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First post, by Sol_HSA

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http://sol.gfxile.net/ddhack/

So, just a heads up - I'm working on a "directdraw hack" to make some old windows games (more) playable on modern windows.

I'm concentrating on getting the windows versions of wing commander 1, 2, 3 and 4. Thread on wcnews.com forums here: http://www.crius.net/zone/showthread.php?t=26244.

Basically it's a reimplementation of ddraw.dll, which also hijacks the application's window function, and uses a desktop-sized window, outputting the game's input full screen with OpenGL, with optional filtering applied.

Once I'm done with it I'll release the sources so other people may use it as basis on getting other games to work.

It is *not*, by any means, a complete reimplementation, and I'm only hacking the bits that are required to get wc1-4 working; and many of those things are definitely hacks, kludges and generally bad things. So if other software works out of the box, it'll be a miracle.

http://iki.fi/sol - my schtuphh

Reply 1 of 33, by keropi

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very nice work!!! although I don't play wc games, it is always good to see hacks like that appear!

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Reply 4 of 33, by Sol_HSA

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ripsaw8080 wrote:

Would be great if this covered the Windows versions of XCom UFO and TFTD... there is a fix for their ddraw bug, but the filtering would be nice to have.

I don't have access to said games, but once I get the sources out, someone else may want to try it out.

http://iki.fi/sol - my schtuphh

Reply 5 of 33, by Miki Maus

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Here is the essay from that guy who wrote the patch for XCOM:

http://f0dder.reteam.org/essay02.htm

Can this be of help? Can it be incorporated in your ddraw.dll as a generic solution for that problem? Because at least one other game comes to my mind that exhibits same symptoms as unpatched XCOM games on Windows: 7th Legion.

Reply 6 of 33, by Sol_HSA

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Miki Maus wrote:

Here is the essay from that guy who wrote the patch for XCOM:

http://f0dder.reteam.org/essay02.htm

Can this be of help? Can it be incorporated in your ddraw.dll as a generic solution for that problem? Because at least one other game comes to my mind that exhibits same symptoms as unpatched XCOM games on Windows: 7th Legion.

What he did was a way more low-level hack than mine, but if this truly was the problem:

ignoring the fact that width!=pitch

..then yes, my dll does fix that. (as witdh == pitch in my software-driven virtual world)

http://iki.fi/sol - my schtuphh

Reply 8 of 33, by Sol_HSA

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ddhack actually runs in a window =) - the window just happens to cover the whole screen. Internally, I already convert everything to 32bit.

http://iki.fi/sol - my schtuphh

Reply 10 of 33, by Sol_HSA

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leileilol wrote:

Hmm, all I get with using it is "CRT not initialized" what does that mean!

Curious, I thought I got that fixed. I wonder if you used the last version?

Oh well.

In any case: now officially released:

http://iki.fi/sol/ddhack/

All source code, background story, pretty pictures and stuff.
Supported games: Wing Commander 1-3 for Windows from the "Kilrathi Saga" box, and Wing Commander 4 CD version.

http://iki.fi/sol - my schtuphh

Reply 13 of 33, by Sol_HSA

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I keep getting mails from random people regarding random issues with random games, but I don't have the time to support ddhack.

If someone wants to pick it up and be the "official" ddhack developer, ye shall have me blessing.

http://iki.fi/sol - my schtuphh

Reply 14 of 33, by collector

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I know that the software for this board is outdated, but can't signatures be turned off for new members?

The Sierra Help Pages -- New Sierra Game Installers -- Sierra Game Patches -- New Non-Sierra Game Installers

Reply 15 of 33, by Qbix

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then we would end up with lots of spam posts without a link in them and thus aren't able to spot them ?
And there are no member promotion rules on this system, so would have to promote people to normal users manually.

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Reply 16 of 33, by collector

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Current phpBB automatically places new members in a "Newly Registered" group that has limited rights that can be set separately from those of the regular members. They are automatically moved to the regular members group after x number of posts. It is all configurable from the ACP.

The Sierra Help Pages -- New Sierra Game Installers -- Sierra Game Patches -- New Non-Sierra Game Installers

Reply 18 of 33, by DosFreak

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I compiled the latest SVN as of 4-28-2011 from the sourceforge page: https://code.google.com/p/ddhack/source/checkout

Using the 1.0 release I was able to get the Collector's Editions of UFO Defense and Terror From the Deep as well as Destruction Derby 2 working on Windows 7 64bit. These games would only work well on Windows OS's before Windows 2000. Starting with Windows 2000 all the way up to Windows 2008R2 the games would not work (at least for me) and would only work if run on Vmware using Windows 9x as a guest OS.

X-COM games still have a speed issue so use a speed limiter
Destruction Derby 2 freezes on exit.

Plan to test ddhack with more games this weekend

Attachments

  • Filename
    ddhack1.15.zip
    File size
    46.46 KiB
    Downloads
    578 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

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Make your games work offline

Reply 19 of 33, by mudlord

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Thanks for the tests.
We need a compatibility list anyway.

Plus there is some Starcraft engine based game bugs left to fix...like the mouse capturing.

The speed limit idea sounds nice. Could do that. I've been chatting with Sol_HSA about the possibility of per game hacks to allow for said stuff like patchfixes for crashes, etc...Not to mention, it will help stuff like GTA1 compatibility and AOE compatibility.