War2 graphics for Win Vista/7/8/8.1/10/2012 fixed

[fois]

What i liked in GOG ideas: using current resolution, to not switch the game to 640x480 or w/e. That's great and very pleasant. What i disliked: that works for single player only, now for bnet chat.

Yeah, you can also do that in fullscreen with the updated one I linked and with cnc-ddraw too just like in the gog version.


Example war2_ddraw.ini:

[ddraw]
Windowed=Yes
MaintainAspectRatio=Yes
AlwaysOnTop=Yes
ShowWindowFrame=No
Width=1920
Height=1080


Example ddraw.ini for cnc-ddraw:

[ddraw]
fullscreen=true
maintas=true

UPD: also another interesting question:
which aqrit version it based on?
test2, test3, test4?
As i don't see d3d shaders, i'd suppose it's test2? Not so quick as test4 which supports d3d, but compatible with all videocards?

I use test2 because it's faster than test3 and test4 and it always works fine, even if you don't have graphic drivers installed and even if your hardware doesn't support dx9.

I tested a lot with GDI, Direct3D9 and OpenGL... GDI is always faster at low resolutions like 640x480 for our use case. I tried it with other games that support higher resolutions and found out that Direct3D9 and OpenGL will start to become faster than GDI at 1280x720 and above, but warcraft 2 only supports 1 resolution (640x480) so that means there is currently no use for Test3 and Test4.

@fois, i looked into your repositories and see one forked from narzoul/DDrawCompat. I also looked into narzoul's thing, to adapt it to war2. I like their coding style and lots complicated bugfixes. What do you think about to use fork from DDrawCompat for war2?

DDrawCompat is nice and has good performance, but I don't think we will need it for war2 (It has no windowed mode and no scaling).

omg! best performance love it!!!!

omg!!!!!!! like omg i need some beer!!!! thanks for the options!!!! i can use my little widgets!!


1 more thing,i have a dosbox that uses, i think its called scalers, im not sure..like 2x eagle2xsai,mame stuff..that makes the graphics almost perfect but no biggie cool as hell!

That's a nice idea with the widgets!


You can also use shaders with cnc-ddraw, but it does only work for single player right now (no bnet).

Step 1

Get cnc-ddraw here
https://github.com/CnCNet/cnc-ddraw/releases


Step 2

Download the shader you like to use
https://github.com/libretro/glsl-shaders

I think xBR looks the best with war2, eagle and sai don't give as good results. xBRZ is nice too.


Step 3

Configure ddraw.ini for 2x scaling with xBR

[ddraw]
width=1280
height=960
windowed=true
boxing=true
shader=Shaders\xbr-lv2.glsl
renderer=opengl

[fois]

I was just playing around with cnc-ddraw and I think I got it finally working on bnet for online games...

If someone wants to give it a try, extract cnc-ddraw.zip into your game folder. (It's attached below)


This one is preconfigured for scaling with xBR shader, it might show you the most beautiful warcraft 2 you have ever seen

This config runs at double resolution (or more), which is 1280x960. Will work fine if your monitor supports high resolutions such as 1920x1080 or above, otherwise you can't really use it with this config. Scaling via xBR requires somewhat good hardware with OpenGL 3.0 support.

[shesycompany]

nice!!! kinda "hot wax" look

looks great,and plays well, im going with 800x600 not the best hardware here.

my .jpg doesnt give justice lol.

[fois]

nice!!! kinda "hot wax" look

looks great,and plays well, im going with 800x600 not the best hardware here.

my .jpg doesnt give justice lol.

You might be able to use a different shader on your hardware, xBR is good looking but pretty slow... try "shader=Shaders\cubic.glsl" maybe.




I attached some pictures in case someone is interested how xBR looks like.

Picture 1 shows how the game looks like if you play in a window without scaling.
Picture 2 shows how the game looks like if you play fullscreen without cnc-ddraw xBR (Typical blurry graphics card scaling)
Picture 3 shows how the game looks like with cnc-ddraw + xBR

[iL]

Just tried FunkyFr3sh/Aqrit-DDraw-Hack 0.1.5.2 - looks like the best ddraw!

Agree, test2 (ddraw to DIB) is faster. Also tried aqrit's test4 on weak computer - it's very slow. .

Report from one of our gamers: sometimes (not possible to repeat) mouse becomes blocked. Most likely when exiting from the game to bnet chat. Most likely in window mode. Possibly after alt-tab. Not sure. Not after every game.

Questions from me:
Is that possible to make bnet-chat also movable and resizable in window mode?
Is that possible to repair printscreen (instead of alt-printscreen) in bnet-chat mode?
1 more bug from me: after i exit the game, top banner apperared with broken palette. That happened in full-screen. Alt-enter didn't help. Chat have been ok.

[iL]

I was just playing around with cnc-ddraw and I think I got it finally working on bnet for online games...

If someone wants to give it a try, extract cnc-ddraw.zip into your game folder. (It's attached below)


This one is preconfigured for scaling with xBR shader, it might show you the most beautiful warcraft 2 you have ever seen

This config runs at double resolution (or more), which is 1280x960. Will work fine if your monitor supports high resolutions such as 1920x1080 or above, otherwise you can't really use it with this config. Scaling via xBR requires somewhat good hardware with OpenGL 3.0 support.

Is it designed to x2-x3-xN resolution only? I use 1600x1200 and i tried it, it shows a picture looks like 640x480*2 with a black border around.

At the same time, everything looks perfect, except very small bnet-chat in top-left corner of the screen.
Also, as i understand, this version doesn't support windows mode, fullscreen only, is it?

[fois]

Report from one of our gamers: sometimes (not possible to repeat) mouse becomes blocked. Most likely when exiting from the game to bnet chat. Most likely in window mode. Possibly after alt-tab. Not sure. Not after every game.

Blocked as in the mouse can't leave the window? In the menus i wanted the mouse to be free and in game we need it locked so you can scroll around, that's why I made it so a right-click will lock the mouse into the window.

Maybe he did a right-click in the menus and it locked it? Ctrl+Tab can unlock the cursor btw

Questions from me:
Is that possible to make bnet-chat also movable and resizable in window mode?
Is that possible to repair printscreen (instead of alt-printscreen) in bnet-chat mode?
1 more bug from me: after i exit the game, top banner apperared with broken palette. That happened in full-screen. Alt-enter didn't help. Chat have been ok.

Movable bnet might be possible, but someone has to do some research and find out how exactly the bnet window works. I tried to move it before and it just crashed the game, don't really know yet why it didn't work.

Resizable bnet is too difficult cause it creates multiple windows and layers them on top of each other and it creates buttons and other stuff that would need to be resized one by one too. I don't think anyone will get that done in perfection.

I didn't notice any palette issues yet with the banner, but I will try to pay more attention to it. I know aqrit made one palette entry transparent for his bnet trick, maybe the banner was using it and that's why it looked weird..

Is it designed to x2-x3-xN resolution only? I use 1600x1200 and i tried it, it shows a picture looks like 640x480*2 with a black border around.

At the same time, everything looks perfect, except very small bnet-chat in top-left corner of the screen.
Also, as i understand, this version doesn't support windows mode, fullscreen only, is it?

The example settings file I included was set up for integer scaling (2x 3x...) because I wanted to show how awesome the xBR shader looks
You can remove the xBR shader, just set "shader=" and then "boxing=false", now it will work with any resolution just like the gog ddraw does.

It works in window mode too, you have to set "fullscreen=false" and "windowed=true", but I didn't optimize it for windowed mode yet like I did with test2, that means you will see 2 windows on the screen when you open bnet (It's easy to fix it though)




BTW, I tested test2, my updated test2 and cnc-ddraw on linux with latest combat edition and it worked nice The installer would need a little modification to make it perfect though, not sure if you're interested on mac/linux, but I could give you the code for inno setup if you need it.

Here is how it looks https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/452933261266518016/558568420405411850/unknown.png

[iL]

Movable bnet might be possible, but someone has to do some research and find out how exactly the bnet window works. I tried to move it before and it just crashed the game, don't really know yet why it didn't work.

Resizable bnet is too difficult cause it creates multiple windows and layers them on top of each other and it creates buttons and other stuff that would need to be resized one by one too. I don't think anyone will get that done in perfection.

I see, i just thought it could be easy to hook some GDI functions to change their coords "on the fly". If that crashed the game, so, ok, not a big deal...

I didn't notice any palette issues yet with the banner, but I will try to pay more attention to it. I know aqrit made one palette entry transparent for his bnet trick, maybe the banner was using it and that's why it looked weird..

I see, i just got a quick look onto your ddraw yesterday. I plan to use it as the main ddraw for war2, so i'll check everything carefully next times.

The example settings file I included was set up for integer scaling (2x 3x...) because I wanted to show how awesome the xBR shader looks
You can remove the xBR shader, just set "shader=" and then "boxing=false", now it will work with any resolution just like the gog ddraw does.

It works in window mode too, you have to set "fullscreen=false" and "windowed=true", but I didn't optimize it for windowed mode yet like I did with test2, that means you will see 2 windows on the screen when you open bnet (It's easy to fix it though)

Wow! That works for me! Thanks! I tried to use different options yesterday, but i didn't know how to do what i want.
Looks like i need some additional understanding how it works and how to handle it.
Nice to have the source code for your ddraws and be able to build them myself with any changes, for debugging purposes for example, if required.

BTW, I tested test2, my updated test2 and cnc-ddraw on linux with latest combat edition and it worked nice The installer would need a little modification to make it perfect though, not sure if you're interested on mac/linux, but I could give you the code for inno setup if you need it.

Here is how it looks https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/452933261266518016/558568420405411850/unknown.png

Sure! I'm interested to populate combat everywhere: on all windows, on linux, mac - that would be perfect!
I just didn't know i can do any modifications to make it work better under wine. Let me know if you have any ideas how to make it better!

BTW:
It there any simple way to check that ddraws compatibility with current computer before copy ddraw? I mean, to make sure proper version of OpenGL of  w/e other technologies are being supported.
To let installer check ddraw and disable incompatible components while installing?
As i understand, Aqrit-DDraw-Hack (same as test2) is compatible with every hardware, so no checks required (if windows is newer than XP), but CNC should support something else.

[fois]

You don't need to add any checks, cnc-ddraw for example will check if opengl is supported on its own, if not then it will switch to GDI automatically. Updated test2 also doesn't need any checks.

I compiled both with visual studio 2017, that means you need to have at least win xp service pack 3, you can check the MinVersion like this:

Code: [Select]

[Files]
Source: Resources\cnc-ddraw.dll; DestDir: "{app}"; DestName: "ddraw.dll"; Flags: ignoreversion; MinVersion: 5.1sp3



To get it working on wine you will have to add a dll override for ddraw to make sure wine is loading our ddraws and not the wine ddraw:

Code: [Select]

[Registry]
Root: HKCU; Subkey: Software\Wine\AppDefaults\Warcraft II BNE.exe\DllOverrides; ValueType: string; ValueName: "ddraw"; ValueData: "native, builtin"; Check: RunsOnWine


[code]
function GetModuleHandleA(lpLibFileName: PAnsiChar): THandle;
external 'GetModuleHandleA@kernel32.dll stdcall';
function GetProcAddress(Module: THandle; ProcName: PAnsiChar): Longword;
external 'GetProcAddress@kernel32.dll stdcall';

function RunsOnWine: boolean;
begin
  Result := GetProcAddress(GetModuleHandleA('ntdll.dll'), 'wine_get_version')<> 0;
end;


[iL]

Thanks a lot for wine code! Added it and rebuilt 3 en and 3 ru versions (still didn't change ddraws to your versions as i need to check them carefully before).

You don't need to add any checks, cnc-ddraw for example will check if opengl is supported on its own, if not then it will switch to GDI automatically. Updated test2 also doesn't need any checks.

Then need to test opengl version with no opengl support...

I compiled both with visual studio 2017, that means you need to have at least win xp service pack 3, you can check the MinVersion like this:

Yes, i see, i also built both with visual studio 2017.

Also, is that work fine under XP? As i remember, aqrit didn't recommend to use his ddraws for xp, as war2 works fine under XP without any ddraws.
So, did you try XP with your ddraws?
I use MinVersion: 6.0;

[iL]

The example settings file I included was set up for integer scaling (2x 3x...) because I wanted to show how awesome the xBR shader looks
You can remove the xBR shader, just set "shader=" and then "boxing=false", now it will work with any resolution just like the gog ddraw does.

It works in window mode too, you have to set "fullscreen=false" and "windowed=true", but I didn't optimize it for windowed mode yet like I did with test2, that means you will see 2 windows on the screen when you open bnet (It's easy to fix it though)

Is there an additional description for all the possible parameters?
It's quite difficult to understand things even for me, after reading the source code, so i think it will be much more difficult for ordinary players.
1. What is maintas and boxing? Which one is required/better and when or no one? As i see from source, they exclude each other.
2. What maxfps would be the best for war2?
3. Which set of mouse options are optimal for war2?
4. How to understand which renderer is used as auto? Are there any logs anywhere?
When i use auto, looks like d3d or w/e applied, as when i select opengl, that looks different.
5. If renderer is selected as opengl, but opengl is not supported - will gdi be used? Or some unknown error appears?
6. I want to start war2 in fullscreen mode with resolution similar to my default screen resolution. And alt-enter to window mode as something small, like 640x480 or configurable. Is that possbile or need to be updated?
7. GoG contains parameters: anisotropic, antialiasing, gamma. Do they have any analogs here?

Maybe need to fix:
8. When i use width=0 height=0 it works as my default resolution with renderer auto, but not works the same with opengl. For opengl i have to write width=1600 height=1200
9. ddraw.ini contains bnetHack option, but no that option in the source code. Is it different build there is binary code?

Also a wish:
10. to add graphics utility to configure options, similar to GoG's one. Not sure we really need that, but maybe something already exists?

[iL]

Blocked as in the mouse can't leave the window? In the menus i wanted the mouse to be free and in game we need it locked so you can scroll around, that's why I made it so a right-click will lock the mouse into the window.

Maybe he did a right-click in the menus and it locked it? Ctrl+Tab can unlock the cursor btw

Sorry, wrong info:
mouse have not been blocked, but looks like pointer appears behind the screen, became invisible (working though). Usually can be fixed by creating/joining the game and then returning back. But sometimes - that doesn't help.

[fois]

Thanks a lot for wine code! Added it and rebuilt 3 en and 3 ru versions (still didn't change ddraws to your versions as i need to check them carefully before).

Nice! Is it on the website already? Will do a test run to make sure it works..

Also, is that work fine under XP? As i remember, aqrit didn't recommend to use his ddraws for xp, as war2 works fine under XP without any ddraws.
So, did you try XP with your ddraws?
I use MinVersion: 6.0;

You don't actually need it on XP for compatibility reasons, but now they're useful because we have windowed mode and stretching. I Always test everything on XP and 10, so yeah, it works fine

Is there an additional description for all the possible parameters?
It's quite difficult to understand things even for me, after reading the source code, so i think it will be much more difficult for ordinary players.

...
10. to add graphics utility to configure options, similar to GoG's one. Not sure we really need that, but maybe something already exists?

No, only what is written inside of ddraw.ini. Normally you don't have to change any settings, unless you're wanting to change something specific like the mouse speed or scaling.
A config program would be very useful. If you want to have all features of both ddraws available in war2 combat then we'll have to make a config program! If you only want to include the updated test2, then I don't think we need a config program.

There are some config programs already available that can change the cnc-ddraw settings, but they're for other games and have game specific settings so we can't use them directly (We could modify them, but they need the .NET framework 2.0).

1. What is maintas and boxing? Which one is required/better and when or no one? As i see from source, they exclude each other.

That's all personal preference, none is better. But most people will want maintas=true.

2. What maxfps would be the best for war2?

war2 needs at least 60 FPS, but it's no problem to set it higher. I usually set it to the double of what the game needs to get less input lag.

3. Which set of mouse options are optimal for war2?

If your mouse is too fast (That can happen because the game runs on 640x480), then set fullscreen=true and adjmouse=true to slow your mouse down (It will then have the same speed as in windows).

4. How to understand which renderer is used as auto? Are there any logs anywhere?
When i use auto, looks like d3d or w/e applied, as when i select opengl, that looks different.

If you set it to auto then it will try to use Direct3D, if that fails then it will try OpenGL and if that fails too then it will use GDI. It will show you a message when it's switching the renderer, you will know about it.
On linux it will use OpenGL and if that fails GDI (Direct3D is windows only).

For war2 we only need GDI, cause it's the fastest on low resolutions. OpenGL is only useful if you enable stretching cause it can apply shaders for better image quality. There are also shaders that can apply other effects without stretching (e.g. make the image brighter).

5. If renderer is selected as opengl, but opengl is not supported - will gdi be used? Or some unknown error appears?

It will automatically switch to GDI then, no need to change any settings. No error message I coded everything in a way that your game will always start and work fine, it will detect if something doesn't work and use different settings automatically.

6. I want to start war2 in fullscreen mode with resolution similar to my default screen resolution. And alt-enter to window mode as something small, like 640x480 or configurable. Is that possbile or need to be updated?

That is currently not possible, it will switch to windowed mode but the window will be stretched and big... But it's a good idea, I have to think about a solution for this...

7. GoG contains parameters: anisotropic, antialiasing, gamma. Do they have any analogs here?

You can do all that via shader= too. Each shader has a different effect.

gog's scaling looks blurry like this "shader=Shaders\cubic.glsl"

You can also make it look like an old CRT monitor "shader=Shaders\crt-lottes-fast-no-warp.glsl"

There are 100+ shaders you can download here https://github.com/libretro/glsl-shaders

8. When i use width=0 height=0 it works as my default resolution with renderer auto, but not works the same with opengl. For opengl i have to write width=1600 height=1200

Oh, are you sure you had 'fullscreen=true' set? That should always work with 0,0 on all renderers.

9. ddraw.ini contains bnetHack option, but no that option in the source code. Is it different build there is binary code?

The cnc-ddraw I linked here was a new test build, you have to switch the branch from "master" to "diablo_warcraft2" to see the new code.

Here is a direct link to the code of the new branch https://github.com/CnCNet/cnc-ddraw/archive/diablo_warcraft2.zip

Sorry, wrong info:
mouse have not been blocked, but looks like pointer appears behind the screen, became invisible (working though). Usually can be fixed by creating/joining the game and then returning back. But sometimes - that doesn't help.

I will do some testing. So this was the new test2 or cnc-ddraw? It only happens in windowed mode?

[tk[as]]

fois is a beast

[iL]

Nice! Is it on the website already? Will do a test run to make sure it works..

Sure, i updated it on ftp! Didn't update version of file, war2combat is still 4.3.3 since several more releases...
In versions en/ru lite/full/std.

You don't actually need it on XP for compatibility reasons, but now they're useful because we have windowed mode and stretching. I Always test everything on XP and 10, so yeah, it works fine

Yes, the main reason is window mode. Also some palette troubles happened in XP also. Nice to see you test it on XP also!
My main test comp in win7.
BTW, one of our testers still uses XP SP2, no way to update it to SP3 for some reasons. As i understand, need to rebuild ddraws with vstudio 2015 to use it on XP SP2, is that a good idea?

No, only what is written inside of ddraw.ini. Normally you don't have to change any settings, unless you're wanting to change something specific like the mouse speed or scaling.

I see, np, i'll try to understand that myself asking you. Looks like you understand that ddraw-gdi-dib-opengl-d3d things very well! I still continue looking into the source code and not understand what each command means and what effect it causes...

There are some config programs already available that can change the cnc-ddraw settings, but they're for other games and have game specific settings so we can't use them directly (We could modify them, but they need the .NET framework 2.0).

I see, i don't think we need to do something with that right now.
But for future i think that could be useful to make that module configurable.
Are there source codes for that framework 2.0 settings config utilities?
I'm about CNC ddraw most likely, i agree there's almost nothing to configure in arqit's ddraw.

war2 needs at least 60 FPS, but it's no problem to set it higher. I usually set it to the double of what the game needs to get less input lag.

I tried it with 1600x1200x32, used cubic.glsl shader as the most beatiful for me and with default 125 fps, and looks like it lagged on my core i5 processor. Then i decreased fps to 30 or w/e and lags disappeared. So, i think fps can be important.

For war2 we only need GDI, cause it's the fastest on low resolutions. OpenGL is only useful if you enable stretching cause it can apply shaders for better image quality. There are also shaders that can apply other effects without stretching (e.g. make the image brighter).

You mean a war2 resolution or screen one? Because i used opengl to scale war2 to 1600x1200x32. I didn't test cnc-GDI for such resolution. Should i?

That is currently not possible, it will switch to windowed mode but the window will be stretched and big... But it's a good idea, I have to think about a solution for this...

Yes, as i understand, there's only 1 current resolution for both fullscreen and windows mode. So, my idea is to set 1600x1200x32 (similar as default monitor in windows) to enjoy fast alt-tab between war2 and windows without switch videomode. And need another resolution for window mode.

You can do all that via shader= too. Each shader has a different effect.

gog's scaling looks blurry like this "shader=Shaders\cubic.glsl"

I see. I don't think that's important to make it "same as in GOG", just asked. So, i see they also should use some kind on shaders also.

Oh, are you sure you had 'fullscreen=true' set? That should always work with 0,0 on all renderers.

Hm, i've been sure yesterday when i checked. But now looks like everything is fine. resolution is auto: 0x0x0, fullscreen=true, windowed=false, boxing=false, shader=Shaders\cubic.glsl, renderer=opengl, and everything works fine!
So, i'll let you know if something become wrong.

The cnc-ddraw I linked here was a new test build, you have to switch the branch from "master" to "diablo_warcraft2" to see the new code.

Here is a direct link to the code of the new branch https://github.com/CnCNet/cnc-ddraw/archive/diablo_warcraft2.zip

Ah, i ddin't see that, thx!

I will do some testing. So this was the new test2 or cnc-ddraw? It only happens in windowed mode?

It was test2. That is a floating error, so he have no idea when is happened, but most likely in windowed mode. If you have no idea what is can be, then np.
I'll try to test it myself and give it to several more beta-testers. I hope they will quickly find bugs if they exist...

Also, an idea:
maybe would be good to write logs somewhere like ddraw.log or war2_ddraw.log, for debug purposes? Then people can send that reports to you, to let you look and check what happens on their side.