VOGONS


interactive magic games

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First post, by Agathosdaimon

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Hi! of all the old games i have been trying to get running again over the years, the hardest of all have been always the iMagic games - iM1a2, iF-22, iFa18, Spearhead, - to name some (i was never even able to get iF-22 working on an actual windows XP os either - not without terrible crashes and graphical errors)

iM1a2 and iPanzer44 are the two i most want to get working right, iM1a2 i had some success in windows 7 but windows 10 is met with little success and same goes for iPanzer 44 - i would like to really know if anyone has these working right on windows 10 and if so what have they done to get them going right.

iM1a2 too is an excellent old tank sim, as good as M1 Tank Platoon, - when i cuold get it working it had some odd things going on like the smoke clouds instead of rising like they did back on win95, will just sit on the vehicles in an unhelpful way as distant rising smoke was helpful in part of the gameplay.

Reply 1 of 4, by FIVE-one

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Same as you
I can launch iF-22 on my Win 10, but menus are awful.

Hail to the Emperor !

Reply 2 of 4, by ChronoReaperX

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iF-22 Persian Gulf V5.0 is playable via DDrawCompat. My specs are Intel Celeron 2.1Ghz N2840 + Intel HD Graphics + 8GB DDR3 L RAM. Running natively on Windows 8.1 (and should work the same on Windows 10 & 11).

I've managed to solve the controller part by using a combination of x360ce (to hide the USB controller via the HIDGuardian function) and DS4Windows (with ViGEm + Bluetooth DS4). I am also using a specific DxWnd version & an imported profile (from the SourceForge forum discussing about iF-22) to make the game run on a single core-affinity processor with some colorkey fix. The only compatibility settings I used on the game .EXE is "run as administrator".

It still has multiple problems ranging from occasional freezes (after jet crashes/ exiting a mission), missing transparency effects & textures (becoming black boxes) when using Direct3D rendering, and the menu... which is accessible and working fine but the graphics are broken with white background at the supposedly black button/ link/ text area.

Reply 3 of 4, by ChronoReaperX

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GUIDE TO USE A BLUETOOTH CONTROLLER (DS4) FOR IF-22 PERSIAN GULF V5.0 TO PLAY NATIVELY ON MODERN WINDOWS

Assuming that you've already download and install both x360ce v4.x (with HIDGuardian) and DS4Windows (with ViGEm), please follow the 5 steps below:

1) Make sure DS4 controller (via wireless Bluetooth) is off.

2) Open x360ce program, go to DEVICES and tick HIDE for the X360 USB controller (or any other USB wired controller attached) ONLY.

3) Make sure that USB wired controller is disappear from the "Set up USB game controller" list in Windows. The list should be empty (no controller is detected).

4) Open DS4Windows program which is pre-configured to automatically use a virtual X360 controller (XInput) with the DS4 if being detected.

5) Start iF-22 game by clicking the shortcut & QUICKLY push PS logo button of the DS4 to start the controller.

*Skip step 2 & 3 if you don't have any USB controller (like the X360 wired controller) plugged in to your computer. You might not need to download x360ce at all if you don't have or not using any USB wired controller.

*You can also try & test any other Bluetooth controller out there besides DS4, but the bottom line is, the Bluetooth capable controller must be made "virtual" in order to use XInput for the game to recognize it.

*The game will not start if it detect any HID/ USB controller connected prior to launch. The game will not recognize DS4 (DInput) unless via a virtual controller emulation (ViGEm in DS4Windows) with X360 controller preset only (using XInput).

*Do not exit both x360ce & DS4Windows program before & during iF-22 gameplay. Let them minimize. x360ce is prone to freeze during this process. Use Task Manager to turn it off after exiting the game.

*Make sure the X360 USB controller (or any other USB/ wired controller attached) reappear in the "Set up USB game controller" list in Windows after turn off x360ce. If not, restart x360ce & tick/ untick the HIDE box in the program.