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Reply 20 of 59, by aybe

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You mean the other way around, history shown that lower specs systems systematically won the war : NES, PSX. I remember having a Game Gear, while it was colored, the GB was way better. The N64 and Saturn were technically superior but had other flaws. Now the DC got released probably a little too early and was not as good as the PS2, I mean when I look at God Of War 2 I clearly see the potential of the PS2. And that GD-ROM was just inappropriate, the DC is THE only console that would boot pirate copies without any modchip ... Today the media war is non-existent, none of the HD movies I've seen were on a media but all digital downloads. And here you get a BD player integrated in the digital TV decoder. Times changes ...

Reply 21 of 59, by aqrit

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DxWnd has been updated to add support ( v2.02.38 )

----
also
ddwrapper has been updated to run this game in software mode.
http://bitpatch.com/ddwrapper.html

Place the ddraw.dll in the same folder as shadow.exe ( sdata folder )
edit the cfg to
ForceDirectDrawEmulation = 1

Run Shadows.exe -> select "RGB Emulation" from the "3D Device" dropdown
Set the resolution down to 640x480 16bpps
( create a new player to save selections? )

Run SOTE.exe -> "game options" ->Unselect the "Use Color Key" box

This gets the game playing at about 20 fps.

Last edited by aqrit on 2013-10-24, 03:23. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 22 of 59, by Jorpho

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Gee, you make it sound like it was easy. 😉 Can you tell us more about what the nature of the problem was and what sort of update was made to add support?

Reply 24 of 59, by aqrit

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The game with Direct3D HAL works with both my graphic cards.
So I would blame any issues on driver bugs.

Driver bugs can be avoided by not using the driver ... using the built-in hardware emulation layer
The update I made to ddwrapper was to copy the HEL caps to the HAL caps structure when ddraw->GetCaps is called.
( there are no HAL caps when there is no HAL )
The game checks the HAL caps struct for D3D support but not the HEL caps.

And I don't suppose there's a way to force Ramp Emulation in every early Direct3D game under the sun is there?

I don't see why not...

It won't be done using ddwrapper though, that project is in quite a sad state. ( and doesn't support 99.9% of D3D games )

Reply 25 of 59, by filipetolhuizen

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I remember running the bundled Monster 3D II version on my PC a couple of years ago (it had XP at the time). The menus were garbled and it was running too fast to play. Maybe the "DirectXTrimTextureFormats" flag in ACT 5.6/6.0 fixes the menus as it fixed Rogue Squadron screens. I haven't tried on Win7 yet.

Reply 26 of 59, by RanCorX2

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finally, the game is playable with the wrapper, must of tried an older version. just completed the asteroid mission and it was nearly perfect, before it was unplayable and stuttered horribly. good work aqrit.

Reply 27 of 59, by VirtuaIceMan

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I was playing with Shadows Of The Empire last night. Got it running on my Win8.1 64bit machine (Nvidia 980 graphics so no glitches it seems*) by using the guide here: http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Shado … ions_of_Windows (note: if you install less than full install you'll have to tweak Registry strings to point to correct CD/DVD drive, otherwise video won't play).

The CD Audio is another matter; it seemed no one ever got it working, but then I came across this guy's blog: http://punkrockhacker.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/ … me-hacking.html so will be trying that later on!

*I can only run 1920x1440 on my monitor; 2560x1440 crashes the game with some DirectDraw memory error. Maybe I can improve that with the fixes above, or via ACT...

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 29 of 59, by filipetolhuizen

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VirtuaIceMan wrote:

I was playing with Shadows Of The Empire last night. Got it running on my Win8.1 64bit machine (Nvidia 980 graphics so no glitches it seems*) by using the guide here: http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Shado … ions_of_Windows (note: if you install less than full install you'll have to tweak Registry strings to point to correct CD/DVD drive, otherwise video won't play).

The CD Audio is another matter; it seemed no one ever got it working, but then I came across this guy's blog: http://punkrockhacker.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/ … me-hacking.html so will be trying that later on!

*I can only run 1920x1440 on my monitor; 2560x1440 crashes the game with some DirectDraw memory error. Maybe I can improve that with the fixes above, or via ACT...

Most memory errors can be corrected with the flag "GlobalStatusMemoryLie" or "GlobalStatusMemory2GB" if more is needed.

Reply 30 of 59, by VirtuaIceMan

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That fix works, music is back! I don't think I'll look at fixing the resolution, as 1920x1440 gives the right aspect ratio to everything, otherwise the 2D menu screens are stretched, and the FOV cuts off top and bottom to keep gameplay the right shape!

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 31 of 59, by VirtuaIceMan

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As the file seems to have been removed, you can download it from one of these sources:

https://www.sendspace.com/file/s2876t

Or, it's attached!

Attachments

  • Filename
    fix_SOTE.zip
    File size
    1.9 MiB
    Downloads
    676 downloads
    File comment
    Shadows Of The Empire music fix
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 32 of 59, by borjis

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Everything works very well but the music.

I extracted the fix_SOTE.zip content to the installed \SDATA\ folder
In the Music folder, I placed all of the music tracks as 128kbps .ogg files
Track 02.ogg etc...

But no music is playing.
The guy mentioned registry settings, when I run regedit (win7-64) I don't see any entry
for LucasArts in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software section.

is there a .reg file needed to make the music work? I'm not getting the "insert cd" error.

UPDATE:
ok I did find the registry entry its at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\LucasArts Entertainment Company

I changed some of the values to .\\
but still no music.

any suggestions?

Reply 35 of 59, by teleguy

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joel_a wrote:

I've gotten the game running using the fix_SOTE zip, but during cutscenes the screen flickers black constantly. Is there a fix for this?

Just tried the demo. The flickering can be fixed by running the game through DXWnd.
You can find a profile in the export folder.
The only things I had to change were game path, "Run in Window" and screen resolution (->Monitor native modes).

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dxwnd/

Reply 38 of 59, by teleguy

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Found my CD. 😀

Same as with the demo. No flickering with DXWnd and flickering without it. Did you import the profile from the export folder? Also the game path has to point to Shadows.exe not to SOTE.exe.

Unfortunately the videos are completely garbled for me in the full game. Any ideas how to fix that?

file.php?id=16448
file.php?id=16449

Attachments

  • Filename
    Shadow2.png
    File size
    16.35 KiB
    Downloads
    No downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • Filename
    Shadow1.png
    File size
    50.32 KiB
    Downloads
    No downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 39 of 59, by teleguy

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Managed to fix the videos by running the game in 640x480. The demo doesn't have that limitation.

Incidentally that also fixed the flickering without the need for a 3rd party tool.

Edit: 3D part is extremely ugly though at that resolution. 😠