VOGONS


First post, by unmei220

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Hi there. First of all, thanks for this wonderful wrapper.
I was following the discussion in the WIP versions thread until it got closed, specifically, the topic about "Artificial Academy 2" not being rendered correctly. Since I didn't see it mentioned anywhere else, or maybe I missed it, I want to mention that this problem affects all ILLUSION "anime-looking-style" DX9 games, including:
School Mate 1, School Mate Sweets!, @Home Mate, School Mate 2 and Artificial Academy 1. Wakeari!, Ore ga Shujinkou (I'm the Hero), Happy End Trigger and Musumakeup! are probably also affected, but I can't test them right now.
The good news is that it seems to be fixed with the compiled D3D9 version released on that thread, but v2.6 still renders them with problems; I guess the fix was not included in the last release.

I've also run into rendering problems using dgVoodoo2 with Sexy Beach 3 (DX9) when antialiasing is being applied.
Also, their first fully 3D game, "BIKŌ" which is a DX5 (or DX6) game has FPS problems (making it unplayable)... but I guess I'm the only one still running such ancient software.

The games were tested using v2.6 with default settings, and the results were the same in two different machines, one with W8.1 x64 and a GTX 1050 Ti (399.24 drivers), the other with Vista and a GT 440 (341.44 drivers).

Sexy Beach 3 (DX9): Issues when applying AA. Noticeable when applying oils, or sometimes randomly. Black lines appear at the neck and across body.
https://youtu.be/n30XW3FvtrM

BIKŌ (DX5?): Massive FPS drop. The game needs D3DRM.dll and W95/98/ME compatibility mode to work.
https://youtu.be/JAPIWquOK8c

Last edited by unmei220 on 2021-12-13, 20:55. Edited 11 times in total.

Reply 1 of 20, by Dege

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Thanks for the feedback!
Yes, the solution is not included in the latest released version, I'm going to include that in the next patch version.
I think the texture problems have the same root for all Illusion games (DX9), plz see the Aritifical Academy 2 thread.

Forced MSAA can break rendering and introduce various glitches, it's not a 'guaranteed' feature.
Is there any playable demo of BIKO I could download?

Reply 2 of 20, by unmei220

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Thanks for your reply.
I rechecked the AA2 thread and the WIP versions post but didn't found anything relating to the issue with SB3, or maybe I didn't understood something.
SB3 don't have "Hue" controls, so that can't be causing the texture issues in it.
It also happens on my Braswell Intel HD Graphics (15.40.38.4963 drivers) notebook with Win7x64, so the problem with SB3 it's not nVidia-only related.

Here's a screenshot with the Intel iGPU, I had to turn on "Inherit Color Profile in full screen mode", otherwise it all looked with a yellowish tint. Again, no problems with MSAA turned off, and here's with MSAA set to 4x:

SB3Plus xmas 2019-07-18 12-27-03-50.png
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SB3Plus xmas 2019-07-18 12-27-03-50.png
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448 KiB
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18813 views
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Fair use/fair dealing exception

I know there's no guarantee MSAA will work flawlessly, I recall reading about that in the dgVoodoo2 readme's or the website, before I started using dgV2. The reason I'm posting about this game specifically is because all other Illusion DX9 games (except cel-shaded ones, like AA2 and the others I mentioned before) run flawlessly, including Artificial Girl 3, Hako, R*peLay, etc. It's just this one game from their DX9 era that shows just that one issue.

I don't have any playable demo of BIKŌ 1. There was a benchmark demo released back in 1999, but not even the Internet Archive has a copy of it.

Last edited by unmei220 on 2021-12-13, 20:56. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 3 of 20, by karigal

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Did you use Windows 10..? How do solve game lag for this

unmei220 wrote on 2019-07-18, 16:06:
Thanks for your reply. I rechecked the AA2 thread and the WIP versions post but didn't found anything relating to the issue with […]
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Thanks for your reply.
I rechecked the AA2 thread and the WIP versions post but didn't found anything relating to the issue with SB3, or maybe I didn't understood something.
SB3 don't have "Hue" controls, so that can't be causing the texture issues in it.
It also happens on my Braswell Intel HD Graphics (15.40.38.4963 drivers) notebook with Win7x64, so the problem with SB3 it's not nVidia-only related.

Here's a screenshot with the Intel iGPU, I had to turn on "Inherit Color Profile in full screen mode", otherwise it all looked with a yellowish tint. Again, no problems with MSAA turned off, and here's with MSAA set to 4x:
SB3Plus xmas 2019-07-18 12-27-03-50.png
One thing I forgot to mention previously: this only happens starting from the 2nd time you met a girl onwards. The first time you met a girl and the game loads the 3D model and the location, etc, it all looks perfect. Starting from the 2nd time onwards is that the black line issue starts showing up. Also, it's not related to tanning/using oils as I previously assumed, no need to do that.
Here's a video showing what I'm trying to say:
https://youtu.be/n30XW3FvtrM

I know there's no guarantee MSAA will work flawlessly, I recall reading about that in the dgVoodoo2 readme's or the website, before I started using dgV2. The reason I'm posting about this game specifically is because all other Illusion DX9 games (except cel-shaded ones, like AA2 and the others I mentioned before) run flawlessly, including Artificial Girl 3, Hako, R*peLay, etc. It's just this one game from their DX9 era that shows just that one issue.

I don't have any playable demo of BIKŌ 1. There was a benchmark demo released back in 1999, but not even the Internet Archive has a copy of it.

Reply 4 of 20, by unmei220

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unmei220 wrote on 2019-07-18, 16:06:
Here's a screenshot with the Intel iGPU, I had to turn on "Inherit Color Profile in full screen mode", otherwise it all looked w […]
Show full quote

Here's a screenshot with the Intel iGPU, I had to turn on "Inherit Color Profile in full screen mode", otherwise it all looked with a yellowish tint. Again, no problems with MSAA turned off, and here's with MSAA set to 4x:
SB3Plus xmas 2019-07-18 12-27-03-50.png
One thing I forgot to mention previously: this only happens starting from the 2nd time you met a girl onwards. The first time you met a girl and the game loads the 3D model and the location, etc, it all looks perfect. Starting from the 2nd time onwards is that the black line issue starts showing up. Also, it's not related to tanning/using oils as I previously assumed, no need to do that.
Here's a video showing what I'm trying to say:
https://youtu.be/n30XW3FvtrM

More than 2 years later, I can confirm that that specific MSAA problem with that game is fixed as of version 2.76 (the only one I tested after two years, so I don't know when or how it was fixed), running on a 1660Ti on Windows 8.1.

Now, when I was trying to translate one of these older games, DES BLOOD4 specifically, I ran into another problem, where when using dgVoodoo, lines of text gets duplicated for no reason, or some random lines appear out of nowhere. Attached are two combined screenshots to show the problem:

Expected behavior.jpg
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dgVoodoo.jpg
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dgVoodoo.jpg
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11136 views
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Public domain

I have literally tried changing all the (advanced) options in dgVoodoo, but nothing has fixed it. Once translated, it's really distracting to see duplicated lines almost everywhere. It's the only thing failing in this game, everything else looks as it should (the game is full of rendering errors without dgVoodoo).
Any ideas what could be causing this?

Reply 6 of 20, by unmei220

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Dege wrote on 2021-12-04, 13:36:

Hm, it's interesting. Could I get this game with your translated texts to look into it?

Hi! Thanks for the reply and this wonderful wrapper!

[rants about the game]
I haven't tackled the main script yet, since I prefer to start with "the other stuff" first. There was several items to translate, along with its descriptions; each area name, along with each sub-area; all the enemies names, along with detailed descriptions for each of them; characters "who have dialogue" names; a few of ILLUSION's own(?) movie format (BXN) movies that need hardsubs... and I don't even want to think about the images that need translation and editing, specially the Casino thingy... I move to the main scripts once I get all that boring stuff out of the way.
[/rants about the game]

When you mentioned the main game, sure, I can share the 3GB ISO, but then I remembered there was a demo/benchmark of this game at that time, and browsing through my files, I was able to find it. I tested it with dgVoodoo and it exhibits the exact same issue, so I figured I could just upload the tiny 30MB demo, along with a quick translation, instead of the big game.

esk_em_2021_12_04_13_06_16_970.png
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esk_em_2021_12_04_13_06_16_970.png
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10989 views
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Fair use/fair dealing exception

Unzip the attachment over the demo files (once installed) for a basic translation and Japanese region restriction removal.
Works on Win8.1 64-bit; I don't have Win10/11 so I dunno about those.

If you still want the game, feel free to ask me again and I will share it, no problem!

Esk Emotion BENCHMARK:
https://mega.nz/file/AYBn1IjL#mg38bJQifktQJL- … xPAk6KSLrOkBz58

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Reply 7 of 20, by Dege

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Thanks, 30 MB is a much more easy load than 3GB. 😃

I fixed it, the next patch version will include it. It's a pity you're not on Win10, the game works with that and the text scrolling issue is not present with D3D12.

If you still want the game, feel free to ask me again and I will share it, no problem!

Oh, thanks, but I'm heavily running out of disk space. But maybe some day. 😉

Btw, considering that it's a DX7 game, it's ahead of its time. The characters are very detailed and the game size of 3GB is impressive.

Reply 8 of 20, by unmei220

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Dege wrote on 2021-12-04, 20:59:

I fixed it, the next patch version will include it. It's a pity you're not on Win10, the game works with that and the text scrolling issue is not present with D3D12.

Great, thanks! I'll be waiting for it!
I'll eventually move to Win10... once 8.1 extended support ends in January 2023 OR if a game I (REALLY) want to play comes out that strictly needs D3D12. Who knows, maybe by then I won't even be finished with the translation of this game...

Btw, considering that it's a DX7 game, it's ahead of its time. The characters are very detailed and the game size of 3GB is impressive.

Yeah, it looks really great once you enable all the eye-candy that you couldn't afford at that time with a measly GeForce2 MX or GeForce4 MX; the game came out September 2002, when the GeForce4 Ti series was brand new (dunno what ATI was doing then), and not everyone could afford one, nor wanted to change what they already had working... at least where I live.
It's curious, their later DX8 games looked comparatively worse than their early DX7 ones; another of these DX7 games with great models was INTERACT PLAY VR. That one has impressive models considering it came out in... August 2001! Once DX9 arrived, their models started getting better again...
https://youtu.be/rgYWtJ4iQMY

Reply 10 of 20, by unmei220

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Dege wrote on 2021-12-07, 18:21:

Thanks for the info!

Btw, I just released 2.77 with the fix.

Thanks! That issue is resolved... but I found another one; it's not as serious as the text one, and you'll need the full game to see it... so I'll just leave this info here for reference if you ever feel like fixing it: the enemies names when fighting them overlap each other, and they remain "glued" together for the lenght of the encounter.

The expected behavior is: when you hover the mouse over an enemy, their name will be displayed on the upper-left corner of the screen; when you hover off of them, the name box dissapears. If you hover over another enemy, the box pops-up again now displaying their name, and so on when you switch between different enemies.
The currect behavior is: once you hover over an enemy, everything seems to be working fine, but in reality their name gets stuck there permanently. When you hover over another enemy, it gets "pasted" over the previous one, making them both appear at the same time.

This screenshot shows "Birdie Wood" and "Fish Dough" glued together.

db4_2021_12_07_17_59_08_242.png
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Reply 12 of 20, by unmei220

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Dege wrote on 2021-12-12, 16:27:

Ok, so I'll need the complete game after all. Could you share it somehow, and I'll have a look at it soon?

I've sent you a PM about that.

Reply 14 of 20, by unmei220

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Thank you!

I never knew when to check or when to uncheck that "Fast video memory access" option, nor what it really does, so I always left it untouched.
I'll keep an eye on that one from now on in case I stumble upon weird glitches on whatever game.

Reply 15 of 20, by Illusionsoftplayer

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unmei220 wrote on 2019-07-15, 16:28:
Hi there. First of all, thanks for this wonderful wrapper. I was following the discussion in the WIP versions thread until it go […]
Show full quote

Hi there. First of all, thanks for this wonderful wrapper.
I was following the discussion in the WIP versions thread until it got closed, specifically, the topic about "Artificial Academy 2" not being rendered correctly. Since I didn't see it mentioned anywhere else, or maybe I missed it, I want to mention that this problem affects all ILLUSION "anime-looking-style" DX9 games, including:
School Mate 1, School Mate Sweets!, @Home Mate, School Mate 2 and Artificial Academy 1. Wakeari!, Ore ga Shujinkou (I'm the Hero), Happy End Trigger and Musumakeup! are probably also affected, but I can't test them right now.
The good news is that it seems to be fixed with the compiled D3D9 version released on that thread, but v2.6 still renders them with problems; I guess the fix was not included in the last release.

I've also run into rendering problems using dgVoodoo2 with Sexy Beach 3 (DX9) when antialiasing is being applied.
Also, their first fully 3D game, "BIKŌ" which is a DX5 (or DX6) game has FPS problems (making it unplayable)... but I guess I'm the only one still running such ancient software.

The games were tested using v2.6 with default settings, and the results were the same in two different machines, one with W8.1 x64 and a GTX 1050 Ti (399.24 drivers), the other with Vista and a GT 440 (341.44 drivers).

Sexy Beach 3 (DX9): Issues when applying AA. Noticeable when applying oils, or sometimes randomly. Black lines appear at the neck and across body.
https://youtu.be/n30XW3FvtrM

BIKŌ (DX5?): Massive FPS drop. The game needs D3DRM.dll and W95/98/ME compatibility mode to work.
https://youtu.be/JAPIWquOK8c

Do you think there's a way to extract any of the bxn files from Biko 1, and view or play them? It's pretty hard trying to screen record while playing the game, and I don't want to go through the same with Des Blood 2, since it's slower.

Reply 16 of 20, by Illusionsoftplayer

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Does anyone have anything that could play bxn or bx2 files? I really want to extract scenes from Biko and DesBlood2, but there are no programs to do it. There was BXPlay, but that's pretty much gone from the internet. I just want to see the scenes without having to play through the 3d game, because my pc is really slow when it comes to Direct X games.

Reply 17 of 20, by unmei220

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Illusionsoftplayer wrote on 2022-02-05, 02:31:

Does anyone have anything that could play bxn or bx2 files? I really want to extract scenes from Biko and DesBlood2, but there are no programs to do it. There was BXPlay, but that's pretty much gone from the internet. I just want to see the scenes without having to play through the 3d game, because my pc is really slow when it comes to Direct X games.

BXPlayer only works with BXN files from BIKŌ2, Requiem Hurts, INTERACT PLAY VR, Battle R*p*r and DES BLOOD4. It doesn't support BXN files from older games...
There's also IGFTOOL to open BXN files (BXN is just a container for JPG files), but it's not compatible with those old games either.

Reply 18 of 20, by Illusionsoftplayer

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I see. Well, could I still have those anyway? I'd like to use them just to see. I'm just really desperate to get the movie files from those games, and I'd like to try everything I could to do it before I have to play through and screen record them myself. I've actually been able to rip some of their bmp files with X-Ripper, but only some were ripped that were able to be opened. Though it opened many texture files though. The only other thing in there are bik files, which can't be played for some reason sadly. I'm just willing to try any program to do it, because playing through them is hell. The only one I really can play without many problems is DES BLOOD 1, since it's adventure styled.

Reply 19 of 20, by fruitoftheloom18

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I have a problem when using dgVooDoo to run Illusion's Sexy Beach Zero. The regular slowing occurs because of Windows 10, but when I use dgVooDoo, everything is normal speed but the characters become floating heads, and their models are t-posing elsewhere in the scene. I'm not sure if I should post screenshots given the nature of the game. (Titties)

If theres already been a fix for this, any help would be appreciated!

Thank you.