@Been_Nath_58,

Can you get "Front page sports ski racing" to run on Win10/11 with DxWnd? The game does ship with a V1000.uc file, but doesn't actually appear to have any actual rredline code, at least not in the game exe.

sharangad wrote on 2024-07-29, 06:48:

@Been_Nath_58,

Can you get "Front page sports ski racing" to run on Win10/11 with DxWnd? The game does ship with a V1000.uc file, but doesn't actually appear to have any actual rredline code, at least not in the game exe.

1997 game, Dynamix? Let me see

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2024-07-29, 07:59:

sharangad wrote on 2024-07-29, 06:48:

@Been_Nath_58,

Can you get "Front page sports ski racing" to run on Win10/11 with DxWnd? The game does ship with a V1000.uc file, but doesn't actually appear to have any actual rredline code, at least not in the game exe.

1997 game, Dynamix? Let me see

It's a Sierra game from '97. I think the developer was dynamix.

It looks like one of the config file settings is off.

The game works. Although far from perfect. The game, on a second launch of a race, crashes due to a loss of the surface (primary surface?). This is likely a long known DxWnd issue (saying because using a "Free" window instead of a "Floating" window fixes it).

On other grounds, windowed mode with DxWnd works perfect at all times.

For fullscreen, here is the profile I use:

To use windowed, change Free window to Floating because it crashes for me. Also when launching the game, it will start at a resolution outside the window, just press the "Maximize" button on the window and it will resize correctly (yet another issue). Alternatively, you can set Intial resolution 640x480 in DxWnd and it won't be required. Officially the game supports non-widescreen ratios

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2024-07-29, 08:57:

The game works. Although far from perfect. The game, on a second launch of a race, crashes due to a loss of the surface (primary […]
Show full quote

The game works. Although far from perfect. The game, on a second launch of a race, crashes due to a loss of the surface (primary surface?). This is likely a long known DxWnd issue (saying because using a "Free" window instead of a "Floating" window fixes it).

On other grounds, windowed mode with DxWnd works perfect at all times.

For fullscreen, here is the profile I use:

To use windowed, change Free window to Floating because it crashes for me. Also when launching the game, it will start at a resolution outside the window, just press the "Maximize" button on the window and it will resize correctly (yet another issue). Alternatively, you can set Intial resolution 640x480 in DxWnd and it won't be required. Officially the game supports non-widescreen ratios

Thanks!

Which version of DxWnd is that for? I think I'm still using 2.05.99 which uses an INI file.

[EDIT] Crashes with DxWnd 2.06.05. I think I need to reboot for this to work or at the very least sign out.

sharangad wrote on 2024-07-29, 09:08:

Which version of DxWnd is that for? I think I'm still using 2.05.99 which uses an INI file.

[EDIT] Crashes with DxWnd 2.06.05. I think I need to reboot for this to work or at the very least sign out.

2.06.06.rc2. Its in the forums. Where does it crash?

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2024-07-29, 10:45:

sharangad wrote on 2024-07-29, 09:08:

Which version of DxWnd is that for? I think I'm still using 2.05.99 which uses an INI file.

[EDIT] Crashes with DxWnd 2.06.05. I think I need to reboot for this to work or at the very least sign out.

2.06.06.rc2. Its in the forums. Where does it crash?

The window appears and then it crashes. When running in forced windowed mode, the window appears with the dxwnd animation and then crashes,

Maybe I messed up the config. Let me try reinstalling.

[EDIT]3 It didn't work after a reinstall. but

once I enabled extended mode and turned on logging to max, it started working.

[EDIT] There isn't much in the log, but maybe there's a startup delay?

[EDIT2] Now works without logging. AArgh!

[EDIT4] Crashes when starting a race.

[EDIT]5 Now no longer starts up.

1[ 136314912:1209008128:18:138543108:4224:65536:1073774592:0:17825796:0:8192:0:128:0:0:0:-2147475456:0:0:0 ]
2dxwCore::InitTarget: __COMPAT_LAYER="(null)"
3dxwCore::MapKeysInit: keymapping[9](altf4)=0x73
4dxwnd.HookInit: hook completed!
5dxwnd.InjectHook: hooked target="c:\sierra\skiracing\sr.exe"
6kernel32.GetCommandLineA: ret=""C:\SIERRA\SkiRacing\sr.exe""
7kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
8kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
9kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
10kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
11kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
12kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
13kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
14kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
15kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
16kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
17kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
18kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
19dxwnd.HookInit: hook completed!
20kernel32.GetCommandLineA: ret=""C:\SIERRA\SkiRacing\sr.exe""
21kernel32.LoadLibraryA: ERROR FileName=MZ  err=126

It look for redline.dll and verite.dll, so I copied them across and then I got the stuff on top.
[/EDIT5]

Will look at this tomorrow.

sharangad wrote on 2024-07-29, 11:18:

[EDIT]3 It didn't work after a reinstall. but […]
Show full quote

[EDIT]3 It didn't work after a reinstall. but

once I enabled extended mode and turned on logging to max, it started working.

[EDIT] There isn't much in the log, but maybe there's a startup delay?

[EDIT2] Now works without logging. AArgh!

[EDIT4] Crashes when starting a race.

[EDIT]5 Now no longer starts up.

Copy code to clipboard

1[ 136314912:1209008128:18:138543108:4224:65536:1073774592:0:17825796:0:8192:0:128:0:0:0:-2147475456:0:0:0 ]
2dxwCore::InitTarget: __COMPAT_LAYER="(null)"
3dxwCore::MapKeysInit: keymapping[9](altf4)=0x73
4dxwnd.HookInit: hook completed!
5dxwnd.InjectHook: hooked target="c:\sierra\skiracing\sr.exe"
6kernel32.GetCommandLineA: ret=""C:\SIERRA\SkiRacing\sr.exe""
7kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
8kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
9kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
10kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
11kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
12kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
13kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
14kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
15kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
16kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
17kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
18kernel32.SetCurrentDirectoryA: ERROR ret=0 path="TMP" err=2
19dxwnd.HookInit: hook completed!
20kernel32.GetCommandLineA: ret=""C:\SIERRA\SkiRacing\sr.exe""
21kernel32.LoadLibraryA: ERROR FileName=MZ  err=126

It look for redline.dll and verite.dll, so I copied them across and then I got the stuff on top.
[/EDIT5]

Will look at this tomorrow.

Stops after issuing a LoadLibrary. The other game I have had this issue with is MechWarrior 2 since DxWnd???. Using DxWnd 2.06.03 fixed it.
https://sourceforge.net/p/dxwnd/discussion/ge … f50508bc2/#2c34

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2024-07-29, 15:24:

Stops after issuing a LoadLibrary. The other game I have had this issue with is MechWarrior 2 since DxWnd???. Using DxWnd 2.06.03 fixed it.
https://sourceforge.net/p/dxwnd/discussion/ge … f50508bc2/#2c34

The library it tries to load is mz<special character >. It might be mangling the name.

Got vquake 2 and vhexen 2 doing v1k_nopageflip/r_nopageflip 1 without tearing.

I was flushing front buffer writes twice. It only needed it once. Noticed it while working on Descent 2 support.

It'll be in the next release.

Got a weird bug with mouse support with dosbox-staging, it can cause games using the mouse to freeze permanently. This is holding up the release of staging.

The mouse code is different in staging to vanilla dosbox and expects both relative movement and absolute coordinates to be updated at the same time.
Vanilla Dosbox only uses one at a time. My code to handle this doesn't work. In fact I'm not entirely sure why it locks up.

Dosbox-Rendition is also showing signs of randomly locking up with vquake and rebel moon. AAargh! It doesn't appear to be mouse or input related.

Rebel Moon and vQuake random lock up should be fixed (fingers crossed) and now with dosbox-staging (recommended for Rebel Moon and vQuake):

https://nirvtek.com/downloads/RReady.Alpha.20240806.002.zip
MD5: c5073d54097516aa71bf79f547d1df69

https://nirvtek.com/downloads/RReady.Alpha.20240807.001.zip
MD5: 845c5d9141df77c153ea1e201e0fcbe1

https://nirvtek.com/downloads/RReady.Alpha.20240808.001.zip
MD5: 2aa2c8873eb8ba84b39be575e874f2bf

[Source for staging, repository has a lot of spurious junk, will be cleaned]
https://sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox-staging-rendition/

Staging uses its own dosbox-staging.conf and rendition.cfg files and does not support per-app configs. These will be copied across to the staging subfolder of that dosbox is installed to (withint RLauncher).

This is an alpha fully tested release (at last dosbox-rendition is). I have done some stress testing with vQuake and Rebel Moon with staging. Vanilla dosbox should also be fixed (tested only with Rebel Moon). The bug was in the mouse handler. It goes through a thread safe routine now (using SDL_PushEvent) just like it did for the keyboard.

- vQuake 2/vHexen II v1k_nopageflip should no longer tear/band. This is the Rendition native no-vsync mode. It's best to not enable this and disable vsync in rendition settings instead. This should allow for higher frames rates than 85 Hz.
- Descent II (still not working), pre-mission intros no longer flicker.
- Mouse input should be a lot more stable not cause lockups.

I'll be stress testing it over the next few days and will push it out to the store when I'm done.

Update on Descent II:

https://youtu.be/SfhyyKLprjw

Sorry for the horrible video, captured it on my phone without sound.

Alpha release:
https://nirvtek.com/downloads/RReady.Alpha.20240811.002.zip
MD5: 47c386c755cebef95a783eeef30be498
Corrects:
- Dosbox-Staging not showing up right after selecting installation folder
- Dosbox and dosbox-staging mouse motion and button clicks not registering on some systems
- Partial support for Descent II

When I get Descent II working, I'll push it out to the store.

@robertmo3, I can confirm icr2 custom tracks Nashville and Meadowlands don't switch to paletted modes after running Rendition enhanced tracks on actual hardware. So this is a wrapper bug. Also cars2k 95 (custom car set) doesn't suffer massive slowdown. The frame rate is lower but it's not a chugfest. This appears to be a cpu emulation problem with dosbox, but maybe I can lower the speedy3d comms load to speed things up. Setting [cpu] cycles to 400,000 will also fix it.

Descent 2 also happens to run in dma mode on rendition boards, but not with RReady. I'm looking at that too.

[edit]
Descent 2 does not run in dma mode in pure ms-dos mode, only from within Windows 98.

It appears to be a malformed int 10h function 0xf (get current video mode num) call. Registers es and Di are not zero and the dpmi real mode call tries to page in es : di and fails in ms-dos mode. Dos from within win32 is a lot more lenient and there's no gpf.
[/edit]

[EDIT2]

ICR2 does switch to paletted modes after the mode switch. It seems somewhat temperamental.

Just a quick update from my work on ICR2 - we're having a discussion on the ICR2 forum about .MI4 files - https://icr2.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=139 … =13934#pid13934
Those are 16-color images that seem to help reduce file size and save memory, as opposed to the standard .MIP format. So I'll be using those image files in addition to other techniques to try to get Detroit fully working.
By the way, the mods told me they activated your account over there, so please check if you haven't already.