Been trying to use this seemingly very useful program with Silent Hunter 3. You can run this game in windowed mode by default, but then there is only one fixed resolution, 1024x800. When the game is run in fullscreen mode it can be run successfully in 1920x1080 (with a bit of simple modding).
So I have been trying hard to use DxWnd to get Silent Hunter 3 run in a window with the 1920x1080 res. The window that is created is indeed 1920x1080, however, the graphics themselves in the window remain at 1024x800 just as if SH3 thinks it is in the windowed mode. I have tried quite a few different settings, but have now run out of ideas. That's why I am writing here.
Anyone able to give a hand with this? Any ideas?
cheers
D
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and this is the windowed mode with DxWnd (tried alot of different settings and getting this same result) http://i.imgur.com/gzvfgU0.png
Another thing that crossed my mind is that in order to get this game to run under 1920x1080 in fullscreen one has to put a new modified d3d9.dll in the main directory, otherwise it will run in 1024×768 (not 1024x800, was wrong in the first post). Maybe it could be that these new instructions are intercepted by DxWnd and nullified or something?
Once again, very grateful if anyone could provide some ideas how this might be fixed.
regards
D
Last edit: Darojax 2015-03-04
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If you put a d3d9.dll in the game folder, evidently this is a second hooker interfering with dxwnd! You should try to get rid of this dll (just rename it temporarily) and see what happens. In theory, DxWnd should force the game to run in any window size, though the resolution may remain the original one (that is, the textures could be stretched).
I have somewhere a DVD of this game (it was sold in a cheap version a few years ago and I didn't resist buying it!), if you provide me a link to the 1920x1080 patch I may try to test it by myself.
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I'm sorry for the delay. I also have some bad news: I thought I had a copy of this game somewhere, but I realized I have Silent Hunter II instead.
So you'll have to have some more patience, because now I have to find a copy of this game somewhere. Hopefully it shouldn't take long, since here in Italy the game was released in a budget edition sold in the newsstands, so it should be easy to find it. Wish me good luck....
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Damn! I've found a copy of S.H. IV. (BTW are you interested on this?)
I'm still looking for S.H. III!!!!
Since the hunt may take a while, maybe you could capture some logs and post them.
Be sure you check these log flags:
x Enable Trace
x DxWnd hacks
x DirectDraw Trace
x Direct3D trace
x Debug
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You can get Silent Hunter 3 now on steam for 5 euro, pretty cheap!
I do enjoy Silent Hunter 4, have played that a lot as well, but in the end Silent Hunter 3 is definitely the best of all the Silent Hunter games if you ask me. :)
I'm starting to see some possible clue.
First of all, let me say that I got to retrieve the lost game DVD, just to discover that it's starforce protected and this is no longer working on Win7: what a sad story! So I had to reinstall, apply the v1.4b patch and the corresponding (ehm...) game facilitator. This way, the game was still not working (the windows version check does not include Win7) but DxWnd can cheat on this and the game can start, but in windowed mode only!
Ok, this just to say that I got a working game somehow, but I cannot garantee that the same will work on a different platform. Hopefully, the steam release will show a better performance.
Now about Darojax complain: in effect, no matter what you chose as the window size, the rendering is always done using the fixed 1024 x 768 resolution, with no scaling to the window size. So, if you set the window size to 1024 x 768 (or, in alternative, 0 x 0 that will give the same result) the rendering is perfect, but if you set a smaller area the game is clipped and when bigger the game is rendered in the upleft corner (that is what is shown in Darojax's last screenshot).
I just have to find out what is preventing d3d9 to scale the backbuffer to the current window size!
Last edit: gho 2015-03-21
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Got it!
The trick is in the RECT regions that are passed to the Direct3DDevice::Present method, that have to be properly scaled.
Here in attach a temporary release that just uses NULL RECT pointers to occupy the whole window. Just copy the dxwnd.dll file over the previous one. It could work ....
Sorry, but I am still getting the exact same error. The window itself is created as 1920x1080, but only the top left 1024 x 768 is shown in it, leaving the rest blank.
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That may depend on the different game release (yours is the Steam version, I take ...) or a different configuration. It's strange, anyway....
I'm sending you a patched dxwnd together with the exported configuration file that shoud run the game in a fake-fullscreen mode on a widescreen monitor (see screenshot).
I'm asking you to apply this version and configuration, remove (or rename) the ddraw.dll coming from the widescreen patch, run the game shortly and send the logfile to me again.
Hopefully, if we can manage this problem, DxWnd could make useless the widescreen patch and allow custom sized windowed mode.
One last thing: the game starts with a couple of movie intros that are not rendered on my pc, but that seems to be placed in the upleft corner of the screen. Please, click to skip them and wait until you reach the game menu. It's possible that the movies and the game are managed differently ....
Update: I'm starting to look after the intro movies.
Here the problem seems tied to some weird commutation of screen resolution from 1024x768 to the 768x576 movie resolution.
The operation is made through a D3D9 Device::CreateAdditionalSwapChain call that is failing for some obscure reason (there is a D3DERR_DEVICELOST error on the device, but the Reset operation fails.....
But skipping the movies, the ingame is wonderful!
Update again: though in a tricky way (that should be improved ASAP) the intro movies are now correctly rendered.
The whole stuff will be available soon on v2.03.15 release.
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Anonymous
-
2015-03-22
Would love to see a minimize/restore option on system tray,
and something like 'minimize to tray on closing' for prevent the process automatically terminated when accident closing Dxwnd.
The new version has become more and more stable now ;)
Last edit: Anonymous 2015-03-22
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The "Move to tray" command is there, ready to use.
But intercepting the exit button to redirect it to a minimize on system tray whenever a hooked process is running is not a bad idea at all!
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I'm just curious, maybe I haven't explained properly, but from what I can tell from your screenshots you're running the windowed game in the lower resolution (1024x768, which is possible even by the default game), which I can do as well with no issues. However, the problem begins when you try to run the game in the 1920x1080 resolution, which is made possible by that custom patch supplied in an earlier post in this thread.
Forgive me, but the DVD release of the game was not working at all in Win7, so all the previous posts are just to tell that finally I got to fix some of these initial problems.
Likely, the Steam version was pre-patched to run smoothly on Win7/8, so you didn't experience all this trouble.
Now I'm ready to test what happens with the high-res patch.
Likely, we're going to enter into another kind of problems, that I saw in other games, that is the difficulty to perform Reset or CreateAdditionalSwapChain operations to increase the backbuffer / screen resolution.
We'll see, have a little bit more patience and stay tuned .... ;)
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This is just a theory, but it worked on a similar effect on a different game....
Because of the difficulty to perform a Reset operation, it's impossible to tell d3d9 to increase the size of its backbuffers. A possible workaround is to build the backbuffer initially with the maximum possible size, that is the desktop resolution, and make d3d9 use that much that is necessary.
Would you mind to replace the dxwnd.dll with this patched one, then set the Direct3D / "Suppress D3D8/9 Reset" DxWnd flag and try SH3 with high resolution?
Hi!
Been trying to use this seemingly very useful program with Silent Hunter 3. You can run this game in windowed mode by default, but then there is only one fixed resolution, 1024x800. When the game is run in fullscreen mode it can be run successfully in 1920x1080 (with a bit of simple modding).
So I have been trying hard to use DxWnd to get Silent Hunter 3 run in a window with the 1920x1080 res. The window that is created is indeed 1920x1080, however, the graphics themselves in the window remain at 1024x800 just as if SH3 thinks it is in the windowed mode. I have tried quite a few different settings, but have now run out of ideas. That's why I am writing here.
Anyone able to give a hand with this? Any ideas?
cheers
D
Can you send a screenshot of your best result? I'm not sure I understood what you got ...
Sure!
This is the normal fullscreen view
http://i.imgur.com/ERlmH5W.png
and this is the windowed mode with DxWnd (tried alot of different settings and getting this same result)
http://i.imgur.com/gzvfgU0.png
Another thing that crossed my mind is that in order to get this game to run under 1920x1080 in fullscreen one has to put a new modified d3d9.dll in the main directory, otherwise it will run in 1024×768 (not 1024x800, was wrong in the first post). Maybe it could be that these new instructions are intercepted by DxWnd and nullified or something?
Once again, very grateful if anyone could provide some ideas how this might be fixed.
regards
D
Last edit: Darojax 2015-03-04
If you put a d3d9.dll in the game folder, evidently this is a second hooker interfering with dxwnd! You should try to get rid of this dll (just rename it temporarily) and see what happens. In theory, DxWnd should force the game to run in any window size, though the resolution may remain the original one (that is, the textures could be stretched).
I have somewhere a DVD of this game (it was sold in a cheap version a few years ago and I didn't resist buying it!), if you provide me a link to the 1920x1080 patch I may try to test it by myself.
Sure thing, thanks for wanting to help out!
Tried removing the d3d9.dll file entirely, an improvement, but not satisfactory. :)
http://i.imgur.com/4BsEBrV.png
Mod files, to be put in the main directory
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gku00wv4sdufx68/Van1920x1080.zip
dll files, put both in the main directory
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1bui4p9m147j0ce/WideScreenDLLFile.zip
Manual (in case it's needed)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5gu5ghenmc8roxo/Wide%20Screen%20Mod.pdf
I'm sorry for the delay. I also have some bad news: I thought I had a copy of this game somewhere, but I realized I have Silent Hunter II instead.
So you'll have to have some more patience, because now I have to find a copy of this game somewhere. Hopefully it shouldn't take long, since here in Italy the game was released in a budget edition sold in the newsstands, so it should be easy to find it. Wish me good luck....
OK, good luck, and again big thanks for attempting to help with this. :)
Damn! I've found a copy of S.H. IV. (BTW are you interested on this?)
I'm still looking for S.H. III!!!!
Since the hunt may take a while, maybe you could capture some logs and post them.
Be sure you check these log flags:
x Enable Trace
x DxWnd hacks
x DirectDraw Trace
x Direct3D trace
x Debug
You can get Silent Hunter 3 now on steam for 5 euro, pretty cheap!
I do enjoy Silent Hunter 4, have played that a lot as well, but in the end Silent Hunter 3 is definitely the best of all the Silent Hunter games if you ask me. :)
Here's the zipped log file
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fe0eyfvqalg1g28/dxwnd.zip?dl=0
... what I got so far: not a big luck.
That does indeed not look very good.
Finally, I've got something to start working on .....
I'm starting to see some possible clue.
First of all, let me say that I got to retrieve the lost game DVD, just to discover that it's starforce protected and this is no longer working on Win7: what a sad story! So I had to reinstall, apply the v1.4b patch and the corresponding (ehm...) game facilitator. This way, the game was still not working (the windows version check does not include Win7) but DxWnd can cheat on this and the game can start, but in windowed mode only!
Ok, this just to say that I got a working game somehow, but I cannot garantee that the same will work on a different platform. Hopefully, the steam release will show a better performance.
Now about Darojax complain: in effect, no matter what you chose as the window size, the rendering is always done using the fixed 1024 x 768 resolution, with no scaling to the window size. So, if you set the window size to 1024 x 768 (or, in alternative, 0 x 0 that will give the same result) the rendering is perfect, but if you set a smaller area the game is clipped and when bigger the game is rendered in the upleft corner (that is what is shown in Darojax's last screenshot).
I just have to find out what is preventing d3d9 to scale the backbuffer to the current window size!
Last edit: gho 2015-03-21
Got it!
The trick is in the RECT regions that are passed to the Direct3DDevice::Present method, that have to be properly scaled.
Here in attach a temporary release that just uses NULL RECT pointers to occupy the whole window. Just copy the dxwnd.dll file over the previous one. It could work ....
Last edit: gho 2015-03-21
Sorry, but I am still getting the exact same error. The window itself is created as 1920x1080, but only the top left 1024 x 768 is shown in it, leaving the rest blank.
That may depend on the different game release (yours is the Steam version, I take ...) or a different configuration. It's strange, anyway....
I'm sending you a patched dxwnd together with the exported configuration file that shoud run the game in a fake-fullscreen mode on a widescreen monitor (see screenshot).
I'm asking you to apply this version and configuration, remove (or rename) the ddraw.dll coming from the widescreen patch, run the game shortly and send the logfile to me again.
Hopefully, if we can manage this problem, DxWnd could make useless the widescreen patch and allow custom sized windowed mode.
One last thing: the game starts with a couple of movie intros that are not rendered on my pc, but that seems to be placed in the upleft corner of the screen. Please, click to skip them and wait until you reach the game menu. It's possible that the movies and the game are managed differently ....
Last edit: gho 2015-03-22
Update: I'm starting to look after the intro movies.
Here the problem seems tied to some weird commutation of screen resolution from 1024x768 to the 768x576 movie resolution.
The operation is made through a D3D9 Device::CreateAdditionalSwapChain call that is failing for some obscure reason (there is a D3DERR_DEVICELOST error on the device, but the Reset operation fails.....
But skipping the movies, the ingame is wonderful!
Update again: though in a tricky way (that should be improved ASAP) the intro movies are now correctly rendered.
The whole stuff will be available soon on v2.03.15 release.
Would love to see a minimize/restore option on system tray,
and something like 'minimize to tray on closing' for prevent the process automatically terminated when accident closing Dxwnd.
The new version has become more and more stable now ;)
Last edit: Anonymous 2015-03-22
The "Move to tray" command is there, ready to use.
But intercepting the exit button to redirect it to a minimize on system tray whenever a hooked process is running is not a bad idea at all!
Zipped log file attached!
I'm just curious, maybe I haven't explained properly, but from what I can tell from your screenshots you're running the windowed game in the lower resolution (1024x768, which is possible even by the default game), which I can do as well with no issues. However, the problem begins when you try to run the game in the 1920x1080 resolution, which is made possible by that custom patch supplied in an earlier post in this thread.
Or maybe I'm just not following... :)
Forgive me, but the DVD release of the game was not working at all in Win7, so all the previous posts are just to tell that finally I got to fix some of these initial problems.
Likely, the Steam version was pre-patched to run smoothly on Win7/8, so you didn't experience all this trouble.
Now I'm ready to test what happens with the high-res patch.
Likely, we're going to enter into another kind of problems, that I saw in other games, that is the difficulty to perform Reset or CreateAdditionalSwapChain operations to increase the backbuffer / screen resolution.
We'll see, have a little bit more patience and stay tuned .... ;)
Hehe, roger that, my bad! All I want to say so far, however, is that I am seriously impressed by your dedication.
This is just a theory, but it worked on a similar effect on a different game....
Because of the difficulty to perform a Reset operation, it's impossible to tell d3d9 to increase the size of its backbuffers. A possible workaround is to build the backbuffer initially with the maximum possible size, that is the desktop resolution, and make d3d9 use that much that is necessary.
Would you mind to replace the dxwnd.dll with this patched one, then set the Direct3D / "Suppress D3D8/9 Reset" DxWnd flag and try SH3 with high resolution?
Last edit: gho 2015-03-23
Rgr.
Visually exactly the same results as the log file in dxwnd2.zip. New log file attached.