VOGONS


First post, by Bakhtosh

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I've posted about this game some time ago. The problems couldn't be solved back then. But with the new debug layer feature I thought a give it another try.

Old posts from the dgVoodoo 2 for DirectX 11 thread:

Bakhtosh wrote:
The Vista patch is for the SE (special edition) only. And there's no patch to update the original version to the special edition […]
Show full quote
Dege wrote:
Bakhtosh wrote:
Tried the game The Mystery of the Druids. There's an old version that also has a demo. And the special edition. […]
Show full quote

Tried the game The Mystery of the Druids. There's an old version that also has a demo. And the special edition.

The old version doesn't start with 2.51 and WIP23 but gives you the error message:
Error in module sprites[]
-> Direct3D init failed. Code: (80040154)

The special edition with the Vista patch applied (like the Steam version) is playable, but every time you click at the floor or a door to let the character move you get the error message:
Error in module depthbuffer[]
-> GetPixelDepth failed. Code: (80070057)
After confirming the message you can continue to play though.

I tried to change the options dgVoodoo has, but the behaviour didn't change.

This fail is not a D3D one, in spite of the error message. The game tries to instantiate a DirectShow .x file and this service is not available in Vista and up for some reason. I tried the Vista patch on the original game but it didn't work.

The Vista patch is for the SE (special edition) only. And there's no patch to update the original version to the special edition. The special edition was released with improved sound quality (new sound resource files and engine update) and back in those days developers avoided patches of several 100MB.

So I guess it's not possible to make the original version work, right?

But it should be possible (that doesn't mean that it has to be one of your goals 😉 ) to make the special edition (updated with the Vista patch) work. The special edition (updated with the Vista patch) already kind of works with Windows 10 64 Bit. You can start and play it and everything looks alright, but the save/load screens don't appear if you click at the respective icons. If you play a while the game crashes at certain animations if you don't skip them with ESC. With dgVoodoo the save/load screens do appear. I and hope the animation crashes won't happen with dgVoodoo (haven't tried it yet because it would be quite some work clicking all the "GetPixelDepth failed" messages away.

Bakhtosh wrote:
Dege wrote:
Bakhtosh wrote:

But it should be possible (that doesn't mean that it has to be one of your goals ) to make the special edition (updated with the Vista patch) work. The special edition (updated with the Vista patch) already kind of works with Windows 10 64 Bit.

The patched special edition should have compared with the unpatched one to see what the difference is. If it's only a little hack then the same could be applied to the original version. But, if the patch contains rewritten and recompiled complete parts of the executable then it's impossible.

Something I can do without having decompiling/deassembling skills? I can only imagine a checksum- or Bit-comparison of the unpatched/patched exe. But that won't really tell how far the differences are. Only thing I know is that the game uses an engine named cougar engine and that it was updated from the original version to the special edition to be able to play the new voice over sound files. But I don't know if the engine update also included some changes in the graphics part. And I have no idea what was updated with the Vista patch for the special edition.

Since then I've always hoped that with the next dgvoodoo version the game might work. Without dgvoodoo Win 10 the game kind of work but the save/load dialogue does not appear (I guess it's opened in the background). With dgvoodoo the save/load dialogue works (as does forcing a higher resolution). Up to WIP37 you always get a single "GetPixelDepth failed" error if you click at the floor. Afterwards the character walks to the lower end of the screen (like the mouse position doesn't get recognized correctly). With WIP38 yout also get a single "GetPixelDepth failed" error if you click at the floor. But afterwards you get an endless series of "Init depth buffer failed" errors.

So I tried the new debug layer. The game also has its own log.
The attached logs are for a case when I finally ended the "Init depth buffer failed" error series by clicking on "Cancel" instead of "OK" (that killed the game task).

Attachments

  • Filename
    cougar_game_engine_log.txt
    File size
    1.8 KiB
    Downloads
    79 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • Filename
    dgvoodoo_debug_log.txt
    File size
    76.83 KiB
    Downloads
    78 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 1 of 4, by Dege

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

OK, I tried again this game and now I was lucky. 😕
First, the plain version which I couldn't make start because it always quits with a 'Cannot create surface...'-like error message (DDERR_INVALIDPARAMS) at the startup phase. I checked it out, parameters are indeed invalid, and seem to come from some game data (Halligan's character) which is corrupted. So, problem is not on dgVoodoo side, Vista patch didn't help as you said.

So I installed the Special Edition version along with Vista patch and could reproduce the click&error situation. There was an incompatibility with MS DDraw in surface lock/unlock parameter interpreting, I've just fixed it.
Now the SE version is running fine.

Reply 4 of 4, by KainXVIII

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Hmm, sometimes main character disappears when walking, also game hangs while quitting, this on Win10+WIP54.
upd - game also hangs on quitting without dgvoodoo (sometimes) 😵
upd 2 - also cconfig.exe does not working with dgvoodoo enabled. And either with or without dgvoodoo texture filtering is not working (despite enabling it in cconfig.exe), also antialiasing option is grayed out (but you can force it with dgvoodoo itself)