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First post, by Good Ol' TarviS

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I didn't make this, but I felt like passing it along.

There are registry entries that force DDraw to run into a sort of 'compatibility mode' where the correct palette is used in games. This program automatically adds them.

This means that old games like StarCraft, Diablo 2, Command and Conquer, any 256-color game that have bad colors in Win7 can be fixed.

It works for both 64-bit and 32-bit OSes, and Vista as well, it seems.

From Mudlord himself, a description of exactly what the program does:

1) App gets HWND/process IDs of application being run. 2) App runs the application. 3) It kills its threads as soon as a HWND an […]
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1) App gets HWND/process IDs of application being run.
2) App runs the application.
3) It kills its threads as soon as a HWND and thread ID is gathered.
4) From there, the most recent DirectDraw application ID is gathered. Since it was the app to be patched, it copies it to a variable.
5) This variable, along with the needed flags makes a compatibility profile in the Registry for Windows Vista/7 to use with that application, only. It won't affect other parts of your registry. The key name used comes from the application's window class name/IDs.

Original Post:
http://www.sevenforums.com/gaming/2981-starcr … html#post866878

With this, you don't have to open the Screen Resolution window or kill explorer.exe before playing.

If this works for you, pass this along to other older game communities! It's about time a proper solution to this problem was made.

Attachement removed by Qbix. Google didn't like it.

Last edited by Good Ol' TarviS on 2010-09-03, 02:23. Edited 6 times in total.

Reply 3 of 57, by Good Ol' TarviS

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Davros wrote:

If it just adds reg entries cant he release a reg file so the fixes are applied to all o/s's

The problem is the reg entries must be made specifically for each game, so there is no one entry that magically fixes it for every game.
What other o/s's besides 7 and Vista need this fix anyhow?

keropi wrote:

I see this asks for an application .exe to patch ...

Yes, it intercepts ID numbers from it and creates the correct reg entries forcing GDI Enumeration Fix for these games. It doesn't actually modify the .exe itself. Once you run it for the .exe once, you won't have to do it again.

Reply 4 of 57, by Dr. Riptide

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The download link is dead. Until it can be fixed or a mirror made, instructions for doing the same thing manually can be found here, at the top of the original thread.

Intel Q6600 (2.4 GHz) | 4GB RAM | GeForce 8800 GT | Windows 7 64-bit

Reply 7 of 57, by TraxxAmigaEP

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i know the problem with the Psychedleic/garbled colors under windows 7 in Direct Draw with old games. i use the Ultimate x64. My solution is really simple. just kill the "explorer.exe" and start the old game. All colors right. I tested this with Wing Commander 3 and UFO game and sanatarium.

Edit: for Kill type in CMD or Start-execute: "taskkill /f /im explorer.exe" for Reload: "explorer.exe"
First Pic with "Explorer(exe) disabled". Second with aktiv Explorer(exe)"

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Reply 8 of 57, by Good Ol' TarviS

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TraxxAmigaEP wrote:

i know the problem with the Psychedleic/garbled colors under windows 7 in Direct Draw with old games. i use the Ultimate x64. My solution is really simple. just kill the "explorer.exe" and start the old game. All colors right. I tested this with Wing Commander 3 and UFO game and sanatarium.

Edit: for Kill type in CMD or Start-execute: "taskkill /f /im explorer.exe" for Reload: "explorer.exe"
First Pic with "Explorer(exe) disabled". Second with aktiv Explorer(exe)"

This patch allows you to fix it without having to make a batch file or closing explorer.exe beforehand. Like previously said, it does not actually modify the game .exe, but it uses data from it to generate registry entries that make DirectDraw behave properly.

Miki Maus wrote:

Attaching archive with source included.

I put that in the first now. Thanks.

Reply 10 of 57, by aqrit

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the program creates a registry entry used by
Microsoft's Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) which requires Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) or later.

But is the PS:Torment spell effect problem related to the palette?

Some interesting articles on the subject of windows palette corruption problem:
http://go.hopx.net/2010/05/256-color-issues-w … ctdraw-and.html
http://blog.macuyiko.com/2009/07/solving-colo … ass-purple.html

Reply 11 of 57, by SKARDAVNELNATE

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aqrit wrote:

But is the PS:Torment spell effect problem related to the palette?

I don't know what the true cause is. When it first became problem one solution was to use an older video driver. So it seemed like something had been left out as video technology progressed.

Another option is to scale down Hardware Acceleration. Which disables DirectDraw and Direct3D accelerations. However it also leaves a cursor trail from the mouse. So maybe this DDraw 'compatibility mode' could help.

Reply 14 of 57, by SKARDAVNELNATE

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Thanks for the suggestions. But this is very strange. I appear to have 2 miraculous hardware configurations. I've not had PS:T installed for some time until I wanted to look into the display problem again.

I installed it on 2 computers running Windows XP, no display problem.
One of those also has Virtual PC 2007 running Windows 98, still good.
Then I have an actual Windows 98 system, now I see problems.

Reply 15 of 57, by Destroy

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I don't understand how this program works.

I start w7ddpatcher.exe, browse to the game .exe in question, select it, the game starts, looking like rainbows as usual, quit the game, get back to desktop.

w7ddpatcher.exe window says found blabla.exe for the game in question but seems to do nothing with it????

What am I doing wrong?

Reply 16 of 57, by aqrit

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the "Microsoft\DirectDraw\MostRecentApplication" registry key is not updated consistently... this causes a silent fail?

keep trying until the Name under the MostRecentApplication key matches the name of your target application (see the manual instructions in the link I've previously provided)

Reply 17 of 57, by SKARDAVNELNATE

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Miki Maus wrote:

Try using D3DWindower.

Using one last XP system that still has the display problem I had to copy D3dHook.dll the Torment folder. Then I tried different options and found that DDraw Emulate corrected it.

Since it's now displayed in a window, using the mouse to scroll off the edges doesn't work. If it could be set to go full screen it would be a much better solution.

I think the height and width labels are reversed in the one I downloaded since a window 950 high by 1250 wide turned out to be really tall and narrow.