Hello @ll

I'm a Gamer (most oldgames) and Hobby programmer and Adminstrator (at work).
In my free time i try to fix old games to run on modern Systems. Now it is one of them,
the updates of old games to fix to run without CD. The most updates for the German
Versions from the Old Games era are forgot.

Hidden NoCD from the developer, Longbow 1 & 2 all Versions
I searched the inet for Infos about Longbow but the NoCD's doesn't Play janes Book and
Movies. So i tried self. At my research with Longbow 1 i discovered a 'CDEMU.ini' in
the Code. This tells me 'CD-Emulation'. Then i had to figure out what in this text file
is available.
The Result: The Header of the Ini says CDEmulate and the Content is CD00[num].

Solution - Create a textfile CDEmu.ini in the Longbow 1 Game Directory.

1Snip -----:
2[CDEmulate]
3CD001=C:\Janes\Longbow1 (<- No backslash at the end)
4CD002=C:\Janes\Longbow1
5CD003=C:\Janes\Longbow1 (<- only if you have the Gold Version)
6Snip -----:

Thats all , copy the last files (Movies, etc.. to the Game Directory)
and voila Longbow 1 plays without erros full from HD. Janes book and Movies are working.

This works with the 3CD Version (adding CD003= in the ini) and with the Anthology/Gold,
3DFX and ... the same technic works with Longbow 2 😁

This info was well hidden in the code. Not even the Process Monitor has notified about
the file is missing.

I think this information is in good hands at the Vogons Forum.

Memory Problem: Longbow 1 all Versions
The Problem with Longbow 1 on Modern Maschines with more as 365,72MB Ram. It's a Memory
bug. LB1 says 'Not enough Memory' 0x000008.

Edit:
I found a Ini command named [Backdoors] with a value HEAP_PERCENT in combination
with GlobalMemoryStatus for the ini CA.ini.

It exists a few GlobalMemoryStatus Messages in:
- LBWin.exe (Only the DirectDraw Version)
- wrap.dle
- tutor.dle

1Source of the Memory Bug:
2.text:10002DD0                 push    ebp
3.text:10002DD1                 mov     ebp, esp
4.text:10002DD3                 sub     esp, 6Ch
5.text:10002DD6                 mov     [ebp+Buffer.dwLength], 20h
6.text:10002DDD                 lea     eax, [ebp+Buffer]
7.text:10002DE0                 push    eax             ; lpBuffer
8.text:10002DE1                 call    ds:GlobalMemoryStatus
9.text:10002DE7                 push    offset FileName ; ".\\ca.ini"
10.text:10002DEC                 push    7               ; nDefault
11.text:10002DEE                 push    offset KeyName  ; "HEAP_PERCENT" (< Heap Size in Percent?) 
12.text:10002DF3                 push    offset AppName  ; "Backdoors"
13.text:10002DF8                 call    ds:GetPrivateProfileIntA
14.text:10002DFE                 mov     ecx, 0Ah
15.text:10002E03                 sub     edx, edx
16.text:10002E05                 mov     [ebp+var_C], eax 
17.text:10002E08                 mov     eax, [ebp+Buffer.dwTotalPhys]
18.text:10002E0B                 imul    eax, [ebp+var_C] (Integer Multiply)
19.text:10002E0F                 div     ecx
20.text:10002E11                 push    eax             ; dwMaximumSize (< Maximum Calculate Crash the game)
21.text:10002E12                 call    sub_10008590
22
23 call    sub_10008590
24.text:10008590 dwMaximumSize   = dword ptr  4
25.text:10008590
26.text:10008590                 push    esi
27.text:10008591                 push    edi
28.text:10008592                 mov     esi, 0C00000h
29.text:10008597                 call    sub_100085E0
30.text:1000859C                 test    eax, eax
31.text:1000859E                 jnz     short loc_100085A5
32.text:100085A0                 xor     eax, eax
33.text:100085A2                 pop     edi
34.text:100085A3                 pop     esi
35.text:100085A4                 retn
36 

If i set dwMaximumSize (Heap_Percent to 0 or 70 in the ini) the game works without Crash.
Other Values e.q. 32, 64 or 80 Crash the Game

Solution - Memory Bug Fix:

1Add this to the CA.ini (Gold Version and Anthology 3DFX Version)
2Snip -----:
3[Backdoors]
4HEAP_PERCENT=0 
5Snip -----:
6
7Add this to the CA.ini (Anthology DirectDraw Version)
8Snip -----:
9[Backdoors]
10HEAP_PERCENT=70
11Snip -----:

I have both version Gold and Anthology, both patched to 3DFX and 1.04F and the Executable Files are different
from Gold 1.04F <-> Anthology 1.04F and the 3DFX Version too. The Gold Version has problems with Movies.

Alternate for the Memory Bug you can use 'Thorium's Gamefixer' if the solution not work for you CG Baord for Infos
The Download link is offline. you can get here
Run Longbow 1 with GameFixer "C:\Janes\Longbow1\lbwin.exe" -memoryfix TotalPhys=33554432.
This works, i have 16GB. For 3DFX, put the the nglide.dll's in the game Directory and set the Compatibility to
WinXPSP2.

I have this postet at the Flight SimsHQ Forum too but I think that goes under there.

greetings Marty