DxWnd / Discussion / General Discussion: A couple of questions

Pawel Osmolski - 2013-09-08

Hey,

Great job with this software. Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I was wondering if there are plans to include support for windows compatibility modes in order to fix crashes with certain software, or is this an impossibility?

This isn't an essential feature, but it would great to have a smooth screen filter for those playing games using "Desktop work area" or in a stretched window. The inclusion of a faux full-screen mode would be the icing on the cake for us Windows 8 64-bit users. DXWnd is literally a "must use" app for playing old games, aside from the alternative method of using Microsoft Compatibility Admin and forcing ddraw emulation. The latter doesn't always fix all problems.

Keep up the amazing work!

P.

If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:

gho - 2013-09-08

The plan is to include support for compatibility problems that are not handled already by the MS tools. You can use both windows compatibility modes AND dxwnd compatibility features. The only advice is that as soon as you set some MS compatibility mode, dxwnd loses capabilities to hook the program unless it runs "as administrator", so yo yave to start it by the "run as administrator" explorer's command.
In the list of supported games there are many ones already that would never run and crash when started in native mode in recent platforms, and the list keeps growing, even if fixing a compatibility problem often proves to be a difficult task. The very last rescued game was "Stratego" (a quite unknown one...) that is using a feature unsupported since XP.
I also encourage anyone to send me references to games that deserves to be rescued: if you have some, please let me know.

Talking about the second topic (or question), that is the "smooth screen filter" would you explain to me a little better what do you mean?
If you want an aliased stretched window without big nasty pixels, dxwnd already should do that by stretch-blitting the native resolution to the desired area, but in doing this and for performances reasons it tries to take advantage of the ddraw hardware features, with results that unfortunately may vary a lot depending on your video card and drivers.
Or perhaps you mean that there should be a fouth video mode like the "Desktop work area" but filling the WHOLE desktop? That should be easy, and I didn't implement it just because I thought it should have been of very little interest because too similar of the previous one. Was I wrong?

In any case, I thank you very much for your encouraging words, and I think a discussion about dxwnd future directions is quite interesting, so I look forward for your and other user's comments in this thread.

see you
GHO

If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:

Pawel Osmolski - 2013-09-08

Thanks for the quick response! I tried setting compatibility modes for DXWnd, but unfortunately if I choose Win98 or 95, it will not hook and run in a window regardless if I run as administrator or not. My system is a Windows 8 64-bit, Nvidia 8200M G, yeah it's an old COMPAQ laptop graphics card :)

Sorry if I wasn't clear earlier, let me clarify what I meant by smooth screen filter.

See here for an example screenshot:
http://www.pawel-osmolski.com/private/DXWnd-Nox.png
In-game resolution is 1024 x 768, and it is stretched (Keep aspect ratio is selected) to fit as 1386 x 1040 on my 1080p Desktop Work Area. The text at the bottom right shows clearly that it is only scaling the image using Nearest Neighbour, preserving hard-edges.
Here's a bicubic scaled image for comparison:
http://www.pawel-osmolski.com/private/DXWnd-Bicubic-Nox.png
This would definitely be the preferred look, but I cannot seem to achieve this using DXWnd.

Is this a ddraw hardware limitation or is it possible to force a smoother image somehow? Perhaps it is just my graphics card. I can test on my newer Macbook Pro tomorrow and see if the same results occur.

Also, when I mentioned faux full-screen, I meant that it would fill the entire desktop space including the start menu, giving the impression that you are not running in a window, and still retaining all the fixes in performance from DXWnd!

If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
- gho - 2013-09-09
  
  Ok, I got the requests much clearer now!
  Let's go in proper order:
  
  1) there's a misunderstanding about the effect of DxWnd "fake version" setting: when you choose one particular OS, let's say Win98, while the MS tool tries to fully emulate this environment (sometimes it does it, sometimes it doesn't...), so far the DxWnd feature just intercepts the calls to get the OS version and nothing else. The purpose of this menu is limited to deceive some games checking the OS release (they usually say "Oh, sorry, I can't work on this release of Windoz!!") in the case that anything else is NOT a problem. If it is, so far you'd better use the MS compatibility, that does this trick and all the rest.
  
  2) the bicubic interpolation produces a wonderful effect, but I just don't know whether there's a common way to activate it through DirectX: if this is possible, it would be wonderful DxWnd improvement, but un the contrary if you need to address some specific video card configuration, it's better to leave it to the special configuration tabs that any card producer develops for its own product. Let me check: I'm very interested....
  
  3) Ah, you meant that when you said "faux full screen"? It's a piece of cake, I'll try to add it since next release.
  
  If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
  - Pawel Osmolski - 2013-09-09
    
    Ah yes, I had figured the DXWnd fake version was only to bypass any sort of OS version check.. I haven't needed to use that yet; The MS tool is what I meant, and it doesn't allow me to use anything below Windows XP. Not sure why, but running as administrator made no difference, it just launches without DXWnd hooking onto the game. Might be odd Windows 8 behavior?
    
    Bicubic is indeed wonderful, but I was thinking that Bilinear interpolation would instead be sufficient for clearing up any pixelation, if that's a more plausible solution.
    
    If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:

Pawel Osmolski - 2013-09-09

No rush with the features though :) you're doing excellent work here, and I really appreciate you getting back to me and listening to my feedback! Thanks again. Look forward to the next releases for sure!

If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
- gho - 2013-09-16
  
  faux full-screen coocked and served in the latest v2.02.34 release.
  Enjoy!
  
  If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
  - Pawel Osmolski - 2013-09-16
    
    Awesome, thanks! I have done some testing.
    
    New bug: v2_02_34 crashes when the Width and Height of the window is set to 0 (auto)
    
    If I specify W 800 and H 600 it will run. Tested with both NoX and Sanitarium, crash is reproducible every time.
    
    Full screen mode seems to be working perfectly! :)
    
    Any luck with the possible implementation of Bilinear or Bicubic interpolation?
    
    Last edit: Pawel Osmolski 2013-09-20
    
    If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
    - Pawel Osmolski - 2013-09-20
      
      I can confirm that with v2_02_35 the auto window height bug is now fixed. Great job!!! :D
      
      If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:

aqrit - 2013-09-24

gho,

have you seen this? - WindowedBorderlessGaming
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=30525996

how does this compare to the new feature: virtual fullscreen "Desktop" mode?

ref:
The Wrapper Collection Project
http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=322851#p322851

If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
- gho - 2013-09-24
  
  Thank you for the link. I'll try to understand it better.
  Apparently, this tool works also together with DxWnd: from the steampowered forum page:
  
  DXWnd instructions
  This app detects DXWnd if a DXWnd folder is in the same folder as this app's exe.
  You can download my simplified version of DXWnd here or get a advanced version maintained by ghotik here
  If you downloaded my version just extract the contents to the same directory as WindowedBorderlessGaming.
  If you downloaded the other version create a folder called DXWnd 1st and then extract the files there.
  ======================
  
  Sounds interesting !!!
  
  If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
  - gho - 2013-09-25
    
    A quick update:
    
    I tried to contact this "hellstrong" guy in the steampowered forum, but sadly to have right to speech it's necessary BOTH to register to the forum AND to own a steam account (I don't have one, and I'm not willing to), so I can't post messages there.
    From what I saw, the tool seems to capture an active window and update its settings so that it goes "modal", that is without frame borders. Unless I miss something, it should be one part of DxWnd capabilities.
    Does anyone know how to pm this guy? It could be interesting to know if he's interested in sharing the source code and marge the project in DxWnd. My email address is ghotik2002@yahoo.com . No spam, please: I've got more than enough!
    
    If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:

aqrit - 2013-09-25

I shot an email to the address listed on his googlecode account.

I have no idea what my steam forums account would be...
( did they dump the forums once?... or maybe they delete old threads after awhile )

If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:

A couple of questions

Window hooker to run fullscreen programs in window and much more...

Forums

Help

A couple of questions

A couple of questions

Window hooker to run fullscreen programs in window and much more...

Forums

Help

A couple of questions document.SUBSCRIPTION_OPTIONS = { "thing": "topic", "subscribed": false, "url": "subscribe", "icon": { "css": "fa fa-envelope-o" } };

A couple of questions