sharangad wrote on 2023-08-14, 16:17:

Maybe I'm not setting the Shims. I just added the shim names to compatibility strings in the registry. "Die by the sword" has st […]
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BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-08-14, 15:20:

I never had to use EmulateDirectDrawSync myself. There could be some apps that pre-applied it. That's all that probably needed i […]
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I never had to use EmulateDirectDrawSync myself. There could be some apps that pre-applied it. That's all that probably needed it. DxWnd did half the work of the shims so maybe they were needed but I never saw.

EmulateGetCommandLine shim shouldn't generally be required. It was needed in Dungeon Keeper because that game's command line options have to be set with a DOS supported path format length.

About the black screen, I am aware of the rendering and synchronisation issue of the menu. I last tested it 3 years ago, I will check again tomorrow (we have Independence Day tomorrow so there's some free time). The two shims don't correspond to fixing the menu issue so it's interesting.

Btw how are you even setting the shims through RReady Launcher?

About the MechWarrior 2 situation, do you mean to say the problem occurs even when doing the same procedure from RRedline to Direct3D? Strange, that is not an issue for me. I only have an issue when I run Direct3D first and RRedline later.

Maybe I'm not setting the Shims. I just added the shim names to compatibility strings in the registry. "Die by the sword" has startup and menu issues with redline. Most probably the 'shims' I set weren't being set and the game was running without any settings.

MechWarrior 2 going from dx to redline shows problems. The other way has no issues. So it's most probably a directdraw surface issue with open gl. I did check buffer swaps.

The other thing is mw2 should be able use higher resolutions. I think DxWnd is blocking it. Redline allows the resolution to be changed and the mechanism rready uses to go higher than the target is generally solid.

Team apache is next on my list for now. I have tried pressing escape on the videos before and got a lockup.

I think in terms of compatibility the low hanging fruit had been plucked.

Gpl's exceptions are caused by my code. I had the menus with a black background working reliably at 640x480 without any compatibility settings. Upscaling needs fixes because the game expects mouse coordinates to be in 640x480 range. Some letters were missing from the menu items.

Thanks for all your help, and the Vogons community too. I would've hit a brick wall otherwise.

Happy independence day tomorrow!

Shims can be set through the ADK and they are portable in .sdb format. The shims are saved and applied in the registry in Class IDs.

About the higher resolution in Mech2, it should be possible in general, I will check it tomorrow.

I ran Team Apache with DxWnd and Main/Do not notify on task switch setting enabled. I kept pressing Esc when the DxWnd logo ended till I heard the Quit prompt sound (since there was no Main Menu sound).

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-14, 03:58:

Just out of curiosity, what kind of gpu are you using? I'd like to know if this runs on amd cards. Soda has major issues on Intel hd gpus.

Nvidia GTX 1060.

Tested Heavy Gear 1 full version (1.0 and 1.1).
There are texture glitches which stop once you get closer (doesn't happen with the other renderers).
After every mission, the menu screen is black and you can't continue (not the wrapper's fault per se, since this and other issues happen with other renderers except when using D3D via DgVoodoo 2).

feda wrote on 2023-08-15, 00:21:

Nvidia GTX 1060. […]
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sharangad wrote on 2023-08-14, 03:58:

Just out of curiosity, what kind of gpu are you using? I'd like to know if this runs on amd cards. Soda has major issues on Intel hd gpus.

Nvidia GTX 1060.

Tested Heavy Gear 1 full version (1.0 and 1.1).
There are texture glitches which stop once you get closer (doesn't happen with the other renderers).
After every mission, the menu screen is black and you can't continue (not the wrapper's fault per se, since this and other issues happen with other renderers except when using D3D via DgVoodoo 2).

Will look into the texture glitching. I only tested against the demo. It's entirely possible the full game needs more work. The menu issue is a problem with MechWarrior 2 as well (running under DxWnd). Like you said, toggling between DirectDraw/Direct3D and OpenGL with a common window. A window can only be OpenGL or DirectDraw (not both).

Since these games don't recreate their main window this happens. The solution would be to port RReady to Direct3D. I've been thinking about it for a while and it will have to be done at some point. But not just yet. It will improve compatibility with pretty much everything.

Probably an unimplemented direct command or vertex type. The direct commands, as opposed to known api calls are added to command buffers and are undocumented. Heavy Gear uses this quite a lot. Games like Quake 2 don't use them at all.

I'll try and source the full game. Which mission is that?

Can you attach the logs after running HG? Most of the detailed logging is disabled for performance. Critical errors should be logged.

It would also be good to know if SODA works on AMD hardware. The other stuff's fairly straightforward, but this game does some stuff which had me confused.

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-15, 02:22:

Will look into the texture glitching. I only tested against the demo. It's entirely possible the full game needs more work. The […]
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feda wrote on 2023-08-15, 00:21:

Nvidia GTX 1060. […]
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sharangad wrote on 2023-08-14, 03:58:

Just out of curiosity, what kind of gpu are you using? I'd like to know if this runs on amd cards. Soda has major issues on Intel hd gpus.

Nvidia GTX 1060.

Tested Heavy Gear 1 full version (1.0 and 1.1).
There are texture glitches which stop once you get closer (doesn't happen with the other renderers).
After every mission, the menu screen is black and you can't continue (not the wrapper's fault per se, since this and other issues happen with other renderers except when using D3D via DgVoodoo 2).

Will look into the texture glitching. I only tested against the demo. It's entirely possible the full game needs more work. The menu issue is a problem with MechWarrior 2 as well (running under DxWnd). Like you said, toggling between DirectDraw/Direct3D and OpenGL with a common window. A window can only be OpenGL or DirectDraw (not both).

Since these games don't recreate their main window this happens. The solution would be to port RReady to Direct3D. I've been thinking about it for a while and it will have to be done at some point. But not just yet. It will improve compatibility with pretty much everything.

Probably an unimplemented direct command or vertex type. The direct commands, as opposed to known api calls are added to command buffers and are undocumented. Heavy Gear uses this quite a lot. Games like Quake 2 don't use them at all.

I'll try and source the full game. Which mission is that?

Can you attach the logs after running HG? Most of the detailed logging is disabled for performance. Critical errors should be logged.

It would also be good to know if SODA works on AMD hardware. The other stuff's fairly straightforward, but this game does some stuff which had me confused.

If you port, try Direct3D9 if possible. I would want to see these games in Windows XP (Win2K is also a possibility but maybe the instruction will be too old).

I tried Die by the Sword today. I needed DxWnd to get over the (usual crashes sporadically fixed by Win95 FTH or something), and then the game worked somewhat fine by limiting the FPS to 60 (the menu runs at a lower FPS though) and blitting on the thread asychronously. I recall, in 2020 in testing, the menu would stop until I moved the mouse. This doesn't happen on DxWnd at least. The problem returns when I click on Tutorial so I will have to look deeper.

Anyways, I tried to implement the same but failed. Part of it is because the timing hooks aren't being controlled by DxWnd during the main-menu's transformation to OpenGL.

Update: The key to fixing the menu is: always refresh the menu. Now who'll implement it?

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-08-15, 03:51:

I tried Die by the Sword today. I needed DxWnd to get over the (usual crashes sporadically fixed by Win95 FTH or something), and then the game worked somewhat fine by limiting the FPS to 60 (the menu runs at a lower FPS though) and blitting on the thread asychronously. I recall, in 2020 in testing, the menu would stop until I moved the mouse. This doesn't happen on DxWnd at least. The problem returns when I click on Tutorial so I will have to look deeper.

Anyways, I tried to implement the same but failed. Part of it is because the timing hooks aren't being controlled by DxWnd during the main-menu's transformation to OpenGL.

Update: The key to fixing the menu is: always refresh the menu. Now who'll implement it?

The menu's sometimes completely stable.

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-15, 04:49:

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-08-15, 03:51:

I tried Die by the Sword today. I needed DxWnd to get over the (usual crashes sporadically fixed by Win95 FTH or something), and then the game worked somewhat fine by limiting the FPS to 60 (the menu runs at a lower FPS though) and blitting on the thread asychronously. I recall, in 2020 in testing, the menu would stop until I moved the mouse. This doesn't happen on DxWnd at least. The problem returns when I click on Tutorial so I will have to look deeper.

Anyways, I tried to implement the same but failed. Part of it is because the timing hooks aren't being controlled by DxWnd during the main-menu's transformation to OpenGL.

Update: The key to fixing the menu is: always refresh the menu. Now who'll implement it?

The menu's sometimes completely stable.

Yes sometimes it is. I keep track of the framerate and it happens when the framerate goes high enough, to keep refresh at that constant high enough rate.

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-12, 11:08:

Team Apache (Logo and intro video playback followed by a Smacker Video smackw32.dll crash.

You cannot skip the movies too early. You have to wait for the "ufo video" to play for a while till sound gets stuck in a loop. It sometimes moves on a bit after getting stuck so be patient 😉 Only now you can hit space 3 times.
If you hit space earlier the second movie will start and crush the game.
using esc is not recomended cause if you press it to many times it works in the menu switching to "quit question" screen.
The reason for all above may be corrupted movies.
if you try to play SIMLOGO.SMK from video folder on the cd in a vlc media player 3.0.14 Vetinari it is corrupted. Latest vlc player just doesn't play movie till end.
MINDLOGO.SMK and rin640.smk also look corrupted. They don't play till end too. rin640.smk shows corruption even in latest vlc player.
For comparison rin320.smk looks not corrupted and plays till end.

it's best tested using dgvoodoo2(direct3d) as it loads way faster (almost immediately) (the game works too fast with dgvoodoo2(direct3d), but that's a dgvoodoo2 problem i guess)

btw you need to run the game as admin if you use launcher.exe so it detects game as installed

robertmo3 wrote on 2023-08-15, 05:14:

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-12, 11:08:

Team Apache (Logo and intro video playback followed by a Smacker Video smackw32.dll crash.

You cannot skip the movies too early.

My Windows 11 can, Windows 7 can, Windows 98 SE can.

Anyways, why's the video corrupted. Did they ship the game like this?

robertmo3 wrote on 2023-08-15, 05:14:

You cannot skip the movies too early. You have to wait for the "ufo video" to play for a while till sound gets stuck in a loop. […]
Show full quote

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-12, 11:08:

Team Apache (Logo and intro video playback followed by a Smacker Video smackw32.dll crash.

You cannot skip the movies too early. You have to wait for the "ufo video" to play for a while till sound gets stuck in a loop. It sometimes moves on a bit after getting stuck so be patient 😉 Only now you can hit space 3 times.
If you hit space earlier the second movie will start and crush the game.
using esc is not recomended cause if you press it to many times it works in the menu switching to "quit question" screen.
The reason for all above may be corrupted movies.
if you try to play SIMLOGO.SMK from video folder on the cd in a vlc media player 3.0.14 Vetinari it is corrupted. Latest vlc player just doesn't play movie till end.
MINDLOGO.SMK and rin640.smk also look corrupted. They don't play till end too. rin640.smk shows corruption even in latest vlc player.
For comparison rin320.smk looks not corrupted and plays till end.

it's best tested using dgvoodoo2(direct3d) as it loads way faster (almost immediately) (the game works too fast with dgvoodoo2(direct3d), but that's a dgvoodoo2 problem i guess)

btw you need to run the game as admin if you use launcher.exe so it detects game as installed

I'm working on Apache as I type. I think video corruption isn't the videos, but smacker having issues decoding paletted (16 or 256 colour) textures on modern windows. The video with the helicopter attacking plays back just fine.

Not sure about admin. Does it run from a non-admin command line if you type:

start /d "C:\TeamApache" C:\TeamApache\apacherr.exe -aohpn

Replace the game folder name in both places with your folder. -aohpn forced apacherr.exe to run in redline mode. Also is your game in Program files?

This game isn't compatible yet. I'm fixing menu corruption/not rendering. In game graphics appears fine and the speed is fine (after allowing multi-threaded rendering).

You just need to press escape twice when the apache logo/saucer appears. The third video should play just fine, it's probably in a different format.

This game makes extensive use of front buffer rendering so video capture software generally won't capture the videos or the menus.

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-15, 06:05:

I'm working on Apache as I type. I think video corruption isn't the videos, but smacker having issues decoding paletted (16 or 2 […]
Show full quote

robertmo3 wrote on 2023-08-15, 05:14:

You cannot skip the movies too early. You have to wait for the "ufo video" to play for a while till sound gets stuck in a loop. […]
Show full quote

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-12, 11:08:

Team Apache (Logo and intro video playback followed by a Smacker Video smackw32.dll crash.

You cannot skip the movies too early. You have to wait for the "ufo video" to play for a while till sound gets stuck in a loop. It sometimes moves on a bit after getting stuck so be patient 😉 Only now you can hit space 3 times.
If you hit space earlier the second movie will start and crush the game.
using esc is not recomended cause if you press it to many times it works in the menu switching to "quit question" screen.
The reason for all above may be corrupted movies.
if you try to play SIMLOGO.SMK from video folder on the cd in a vlc media player 3.0.14 Vetinari it is corrupted. Latest vlc player just doesn't play movie till end.
MINDLOGO.SMK and rin640.smk also look corrupted. They don't play till end too. rin640.smk shows corruption even in latest vlc player.
For comparison rin320.smk looks not corrupted and plays till end.

it's best tested using dgvoodoo2(direct3d) as it loads way faster (almost immediately) (the game works too fast with dgvoodoo2(direct3d), but that's a dgvoodoo2 problem i guess)

btw you need to run the game as admin if you use launcher.exe so it detects game as installed

I'm working on Apache as I type. I think video corruption isn't the videos, but smacker having issues decoding paletted (16 or 256 colour) textures on modern windows. The video with the helicopter attacking plays back just fine.

Not sure about admin. Does it run from a non-admin command line if you type:

start /d "C:\TeamApache" C:\TeamApache\apacherr.exe -aohpn

Replace the game folder name in both places with your folder. -aohpn forced apacherr.exe to run in redline mode. Also is your game in Program files?

This game isn't compatible yet. I'm fixing menu corruption/not rendering. In game graphics appears fine and the speed is fine (after allowing multi-threaded rendering).

You just need to press escape twice when the apache logo/saucer appears. The third video should play just fine, it's probably in a different format.

This game makes extensive use of front buffer rendering so video capture software generally won't capture the videos or the menus.

I checked...the corruption is on Windows 98 SE as well. The game crashes after the Mindscape video instantly with the corruption. On modern Windows, at least you get to the orange video...

He meant admin privileges for the launcher on the CD (for changing video driver). You don't need anything from there anyways.

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-15, 02:22:

feda wrote on 2023-08-15, 00:21:

Nvidia GTX 1060. […]
Show full quote

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-14, 03:58:

Just out of curiosity, what kind of gpu are you using? I'd like to know if this runs on amd cards. Soda has major issues on Intel hd gpus.

Nvidia GTX 1060.

Tested Heavy Gear 1 full version (1.0 and 1.1).
There are texture glitches which stop once you get closer (doesn't happen with the other renderers).
After every mission, the menu screen is black and you can't continue (not the wrapper's fault per se, since this and other issues happen with other renderers except when using D3D via DgVoodoo 2).

Will look into the texture glitching. I only tested against the demo. It's entirely possible the full game needs more work. The menu issue is a problem with MechWarrior 2 as well (running under DxWnd). Like you said, toggling between DirectDraw/Direct3D and OpenGL with a common window. A window can only be OpenGL or DirectDraw (not both).

At least under DxWnd, his "black screen" issue doesn't happen. I am on v1.0. In fullscreen, I get same stretched game as Interstate 76.

Update: I fixed both of Heavy Gear and Interstate 76's skewed enlarged rendering.
Update-2: MechWarrior 2 upscaled too.

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-08-15, 10:26:

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-15, 02:22:

feda wrote on 2023-08-15, 00:21:

Nvidia GTX 1060. […]
Show full quote

Nvidia GTX 1060.

Tested Heavy Gear 1 full version (1.0 and 1.1).
There are texture glitches which stop once you get closer (doesn't happen with the other renderers).
After every mission, the menu screen is black and you can't continue (not the wrapper's fault per se, since this and other issues happen with other renderers except when using D3D via DgVoodoo 2).

Will look into the texture glitching. I only tested against the demo. It's entirely possible the full game needs more work. The menu issue is a problem with MechWarrior 2 as well (running under DxWnd). Like you said, toggling between DirectDraw/Direct3D and OpenGL with a common window. A window can only be OpenGL or DirectDraw (not both).

At least under DxWnd, his "black screen" issue doesn't happen. I am on v1.0. In fullscreen, I get same stretched game as Interstate 76.

Update: I fixed both of Heavy Gear and Interstate 76's skewed enlarged rendering.

How'd you manage that? DxWnd or soemthing else?

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-15, 10:44:

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-08-15, 10:26:

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-15, 02:22:

Will look into the texture glitching. I only tested against the demo. It's entirely possible the full game needs more work. The menu issue is a problem with MechWarrior 2 as well (running under DxWnd). Like you said, toggling between DirectDraw/Direct3D and OpenGL with a common window. A window can only be OpenGL or DirectDraw (not both).

At least under DxWnd, his "black screen" issue doesn't happen. I am on v1.0. In fullscreen, I get same stretched game as Interstate 76.

Update: I fixed both of Heavy Gear and Interstate 76's skewed enlarged rendering.

How'd you manage that? DxWnd or soemthing else?

DxWnd

Update: Upscaled I76 and Heavy Gear 2 also works through DxWnd. Only thing you need now is to make Interstate 76 launch reliably.

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-08-15, 10:48:

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-15, 10:44:

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-08-15, 10:26:

At least under DxWnd, his "black screen" issue doesn't happen. I am on v1.0. In fullscreen, I get same stretched game as Interstate 76.

Update: I fixed both of Heavy Gear and Interstate 76's skewed enlarged rendering.

How'd you manage that? DxWnd or soemthing else?

DxWnd

Update: Upscaled I76 and Heavy Gear 2 also works through DxWnd. Only thing you need now is to make Interstate 76 launch reliably.

That's mighty impressive!

The games I haven't tested are MDK, Sub Culture, MTM2, F1, Myth TFL. You are quite sure with most of these, so they should work fine too for me.

Was F1 the only RRedline 1.0 game ever released?

Also, did you put the single thread restriction for games other than Team Apache too? I was wondering if for those games you let SingleProcAffinity shim to the job?

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-08-15, 14:54:

The games I haven't tested are MDK, Sub Culture, MTM2, F1, Myth TFL. You are quite sure with most of these, so they should work fine too for me.

Was F1 the only RRedline 1.0 game ever released?

Also, did you put the single thread restriction for games other than Team Apache too? I was wondering if for those games you let SingleProcAffinity shim to the job?

Myth and F1 don't work. The others are pretty solid. Team apache is coming along quite nicely, hopefully within week there'll be a new alpha.

The single threaded logic was just for apache. If you set compatibility to win 98 in single threaded mode the first two corrupted videos playback before crashing.

I just call setprocessaffinity. I do the same for vhexen2 only the other way around, win98 forces single threaded mode, so I set it to all cores.

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-15, 15:38:

Myth and F1 don't work. The others are pretty solid. Team apache is coming along quite nicely, hopefully within week there'll be […]
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BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-08-15, 14:54:

The games I haven't tested are MDK, Sub Culture, MTM2, F1, Myth TFL. You are quite sure with most of these, so they should work fine too for me.

Was F1 the only RRedline 1.0 game ever released?

Also, did you put the single thread restriction for games other than Team Apache too? I was wondering if for those games you let SingleProcAffinity shim to the job?

Myth and F1 don't work. The others are pretty solid. Team apache is coming along quite nicely, hopefully within week there'll be a new alpha.

The single threaded logic was just for apache. If you set compatibility to win 98 in single threaded mode the first two corrupted videos playback before crashing.

I just call setprocessaffinity. I do the same for vhexen2 only the other way around, win98 forces single threaded mode, so I set it to all cores.

Alright then the only thing left is to check Myth TFL, and you to finish Team Apache. So another Windows graphics API is on its way to be successfully completed.

(next I would like to see is S3D API, but there's no news on it. At least SGL is being worked upon)

myth works when using ddraw from dgvoodoo

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-08-15, 18:31:

sharangad wrote on 2023-08-15, 15:38:

Myth and F1 don't work. The others are pretty solid. Team apache is coming along quite nicely, hopefully within week there'll be […]
Show full quote

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-08-15, 14:54:

The games I haven't tested are MDK, Sub Culture, MTM2, F1, Myth TFL. You are quite sure with most of these, so they should work fine too for me.

Was F1 the only RRedline 1.0 game ever released?

Also, did you put the single thread restriction for games other than Team Apache too? I was wondering if for those games you let SingleProcAffinity shim to the job?

Myth and F1 don't work. The others are pretty solid. Team apache is coming along quite nicely, hopefully within week there'll be a new alpha.

The single threaded logic was just for apache. If you set compatibility to win 98 in single threaded mode the first two corrupted videos playback before crashing.

I just call setprocessaffinity. I do the same for vhexen2 only the other way around, win98 forces single threaded mode, so I set it to all cores.

Alright then the only thing left is to check Myth TFL, and you to finish Team Apache. So another Windows graphics API is on its way to be successfully completed.

(next I would like to see is S3D API, but there's no news on it. At least SGL is being worked upon)

Myth TFL starts out with a parameter indicating render set to 2 (rredline). Just before initializing rendering this becomes it becomes 1 (3dfx) independently of rready. If there's no glide wrapper installed it crashes. The pointer to the parameter in question is *(DataSeg:4A7DC4+ 0x1C). Not sure if this is something DxWnd can fix. Probably from a Windows API call to query directdraw device name or something. The weird thing is it already calls V_EnumVeriteBoards in verite.dll so it know redline support exists.