wildstoo wrote on 2020-05-07, 16:02:

Sadly, there are few DirectX wrappers for Windows XP and none of them have worked for me

Perhaps you could name the ones you've tried already and save people from suggesting things you've already determined to be nonfunctional?

Yeah, sorry. All of these problematic games use DirectX 5 (actually MM1 might pre-date DirectX).

DXGL Legacy: Causes MM and MM2 to freeze at intro logo and then stop responding. JK2 gets in-game but only the UI is drawn, the world isn't rendered at all.

WineD3D for Windows (old version): MM just blackscreens and crashes. MM2 actually works, it's playable, but there's a 5 second delay on mouse input in the menus, making it extremely frustrating. JK2 works, but the framerate is worse than I'd get with software rendering.

ts-ddraw and cnc-ddraw are very Command and Conquer specific, but I tried them anyway. They don't work at all.

As far as I can tell, all the others (DGVoodoo2, DDrawCompat, DxWnd) only work on Vista or later, so - somewhat ironically - it's easier to get these games to work on Windows 10 than Windows XP.

for those games I'd dual boot the machine with 98se but, Also the ATI drivers have a bit better backwards compatibility than the nvidia drivers so may be worth trying an ATI card, your screenshots do look like a driver issue .

For JKDF2, did you try the fix at Jkhub.net ?

Doesn't DxWnd run under XP?

What gave you the idea that those were all DirectX 5? Jedi Knight 2 is on Steam and is indicated as requiring DirectX 9, but I think it's OpenGL - in which case some kind of OpenGL tweaker may be appropriate.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/6030/STAR_ … __Jedi_Outcast/

ETA: If all else fails, there's always PCem.

Jorpho wrote on 2020-05-07, 20:23:

Doesn't DxWnd run under XP? […]
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Doesn't DxWnd run under XP?

What gave you the idea that those were all DirectX 5? Jedi Knight 2 is on Steam and is indicated as requiring DirectX 9, but I think it's OpenGL - in which case some kind of OpenGL tweaker may be appropriate.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/6030/STAR_ … __Jedi_Outcast/

ETA: If all else fails, there's always PCem.

That's Jedi Knight II and not Jedi Knight dark forces II, which is a much older game, outcast does run on opengl and is quake 3 engine, dark forces ii is d3d, iirc

I can't remember if dark forces II supports 3dfx glide but if it does you should be able to use nglide on windows xp.

Oh! Gee. Yes, Dark Forces II is indeed DX5.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/32380/STAR … Dark_Forces_II/

A bit more searching suggests that MM2 is known to have issues with more than 2GB of RAM. There are various fixes:
Motocross Madness 2 - how to get it working on modern systems with lots of RAM

Jorpho wrote on 2020-05-07, 21:52:

Oh! Gee. Yes, Dark Forces II is indeed DX5.

Sorry, the confusion about the title is my fault. Should have called it DF2 not JK2.

Jorpho wrote on 2020-05-07, 20:23:

Doesn't DxWnd run under XP?

It seems DxWnd does work, however I can't find a combination of settings that actually make DF2 work. Not attempted MM2 yet but I'm certain it'll be the same.

BinaryDemon wrote on 2020-05-07, 20:17:

For JKDF2, did you try the fix at Jkhub.net ?

I just did. It had absolutely no effect that I could see.

wildstoo wrote on 2020-05-07, 23:02:

Sorry, the confusion about the title is my fault. Should have called it DF2 not JK2. […]
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Jorpho wrote on 2020-05-07, 21:52:

Oh! Gee. Yes, Dark Forces II is indeed DX5.

Sorry, the confusion about the title is my fault. Should have called it DF2 not JK2.

Jorpho wrote on 2020-05-07, 20:23:

Doesn't DxWnd run under XP?

It seems DxWnd does work, however I can't find a combination of settings that actually make DF2 work. Not attempted MM2 yet but I'm certain it'll be the same.

BinaryDemon wrote on 2020-05-07, 20:17:

For JKDF2, did you try the fix at Jkhub.net ?

I just did. It had absolutely no effect that I could see.

On a fresh Windows XP install I'm getting the same behaviour, the fix doesn't seem to do anything, Athlon XP 3200+ 2GB DDR400 Nvidia Geforce 6600LE, The game works in software mode but won't do 3D Acceleration.

Nvidia driver version i used was 307.83 for win xp 32bit.

Yeah, I'm using 340.52 on XP 32bit.

Oh well. I guess DF2 won't be on this particular PC. Kinda sad that XP has so little support in terms of wrappers and stuff but it's not like I don't understand why. 😜

There's got to be some way of doing it. A look at the Steam reviews suggests GOG has a good package for it.

Doesn't the game support Glide? In that case the old dgVoodoo should work.

Doesn't seem to be anything other than d3d or software rendering. Game runs fantastic on 98se with a Radeon 9800xt. I guess the nvidia driver doesn't like the way the game is rendered. Will play around with the ATI card on windows xp tomorrow, bugs me when things don't work.

edit:
This was bugging me as i was sure i played the game on windows XP just fine in the past, Threw a Nvidia GF4 Ti 4200 in the same machine with the same drivers, fresh install of the game and it runs flawlessly.
Dropped feature support in the newer nvidia cards?

The ATI Radeon 9800XT Also runs the game perfectly under XP again on the same system. So no ddraw dll fix need for either the Ti 4200 or the 9800XT.

One more system to try although it needs a complete OS rebuild, Modernish system, SKT 775 Xeon quard core with a HD7970 3GB 8GB DDR3(was running Linux and windows 10)
Will test on that system as it's closer to the OP's

Edit2:

Installed windows XP on my Asus Striker II NSE skt 775 system, XEON X5460 @3.8ghz 8GB DDR3 Radeon HD7970 3GB as above, and Dark Forces II installs and runs again perfectly no patches or dlls required.
I only have a GTX 760 to try on the modernish nvidia side of things but that's currently in use in another system. As for the other games I've not tried but gives me something to do 😁

TLDR:
Grab and ATI/AMD card with XP driver support and throw it in in place of the GT730 and you should be good to go.

Wow. You legend. Thanks for the comprehensive testing.

Yeah, I had a feeling it was a driver thing. nVidia dropped the ball on older DX versions somewhere along the way. The GT 730 is way too modern for the system tbh. I only chose it because it was cheap, passively cooled, fast enough for the older games I was installing and had XP drivers available. Just a shame the drivers are crap. (The last available XP drivers for the GT 730 actually cause the card to lock up. nVidia just didn't care towards the end of XP support.)

As an experiment, I installed Far Cry 2 on the XP system, just to see how it performed on the GT730. The answer is: pretty terribly. It's "playable" at the lowest settings, but not a good experience. I wouldn't actually play it on this system, it was really just to see how weak the 730 GT actually is.

So, I have 2 options:

1. Back up the system and then roll back the driver to earlier versions, hoping that there's a magical driver version that fixes these games without breaking all the others.
2. Ditch the GT730 and put in an older card.

God, eBay is expensive these days. I'll do some research and try to find a bargain.

Paid way too much for a questionable R9 270. I'll report back after it arrives and I get it installed.

Lol, fail. I edit the registry to get the R9 270 detected by MCM2 and it just crashes to desktop instantly.

Sadly, the R9 270 also fails to work on other games that work fine on the GT730. Trackmania Sunrise freezes when it tries to launch a video benchmark. Enemies in Quakespasm exhibit texture flicker. Everything in Flatout Ultimate Carnage flickers and textures disappear. Max Payne works, but the camera jitters around like crazy.

I've probably bought a card that's too new for Windows XP again and hence the drivers probably suck.

I'm going to dig out an old 6800GT or something and try it and if it still fails I'm giving up and throwing the GT730 back in there. The R9 270 can go... somewhere else.

The tiniest silver lining: DF2 works with the R9 270.

Found an old 7900GS. It works flawlessly in MCM2. Doesn't work with DF2 at all.

At this point, I'm done. I'm going back to the GT730 because it's silent. I'll just play MCM2 and DF2 on my modern gaming rig, because on there I can run all kinds of patches and compatibility mods. Kinda wish I hadn't bought the R9 270 but I'm sure it'll come in handy... somewhere.

Thanks for all the support.

wildstoo wrote on 2020-05-07, 16:02:

I've been setting up an old PC as a simple Windows XP-based gaming rig. The PC is just an old Dell Dimension 9200, upgraded a bi […]
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I've been setting up an old PC as a simple Windows XP-based gaming rig. The PC is just an old Dell Dimension 9200, upgraded a bit:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700
4GB DDR2 @ 333MHz
GeForce GT 730

...the rationale being it could be a really crappy Windows 10 machine, or a pretty good Windows XP machine.

I have about 40 games installed ranging in date from 1995 to 2008. Most games work fine. However, the following games just exhibit horrific graphical corruption, no matter what settings I use:

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2
Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith
Motocross Madness
Motocross Madness 2

Screenshots of the kind of graphics corruption I'm talking about are attached.

I'm guessing it's an issue with the older versions of DirectX that these titles use, and perhaps the Windows XP drivers for the 730GT?

Obviously, I can run them with their software renderers, but the experience isn't great.

Sadly, there are few DirectX wrappers for Windows XP and none of them have worked for me, but maybe one of you clever folk has more experience of this.

Anyone got any ideas about getting these to run properly with acceleration?

Thanks.

The problem is the GeForce driver version. I have a GTS 250 and with latest drivers I had corruption on Motocross Madness 2 and some other game I cant remember, so I tested a ton of drivers and found: 186.18_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_whql
Problems solved.

matcarfer wrote on 2020-05-14, 02:26:

The problem is the GeForce driver version. I have a GTS 250 and with latest drivers I had corruption on Motocross Madness 2 and some other game I cant remember, so I tested a ton of drivers and found: 186.18_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_whql
Problems solved.

I'm sure you're right, but that requires using a card that supports such an ancient driver. The latest series that driver supports is the 200 series. I have a GTX285 but it's completely unstable/faulty. Tried it in several systems and it crashes with gfx corruption on all of them (which is a shame, it was a good - and expensive - card back when I bought it new).

So, I can live without MM2 on this XP machine, or just run it in software mode. Same for JKDF2.

Of course, MM2 works flawlessly on my main Windows 10 machine running dgVoodoo2, with AA and AF cranked to the max. It's still an awesome game.

wildstoo wrote on 2020-05-14, 12:58:

I'm sure you're right, but that requires using a card that supports such an ancient driver. The latest series that driver suppor […]
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matcarfer wrote on 2020-05-14, 02:26:

The problem is the GeForce driver version. I have a GTS 250 and with latest drivers I had corruption on Motocross Madness 2 and some other game I cant remember, so I tested a ton of drivers and found: 186.18_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_whql
Problems solved.

I'm sure you're right, but that requires using a card that supports such an ancient driver. The latest series that driver supports is the 200 series. I have a GTX285 but it's completely unstable/faulty. Tried it in several systems and it crashes with gfx corruption on all of them (which is a shame, it was a good - and expensive - card back when I bought it new).

So, I can live without MM2 on this XP machine, or just run it in software mode. Same for JKDF2.

Of course, MM2 works flawlessly on my main Windows 10 machine running dgVoodoo2, with AA and AF cranked to the max. It's still an awesome game.

Yeah I know, thats a problem. Thats why I stick to my GTS 250 and not my GTX 960, that has XP drivers, but wont work with older games. All in all its not that unreasonable to have old hardware to run games natively. If all fails, dgVoodoo2 is great.