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

[fois]

fois is a beast

true

Gonna make the game working with these ddraws on any pc first and then maybe next we'll have to look into the hosting issues...

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.

Just tested it on Linux Mint 19, works great now!

If anyone is interested, for Mint 19 and the latest ubuntu versions you'll have to type one command:

sudo apt install wine-stable wine32 fonts-wine


That's it, just download the installer now and run it.

I recorded a video of it too: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_Bt1Q49XGUJ75xLUJvz-ltgS3V32nbxp/view

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?

I think 2015 also supports only XP SP3, you probably need a very old version like VS 2008 or 2010. But I also included a makefile for gcc, this one should work even on win 2000, I attach a gcc build to this post if someone wants to try it.

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.

I try to put something together

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.

1600x1200x32 with 125 fps might not work on intel graphics cards, so yeah, lower FPS can help in case you don't have a AMD/Nvidia card.

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.

Yeah that's possible, I got debug code that you can enable in debug.h. But usually only useful for crashes (It's also very slow...)

[iL]

Gonna make the game working with these ddraws on any pc first and then maybe next we'll have to look into the hosting issues...

Wow! Fixing hosting - network functions hooking? Would be very interesting to look! I just began to look into world of dll, but you are very experienced in that!

Just tested it on Linux Mint 19, works great now!

If anyone is interested, for Mint 19 and the latest ubuntu versions you'll have to type one command:

sudo apt install wine-stable wine32 fonts-wine


That's it, just download the installer now and run it.

I recorded a video of it too: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_Bt1Q49XGUJ75xLUJvz-ltgS3V32nbxp/view

Wow!
Much easier instruction than previous one: http://en.war2.ru/tutorials/setting-up-linux-ubuntu-to-play-warcraft-ii-bne/

I think 2015 also supports only XP SP3, you probably need a very old version like VS 2008 or 2010. But I also included a makefile for gcc, this one should work even on win 2000, I attach a gcc build to this post if someone wants to try it.

Hmm... I read somewhere 2015 supports SP2, but maybe they are wrong. At the same time looks like your current dll works on XP SP2...

I don't want to ask you about some additional work with makefiles or w/e. But is it compatible with gcc? I always have porblems when i try to build something developed for some version of visual studio on different version, or especially on another compiler. So, i have all visual studios since 6.0 installed on my computer and select version for each project.

I try to put something together

Sure! That would be great, for some future releases. Task 1 is to check every version on every computer, to get feedback everything is fine everywhere, then we can use that for combat.

1600x1200x32 with 125 fps might not work on intel graphics cards, so yeah, lower FPS can help in case you don't have a AMD/Nvidia card.

Interesting! I've been sure it's related to CPU performance, not a chipset. But yes, you right, my chipset: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600

Yeah that's possible, I got debug code that you can enable in debug.h. But usually only useful for crashes (It's also very slow...)

Well, i don't think we need to enable some kind of very slow debug log. Let's check if somebody will have problems, then decide what to do with that!

Oh, 1 more thing to look:
warvideo.
Warvideo with aqrit ddraws saves video with blinking. Looks like something with switching surfaces in ddraw, broken sync between them or w/e.
So, can you please look if there is a simple way to fix it?

[fois]

Wow! Fixing hosting - network functions hooking? Would be very interesting to look! I just began to look into world of dll, but you are very experienced in that!

Yeah, I have done some testing already using a wsock32 proxy dll, it should work fine. I have a plan for it, but didn't start working on it yet, just wanted to know if my wsock32 idea could in theory work

Hmm... I read somewhere 2015 supports SP2, but maybe they are wrong. At the same time looks like your current dll works on XP SP2...

I don't want to ask you about some additional work with makefiles or w/e. But is it compatible with gcc? I always have porblems when i try to build something developed for some version of visual studio on different version, or especially on another compiler. So, i have all visual studios since 6.0 installed on my computer and select version for each project.

Well, if it works on SP2 then it's all good I guess! I never actually tried if it works on SP2 myself, was only reading the microsoft documentation about it

makefile is already included btw, should work fine.

Oh, 1 more thing to look:
warvideo.
Warvideo with aqrit ddraws saves video with blinking. Looks like something with switching surfaces in ddraw, broken sync between them or w/e.
So, can you please look if there is a simple way to fix it?

I never used this yet, is the source code for it available? Might be interesting to put a recorder into the ddraw, using x264 codec... I have to think about that

[iL]

Yeah, I have done some testing already using a wsock32 proxy dll, it should work fine. I have a plan for it, but didn't start working on it yet, just wanted to know if my wsock32 idea could in theory work

That looks like one of the most important project for our game! Right after ddraw!

I thought to try to do something like lat trick (udp ping to other players to let them connect the game). So, if you need that player ip list to send UDP pings, let me know to give them to you (as a php-page from the server i think).

Well, if it works on SP2 then it's all good I guess! I never actually tried if it works on SP2 myself, was only reading the microsoft documentation about it

makefile is already included btw, should work fine.

That's great! If we get a feedback for winXP with SP1/2 or with no SP, we can always try to rebuild it.
As i understand, build it with gcc and makefile should not cause any problems with work somewhere? Like windows 10 or anywhere else?
Of course, i think if some code will on more systems (like oldest winxp or win2000) and works the same on others, it's always better!

I never used this yet, is the source code for it available? Might be interesting to put a recorder into the ddraw, using x264 codec... I have to think about that

Not sure x264 will be better than it works now, it uses it's own codec, but warvideo can still be a very interesting thing. Check PM...

[fois]

That looks like one of the most important project for our game! Right after ddraw!

I thought to try to do something like lat trick (udp ping to other players to let them connect the game). So, if you need that player ip list to send UDP pings, let me know to give them to you (as a php-page from the server i think).

Oh, I think I can do it without any ip list, thanks. Don't think there is any need to do any kind of changes on the server

That's great! If we get a feedback for winXP with SP1/2 or with no SP, we can always try to rebuild it.
As i understand, build it with gcc and makefile should not cause any problems with work somewhere? Like windows 10 or anywhere else?
Of course, i think if some code will on more systems (like oldest winxp or win2000) and works the same on others, it's always better!

Yeah please let me know if you find someone who tested it on SP1/SP2, I never tried it myself and it's kinda interesting to know.

I used to build cnc-ddraw with gcc all the time, I think I switched to visual studio on version 1.3.0.0 of cnc-ddraw (The performance is better with the VS build).
So yeah, it works fine on any version of windows including 10, it's just a bit slower

[iL]

Oh, I think I can do it without any ip list, thanks. Don't think there is any need to do any kind of changes on the server

So, i don't understand how you plan to make such fix. Anyways, will be interesting to look if you release it.

Yeah please let me know if you find someone who tested it on SP1/SP2, I never tried it myself and it's kinda interesting to know.

Yes, one of our active testers use XP SP2, he is quite smart guy and do thing carefully. So it some bugs can happen on his computer, he will report that.

I used to build cnc-ddraw with gcc all the time, I think I switched to visual studio on version 1.3.0.0 of cnc-ddraw (The performance is better with the VS build).
So yeah, it works fine on any version of windows including 10, it's just a bit slower

Is that an archive winxp-cnc-ddraw.zip you attached 2 messages ago? Looks like that works worse than original: "blackscreen instead of bne in fullscreen, blue line in windowed mode".
Why the performance differences? VS compiler makes better optimizations? I think performance is more important than old XP releases then.

Another question about 0.1.5.2 release from github:

New (Optional) settings file "war2_ddraw.ini"

Code: [Select]

[ddraw]
Windowed=No
MaintainAspectRatio=Yes
AlwaysOnTop=Yes
ShowWindowFrame=Yes
Width=640
Height=480
PosX=-32000
PosY=-32000
And autogenerated file is:

Code: [Select]

[ddraw]
PosX=##saved  from last resize/move
PosY=##saved  from last resize/move
Windowed=No
ShowWindowFrame=Yes
Width=##saved  from last resize/move
Height=##saved  from last resize/move
So, my question is: which ini-file is better?
Should i include war2_ddraw.ini with ddraw.dll when installing war2combat with ddraw or just use ddraw.dll itself, with autogerenated ini?
Another words: what does options "MaintainAspectRatio=Yes" and "AlwaysOnTop=Yes" do? I tried both and didn't find any differences.

[fois]

Is that an archive winxp-cnc-ddraw.zip you attached 2 messages ago? Looks like that works worse than original: "blackscreen instead of bne in fullscreen, blue line in windowed mode".
Why the performance differences? VS compiler makes better optimizations? I think performance is more important than old XP releases then.

Oh, I didn't actually test the gcc build for some time, maybe it's broken.. Will check it later

Not sure exactly why it's faster, I know the memcpy is pretty good in VS and that one is used a lot

Another question about 0.1.5.2 release from github:

New (Optional) settings file "war2_ddraw.ini"

So, my question is: which ini-file is better?
Should i include war2_ddraw.ini with ddraw.dll when installing war2combat with ddraw or just use ddraw.dll itself, with autogerenated ini?
Another words: what does options "MaintainAspectRatio=Yes" and "AlwaysOnTop=Yes" do? I tried both and didn't find any differences.

I just fixed that, it will generate the exact same file now https://github.com/FunkyFr3sh/Aqrit-DDraw-Hack/releases

For MaintainAspectRatio, try to run the game in a window and resize it, you will see what happens! AlwaysOnTop can be tested in windowed mode too, try to place another window on top of the game window when it's enabled

[iL]

I just fixed that, it will generate the exact same file now https://github.com/FunkyFr3sh/Aqrit-DDraw-Hack/releases

For MaintainAspectRatio, try to run the game in a window and resize it, you will see what happens! AlwaysOnTop can be tested in windowed mode too, try to place another window on top of the game window when it's enabled

oh, i see, you are quick!

For MaintainAspectRatio, try to run the game in a window and resize it, you will see what happens! AlwaysOnTop can be tested in windowed mode too, try to place another window on top of the game window when it's enabled

i see, so, your newly configured default options will be the best!

Also, trying this version for several days: everything looks perfect for me!

[iL]

Bug detected: aqrit version.
not sure how that worked in test2, but here's it:

start war2, join bnet part, press printscreen. Save file dialog appears.
Then alt-tab to windows, return back to war2, and that dialog hides under the screen or w/e.
After that chat works as before, but when you try to create/join game, it shows background screen only, with no game.
Only alt-f4 helps to exit the whole war2 application.

Tried without ddraw: after alt-tab save dialog still here.

[Incos]

is there a working ddraw for windows mode ? so i can stream.

[iL]

is there a working ddraw for windows mode ? so i can stream.

Both of them do. Aqrit and CnC.
Just use alt+enter

[{Lance}]

It depends on your setup that you use for streaming.  If you use a single monitor and full screen,  you can use OBS with the "UScreenCapture" plugin that was designed for SC1 and Diablo.  If you want to stream in Windowed mode,  you can use either of these 2 DDraw files and then use Alt+Enter to enter windowed moded.  I find that UScreenCapture is the BEST method for streaming because it doesnt suffer from any performance loss that you will experience when you run in windowed mode (screen stutter,  inaccurate mouse scrolling,  etc).  None of which you would notice if you're just playing casually such as playing through the scenarios.  But if you're trying to play online vs real people,  you definately need to be using UScreenCapture and full screen on a windows 7 machine.

@iL   Speaking of which,  we really need to get UScreenCapture on the downloads page before it disappears for good.  It's hard to find as it is already.  Download it here:  https://www.videohelp.com/download/UScreenCapture2015.zip?r=hswlrskmwcK   and modify the link here:  http://en.war2.ru/tutorials/how-to-live-stream-warcraft-2/ to point to the server.war2.en location.  The mouse plugin is already on our server,  but uscreencapture is not.

[iL]

Download it here:  https://www.videohelp.com/download/UScreenCapture2015.zip?r=hswlrskmwcK   and modify the link here:  http://en.war2.ru/tutorials/how-to-live-stream-warcraft-2/ to point to the server.war2.en location.  The mouse plugin is already on our server,  but uscreencapture is not.

Uploaded to utils on ftp.
I'll begin to make fixes on the site a little later...

[Incos]

I use two monitors- one for twitch one for gaming. Thanks Il

[fois]

Bug detected: aqrit version.
not sure how that worked in test2, but here's it:

start war2, join bnet part, press printscreen. Save file dialog appears.
Then alt-tab to windows, return back to war2, and that dialog hides under the screen or w/e.
After that chat works as before, but when you try to create/join game, it shows background screen only, with no game.
Only alt-f4 helps to exit the whole war2 application.

Tried without ddraw: after alt-tab save dialog still here.

I'll have a look into it, but I fear, it won't be easy to fix... Maybe we could just prevent that dialog from showing up? Do you really need to have it?