Diablo (DevilutionX)

Also known as: DevilutionX (the engine); Hellfire (the expansion, also played by DevilutionX).

Status

DevilutionX 1.5.5 built by us (devilutionx 1.5.5-1+ps3.N, built from gamedb/games/diablo/packages/devilutionx/: DevilutionX is under the Sustainable Use License 1.0, non-commercial and not DFSG-free; the user accepted that on 2026-10-29 (“I’m not using it commercially”), so it is public in the testing suite, marked non-free in its description, README.Debian and the GameDB page, Section still games). One patch: 0001 opens the audio device in the host byte order (AUDIO_S16SYS; AUDIO_S16 is little-endian, so the PPE swapped every sample twice). Upstream’s defaults are already console-like: fullscreen at the screen’s mode (SDL_WINDOW_FULLSCREEN_DESKTOP, the picture widened to 16:9 and scaled up), SDL game controllers on.

The data is the player’s: Diablo 1.09’s DIABDAT.MPQ (517,501,242 bytes, sha256 6bc120a603fdb383ff91f374e7db599765d6230d81e5a4c1b33f8254911774e7, md5 68f049866b44688a7af65ba766bef75a), in ~/.local/share/diasurgical/devilution/ (SDL’s pref path for “diasurgical”, “devilution”: not devilutionx; diablo.ini and the saves go there too; --data-dir names another folder).

Smoke runs on 2026-10-28 (kernel .874, Mesa ps3.924, the VRAM swap on; the last one ps3-bench-20261028T223638Z): the recipe (benchmark/recipe.sh) starts devilutionx --diablo -n with a save folder of the run’s own, then Return through the menus and a typed name (DevilutionX fills one in only for a pad) into Tristram. The title menu, the hero creation, the difficulty and the town are drawn right (fire, pentagrams, the Warrior, the panel’s orbs; xwd and webcam), fullscreen 1920x1080 (geom fs=1). In town: 58 fps steady on the Gallium HUD, 1% low 25, 10 frames over 100 ms in 90 s (2.3 s, the longest 425 ms), 48 MB peak RSS; the sound running with 8 audible dropouts (to be judged by ear). The hero was saved (single_0.sv, an MPQ the game writes). DevilutionX found the DualShock 3 (“PS3 Controller” mapping); the pad is not tried. Its --demo/--timedemo options would make a benchmark once a demo is recorded.

Played session ps3-bench-20261029T213401Z (ps3.931~dev, 2026-10-29): 21.5 min, quit, 1273 s of play, fullscreen 1920x1080 (21 shots: Tristram at dusk, then the cathedral levels, the inventory open; in proportion, no bars). Median 59.3 fps, 1% low 23.9, longest frame 2.3 s, 1.8 s a minute of stutter, load 15 s, 47 MB RSS, 11 xruns, 3 audible dropouts by the form’s count. The form: sound and music heard, controls full, pad menus worked, play seamless, no glitches; its note: “Very minor issue, cursor is semitransparent”. The cursor is an X pointer (XFixes saw it in 16 of 21 shots), and X cursors are not in the xwd captures, so the shots can’t show it; reviewed as wrong colours or blending (-25, the only category near it). No PC reference sheet: DevilutionX isn’t in Debian, so play-pc.sh had no PC side and upstream’s x86_64 release was run by hand. Rated Gold 80, provisional (0.35 h of play): smoothness 62 is the weakest aspect.

Engine options

• DevilutionX (the pick: complete, very active, 9.9k stars, BE prior art)
• devilution (the matching decompilation, Windows exe: DevilutionX’s source)
• freeablo (stalled since 2023)

Research

What the surveys and plans said about it, newest first; each line names its source, the section and the date.

• 2026-10-26, docs/backlog/games.md, “Games to smoke next, and Wesnoth’s music”: on the “try now” list (shareware spawn.mpq); not started.
• 2026-10-20, pc-classics.md, “RPG”: Diablo + Hellfire (1996, PS1 too): DevilutionX, complete, SDL software; a Mac OS X Tiger PPC build (45 fps on an iBook G4), Amiga 68k, a BE network fix; shareware free; effort S.
• 2026-10-19, game-reeval.md, “devilutionx (Diablo 1)”: no hard no: the game renders an 8-bit palette surface itself, SDL_CreateRenderer only presents it; SDL1.2, SDL2 or SDL3. Not in Debian: own build (CMake, bundled libs). Big-endian good: explicit LE loads/stores (Source/utils/endian_*.hpp); changelog “Added support for 32bit PowerPc”, “macOS 10.4 PowerPC”, “Correct networking support on big-endian systems”; Amiga M68K port. RAM estimate 60-120 MB (runs on the 3DS in under 100 MB). Data: spawn.mpq from the Blizzard shareware (first dungeon levels; tolerated, not an open licence); full game DIABDAT.MPQ (GOG). Effort S. Verdict: TRY NOW, the best 2D candidate of part A.
• 2026-10-19, game-reeval.md, “Addendum: GameOS port exists?”: no known PS3 port (its README’s platform list has no PS3).