Ive been doing tests with this game here. using a clean dxwnd profile this game will not run. The game also suffers with bad screen resolutions, so i had to grab the widescreen fix here https://github.com/ThirteenAG/WidescreenFixesPack/releases/tag/mafiaso, i also had to bring dgvoodoo2 into it to correct it. Once dgvoodoo2 has fixed that, its time to look into some dxwnd profile settings, now i have tried to bring things down to a bare minimum profle, in other words clean, and a little modified, its included in attachment. BTW this profile was created in a clean second fresh copy of dxwnd 2.05.16, with the modified dxwnd.dll, from the vmodes pack 2.05.18 trace.
the game fails to run with dxwnd, only if not set to directx9 or 10, in directx hooks section.
For windowed play, Mafia has its own setup.exe, and windowed play can be set there. I have tried dxwnd set to windowed, the game ignores this. I know the logs will mention DSOUND.DLL. if hooked the logs would become a large filesize so... no.
The game's exe file "Game.exe", is set to windows xp Service pack 3 compatibility, this is set by default in by GOG download.
Gho: i have also used the vmodes utility, on this game, to see what the dumps come out with.
From using observation during gameplay, the game suffers from drawing distance problems, vehicles suddenly render/appear, sometimes parts of vehicles appear at certain distances, even though, maxmum drawing distance is set in the in-game settings.
The log reveals some interesting facts that maybe explain why the game can't work with DxWnd default settings.
For instance, the game uses CoCreateInstance many times to create unknown (to DxWnd) objects, maybe some of them needed some sort of hooking. Also, the game use Bink to render some movie.
As soon as I will have a working testbed, I'll try to say something more precise and, possibly, fix some problem.
One thing that could be quite interesting is controlling the clipping of 3D scenes. I think that it's up to the game engine to decide that CPU power is not enough and some far elements have to be ignored, but for some reason many old games fail to detect the recent powerful computers and keep clipping the scenes for no good reason. I don't know if there could be something that, through hooking, could better control this behavior. Anyone has ideas?
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I've been doing tests with this game here. using a clean dxwnd profile this game will not run
Curiously, in my testbed the game runs perfectly with default DxWnd settings, the only thing that I had to do was adding admin privileges to DxWnd.exe.
I don't know if some of the problems could be caused by the additional changes, I will check.
For the moment, I upload a single first screenshot since the 3D scenes don't capture the Alt-Printscreen key, this is the first thing to fixup.
Curiously, in my testbed the game runs perfectly with default DxWnd settings, the only thing that I had to do was adding admin privileges to DxWnd.exe.
how did you give admin privilages to dxwnd, via dxwnd "aquire admin caps" in Main, or going into window's security settings?
what i meant to say in my original post, i didn't realize this at the time i wrote the post
, the game will run but as soon as the main menu loads, you get an out of memory error #8888 ( i have tried setting "handle exceptions", even "reserve legacy memory segments", this error still happens)
if the directx hooks, are set to directx9 or 10, or "none", this errordoesn't happen, and the main game runs.
sorry there, didn't see your reply, yes i have a created a wndmode.ini file in the game directory, leaving it blank, and have ran the game, went back to the file. the game has written to it with a load of settings.
Last edit: jds45782 2019-05-11
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Ive been doing tests with this game here. using a clean dxwnd profile this game will not run. The game also suffers with bad screen resolutions, so i had to grab the widescreen fix here https://github.com/ThirteenAG/WidescreenFixesPack/releases/tag/mafiaso, i also had to bring dgvoodoo2 into it to correct it. Once dgvoodoo2 has fixed that, its time to look into some dxwnd profile settings, now i have tried to bring things down to a bare minimum profle, in other words clean, and a little modified, its included in attachment. BTW this profile was created in a clean second fresh copy of dxwnd 2.05.16, with the modified dxwnd.dll, from the vmodes pack 2.05.18 trace.
the game fails to run with dxwnd, only if not set to directx9 or 10, in directx hooks section.
For windowed play, Mafia has its own setup.exe, and windowed play can be set there. I have tried dxwnd set to windowed, the game ignores this. I know the logs will mention DSOUND.DLL. if hooked the logs would become a large filesize so... no.
The game's exe file "Game.exe", is set to windows xp Service pack 3 compatibility, this is set by default in by GOG download.
Gho: i have also used the vmodes utility, on this game, to see what the dumps come out with.
From using observation during gameplay, the game suffers from drawing distance problems, vehicles suddenly render/appear, sometimes parts of vehicles appear at certain distances, even though, maxmum drawing distance is set in the in-game settings.
Last edit: jds45782 2019-05-10
The log reveals some interesting facts that maybe explain why the game can't work with DxWnd default settings.
For instance, the game uses CoCreateInstance many times to create unknown (to DxWnd) objects, maybe some of them needed some sort of hooking. Also, the game use Bink to render some movie.
As soon as I will have a working testbed, I'll try to say something more precise and, possibly, fix some problem.
One thing that could be quite interesting is controlling the clipping of 3D scenes. I think that it's up to the game engine to decide that CPU power is not enough and some far elements have to be ignored, but for some reason many old games fail to detect the recent powerful computers and keep clipping the scenes for no good reason. I don't know if there could be something that, through hooking, could better control this behavior. Anyone has ideas?
Last edit: Kataah 2019-05-11
i think the bink rendering, is mainly the intro movie, and most of the cut scenes that play, when you complete certain points in the game.
Curiously, in my testbed the game runs perfectly with default DxWnd settings, the only thing that I had to do was adding admin privileges to DxWnd.exe.
I don't know if some of the problems could be caused by the additional changes, I will check.
For the moment, I upload a single first screenshot since the 3D scenes don't capture the Alt-Printscreen key, this is the first thing to fixup.
Last edit: gho 2019-05-12
Nevermind!
Last edit: Kataah 2019-05-11
how did you give admin privilages to dxwnd, via dxwnd "aquire admin caps" in Main, or going into window's security settings?
what i meant to say in my original post, i didn't realize this at the time i wrote the post
, the game will run but as soon as the main menu loads, you get an out of memory error #8888 ( i have tried setting "handle exceptions", even "reserve legacy memory segments", this error still happens)
if the directx hooks, are set to directx9 or 10, or "none", this errordoesn't happen, and the main game runs.
Last edit: gho 2019-05-12
Right-click on DxWnd.exe, on menu select "Properties", "Compatibility" tab and check "Run this program as administrator".
arrr ok , i had that set on the other dxwnd copy, not this clean fresh copy... sorry brainfart there, its been changed.
EDIT: after changing it then runs, in directx hook "Automatic" without an error. fixed.
Last edit: jds45782 2019-05-12
kataah:
sorry there, didn't see your reply, yes i have a created a wndmode.ini file in the game directory, leaving it blank, and have ran the game, went back to the file. the game has written to it with a load of settings.
Last edit: jds45782 2019-05-11