makes it easy to back up Oni before experimenting with it (hint, hint!).
2. Retail versions of Oni typically check for the installation CD. You can get rid of the CD check with a custom patch or, better, by using the Daodan DLL. Otherwise, you need to have an Oni CD in the drive to play (any CD will do as long as its volume name is "ONI").
3. The engine (Oni.exe) doesn't have to be present in the folder where it is launched from. The Edition takes advantage of this and runs the original engine remotely, without copying it around. This feature is a bit technical, but it can make life easier sometimes.
4. If Oni.exe is opened by double-clicking it or its shortcut, it first looks for the GameDataFolder in the same directory as the EXE. If Oni.exe is launched from the command line, it first looks for the "GDF" in the directory of the command or .bat that called it. Wherever it starts looking, Oni will also look for a folder in that directory called "OniEngine" and look inside there too for a GameDataFolder. If neither location contains the GDF, Oni checks the parent directory, all the way up to C:\ if necessary, looking for the GDF (or an OniEngine folder with the GDF inside) at each level.

Mac notes

1. Omni's port remembers the absolute location of the Oni folder between runs. This means you can move the Oni application to another location and, and as long as the rest of Oni's files are left in place, the game will still find the folder with that game data. If you move your Oni folder somewhere new without the application in it, the Oni application will ask for the folder's location on its next launch, and then remember the new location after that point.
2. Omni's port (and the community-patched versions thereof) doesn't check for the Oni disc in the CD-ROM drive.

---

Startup options

key_config.txt

Oni does not allow you to change your controls from within the game's Options screen, but keyconfig.txt, a plain text file located in your Oni folder, can be edited manually. See HERE for instructions on how to bind keyboard and mouse events to Oni actions.

Command-line parameters

All versions of the engine accept a certain number of command-line arguments, which modify the way it runs. These are mostly intended for developers (like turning off sound or generating advanced debug output). A useful command for players is -noswitch (makes Oni run in "windowed mode"), but it is flawed on Macs, and has been made redundant by the latest Daodan DLL on Windows.

Shift key at startup

On the Mac, pressing Shift at startup lets you specify controls and command-line parameters from a handy dialog box. (On Windows, this Shift feature is broken).

---

Patches and upgrades

Oni may not run without downloading a patched engine. Please download the appropriate files for your platform below and if you still encounter problems, see the Troubleshooting page.

PC engine upgrades

There were never any official patches for the English PC engine, but there was a minor fix for the Russian version HERE.

Oni for Windows has been patched by the community through the Daodan DLL, which gets installed alongside the original Oni application and patches Oni at runtime. The Daodan DLL's bug fixes and unlocked/new features are listed HERE.

Mac engine upgrades

There was one official "patch" for the Mac version of Oni, a rebuild of the Oni application for Mac OS X. To run Oni on a modern Mac, you'll need to download it from one of these two sources.

Oni for the Mac has been patched by the community through direct hex-edits made to the binary. The latest patched binary is here. Its bug fixes and unlocked/new features are documented HERE.

Game content upgrades

Check out the Anniversary Edition for an overall improvement of Oni.

If you're new to Oni, maybe beat it once before though....

Various other mods are available here.