The ddraw.dll should have worked. Perhaps there's another version floating around that might help you. I'm pretty sure I had similar issues and got around it, so don't give up on it just yet.

Have you taken a look at the PCGamingWiki?
https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Jedi … _Dark_Forces_II

F2bnp wrote:

The ddraw.dll should have worked. Perhaps there's another version floating around that might help you. I'm pretty sure I had similar issues and got around it, so don't give up on it just yet.

Have you taken a look at the PCGamingWiki?
https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Jedi … _Dark_Forces_II

Yup, I've been over that page with a fine-toothed comb. They list two versions of ddraw and I've tried them both (the links didn't work, but I found the same files on the JK support sites).

No matter what I do, this is what I get with 3D acceleration;

Well, I can't help you much then.

I remember playing the game on an Nvidia card under WinXP back in 2010-2011 and I definitely had D3D on, so perhaps later drivers broke something that the game needed? This shouldn't be the case since you are using a DLL in the game's folder, but who knows?
The ddraw.dll fix was created at a time when WinXP and Vista were the top dogs, so it was definitely supposed to run on them.

The GOG version supposedly fixes a lot of the issues that the game has. You've probably already done it, but perhaps one of the topics on their forum will help you out:
https://www.gog.com/forum/star_wars_dark_forc … ries#1514290145

If all else fails, uninstall everything, clear folders and registry entries and repeat with a clear mind and as few tweaks as possible in each step. Hope any of this helps!

F2bnp wrote:

I remember playing the game on an Nvidia card under WinXP back in 2010-2011 and I definitely had D3D on, so perhaps later drivers broke something that the game needed?

Yes, I'm assuming that it's something related to my graphics card and the drivers for it. This isn't the first time I've had graphics card related problems. On my old system, I had to downgrade the drivers to get games using the Lithtech engine to work properly. I also had to downgrade them for the game Thief.

F2bnp wrote:

The GOG version supposedly fixes a lot of the issues that the game has. You've probably already done it, but perhaps one of the topics on their forum will help you out:
https://www.gog.com/forum/star_wars_dark_forc … ries#1514290145

Thanks, but I've been through that thread. It mentions the same fixes as other sites. There are a couple broken links that might have been to different files, but chances are that they were just named differently.

F2bnp wrote:

If all else fails, uninstall everything, clear folders and registry entries and repeat with a clear mind and as few tweaks as possible in each step. Hope any of this helps!

Thanks. I've already re-installed it a couple times. I guess I'll just have to live with the software rendering. 🙁

On the plus side, I do seem to have it running 100% from the hard drive with music and cutscenes, although whether that will work past the point where it changes disks remains to be seen. The small file that helps trick it into using the HD is different on each of the two discs, so I might have to manually switch it later.

Unfortunately I can't do the same with Mysteries of the Sith. Just copying the file and changing the registry doesn't work and the pre-patched executable that doesn't require the CD is kind of unstable and crashes at random. Or maybe it's the add-on to make music play from the HD that crashes it. I didn't test without it, because I didn't want to play without the music. I suppose I could probably make a BIN/CUE set and mount it in a virtual drive, but I don't know how to do that from the command line, so it would be an extra step I'd need to take each time I wanted to play.

On XP you could try one of the older versions of Wined3d.
https://fdossena.com/?p=wined3d/index.frag

To make Wined3d work you might also have to set the exe to 256 color compatibility mode, select backbuffer as "Offscreen Rendering" mode in wined3dcfg or put opengl32.dll into the game folder.
download/file.php?id=32472
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4cp63htqn5eyeon/opengl32.zip?dl=0

There's also DXGL, but I do not know whether it is compatible with that game or not.

teleguy wrote:

On XP you could try one of the older versions of Wined3d.
https://fdossena.com/?p=wined3d/index.frag

I followed the directions for pre-DirectX7 games exactly. It didn't work. When I try to load the game, it just gives me a black screen and Task Manager says the game is using 50% of my CPU. I don't even hear any sound.

teleguy wrote:

To make Wined3d work you might also have to set the exe to 256 color compatibility mode, select backbuffer as "Offscreen Rendering" mode in wined3dcfg or put opengl32.dll into the game folder.
download/file.php?id=32472
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4cp63htqn5eyeon/opengl32.zip?dl=0

Where did that DLL file come from? I've never seen an opengl32.dll that was 19MB before.

Jo22 wrote:

There's also DXGL, but I do not know whether it is compatible with that game or not.

I installed DXGL, added Jedi Knight to the list, left everything on the default (I have no idea what changing most of the options would do), ran the game and got the same result as with WineD3D; Black screen, no sound, 50% CPU usage. Plus, when I use the Remove option to delete Jedi Knight from the list, the program crashes. I deleted the ddraw.dll it placed in the game directory, so the game is back to normal, but I can't delete the entry from DXGL's list.

Is there some trick to making it work?

I believe that I've found that you can work around the smearing by using DxWnd and enabling one of the "texture hacks" in it. Try that.

Osprey wrote:

I believe that I've found that you can work around the smearing by using DxWnd and enabling one of the "texture hacks" in it. Try that.

I downloaded the lastest DxWind, added Jedi Knight's EXE, left all the options on default, ran the game and I see absolutely no difference. Isn't the default for DxWind to run in a window? I still get a fullscreen display, no different than before. I switched to the Details view for the window and it has a little green dot next to the name, supposedly signifying that DxWind is active, but it doesn't seem to be doing squat.

What am I doing wrong?

This game is a royal pain in the ass to get working properly!

I'd been playing from HD using a music patch and I noticed that the music plays right through the cutscenes, drowning out the dialog. Also, the game occasionally crashes so I thought I'd see if a vanilla installation had the same problems. I deleted all the extra files (the main EXE wasn't changed), but I couldn't make the music work at all off the CDs. So I ended up attempting to uninstall it and the launcher would no longer run, it just kept crashing.

I deleted everything manually, including the registry entry for the game and re-installed it. It worked, but the music wouldn't play after you load a saved game. I thought screw it, I'll just play without the music. It gets a little repetitive anyway and isn't synced to the action. I decided to copy the videos to the hard drive and use a replacement, 4-byte file that fools it into playing them from the drive instead of a disc. Everything works, except for the music of course.

Then I Googled for a possible solution to the glitchy cutscenes. Someone said to turn off DirectDraw acceleration, which worked. I didn't want to manually do that every time I played the game, so I Googled for a way to do it automatically. I found a forum for another game which said to use the Application Compatibility Toolkit and check ForceDirectDrawEmulation to fix some graphic issues. I tried that, watched a cutscene and it was perfect!

Of course, not being one to leave well enough alone, I started wondering if any of the ddraw.dll files had also fixed the cutscenes. I only ever tested them for the 3D acceleration. So I uninstalled the compatibility fix and tried the ddraw.dll files. Nope, cutscenes still had ugly black patches. Delete ddraw.dll file, re-install the compatibility fix and... The cutscenes still have ugly black patches!

What the hell??? A fix works once, but won't work the next time I try it? And yes, the settings were exactly the same because I re-installed the fix using the database file it saved for the entry I created.

I think I'm done trying to fix this game. I'm halfway through it anyway so I'll just live with the software mode and the corrupt cutscenes. Hopefully the elimination of the music patch will fix the crashing issue. Right now the game is 100% original (other than the 4-byte file to make it play from HD), running in Win95 compatibility mode so hopefully it will work better.

Rekrul wrote:

I downloaded the lastest DxWind, added Jedi Knight's EXE, left all the options on default, ran the game and I see absolutely no difference. Isn't the default for DxWind to run in a window? I still get a fullscreen display, no different than before. I switched to the Details view for the window and it has a little green dot next to the name, supposedly signifying that DxWind is active, but it doesn't seem to be doing squat.

What am I doing wrong?

You left the options on default and I said to enable one of the "texture hacks." It's an option on one of DxWnd's settings tabs. I don't remember which of the various hacks reduced the smearing, but a couple of them did. Unfortunately, I don't think that they eliminate the smearing completely, since you may still get them if you're right up against walls, but it's something to try if nothing else works.

Rekrul wrote:

This game is a royal pain in the ass to get working properly!

It used to be easier to get it working in XP and a royal pain to get it working in Vista and 7. Since then, it's kind of flip-flopped, with solutions being created and posted for post-XP systems and the older solutions relevant to XP being erased from the web or being harder to find. It might help (if you haven't already) to google specifically for solutions pertaining to XP. That might turn up some 10-year-old web pages and posts that'll be more relevant to you than most of the (post-XP) tips that you've been following.

Osprey wrote:

You left the options on default and I said to enable one of the "texture hacks." It's an option on one of DxWnd's settings tabs. I don't remember which of the various hacks reduced the smearing, but a couple of them did. Unfortunately, I don't think that they eliminate the smearing completely, since you may still get them if you're right up against walls, but it's something to try if nothing else works.

Yes, I left them on the defaults because I wanted to see if it even worked before I started changing options. It says it's set to run the game in a window (isn't that the original purpose of DxWnd?) but I still get a fullscreen display.

Osprey wrote:

It used to be easier to get it working in XP and a royal pain to get it working in Vista and 7. Since then, it's kind of flip-flopped, with solutions being created and posted for post-XP systems and the older solutions relevant to XP being erased from the web or being harder to find. It might help (if you haven't already) to google specifically for solutions pertaining to XP. That might turn up some 10-year-old web pages and posts that'll be more relevant to you than most of the (post-XP) tips that you've been following.

I've tried that. I found references to using replacement ddraw.dll files for XP, but none of them made any difference.

On the plus side, since doing away with the music DLLs, which played the music from OGG files, the game hasn't crashed once on me.

I remember someone having the same problem on XP with Tie Fighter. He said the last properly working driver is 266.58.

Rekrul wrote:

if I enable 3D acceleration, the display is a garbled mess that "smears" when I pan the view

It seems I have exactly the same problem on AMD HD7850, Windows XP.

So it is not Nvidia-specific.
On Windows 10 I used dgVoodoo 2 and the game ran fine (sort of, there was some glitch with the menus). I cannot test the game under Win10 at the moment because my Win10 installation refuses to boot for some reason.

Hmm... differences between DX versions on XP compared to 98SE?

Not the most technically elegant solution but Jedi Knight DK2 is available on GOG for 6 clams American and claims to run under XP. I know it works with Win7 because I bought it - but can't vouch for XP.

Azarien wrote:

It seems I have exactly the same problem on AMD HD7850, Windows XP.

It's not a competition, but mine's worse. 😉

For me, the display looks like the image I posted before you even move the mouse.

They didn't work for me, but you can try these two ddraw.dll files;

JKUP_2010-06-19.zip
http://www.jkhub.net/project/get.php?id=1955

ddraw_(hack_viewport3_clear2).zip
http://www.jkhub.net/project/get.php?id=1804

To use, unpack one of them to the Jedi Knight directory, where JK.exe is located. You shouldn't need to do anything else. If it works, great, if not, delete ddraw.dll and try the other one.

They claim to support the use of a custom crosshair contained in a BMP file (JKUP comes with such an image), but it seems it only works in 3D accelerated mode. In software mode, it shows up as a solid block.

There's also;

https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/releases

Again, it didn't work for me, but it might for you. Note that you'll only be able to use 0.1.3 or earlier. All the 0.2.x releases cause an error under XP.

BTW, there's an excellent page on tinkering with Jedi Knight here;

https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Jedi … _Dark_Forces_II

As I posted above, using the music patch made the music play through the cutscenes, but that might not matter to you. It also seems to have caused occasional crashes, but if you quicksave often, it usually takes less than 20 seconds to get back to where you were on a fairly modern system. Note that they link to the site JKDF2.com for some of the files, but the site is now at JKDF2.net. Just changing the links doesn't work though. If there's something you want, just note the filename in the link and Google for it.

I've also used the "high detail" mod without problems, which stops the game from using blurry textures at a distance to try and save CPU power.

They also recommend a program called WheelThingy to bind keys to the mouse wheel so you can use it for switching weapons, force powers, items, etc, but it didn't seem to work for me. What did work was using a program called GlovePIE. I don't have an official link for it, but you can find it with Google. You can find a thread about using it with the original Dark Forces here;

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filede … s/?id=286364447

Just delete the parts of the script not about the wheel and substitute the words DOT and SLASH (punctuation symbols need to be spelled) in place of F9 and F10 (or change the weapon switch keys in the game). Note that GlovePIE must be running for it to work. You can make a script to run it automatically, or do it manually when you want to play.

gdjacobs wrote:

Hmm... differences between DX versions on XP compared to 98SE?

Maybe, but DirectX is version 9c on both this and my old Win98SE system.

tincup wrote:

Not the most technically elegant solution but Jedi Knight DK2 is available on GOG for 6 clams American and claims to run under XP. I know it works with Win7 because I bought it - but can't vouch for XP.

I was aware of this, but even at $6, it bugs me that I should have to pay for something I already own. Plus, there's no guarantee that the GOG version will work any better. One of the patches for playing the music from the hard drive includes an optional version of the DLL that it says is used by GOG, but which apparently has some shortcomings. I wouldn't know because when I try to use it, Jedi Knight crashes as soon as I try to load it.

Azarien wrote:

It seems I have exactly the same problem on AMD HD7850, Windows XP.

That looks like the problem that enabling texture hacks in DxWnd helped with at one point. You might also try the "AMD fix," if you haven't already.

Rekrul wrote:

https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Jedi … _Dark_Forces_II

As I posted above, using the music patch made the music play through the cutscenes, but that might not matter to you. It also seems to have caused occasional crashes, but if you quicksave often, it usually takes less than 20 seconds to get back to where you were on a fairly modern system. Note that they link to the site JKDF2.com for some of the files, but the site is now at JKDF2.net. Just changing the links doesn't work though. If there's something you want, just note the filename in the link and Google for it.

A few hours ago, I uploaded the unofficial patches for JK:DF2 and MotS to PCGamingWiki and updated the links on the pages for both games. I had wanted to for a long time, but didn't have a good enough reason until JKDF2.COM went down.

Rekrul wrote:

I've also used the "high detail" mod without problems, which stops the game from using blurry textures at a distance to try and save CPU power.

I'm glad to hear that you found it and haven't had any problems.

Rekrul wrote:

One of the patches for playing the music from the hard drive includes an optional version of the DLL that it says is used by GOG, but which apparently has some shortcomings. I wouldn't know because when I try to use it, Jedi Knight crashes as soon as I try to load it.

It sounds like you're referencing another of my uploads. Yeah, with that upload and a few of the others (unofficial patches, ddraw patch and added .OGG files for music), you can basically arrive at the same final configuration of the game that you can with a CD installation. The vast majority of the game (about 709 of 710MB), after all, is in the Resource folder, which is identical between the GOG and CD installations.

Osprey wrote:

That looks like the problem that enabling texture hacks in DxWnd helped with at one point. You might also try the "AMD fix," if you haven't already.

I tried enabling the texture hack option. No difference. I don't see an AMD fix option. Regardless, all indications are that DxWnd isn't doing anything. I posted on the official support forum and the author said I should turn on logging and send them to him. I turned on logging and it doesn't write any log file. I tried checking the option to overlay an FPS display, and there's no FPS display. It's set to run the game in a window, I get a fullscreen display. I tried right-clicking and selecting Run > Hooked and I get exactly the same thing. I don't think DxWnd is working.

Osprey wrote:

A few hours ago, I uploaded the unofficial patches for JK:DF2 and MotS to PCGamingWiki and updated the links on the pages for both games. I had wanted to for a long time, but didn't have a good enough reason until JKDF2.COM went down.

I know that JKDF2 and JKHub are the main sites for everything related to Jedi Knight, but for the life of me, I can never find a single thing I'm looking for on either site. I know the exact name of the patch or file I want, but can never find it no matter what I look under. Everything is listed under "projects" that often give no indication of the various files they contain.

Osprey wrote:

I'm glad to hear that you found it and haven't had any problems.

I've been thinking of trying the mipmap patch, which is supposed to do the same thing. Actually, I never understood why they used a bunch of replacement level files instead of just patching the program in the first place. I can be kind of a purist, so I usually prefer to use the most streamlined solution to any given problem.

Osprey wrote:

It sounds like you're referencing another of my uploads. Yeah, with that upload and a few of the others (unofficial patches, ddraw patch and added .OGG files for music), you can basically arrive at the same final configuration of the game that you can with a CD installation. The vast majority of the game (about 709 of 710MB), after all, is in the Resource folder, which is identical between the GOG and CD installations.

I gave up on the music though. I didn't like the way it played over the cutscenes and occasionally the game crashed. Since removing it, I haven't had a single crash. I was just going to do a normal installation and let it play the music off the discs, but it doesn't seem to play if you load a saved game. At least it didn't for me. I wanted to test and see if the game played the music over the cutscenes when using the CDs, but since it doesn't work after loading a saved game, it's kind of a moot point. Besides, while the various tracks have some differences, most of it is either a a variation on the Imperial March or the Star Wars theme. You could probably delete half the tracks and replace them with duplicates of the remaining ones and most people wouldn't even notice. It would be different if there were distinctly different tracks for each level or the music was synced to the action.