It is possible for some ddraw.dll files, but for DDrawCompat and dgVoodoo they're pretty mutually exclusive.

You shouldn't need DDrawCompat anyway, as dgVoodoo runs KISS: Psycho Circus flawlessly.

ZellSF wrote:

It is possible for some ddraw.dll files, but for DDrawCompat and dgVoodoo they're pretty mutually exclusive.

You shouldn't need DDrawCompat anyway, as dgVoodoo runs KISS: Psycho Circus flawlessly.

It doesn't, not on my machine anyway, see this post: http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=61 … =173351#p173351

I'll keep giving advice, but just to mention it: if you're not providing as much information as possible up front, people are less likely to give you advice and more likely to give you bad advice.

brazzjazz wrote:

After you disable these entries, the videos and the menu are displayed with correct colors, but painstakingly slow at 0-3 fps - apparently exactly the reason why the entries were set this way in the compatibility database this way. I wonder whether there is a reason to avoid both problems. I've tried out running compatibility modes, which don't seem to change anything.

Are you saying you're getting 0-3 fps in menus with dgVoodoo2 and no compatibility modes set?

Where was I giving too little information? Yes, it's the phenomenon you described, and with compatibility modes it's the wrong colors and movies.

brazzjazz wrote:

Where was I giving too little information? Yes, it's the phenomenon you described, and with compatibility modes it's the wrong colors and movies.

You didn't provide any information at all about the problem you were trying to solve (that the game ran at 0-3 FPS or with distorted colors), you just asked about what you (wrongfully) thought was the step towards solving it.
http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#goal

Now since dgVoodoo doesn't run the menu at 0-3 FPS here, I must assume something is different with your setup that causes it, so let's go through a small checklist:

1. What are the specifications of your system?
2. Have you verified dgVoodoo actually gets loaded (enable the watermark)?
3. Have you tried with a clean dgVoodoo configuration (delete dgVoodoo.conf from game dir and %appdata%\dgVoodoo)?
4. Have you made sure all compatibility modes are cleared (don't enable them for any part of this troubleshooting process)?

From my point of view, the problem was already solved with DDrawCompat, if I could have loaded both ddraw.dll's this would have made sense, that's why I asked first about the DLLs. Of course, things may look different when you know more details.

1. My specifications are in the signature. I can always give more, I'm just not sure what is needed in each case. Driver version 411.70 (pretty recent, but the latest generation breaks custom DSR resolutions)
2. Yes
3. I did that, and deleting the profile and config file has no effect. However, the game starts normally as soon as I rename the installation folder, as I have now noticed. Also, turning off VSync for the game's executable in the Nvidia driver settings now actually works.
4. Yes

Another open problem in any installation, including the vanilla one, is the choppy mouse movement, which seems to make little breaks and jumps.
· When I press one of the arrow keys, the movement is smooth.
· I have no mouse acceleration.
· Mouse: Logitech G602 (Wireless).
· 750 dpi.
· Changing the mouse options ingame such as sensitivity or mouse rate did not change things.
· Turning VSync off did not change things.
· Tried a custom dinput.dll for LithTech engines without result. https://github.com/elishacloud/dxwrapper/issues/30
· Occasionally the "CPU is busy" ring or whatever that is that replaces the mouse cursor in Windows blinks through the crosshair of the game.

brazzjazz wrote:

3. I did that, and deleting the profile and config file has no effect. However, the game starts normally as soon as I rename the installation folder, as I have now noticed.
4. Yes

Renaming the folder doesn't do anything. It does however clear user-set compatibility modes since those are by path. So those answers are a bit contradictory. Check:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers
But by "starts normally", I'm assuming it means you have neither issue now? Ok, moving on...

brazzjazz wrote:

Another open problem in any installation, including the vanilla one, is the choppy mouse movement, which seems to make little br […]
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Another open problem in any installation, including the vanilla one, is the choppy mouse movement, which seems to make little breaks and jumps. When I press one of the arrow keys, the movement is smooth.
I have no mouse acceleration.
Mouse: Logitech G602 (Wireless).
750 dpi.

Well the 750 dpi is a potential problem, try setting it to 250 dpi (and keep it that way for subsequent troubleshooting of this issue).

Also disabling mouse acceleration in Windows does not necessarily disable it for legacy games. So you need to figure out if what you're experience is mouse acceleration, or something else.

brazzjazz wrote:

Turning VSync off did not change things.

Not sure where you've heard that would help as I'm pretty sure it would make things worse as LithTech engine does not like high framerates. We should probably eliminate that as a potential issue too, edit autoexec.cfg and add a entry that says:
"maxfps" "60"

Also try unemulated display modes in dgVoodoo, by unemulated I mean that "Scaling mode" should be set to "Unspecified" in the General tab and "Resolution" should be set to "Unforced" in the DirectX tab.

Correction: 750dpi isn't a problem. I keep confusing it with polling rate. What I meant was set your polling rate to 125hz.

Hi again,

I followed every step you named. dpi back to 750, polling rate 125.

Interestingly, there are no flags in the registry for that folder/exe combination. However, since the videos / menu don't stutter with another folder name, I can live with it.

Mouse acceleration seems to be off, as the crosshair is pretty sensitive with slow movements.

Mouse movement seems to be a little better right now, although I cannot say when this got better. I also had a weird glitch leading to below-60 framerates whose cause I was unable to pinpoint, so I used a backup folder with a 60 fps installation.

I'll have to play some more to be able to say whether everything is working at is should. Not sure whether mouse movement in other games is really that smooth as I'm now expecting it to be... 😁

The only things that come to mind that could be better are the resolutions. In the KISS Psycho Circus demo, the game launcher (psycho.exe) shows only 32-bit resolutions, and in the main game the launcher shows only 16-bit resolutions. I wonder whether the game has 32-bit rendering, because if it doesn't, this may be irrelevant.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time.

Update: As I found out, the choppy movement affects movement in general. I just did not notice it in the turning movement by arrow keys, but I can notice it when I move into different directions by WASD.

brazzjazz wrote:

Update: As I found out, the choppy movement affects movement in general. I just did not notice it in the turning movement by arrow keys, but I can notice it when I move into different directions by WASD.

Is that with the FPS limiter enabled? Set the FPS limiter to 55 just to double check it's functional (at 60 you might be mistaking it for vsync).

Currently I do not have maxfps in the autoexec.cfg.

P.S. Added "maxfps" "30" and the limiter works.

Running at too high FPS often causes issues like those you mentioned, so you should.

Under normal circumstances, I don't get over 60 fps though because of activated VSync (driver-side).

By the way, I also experience the phenomenon that the framerate drops from 60 to even around 15 when I have a lot of enemies, even though of course the GPU has enough power. The clocking and GPU load just stay the same...

brazzjazz wrote:

Under normal circumstances, I don't get over 60 fps though because of activated VSync (driver-side).

i've been using this program to limit the FPS in Wing commander 2 KS, due to the gutscenes having uncapped framerate problems
https://niftucal.blogspot.com/2018/09/fpslimiter.html
try to use it! and yes it works with Dgvoodoo2, as long as the game is 32 bit.

about the 2 DDRAW dll files, Wing commander IV hates Dgvoodoo2 but it works flawlessly with Sol's DDhack to the point of scaling the screen to fit with your and keep the image 4:3

brazzjazz wrote:

By the way, I also experience the phenomenon that the framerate drops from 60 to even around 15 when I have a lot of enemies, even though of course the GPU has enough power. The clocking and GPU load just stay the same...

Hi, Kizz did run fine back in pre-directX 9 dgvoodoo, but i had to remove any compability linked to Kiss, as it made trouble for the wrapper.
You could change the exe name so windows won't pick it up and apply any extended compability, something that is defined in Compatibility Administrator

i havent seen you posted anything about updating the game but i have an archive of a Retail copy of Kiss pluss some patches and updates i bundled with in my archive folder.

So i uploading only the patch and update , i hope you can find it useful for your troubleshoot

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Agj8jUvjAJjzol8Z13MOPBzRs9Fv

Add update 1 and 2 then extract the "Win64 patch" 😉

batterymandark wrote:

Hi, Kizz did run fine back in pre-directX 9 dgvoodoo, but i had to remove any compability linked to Kiss, as it made trouble for […]
Show full quote

brazzjazz wrote:

By the way, I also experience the phenomenon that the framerate drops from 60 to even around 15 when I have a lot of enemies, even though of course the GPU has enough power. The clocking and GPU load just stay the same...

Hi, Kizz did run fine back in pre-directX 9 dgvoodoo, but i had to remove any compability linked to Kiss, as it made trouble for the wrapper.
You could change the exe name so windows won't pick it up and apply any extended compability, something that is defined in Compatibility Administrator

i havent seen you posted anything about updating the game but i have an archive of a Retail copy of Kiss pluss some patches and updates i bundled with in my archive folder.

So i uploading only the patch and update , i hope you can find it useful for your troubleshoot

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Agj8jUvjAJjzol8Z13MOPBzRs9Fv

Add update 1 and 2 then extract the "Win64 patch" 😉

Hi, I did patch the game and disable any compatibility flags in the Compatibility Administrator. I've also finished the game by now. But thanks anyway!