VOGONS


First post, by opeter

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Hello Vogons forum members and old games fans!

I am new here, however I did actively reading this forum for more than 15+ years. Thanks to all of you for various tips, trick and dege for his fantastic work on dgVoodoo.
I would have one question: I finally got running my old CD version of this rally racing game from 1997 by Europress.

I followed the solutions on the following link on how to run this game:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Internation … ly_Championship

Well... it does work, kinda (the frames stutter a bit in the menus, that means 15-20 fps), but when I try to start a race, I've also got the following white/grey graphics (look at attachments).

Right now, I am using dgVoodoo version is 2.7.5, but I also tried some older versions (2.6.x and 2.55), but the result is the same.
Could someone please help me, what am I doing wrong?

I am using mostly the standard dgVoodoo configuration.

My configuration: AMD Ryzen 4750G with Vega 8 graphics, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SATA SSD, Windows 10 Home 64-bit version 21H1 build 19043.1052.

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Reply 1 of 9, by Dege

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Hi,
You have an AMD GPU, so you should try D3D12 as output API (instead of 'Best Available'). See the appropriate section in the readme:

dgVoodoo D3D11 is broken with AMD GPU's (DirectX modules). I got a ton of reports complaining about solid colored polygons instead of textured ones. This problem seems to affect all GCN 2 and newer GPU's and I cannot do anything about fixing it. I don't have a clue what change in my code broke it and AMD probably won't fix their drivers so I don't care about it all anymore.
On the other hand, according to the feedback I got, D3D12 works as expected so this is your best bet on AMD hardware.

Reply 2 of 9, by opeter

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Dear Dege,
thank you so much for your reply.

Sadly, if I try to set dgVoodoo 2.75 to DirectX 12 (feature level 11 or the other option level 12.0) I've got just a black screen for like a second and the game closes without any message. No "meditation guru error" or similar. Nothing.
I have applied all the recommended compatibility fixes, so I know, that it does work.

It seem, that trying this on an AMD card is hopeless. Oh, well...

When my sisters family comes visit us next weekend, I will ask her or her husband, if they borrow me her laptop for a short test, that computer has an Intel integrated graphics chip. There should dgVoodoo work without bigger problems.
I will report back, if it works 😀

Thank you once again!
Wish you a nice Sunday/weekend!

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Reply 4 of 9, by Dege

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Thanks!

I had a quick look at this game again. So, after installing the original version from the CD, I could only run it in Win98 compat mode (but even then it crashed when entering a Quick Rally).
And indeed, only through D3D11. D3D12 + Win98 compat mode caused the nvidia driver to fail when checking the PE signature of its dll's (win98 version of imghelp.dll again?).

However, there is an XP-patch for this game, you can download it from a site that I don't want to advertise here (it's always subject to debate if they are pirating or not).
For me the XP version (without any forced compatibility mode) ran through D3D12 finely.

Reply 5 of 9, by opeter

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FulValBot wrote on 2021-06-20, 09:47:

I suggest to report this in AMD community/forums

also remember to select your card in Adapter, and also your display

Thanks for the suggestions, I will definitely do that.

I also tried to change/select the adapter to AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics and configure the display option to \\. \DISPLAY1 but no change at all.
If I select DirectX 12 (any of the two options), the game simply doesn't load or should I say it loads for a second with black screen and right after that I am back at the desktop.

Dege wrote on 2021-06-20, 10:45:

However, there is an XP-patch for this game, you can download it from a site that I don't want to advertise here (it's always subject to debate if they are pirating or not).
For me the XP version (without any forced compatibility mode) ran through D3D12 finely.

Really? Uh, thanks will try to look for that 😮

Reply 6 of 9, by opeter

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OMG, I cannot believe this!
It does work!!! I don't know what ral.exe file did I find (I already applied the 4.80 patch in the beginning), but yes, it does indeed work wirt DirectX 12. 😊😀

I made a very short gameplay video:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i-tjqtxSJuBO … iew?usp=sharing

The ral.exe size and date I am using is in the screenshot. Oh and I don't use any compatibility mode, just "run as administrator".

And even the upscale is working. Beautiful! 😍😎

Thank you all for your suggestions/ideas/help!

Now the only thing I need to fix is the speech sound. But I already got some tips for that too.

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Last edited by opeter on 2021-06-20, 12:47. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 7 of 9, by opeter

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A little bit of nostalgia 😊

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Reply 9 of 9, by ZellSF

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Obviously, that's very hardware specific.

Lower end users should use post-processing AA*, mid end users should use MSAA and high end users should use downsampling.

* Which I really wish would be added to dgVoodoo soon. Driver options work, but that means dgVoodoo's scaling options can't be used.