Help set up BraveHeart PCGAME 1998

[Andre Gomes]

Hello!
I'm struggling to get the game to run but every time the game just opens the DXWnd screen and then crashes.
Someone knows the settings to run Braveheart on DxWnd

Here is a link to the installed game
https://www.myabandonware.com/download/qy4-braveheart

Help me please.

Thanks in advance!

[BEEN_Nath_58]

I tested this game.

What I did was, download and install the ISO version and the patch from here.

I then went to old-games ru site and downloaded their RIP version, and replaced my ISO installation game's EXEs (3) with the one from the RIP.

With DxWnd settings: only enabling Inject DLL, the game is working well.

On the D3D executable, the video isn't playing and I will investigate it. The software executable is doing well and videos play fine.

I don't see a cursor, I will have to test on a Win98 to see if the game really uses a cursor in the menu.

Edit: Okay the game should have mouse, but it is missing here. Cant' find a solution for this. I will have to wait for the others.

[BEEN_Nath_58]

Very unexpectedly, this game DOESN'T WORK with DDrawCompat or dgVoodoo2. WineD3D works for non-D3D modes with wrong colours, but has more problems than DxWnd.

Interesting case for DxWnd.

[BEEN_Nath_58]

Another issue: any video played goes missing in real fullscreen even with DxWnd!!!

[gho]

Here is a short report of the many problems I faced:

1) the cursor sprite is not visible, at least until you enter the actual gameplay where you get a black&white actual cursor instead of a sprite. Instead, in the initial menus, you see nothing, but sometimes you can spot a darker square floating in the screen, as if there was a sprite cursor with 99% of transparency. Or is it the ghost of the dead cursor? Eeire ...
2) despite it must be evidently the same movie, the intro EIDOS logo is visible only in sw mode, not with the d3d executable, but for what reason?
3) the full Flip emulation produces slanted pictures or flickering. The cause could be a different size or pixel format between primary and backbuffer surface, but the backbuffer is created together with the primary, so this should not happen...
4) the CD music doesn't work with "use audio files" option and instead it seems to work (correctly?) with "Play from CD" option.
5) The d3d game version kept dying until I renamed the executable. There must be some shim involved.

[huh]

As I already wrote here, music works for me with DxWnd CDaudio emulation (sw mode).
https://sourceforge.net/p/dxwnd/discussion/general/thread/0d852410/?page=75#0185

Update: The cursor is not visible in the menu even without DxWnd in Win7.

[BEEN_Nath_58]

Through some magic, the video ran when it shouldn't have been visible (D3D)!

Edit: Needed WineD3D alone for it.

[BEEN_Nath_58]

... edited

[gho]

Maybe I found something (not for sure, though ..):
Looking the PE header I found these entries in the mss32 module section:

0014D296    0014D296    000B    _AIL_redbook_close@4
0014D2AE    0014D2AE    000C    _AIL_redbook_id@4
0014D2C2    0014D2C2    000D    _AIL_redbook_open@4
0014D2D8    0014D2D8    000E    _AIL_redbook_pause@4
0014D2F0    0014D2F0    000F    _AIL_redbook_play@12
0014D308    0014D308    0010    _AIL_redbook_resume@4
0014D320    0014D320    0011    _AIL_redbook_set_volume@8
0014D33C    0014D33C    0012    _AIL_redbook_status@4
0014D354    0014D354    0013    _AIL_redbook_stop@4
0014D36A    0014D36A    0014    _AIL_redbook_track_info@16
0014D388    0014D388    0015    _AIL_redbook_tracks@4
0014D3A0    0014D3A0    0016    _AIL_redbook_volume@4

If these calls are not based on the mci system, then they could bypass the CDaudio emulation and address the real CD directly. To fix things it would be necessary to build wrappers based on the DxWnd CDAudio emulation.
In effect, the mss32.dll installed with the game is linked to winmm.dll and references mciSendCommandA, but it is not granted that ALL the _AIL_redbook_ calls are based on mci.
In the dxwnd.log file it seems possible that the mss32.dll for instance is not using mci to get the track infos.

[Andre Gomes]

Thank you so much guys!
I finally managed to get the game's initial screen shows and a great feeling of happiness mixed with nostalgia hit me. However I can't advance to the next screen, because the cursor doesn't show for me too.
Do you know how to bypass and advance to the next screen?

[gho]

Though invisible, the cursor is there and works. So, you have two ways to advance:
1) blindly move the mouse until some menu entry highlights (it should become a light yellow color) and then slowly move the mouse to set the desired menu entry
2) use the arrow keys up and down to select

And, of course, you can also hope and wait for us to fix this cursor problem, if possible.
Fortunately, the pain should end a little forward in the game ... the panels in the screenshots have their visible cursor (not captured in the screenshots).

[huh]

Seems, that D3D appears to be used only in combat. Maybe someone has a clever savefile that will get us there?

[gho]

@Huh: related to your sentence

music works for me with DxWnd CDaudio emulation (sw mode)

I get the same only when the CD is mounted. My guess is that it works because mss32.dll gets the track info from the real CD, then plays the audio tracks through the emulated CD.
When the real CD is unmounted, the game gets information for track positions to 0 msec, so the MCI_PLAY from=0 to=0 plays nothing.
Do you hear the sounds also when the real CD is unmounted? My guess is "no" but I wish a confirm.

[huh]

Yes, I can hear music without VirtualCD connected. The game crashed when I tried to load the savefile, but the new game started, the music played in the game as well.
I am sending my .exe.

Load Save crashes also with a connected Virtual CD, I'll look in the log to see if I can figure something out.

Update:
There is some error here, but unfortunately I don't understand why.

[00010:561] FindFirstFileA: path="savedata\games\slot0.hp"
[00010:561] > filename="slot0.hp"
[00010:561] > altname=""
[00010:561] > attributes=0x20
[00010:561] > filetime=0xe704e710.0x1d968c9
[00010:561] > lastaccesstime=0xe704e710.0x1d968c9
[00010:561] > lastwritetime=0xe705f884.0x1d968c9
[00010:561] FindClose: hFindFile=0x8dd6908
[00010:561] CreateFileA: FileName="slot0.hp" DesiredAccess=0() SharedMode=0 Disposition=0x3(OPEN_EXISTING) Flags=0()
[00010:561] CreateFileA: ERROR err=2 fname="slot0.hp"
[00010:561] CreateFileA: FileName="savedata\games\slot0.hp" DesiredAccess=0x80000000(GENERIC_READ) SharedMode=0x3 Disposition=0x3(OPEN_EXISTING) Flags=0x80(FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL)
[00010:561] CreateFileA: ret=0x3e8

Update2:
The crash doesn't happen with BHD3D.exe, maybe it's because I saved savefile in that version, but it's weird.

[gho]

You posted the glide game version. Was it right?

About the error, does a slot0.hp file exist? If not, the error seems a normal condition, the game searches for the first saved game that could be not present yet.

[huh]

Oh sorry my mistake here are more .exes.
\savedata\games\slot0.hp exists.
It works with BHD3D.exe but not with BHSOFT.exe.

[BEEN_Nath_58]

dxwnd has a chance to fix this issue the first. No other wrapper has the cursor working.

[Andre Gomes]

OMG I can play know Braveheart!
I'm trying to play this game for at least 5 years. I tried change compatibility in win8 and win10 , instaled virtual machine with win95, win98 and winXP and no success...
I read a lot of forums about installing BraveHeart in actual computers until I found someone having success with this wonderfull program DXWND!
Here is the saved filed for battle
You have to advance one day clickling in the Right Top date

[huh]

Hmm apparently it is not enough to copy these two files to \savedata\games the game does not see them.
Can you send me Saves.idx yet?

[Andre Gomes]

I found 3 files .idx.
One is in the file savedata > armies Armies_saves.idx
One is in the savedata hisc.idx
One is in the file savedata > games *Saves.idx

[gho]

Another small progress: the cursor is not visible because it uses a cursor resource that is invisible, as if the developers wanted this to happen?
In any case it was enough to edit the PE header and build these two nice and patched executables where I reused the feather cursor. If you prefer another one, probably it could be done.

[Andre Gomes]

Worked like a charm!
You guys are Gods among humans.

[huh]

OK, the \savedata\games\Saves.idx structure is simple enough to overwrite with your savefile as well, each entry/slot starts with 0A and end 20 27 27 3B hex. The empty slots are 27 27 2C 20 27 27 3B.
My \savedata\armies\saves.idx is identical to your savedata/armies/Armies_saves.idx
and also \savedata\hisc.idx is the same as your hisc.idx.
Still, your safefile doesn't work for me, I think I have a different version of the game exe files. Nevermind.

[gho]

What happens if Andre packs the whole savedata folder into a zipped archive and you replace all files? Maybe there are other files involved.

[huh]

Here are the cursor visibility patched exes for the version 3.14 exe's that I made according to the gho patched files. I hope I didn't screw anything up.

and you replace all files?

I don't know, I can try, maybe the problem is that you have patched exe (nocd) from rip and I have patched exe for version 3.14.

Update:
Replacing the exe from the rip didn't help, the savefile still doesn't load, I have the iso version here, maybe it's different. If Andre Gomes provides the entire savedata folder I will try it.