Hi all,
You may have seen one of the last few threads about the RuneScape Archive Project, but it's been quite a while since the last post and the OSRS playercount has more than doubled since then!
RuneScape has gone through countless changes since the launch on January 2001. Unfortunately, Jagex did not have any comprehensive backups from before 2012, besides the 2007 tape found in a drawer. Nearly everything before then is lost.
However, if you ever played once on a computer, the full game files would be stored in a hidden location. If you have any old computers, laptops, hard drives, or backups that you may have played Runescape on, it may have one of the lost versions. Recovering these has many benefits - we can explore cool things like graphical updates or cut content, use them as an aid for modern development, and ultimately ensure that each version of the game can be preserved forever.
How to help:
- We have made a custom search tool that will automatically detect all the old Runescape versions on a hard drive, and package them into a single file you can upload. However if you want to search manually yourself, there is a list of file locations here.
- There is also a new file recovery tool that can scan wiped or formatted drives for lost versions from 2001 to 2006. Many people who previously checked have discovered new deleted lost versions this way - even if you've already contributed to this project it is definitely worth trying again with this new tool if you played in 2006 or earlier.
We're still offering a prize of $500 to anyone who can find a lost version from 2004 or earlier. For very rare versions from early 2001, we're offering $2000.
Thanks in advance, and feel free to check out our website which explains the project in more detail, includes a link to our discord, and answers frequent questions.
The family computer from 2005 is long long long gone but I have the 2012 drive that I believe it may have been backed up to and that may possibly have had a few sessions logged itself.
There are a few other possibilities I can think of though. My grandparents might still have a computer where I played pre-GE and I have a friend whose dad has an entire room full of accumulated old drives and computers that have not been touched since approximately 2003- it would track if someone played RS1 or RS2 at work on some of them.
Some other ideas: it was very common to play on browser at school in the 00's and I know that a lot of those drives tend to get tossed into closets and forgotten. They only tended to get wiped if they were malfunctioning. I'll see if I know anyone who might have some access interesting old systems.
So, how light are the tools and how far back in OS can I go? Is this going to be a scavenger hunt where I am resurrecting systems that have been dead for 20+ years or am I shopping for some adaptors to slam into my laptop?
The first search tool is very quick to run (a few minutes at most), since it's just searching for filenames that match specific patterns. It should work all the way back to Windows 95.
The second recovery tool will take longer since it's scanning every single byte on a drive - but this is only designed to find pre-May 2006 files so you could be selective on which you use it on.
I would recommend just buying a single IDE/SATA to USB adaptor, rather than spending ages trying to resurrect the original hardware.
Perfect. I've already reached out to my buddies and piqued some interest. It might take me some time to find an adaptor since that is unlikely to be carried locally here anymore. That is why I asked about resurrecting systems. The whole drive conversion thing became obsolete when I was a kid so I am surprised to even hear that the conversion goes right up to USB access these days. That would certainly make this task a lot easier and a lot less filled with cursing half-functioning computers. Got any that you would recommend off-hand? I am located in Canada so even a direction like an amazon listing would give me a jump.
I've also raised the interest of my pal whose dad has an assortment of drives that have been dormant in a room since the early 00's with a mix of consumer and corporate drives so we might be able to access that for funsies in case anyone noodled at work back in the day. The historically relevant part of that is that his dad's career gave them very early enthusiast internet access at the time for where we live. Not to mention what other drives might have been added to the heap.
I'm only as aboard as I am for this project because we might find some truly fascinating stuff even if we can't locate the prized RS data. I just love digging into old systems and this is a better excuse than most I can think of.
That actually sounds cool as hell. What kind of stuff do you think would be on the other drives, from an internet history perspective?
Also adaptors should be easy to find, I hope OP gets back to you with something more specific!
In the case of the unexplored computer component stash, it could be anything. Genuinely. There are tons of weird little programs that have been pretty much lost to time that people never used to bother uninstalling. For internet stuff, it could literally be anything. If my pal is interested in it and we do end up exploring the stash it might offer some interesting insight into what IT and coders were up to 20+ years ago. The last time we took a gander into the systems we ended up smoking some and playing Leisure Suit Larry so I am sure that it will be an adventure regardless of if we find any RS content. In any case, my friend was at very least playing pre-2012 so there is a real shot at finding SOMETHING relevant. I am simply not techie enough to pull any other internet-related stuff out to say resurrect early web pages but if RS required caching we might be able to find that!
In short, idk but I wanna find out!
My old public library definitely has every single version on their old PCs
I’m surprised jagex doesn’t have tape copies, 2 years ago when cleaning out an old server room, I found tape copies of company data and ibm server from the early 80s…
It's hard to say what the actual backup procedure was, perhaps there were other tape copies made and they were lost. Either way it's fair to say that Jagex don't have any others, unless a manager enjoys wasting the OSRS team's time by making them manually recreate 2008-11 stuff when there's actually a secret backup all along.
Though, it was recently discovered that local copies of the development branches ("WIP" and "RC") would have been stored on Jagex computers as well, the same way the live branch was stored on player computers...
They mentioned that the copy we know originally as oldschool runescape was the only one they saved. The rest were deleted.
Im sure you can obtain 2004 to 2007 somewhere out there. I've seen RS2 beta servers before.
Every single one of them deleted but that one? Sorry but that's just a lie. They just didn't want to bring back the pre-eoc build because sunk cost/humiliation
Remember, they got rid of pking in what, 2008? So they couldnt really use anything after that point, at least not without significant work to fix it.
Jagex 100% rented servers and did not run their own DC.
Dumb question, but would these files have been saved on a computer if we were playing via a browser?
Yep. The browser was the client. Handling server communications, and rendering the game world. Sending texture and geometry data over the internet (especially back in 04 and earlier) would basically make the game unplayable. So those things are stored in the game cache on your local machine where the file transfer speed is likely orders of magnitude faster than your Internet connection.
Yep, they were stored no matter how you played (browser, miniclip, downloadable client, swiftswitch, etc)
Holy cow swiftswitch what a callback of nostalgia
Forreal. I thought miniclip was a good throwback since that was how my friends and I found scape back in the day when it was on the top 10 page for miniclip lol but swiftswitch is a word that hasn’t even entered my brain in forever
It was browser only back in the day. So I would think yes.
As someone who has played since classic, I have every hard drive I ever used from the late 90s to 2016. One of these days soon, I’ll get around to getting their data recovered.
You might definitely have many old versions then! Happy to help with data recovery if you want to try yourself.
I'm going to take it to a shop probably in the next few months since I need to downsize anyway.
High chance you have those files. Get those drives recovered and get that $ bag!
Nice try I’ve completed the stronghold of security don’t you know?
The files we are looking for don't contain any personal or account details at all, it's just the raw game files that were stored
That is what a scammer would say!
nice try kid
I know you’re joking but this is a widely supported project that archives old game files. It is important for OSRS history and one day the files shall be complete, inshallah
[removed]
We gotta try more gods than just saradomin in order to find these files
Okay fine he can come
I know I have a copy that i found on an old drive after seeing one of your recent posts here. I’m not sure if it’s one you still need but when I get home I will look and follow up here.
Definitely worth sending it even if you think it's a duplicate!
I started in 2003 with dialup on my mom’s old computer. I just sent her a text to see where that PC is. She is a hoarder and never gets rid of anything so I’m sure she has it.
Edit: she has it in a storage unit. Going to get it next time I see her.
If the PC still works it might have the RS2 beta on it as well.
That PC was a beast I’m confident it still works. It was from like 1989 or 1990. Getting it hooked up to a monitor is going to be the hardest part. I remember it had weird ports.
In that case it might be easiest to buy an HDD adapter and take the hard drive out. That would probably be best if you wanted to scan for deleted files too.
Idk why but I had memory that you managed to get all files. Nice to see bounty on table, I wish I had my old pc.
We have recovered around 2/3 of lost versions but still many are missing, especially from 2005 or earlier.
Oh, I am almost certain I'll have pre-2002 files on my grandma's pc, if it still works. I'm visiting her on New Year's. I know for sure she doesn't have internet anymore, if I manage to get it running, how would I go about retrieving the info?
I think the easiest thing to do would be to take the hard drive out and read it with an external adapter - it'll have many RSC versions on it stored in temporary files, and there's always a risk that booting from that drive would overwrite things.
Feel free to reach out if would like further guidance with it
You just need to pull the HDD out if the pc doesn't work
All the info for file recovery is in the op
I have an old drive I've been meaning to check, it's from around 2003/4 I removed it from an old machine a few months back just need to plug it in
Great, feel free to reach out if you need any help with checking
I support your decision to plug the machine in. Are there any holdups to you doing so, or just need to put 15 minutes on your calendar?
I collect old computers for a
livinghobby.. every time I come across a hard drive it gets a sweep for old versions of Runescape. Thank you for the reminder :)Thanks for your interest and for checking so many, hopefully one day you get lucky!
I played for sure in 2007 (not sure if I played before that) and my old laptop still works, I scanned for Pokemon Dreamworld last year and I saw then that there are RuneScape files on it. I will check tomorrow morning as it’s getting late and I’m exhausted, the old laptop takes a while to boot up :’)
I'll check back tomorrow morning then!
I have installed the search tool (after a lot of sweat and tears) and nothing was found :( which is so weird cause like I said I remembered seeing files of it when I looked for Pokémon Dreamworld. I am 1000% certain I played RuneScape in 2007 on this laptop cause that’s where I met my first boyfriend :’)
Edit: the RSCaches.dat went from 0 kb to 1 kb so I don’t know if anything’s on it.
It might be worth checking manually then, the relevant directories would be C:\WINDOWS\.file_store_32 and C:\WINDOWS\.jagex_cache_32
Nothing :(
I can only assume that you reinstalled operating system then - perhaps might be worth trying file recovery software, DMDE is a free tool you can use
Normally i didn't, it still has Windows Vista. I tried the DMDE software but it son't open cause my software is too old :/ I will say that i always used Internet Explorer and i can't use it anymore cause the license has been revoked, could it be that it has something to do with that?
Edit: I will look for the software i used to look for the Pokémon thing cause it was also an online game. I can't say when cause i'm a bit busy prepping for Christmas.
Hey sorry for the late reply - if you check on the "More Downloads" section on the website it has backwards compatible versions, I think the Windows GUI from 2014 is the last that worked on Vista, so maybe try that?
Since the last post about this we have found almost 30 lost versions; here are some interesting finds from them all.
23 September 2001 - one of the earliest players from 2001 sent in files they found which had quite a few missing versions of RuneScape Classic. Strangely, there's a copy of Wormbrain the goblin in level 19 wilderness. (Normally because he's in Port Sarim jail, you need 33 magic to telegrab his map piece and complete the quest.) We have absolutely no idea why he is here and it seems to have gone entirely unnoticed by players at the time - maybe he was put there so developers could test easier?
21 June 2004 - In probably the most bizarre find yet, somebody stumbled across a copy of shareware CD from a Lithuanian game magazine in 2004. It claimed to have RuneScape on it, and sure enough there was a copy of the full game files from this date. Strangely it included unreleased files that were inaccessible to players though, including this music track that went unheard for 21 years.
26 January 2005 - the Abyssal Whip and Granite Maul were added to the game files with the release of slayer, but they weren't fully released until 3 weeks afterwards. We found that during this time they both had the appearance of a tomato!
May 2005 - We recently discovered that an item was added to the game this month called the "Magic scroll". Its examine said that it could be exchanged for valuables such as "10 million blood runes", "a party hat set", or even "a rare black fish".
6 June 2005 - A couple of years ago a Jagex moderator asked if anyone remembered an update where for a few days all the female models were changed to cater more to the male gaze, only to be almost immediately reverted. It turns out this wasn't a weird fever dream after all, and we recently found them all! The newspost described it as a very subtle 'nip and tuck' but the actual appearances tell a different story.
8 May 2007 - Somewhat related to yesterday's fun fact, we found all the game maps from May 2007 right before the graphical updates to Varrock, Canifis, and Seers' Village. You can explore them all for yourself. (Options on the right to remove roofs, or travel back/forward in time)
Is it possible the hard drive was so old the data got a tiny bit corrupted and randomly caused an oddity like that in the cache data?
The files back then are stored as compressed archives - if you change one bit in the entire maps file it would just fail to decompress properly.
so many feelings evoked from exploring that may 2007 map, especially the wilderness. no ferox, no resource area, that one red dragon off to itself at the isle, no runite rocks at the ice plateau. i also checked out december 2007 and found the original bounty hunter crater, which damn near made me cry ngl. so many memories) of this place, both playing it myself and watching pk videos from the likes of bwuk im pb, jiglojay, defil3d, etc. back in middle school. will definitely be exploring these maps more later on, would love to see daemonheim, mobilising armies, and dominion tower again
massive thanks to everyone involved for preserving this stuff—it's wild how far runescape has come
https://preview.redd.it/y34iaxasez8g1.png?width=1612&format=png&auto=webp&s=f38c95d8a236ef86d1ddb4688a1ad7870cb48fa7
dat bbl tho
at 5 june 2005 lol
that's crazy. interesting to see it got removed that quickly. with things like that I wonder how they either 1. got past some decission maker who then reverts it or 2. got enough complaints from the player base or public to have it changed so quickly
We need to bring back the 6 June 2005 update.
Is this when the bad boi stance was changed???
After reading the OC… it seems we have been denied thicc mommies for the female character models
How does it work for Miniclip?
I have a hardrive from a very old pc that I without doubt played Runescape on miniclip.
The pc itself doesn't exist, but I have the HD to this day, (need to check if it's still working).
I don't even want the money, but i would be glad to check if there is something there.
Same way. Doesn't matter if you used Miniclip or the official Runescape website. The game files will still be downloaded, the browser is just the gateway, no matter what site you're using.
Yeah as the other comment said it worked exactly the same way no matter what client or platform you used to access the game, it would always be stored in the same location.
The last time I played on my first laptop was Easter 2005 (rubber chicken yippee), I'll see if I can dig it out the loft
The dialogue for that event was found recently: https://runescape.wiki/w/Transcript:2005_Easter_event
We're missing many versions from 2005 so would be great if you can find the old laptop.
I might I’ll have to see if it is still stored or if they donated it, it would have a version between 05-07
It might have several versions then - we know it would also keep the last version you played before May 2006
Silly young me saved the runescape.exe files around 2006-2007. I don't think I ever backed up the .file_store_32/runescape or .jagex_cache_32/runescape folders...
Yeah they are unlikely to have been saved in any manual backup (especially since they were specifically designed to be hard to find) but still worth checking.
If I remember correctly, the files are overwritten everytime you play right? So the only chance to find the really old files is if I played for the last time on a hard drive when one of those updates was current and never logged in again?
Usually this would be the case, but we recently found that if you played using Microsoft Java (one of the drop down options on the detail select screen) then it would save every single version you played.
I have an ancient computer that I can power up to check. Played RS from 06 to 08 on it.
But I don't have a display capable of VGA anymore unless I get an adapter or something lol.
You would probably need to buy an HDD adapter then, since otherwise I imagine it would be tricky to power on the computer and transfer the files successfully.
I need to get a powered one for a 3.5in drive. I have one I use for SSDs but I don't think it can spin up a desktop drive from USB alone lol.
Ah yeah, powered ones are relatively cheap online
I’ll go through some of my backups, I still have a few drives from around 2001-03. The one for sure has an old client version still on it but not sure if the actual data files made it.
If you played Classic on it they should absolutely have all the data files on them, the client would download them every time you played.
Saving this for later. The family computer that I gamed RS on is still in the basement and never been used. I'll eventually find my way over there and report back. For reference, I graduated mid 200* and played way before then. :)
Nice, hopefully it still works!
Some middle school in some rural area is sitting on a goldmine in their library and have no idea. We even had a RuneScape club in my middle and high school back in those days.
This could be what your old teachers describe as success and could be your crowning achievement. Best to reach out to the current principal ASAP
The question is whether or not the old drives were ever tossed. I really can't remember if we actually logged-in at school or just talked about it at breakfast club. I would probably look like a maniac returning to my old Elementary or HS to ask for some hard drives (I do however still work around them funny enough) but if someone here happened to be in the right position to have access to the old tech closet and was an interested party... it might actually be a legit avenue for some research.
Dell with windows XP at my grandmas house from 2004 ill find out what's on there tomorrow.
Great, feel free to reach out if you need any help with searching
Heya, just following up - did you get a chance to search?
Was it there?
i might have an old pc, i'll check the drive?
Great, let me know if you need any help with the search
I have a pc in the loft I stopped using around 2007. I could have a look. Going to be after Christmas at this point though :(
This project has been going on for years, just don't forget!
I've saved this post :)
For anybody even mildly interested in this process, can confirm it doesn’t take a long time and is not intrusive!
If you want a reminder to check your family computer when you’re traveling home for the holidays, comment here and tag me and I’ll make sure to DM you or tag you in a message on your specified date and time!
I still have my harddrive from my 2002 desktop but im pretty sure when you did system recovery to factory settings from those limewire days it wiped everything ever on it, or am I wrong?
Perhaps, though if you try the file recovery tool linked in the OP there's still a chance it could pick something up - 2001-06 files were very small
I have a computer I used to play Runescape on in like 2009. Could that be helpful?
Hey sorry I missed this comment - that would absolutely be helpful.
OT, but I’m so happy I didn’t play with Bitcoin in its early days. Because i totally would had forgotten about it, nuked the PC, and then today be regretting how rich I could’ve been.
All to say, zero chance I have this old version of RuneScape lol
How do we know this hard drive scanning tool isn’t also looking for old forgotten BTC?
I have a Dell laptop from 2011 are you interested in anything from 2011-2012?
Yes, happy to receive anything from before 2021 basically
My parents still have their family pc I think running windows 95
The search tool we have made should work even on a machine that old.
Are you paying for files from 2009?
The prize is only for 2004 or earlier but we're still looking for all lost versions up to 2012.
I dont have any mobos with IDE PATA connectors that my old HDD has.
You can buy IDE to USB adapters fairly cheaply online.
I might still have my family pc in my old room from 2006 -2008 installed
I have a laptop hard drive from 2006 collecting dust in my closet that has Guthix knows what sorta RS data on it. I have no idea how to pull it off, though - it was from one of those old ass Alienwares
Prefacing this with acknowledging that it’s not helpful to the topic , just a feeling it induced:
This is devastating for me to read. To know NOW that’s how easy (or at the least doable) it is to find useful old files. My parents had a windows 98 they asked me to break apart for fear of information being retrieved by the mischievous type. I didn’t think much of it until after the fact, just what might have been locked away in there and now wont be seen again. I believe I started somewhere between 2004-2006 , memory is vague as it was super casual engagement after I found it on miniclips. At some point I caught wind of the pure type builds and it became an obsession until the update so that’s where my general time frame stems from. Anyways, these are memories I have not revisited in some years until I happened upon this post. In fact I hardly ever comment, a testament to how much that memory moved me. This is me immortalizing these memories here on the off chance they get buried again. Happy holidays to any one that got this far, and if you don’t celebrate anything enjoy yourself all the same.
I recently helped my parents move and our old family PC from when I played in 2006 has to have the hard drive wiped so when I do that I'll look
Found a rar file containing a v503 .jagex_cache_32 - dated 31/07/2008
is this needed or not worth sending?
They said they're happy to get anything prior to 2021, might as well send it in.
I don't believe that Jagex didn't have backups for every major update, there was and still are RSPS for every period possible. How can comunity have a working 2004 or working pre-eoc game and Jagex can't? BS
2004scape does not use the original code, it was recreated/rewritten. Their goal is to make it as accurate as possible but it isn’t actually from a Jagex backup.
Hold up, gonna go ask my middle school from that era what happened to all the iMac G3 and G4s every single student was playing the game on in computer lab on Friday "game day"
I'm fairly sure I have a Windows XP computer at one of my parents that has a cached copy from 2005/2006, or maybe 2007.
However, since there is no incentive to grab it, I haven't really bothered.
Playing OSRS on an old computer is objectively better and I will die on this hill
Everyone’s got a $2k PC, RuneLite cranked with 40 plugins, GPU fans glowing like they’re about to fight Zulrah in real life.
Meanwhile I’m over here playing on a 15-year-old desktop that takes longer to boot than it does to walk from Lumbridge to Varrock, and honestly? It’s a better experience.
First off, the game feels right. OSRS was not meant to run at 200 FPS on a silent machine. It was meant to stutter a little when you teleport. It was meant to freeze for half a second when you enter a crowded area. That tiny bit of lag is basically part of the soundtrack.
Second, it forces you to slow down. No sweating tick-perfect everything when your PC occasionally decides to think about its life choices mid-click. You actually pay attention to what you’re doing instead of playing on autopilot with tile markers, menu entry swapper, and 3 YouTube videos open.
Also, no plugin overload. I don’t need colored tiles to tell me where to stand or an overlay screaming “CLICK NOW.” If I mess up, that’s on me, like Saradomin intended. Forgot a spade? Guess I’m walking back. Misclicked? That’s the punishment.
And honestly, it’s nostalgic in a way nothing else is. The hum of the fan, the slightly warm keyboard, the random frame drops while fishing — it’s exactly how a lot of us played back in the day. The grind hits harder when the machine is also struggling.
Not saying everyone needs to downgrade their setup, but if you’ve never played OSRS on a borderline-dying computer, you’re missing part of the experience.
Game’s about patience anyway. Might as well let the PC practice too.
Does the runescape classic client files help at all? I have a vague memory of playing that awhile ago when there was like a throwback event or something
I have a pc at my parents house that I played on from 2007-2010, I’m headed home for Xmas I’ll check while I’m there next week!
Please keep in mind what op says is true... Sadly this also includes old bank information,passwords and ssn numbers with today's new extraction abilities.
This is a friendly reminder that sometimes its best to let sleeping giants lay destroyed forgotten till they turn to dust..
the source code is literally right there tho lol
I accidentally wiped my hdd from that era. So many screenshots and memories lost :(
My old computers I got alot of porn if interested. LMK! Limewire specials.
Ive never thought to ask, but why do you want these so badly?
We're Runescape players, give us a list of things to collect and we will clog it.
Have you guys tried posting on general gaming subreddits?
Not available on rune-server?
I think I'd need far more money to even touch my old hard drives from when I was a stupid kid... I'm afraid of what's on them... probably a ton of RS files but also a bunch of shock videos lol.
I have 2001 version and I wouldn’t get out of bed for $2k. Just saying