Problem with Flight Unlimited 2
Window hooker to run fullscreen programs in window and much more...
Status: Beta
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Hi, I'm new here - sorry if there are too many newbies about bugging you about compatability lately.
I'm trying to get Flight Unlimited 2 to work with DxWnd, but I think it ain't hooking into it right. The game runs as if DxWnd doesn't exist - not windowed, no splash screen etc..
The game has always done this weird thing where it flashes the screen black momentarily, then it goes back to desktop before starting for real game after another couple of seconds, and I think this is throwing DxWnd off, (the DxWnd windows go white, then resume before the game starts for real). Judging by the log, I think it just quits before the game starts, or doesn't find it - is there a way to delay the hook, or only hook the second time the process starts?
I'm running DxWnd as administrator, the game exe doesn't change names/swap to a different process/exe at any point, and there are no sneaky extra directx dlls - maybe 3 others, but they don't seem graphics-y to me (IMPLODE.dll, IFORCE.dll, engtrans.dll) .
I have tried quite a few of the likely (judging by the help file) hook options in different combinations and the directx version options too (thought I assume it uses 8, since another program that used to hook into the game used a d3d8.dll to do it), and the game always boots the intro videos/game in fullscreen (except debugger mode - that crashes it haha).
I've attached a log file, text of the flight2 part of the settings ini, and a compact version of the game for you to try if you want to.
The game is rather huge, so I've stripped the ~700MB of map textures out of this zip so you can have a go.
The game will work normally, but the whole game map has a sea texture applied to it; It should be good enough for troubleshooting purposes (if it normally works at all on your pc!).
EDIT: Link removed - see post below.
Last edit: OaklandTower 2019-06-04
DISREGARD PREVIOUS POST - I'M AN IDIOT AND DIDN'T DISABLE COMPATABILITY FLAGS.
Menus are fullscreen, game is windowed though, has major graphical glitches on 2d and text elements.
Also runs exactly as slowly as it did (if not more slowly) before - which (perhaps stupidly) is really the main reason I wanted to use it. I was hoping that by some magic I could run it at 60fps and 1080p finally. Dgvoodoo almost does this, but it removes all the fog/haze, which makes the game look awful.
Last edit: OaklandTower 2019-06-04
Let's have a look ...
p.s. about flight speed (and NOT FPS speed) perhaps you can control it by using the time stretching facility in "Timing" tab.
Last edit: gho 2019-06-05
Interesting case!
I had to spend more time to install the game than to fix it, but hopefully that should give me a better knowledge on the game and a working RIP for Win7-10 platforms.
Anyway, as you said the game shows a fullscreen menu. You can fix this problem by setting the "Hook / Hot patch" flag. I'll look for a better solution, just in case.
Currently, on my pc the game still doesn't work properly because, being installed with the copied files from a WinXP machine, it keeps asking for the CD#2 though that CD is inserted in the caddy.
Well, one problem at a time. Stay tuned ...
To satisfy the game for CD#2 requests you must edit the
regions\sanfran\region.cfgfile and take care that thereg_cd_pathentry is set to whatever value is correct.That makes it rather easy to build your own RIP, no matter if you own the game CDs, it's always more comfortable to avoid inserting one in the caddy.
The game was also precious to highlight several DxWnd bugs that show if you try to use DxWnd HD/CD emulation. It will return a better program in the end!
Other minor annoyances:
Let's go on ...
In case anyone wishing to start playing Flight Unlimited II in window, here is the fixed dxwnd.dll (depending on the used flags there were several faulty spots in the previous release) and a tentative export file. Enjoy ...
Just in case you didn't know, on internet archive is hosted a 3CD set of Flight Unlimited III.
Despite the 2 years passed (1999 vs. 1997) and the different sceneries, the engine, the interface and the problems with DxWnd are pretty much all the same.
Last edit: gho 2020-05-22
Flight Unlimited II & III bring an interesting technical problem.
DxWnd in general works on the assumption that the ddraw primary/backbuffer surfaces have the same size of the virtual desktop, since they are created this way. But the SetDisplayMode and RestoreDisplayMode methods in this game may bring the game to work with bigger surfaces on the reduced 640x480 screen size used in the menu panel.
What happens is (more or less) this: when you set a game resolution of 800x600 the game rebuilds 800x600 ddraw surfaces to show the game, then when returning to the menu screen it reverts (using RestoreDisplayMode) the screen resolution to 640x480 but still uses 800x600 surfaces.
In this situation, the "gdi" renderer works correctly, while other renderes including the default "primary surface" stretch the 800x600 surface in the window client area, giving a black border to the right and bottom areas.
I'll try to fix the problem. In the meanwhile it's possible to use the gdi rendere (a little slower but more accurate) or ignore the problem.
Fixed here. Now the game stretched the menu panel correctly when returning from a flight mission.
There's still a problem: with default settings, if you return to the menu screen twice (that is fly, return, fly again and return again) the game crashes. The problem doesn't happen with gdi renderer, so it must be my fault. Still hunting ...
just wondering - is this now all implemented into dxwnd? - i am using version 2.05.49 currently
It is supposed to be, though the thread is not recent and I may easily have made some mess in the meanwhile. You can get 2.05.50 (just to be up-to-date) and have a try, or wait that I will test it later.
regarding new dxwnd versions - can i just put it in the same folder as an earlier version or is each one tobe in its own folder? how do i transfer over my saved game profiles?
All you have to save is in dxwnd.ini. Usually I pay attention not to add an empty dxwnd.ini file in the new bundles, so unpacking with override should be fine, but you never know (it happened I made mistakes in the past!), so just save that dxwnd.ini file in a safe place and that's all.
In any case, there's nothing that prevents putting the new files in a new folder, so that you could try either a newer or older release. The only limitation is that you can't have two DxWnd.exe running at the same time, but there's a control that blocks this possibility.
Any new dxwnd releases, i always, extract everthing to a new folder, then copy the dxwnd.ini file over, from previous dxwnd release, then i change the folders, that my shortcuts are set to(i also keep shortcuts, for previous release), then run the new dxwnd, and then it will run with all my previous profiles showing in the window. Also, i always keep the previous release of dxwnd, just in case, going back to it is needed.
Wise solution, though in desperate cases ALL old releases are available in SF download area, just browsing the folder without picking the default download. So, what is really precious is still dxwnd.ini. For each game there here are (not counting string settings) 12 double-words of singe-bit settings for a total of 12 x 32 = 384 flags. If you lose a working setting, rebuild it may be a real pain!
sorry i am going to need a better set of instructions for this - so in my case i have like 3 or 4 different versions of DXWND on my system -having used different ones over the years and each one has game profiles i have made for specific games of mine - - how would i put them all under the latest version?
export every game with its best settings to .dxw files. then import all these files (you can do that all at once) in the new configuration. Portability is not granted, but likely ... good luck.
Wow this sounds impressive... You did mention above "a working Rip for Win10 users"
Is this the game in a smaller file size with no movies, music, etc? If so, can you make this file available? I'm always on the lookouts for "rips" to keep disk space low (I don't usually watch movies in games anyway, they just take lots of space)
Sorry, I meant RIP with another meaning, maybe I should have said "portable version".
The idea is to make a game packaging that doesn't need an installer, doesn't require a CD emulation and doesn't inject data in your registry. This is possible if you use DxWnd virtual file system and registry, you should only unpack some compressed archive and import the game configuration.
But I never release such game bundles, that would be illegal. I simply release a tool that everyone (who owns the game, of course) could use to make its own bundle.
In any case, the goal here is not to save space, but to make it very easy to install and uninstall a game.
Last edit: gho 2020-05-23
Hi, I have a little problem with this game. The profile from Export folder doesn't work for me therefore I changed the setting to Inject DLL. The menu works, apart from the weird mouse jumping from place to place, but the image in the mission is corrupted.
I think I've seen this problem before in another game, but I can't remember what fixed it.
I originally tried this game, due to the fog fix in version 2.05.90, but the fog here works perfectly natively, so it wasn't a good candidate. What caught my attention is this damaged image. This will not happen without DxWnd. I've read about some backbuffer issues, but no backbuffer-related flag in DxWnd seems to affect this issue.
Last edit: huh 2022-11-22
I can't install it on Win11. How did you make it?
hint: did you try to drop a DDrawCompat 4.0 ddraw.dll proxy on the game folder?
Maybe "Direct3D / Textures not power of 2 fix" ?
Last edit: gho 2022-11-22
That's interesting, ddc4 fixes a problem in DxWnd.
I tried that but it had no effect.
As I already wrote, the error does not happen without DxWnd.
I did as I always do, installed the game in my VirtualXP (in Win95 compatibility mode) and transfered the game to Win7. If you can't install the game, I can send you the necessary things in the evening.
Yes, please. I need some compact stuff that gets fixed by DDC4.0. This is why: Narzoul is very kind and collaborative and offered some help to identify the DDC4 elements that help DxWnd to fix some situations. But I think we should provide him some valid (and compact, I don't want to ask him to download TB of stuff) test-case that he could try with DxWnd and some git-branched DDC version until he can find the key part of code.
Unfortunately, many test-cases are unreliable like SW-SOTE: it may work or fail depending on the situation, so it wouldn't necessarily serve for the purpose.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 95, Star Wars Shadows of the War 800x600 resolution
@gho
OK, I'll send it tonight.
Another game that will fix DDC4 is Hellbender. This has not been properly fixed in the previous version of DDC. I thought it was a fog problem, but it seems to be something else. With DxWnd and without DxWnd in game fullsceen (d3d) is known image damage.
Last edit: huh 2022-11-23