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Reply 60 of 254, by mothergoose729

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Everything that used secure disc or light disc DRM requires a no cd crack in windows 10. This includes most games released between 2002-2006.

This is true even if you have the original media and an optical drive.

Finding a list of "good" no CD cracks is its own challenge.

Reply 61 of 254, by IlhanK

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ZellSF wrote on 2020-01-27, 18:47:
Fighting Force needs: […]
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Fighting Force needs:

  • XP patch (here)
  • dgVoodoo
  • Winplay DLL patch (here)
  • DxWnd (only for CDDA playback, needs to be a very recent version)

I would definitely call it a problematic game, but it should be playable now (thanks to DxWnd's recent CDDA improvements).

Thanks for the help!
DgVoodoo works but there are some visual glitches. With the DDrawCompat wrapper I am getting glitch-free visuals.
With the exception of joysticks not working (which can be worked around with JoyToKey) the game works just fine now. 😀

Reply 62 of 254, by ZellSF

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mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-01-28, 20:23:

Everything that used secure disc or light disc DRM requires a no cd crack in windows 10. This includes most games released between 2002-2006.

This is true even if you have the original media and an optical drive.

Finding a list of "good" no CD cracks is its own challenge.

I've never heard of either "Secure disc" or "Light disc" so I have a hard time believing either of them are used for most games between 2002-2006.

Most games from that time period use secdrv (SafeDisc/SecuROM), which is possible to enable in Windows 10, just a bit annoying.

The real problem is Starforce/Tages games without cracks. Not sure if there are any (or any that are significant) ones.

Reply 63 of 254, by superfury

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Hmmm... If I remember correctly, the MS-DOS/Windows game Theme Park World of mine(EU edition?) has/had some issues with graphical glitching on Windows 10. It refused to start properly without a patch, and once it did it had some graphical issues still(e.g. slight screen tearing, seeing a (wavey) line move from the top to the bottom of the screen).

See Theme Park World on Windows 10?

Author of the UniPCemu emulator.
UniPCemu Git repository
UniPCemu for Android, Windows, PSP, Vita and Switch on itch.io

Reply 64 of 254, by ZellSF

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IlhanK wrote on 2020-01-28, 20:37:
Thanks for the help! DgVoodoo works but there are some visual glitches. With the DDrawCompat wrapper I am getting glitch-free vi […]
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ZellSF wrote on 2020-01-27, 18:47:
Fighting Force needs: […]
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Fighting Force needs:

  • XP patch (here)
  • dgVoodoo
  • Winplay DLL patch (here)
  • DxWnd (only for CDDA playback, needs to be a very recent version)

I would definitely call it a problematic game, but it should be playable now (thanks to DxWnd's recent CDDA improvements).

Thanks for the help!
DgVoodoo works but there are some visual glitches. With the DDrawCompat wrapper I am getting glitch-free visuals.
With the exception of joysticks not working (which can be worked around with JoyToKey) the game works just fine now. 😀

What sort of visual glitches? Dege might be interested.

superfury wrote on 2020-01-28, 20:49:

Hmmm... If I remember correctly, the MS-DOS/Windows game Theme Park World of mine(EU edition?) has/had some issues with graphical glitching on Windows 10. It refused to start properly without a patch, and once it did it had some graphical issues still(e.g. slight screen tearing, seeing a (wavey) line move from the top to the bottom of the screen).

See Theme Park World on Windows 10?

It works fine with dgVoodoo, you need to set VRAM to 8MB (and not higher) to get high quality textures, and you also need to lie about system memory somehow if you have more than 4GB.

Reply 65 of 254, by mothergoose729

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ZellSF wrote on 2020-01-28, 20:45:
I've never heard of either "Secure disc" or "Light disc" so I have a hard time believing either of them are used for most games […]
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mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-01-28, 20:23:

Everything that used secure disc or light disc DRM requires a no cd crack in windows 10. This includes most games released between 2002-2006.

This is true even if you have the original media and an optical drive.

Finding a list of "good" no CD cracks is its own challenge.

I've never heard of either "Secure disc" or "Light disc" so I have a hard time believing either of them are used for most games between 2002-2006.

Most games from that time period use secdrv (SafeDisc/SecuROM), which is possible to enable in Windows 10, just a bit annoying.

The real problem is Starforce/Tages games without cracks. Not sure if there are any (or any that are significant) ones.

You can't get disc DRM working on windows 10. The functionality was intentionally removed, not just disabled. It is disabled by default on windows 7 and 8, but it can be re-enabled.

Reply 66 of 254, by ZellSF

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mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-01-28, 23:07:
ZellSF wrote on 2020-01-28, 20:45:
I've never heard of either "Secure disc" or "Light disc" so I have a hard time believing either of them are used for most games […]
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mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-01-28, 20:23:

Everything that used secure disc or light disc DRM requires a no cd crack in windows 10. This includes most games released between 2002-2006.

This is true even if you have the original media and an optical drive.

Finding a list of "good" no CD cracks is its own challenge.

I've never heard of either "Secure disc" or "Light disc" so I have a hard time believing either of them are used for most games between 2002-2006.

Most games from that time period use secdrv (SafeDisc/SecuROM), which is possible to enable in Windows 10, just a bit annoying.

The real problem is Starforce/Tages games without cracks. Not sure if there are any (or any that are significant) ones.

You can't get disc DRM working on windows 10. The functionality was intentionally removed, not just disabled.

It was removed, yes, but it's possible to restore it.

Reply 67 of 254, by mothergoose729

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ZellSF wrote on 2020-01-28, 23:23:
mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-01-28, 23:07:
ZellSF wrote on 2020-01-28, 20:45:

I've never heard of either "Secure disc" or "Light disc" so I have a hard time believing either of them are used for most games between 2002-2006.

Most games from that time period use secdrv (SafeDisc/SecuROM), which is possible to enable in Windows 10, just a bit annoying.

The real problem is Starforce/Tages games without cracks. Not sure if there are any (or any that are significant) ones.

You can't get disc DRM working on windows 10. The functionality was intentionally removed, not just disabled.

It was removed, yes, but it's possible to restore it.

How do you restore it?

Reply 68 of 254, by ZellSF

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mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-01-28, 23:31:
ZellSF wrote on 2020-01-28, 23:23:
mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-01-28, 23:07:

You can't get disc DRM working on windows 10. The functionality was intentionally removed, not just disabled.

It was removed, yes, but it's possible to restore it.

How do you restore it?

https://github.com/ericwj/PsSecDrv
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/f … e61d40d4?page=3 (Microsoft's forum software is so bad it doesn't allow direct linking posts, there's a shock. Read Adam Bise's reply).

Using DSEO is easier than the powershell script. Maybe less secure, but you shouldn't be gaming on a computer where you handle sensitive information anyway.

Reply 69 of 254, by mothergoose729

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ZellSF wrote on 2020-01-28, 23:36:
https://github.com/ericwj/PsSecDrv https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/f … e61d40d4?page=3 (Microsoft's forum software i […]
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mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-01-28, 23:31:
ZellSF wrote on 2020-01-28, 23:23:

It was removed, yes, but it's possible to restore it.

How do you restore it?

https://github.com/ericwj/PsSecDrv
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/f … e61d40d4?page=3 (Microsoft's forum software is so bad it doesn't allow direct linking posts, there's a shock. Read Adam Bise's reply).

Using DSEO is easier than the powershell script. Maybe less secure, but you shouldn't be gaming on a computer where you handle sensitive information anyway.

Interesting, thanks!

I might also add that in windows 10, older versions of directX as well as direct draw are handled by a compatibility layer. The compatibility layer is pretty good but not perfect. Direct draw in particular can suffer from poor performance and a lot of added input lag.

I tried to get all of my old games running in windows 10 through various methods.

Each PC can behave differently depending on all kinds of factors. With windows 10 being "the last version of windows" you can also expect major updates to break compatibility in the future. Reference the "creators" update as an example.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oSWRc … dit?usp=sharing

Reply 70 of 254, by IlhanK

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ZellSF wrote on 2020-01-28, 21:06:

What sort of visual glitches? Dege might be interested.

Black lines glitch in and out on the asphalt textures.

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Reply 71 of 254, by ZellSF

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IlhanK wrote on 2020-01-29, 16:29:
ZellSF wrote on 2020-01-28, 21:06:

What sort of visual glitches? Dege might be interested.

Black lines glitch in and out on the asphalt textures.

That's interesting, I don't get those.

1) Are you using the "XP patch" linked earlier?
2) Which GPU do you have and which driver version?

mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-01-28, 23:46:

Each PC can behave differently depending on all kinds of factors. With windows 10 being "the last version of windows" you can also expect major updates to break compatibility in the future. Reference the "creators" update as an example.

While it's certainly something that will probably happen, Windows 10 updates or Windows 10 itself so far hasn't broken compatibility nearly as much as Vista and 8 did.

Reply 72 of 254, by IlhanK

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ZellSF wrote on 2020-01-31, 11:44:

1) Are you using the "XP patch" linked earlier?
2) Which GPU do you have and which driver version?

Yeah I'm using the XP patch. GPU is RX 580 with the current Adrenalin 20.1.4

Reply 73 of 254, by ZellSF

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ZellSF wrote on 2020-01-28, 20:19:
The second problem was new to me. Whenever the game tried to play a new midi file, it would freeze for a few seconds. This got i […]
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The second problem was new to me. Whenever the game tried to play a new midi file, it would freeze for a few seconds. This got infuriating fast. Apparently, it's a known issue with playing midi files through MCI on systems newer than XP, documented here:
http://www.virtualdub.org/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=77
The documentation is lacking why Microsoft implemented this delay, but there's instructions on that page on how to remove it. In case the link dies I followed this advice by Phaeron (talking about editing mciseq.dll):

Phaeron wrote:

The code that foxyshadis patched is in the LeaveSeq() function whose disassembly is above — so you are looking for a hex pattern of 68 __ __ __ __ FF 15 __ __ __ __ 6A 04 __ __ __ __ C3. Underscores represent bytes that may be different due to a different base address. The 04 should be patched to 00, and then the PE header checksum at 00000130 should be cleared by patching to 00 00 00 00.

Once I did that, Nectaris started playing back midi instantly, without freezing the game for seconds. I actually found this page first:
https://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=19307
Indicating that Transport Tycoon Deluxe also has this problem. I have to assume other games have this problem too, but I haven't run into any.

So as I wrote, I've given up on this earlier, despite having given up on getting this working several times earlier, I figured it out easily this time just by googling "mci midi freeze", but for unrelated reasons I googled "nectaris win95" today and found this:
https://w.atwiki.jp/nectaris/pages/22.html
Which has a winmm patcher that fixes the problem in a different way, that's maybe less likely to break on future versions of Windows. And is also probably applicable to other games too.

I obviously didn't specifically look for workarounds for the game specifically earlier, because it's a Japanese game and I can't read Japanese, so I thought that would be rather futile. That page also has fixes for the 16-bit installer and high CPU usage, though neither were issues to me (InstallShield Wrapper works and I don't multitask while gaming).

Reply 74 of 254, by cwy

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I've noticed that in Windows 10, some games need 100% scale in Windows Display Settings to display properly. If it is set higher than 100% the game display may be cropped off. This did not occur in Windows 7. I've found 2 such games so far: Call of Duty 1, and GZDoom. Don't know if that's considered problematic or not. Most people leave scaling at 100% so maybe this is not a big problem. But at high resolutions like 3840x2160, even with my 32" monitor I still need to increasing scaling to 150% or so.

Reply 75 of 254, by ZellSF

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There are windows compatibility modes you can set for those games, you don't need to change the global DPI setting (which tends to move/resize windows, which is annoying). It's very common. Not really "problematic", unless you the problematic games list to include most games.

GZDoom doesn't need it though, you should update it (unless you have saves you can't lose).

Reply 76 of 254, by Errius

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I remember having problems running Wings over Vietnam (2004) and Vietcong (2003) in Windows 7. They ran fine in Windows 2000 and XP. I haven't tried them in Windows 8 or 10.

Is this too much voodoo?

Reply 77 of 254, by mothergoose729

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cwy wrote on 2020-02-12, 19:36:

I've noticed that in Windows 10, some games need 100% scale in Windows Display Settings to display properly. If it is set higher than 100% the game display may be cropped off. This did not occur in Windows 7. I've found 2 such games so far: Call of Duty 1, and GZDoom. Don't know if that's considered problematic or not. Most people leave scaling at 100% so maybe this is not a big problem. But at high resolutions like 3840x2160, even with my 32" monitor I still need to increasing scaling to 150% or so.

Oh yeah, there are tons of games I had to turn off DPI scaling for. It got to the point where I started doing it with every older game on windows 10.

Reply 78 of 254, by Jiri

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Discworld Noir works with this patch:
Simple fix for Discworld Noir in WinXP-Win10

Black Dahlia works with this rather complicated setup:
Tips for installing Black Dahlia on Windows 10

Working versions of Titanic: Adventure Out of Time and Sanitarium are available on Steam and GOG.

From my collection of old games (I have mostly adventures) everything works with either ScummVM, DOSBox or some patch. Only Martin Mystère: Operation Dorian Gray does nor work at all as it needs Direct3D retained mode and crashes on start.

Last edited by Jiri on 2020-02-14, 19:01. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 79 of 254, by collector

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I did installers for Titanic: Adventure Out of Time and Sanitarium for those that already have the games. http://sierrahelp.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=3925

The Sierra Help Pages -- New Sierra Game Installers -- Sierra Game Patches -- New Non-Sierra Game Installers