Microtrack: Electric Car Simulator
Window hooker to run fullscreen programs in window and much more...
Status: Beta
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Well, this game, on the other hand, does not run under Windows 10 (startup crash). According to the description on old-games.ru, this game will also not work with dgvoodoo2, DxWnd wrappers or even in virtualization software or in PC emulators (PC, 86box, VMWare, etc.), apparently it is related to graphics rendering (the game does it in an unusual way). Would someone verify this information somehow? Thank you very much in advance. Link to the game - https://www.old-games.ru/game/download/8761.html
Work in progress ...
Last edit: gho 2022-03-23
This is better.
The game has a lot of problems, here are some advices:
- use SDL (or GDI) renderer, the default one doesn't work well. I have to understand why
- rip the audio files and enable CD audio, the game tests the presence of the CD with some mci command, so the music works as a copy protection
- ignore some MCI errors, when you see them in a black screen just press spacebar to continue
- the game textures require the "Set texture pixel format" flag
Anyway, all problems are annoyances in the menu section, so the game is perfectly playable if you ignore a little initial troubles.
Last edit: gho 2022-03-23
Game still crashes on launch. I am also not convinced if the game uses CD Audio at all (files in the Music folder should still be called Track02.wav etc etc?)
The game starts asking to select a video card controller. Maybe on my portable the choice was simple and "reliable" (there is only one choice, the "default video") and this could account for a more robust start. Try sending me some logs, I could spot the problem.
I'm not sure the game uses CD audio, but the Music folder and the "CDAudio / use audio files" should be set to answer positively to the mci call that tests the presence of a CD in the caddy.
Here are my logs
There's something weird in your game configuration: the game does this:
and then recursively explores the content of the full C: drive, taking too long time and getting killed probably because unresponsive. I wonder why the game starts the operation from there, while it should start from its install folder.
It is possible that the game behaves like this when it is installed on a different drive than the one under the letter C. Could you check it on your own and install the game on the drive marked with the letter D, for example?
The game installer is weird, it lets you chose the drive letter but not the path. I installed the game in C:\MTracks, I checked my logs and found also there the same situation, but the number of folders in C: probably was less because the FindNext operations terminated after a while. I don't know ...
It seems that the problem is not so weird: MS has a dedicated shim "LimitFindFile" in its repertory, this is what it tells:
The shim is parametric, so I don't know exactly how it is supposed to be used, but in any case I'm trying to import some logic and add an equivalent "shim:LimitFindFile" tweak.
Last edit: gho 2022-03-25
I compared my log with yours. The problem seems clear. You installed the game in D:\MTracks, but the game expects to find a Mtrack folder in the C: drive.
In my case, I installed in C:\MTracks, the FindNextFileA log (using the "Logs / debug" option) shows that the game seatches the full C:\ root folder and since it finds a MTrack folder it enters in there and it's ok.
In your case, you installed the game in D:\MTracks (as the setup let you do) but the game starts searching the C:\ root folder and, since it doesn't find Mtrack, it keeps entering and searching any subfolder until it becomes urresponsive and gets terminated.
You could fix the problem in two ways:
1) move the Mtrack folder from D:\ to C:\
2) try using the fake HD feature to pretend that C:\ is D:\ (though this could bring inpredictable results ...)
There is! In the end, I managed to start this game when I moved it to the C:\ drive
Well, if you did you will now notice that there are glitches with some textures / sprites.
The gameplay seems ok, but the menu panels have missing or miscolored markers.
The pictures will show one example with badly colored sprites. The "Loading" screen too seems to miss a sprite, but I couldn't take a screenshot:
I confirm. Apparently, the game renders graphics in an unusual way, maybe it's because of that?
I tried it and Fake HD works well (I have installed game on D:). I used @gho DxWnd profile. Before the menu appears, I have an MCI Error as described. MCI commands are some weird, maybe it would be worth exploring. I have no defects as in the picture colors.png with old Nvidia and Win7 with DxWnd. D3D can be set to some other mode as in the picture.
The description is:
D3D Device - If your hardware permits it, it turns on the 3D graphics instead of B-Filter (B-Filter-If your hardware permits it, it turns on Bilinear Filtering)
Update:
I moved the MTracks folder to a different path so it is not in the root location now and changed the path in the registry accordingly. It seems to work as well.
Update:
Maybe MCI errors are related to playing intro.avi, this video doesn't play for me.
Last edit: huh 2022-03-25
About the initial (bypassed) errors, there seems to be one main cause.
here:
the program can't open this video (though VLC player can) and the error invalidates the alias "movie" to be registered, so that other errors follow. Probably some codec should be registered.
The codec is Indeo 3 and it definitely works for me.
Command "open avivideo!pics\intro1.avi alias movie wait " is OK, but DxWnd misconverts it to the new FakeCD path because it does not implement this command format (open mpegvideo!path, open cdaudio!drive:, open waveaudio!path etc.).
Example:
in this case, the path is converted incorrectly
TranslatePath: fake CD relative FileName="X:\MTracks\pics\intro1.avi"
mciSendStringA: Command="open avivideo!pics\intro1.avi alias movie wait" Return=0 Callback=0
path="avivideo!pics\intro1.avi" hasQuotes=0
TranslatePath: fake CD relative FileName="X:\MTracks\avivideo!pics\intro1.avi"
newpath="X:\MTracks\avivideo!pics\intro1.avi" hasQuotes=0
newcommand="open X:\MTracks\avivideo!pics\intro1.avi alias movie wait"
mciSendStringA ERROR: ret=0x113
Update:
Due to endless search on C: I rewrote string C: in the exe to drive on which I have the game installed (X :) at offset 34078. Now I have started the game with VirtualCD and the game does not report any MCI error (CDAudio-No emulation). After turning off the "Remap MCI coordinates" flag, I also see an intro. The only problem I have is that the intro runs in fullscreen in my current monitor resolution. I assume that the behavior is caused by a command
mciSendStringA: Command="play movie fullscreen" Return=0 Callback=0
Last edit: huh 2022-03-26
I don't understand, please help me:
In my install the file pics/intro1.avi is on the HD and has no need to have a converted path. I agree that this case is not handled correctly by DxWnd and if we had a CD path this wouldn't work. Maybe you created a fake HD C:\ ?
I can see the movie with VLC player, but the game can't render the movie. Should I put some Indeo 3 dll in the game folder? Or register some component? I tried to install Indeo codecs, but the installer tells that I already have Indeo 3.2 in my system.
I didn't see this command, probably because of the failures in opening the movie.
Last edit: gho 2022-03-26
Yes, I used Fake HD, but not now, I stopped using it so the error may no longer happen. The path has changed for some reason even with the command "avivideo!" to the path to the file intro1.avi, X:\MTracks\avivideo!pics\intro1.avi"
so of course the path was wrong.
I think instead path="avivideo!pics\intro1.avi"
hould only be
path="pics\intro1.avi"
I no longer use Fake HD, and I just wanted to try FakeCD. However, in the meantime, I've found that the video no longer plays with VirtualCD for me or with saved profiles. I do not know what happened. This game seems to be cursed.
Update:
Here is a protocol from a rare time when video works. I also attach my profile, but sometimes it works, but rather not, so it's just for information.
Update2:
Now video also works with FakeCD + CDaudio emulation for me. For some reason I still get an MCI error in the game (MCIERR_DEVICE_OPEN), but the video is running.
Last edit: huh 2022-03-26
I think I already know why a video here sometimes runs sometimes not. I've had suspicions before. The video window simply loses focus and closes. If I enable "Do notify on task switch", the video work with my previous profile by the way I described here (on Win7).
That's fine, but on my computer on Win11 I NEVER saw the intro movies no matter if I kept the focus or not. This error is not what I would expect from a focus lost, it makes me think more about a missing codec.
p.s. I made a change to process the filename path correctly (I consider as a path not simply what comes after the "open " string but I search forward for the presence of a "!"), but the fix is untested because I can't make the command work in any case.
Hmm can you try this command in mcitool?
If it works, the shortcut of the command should also work, but it must be run in the path
Last edit: huh 2022-03-29
Both failed:
Curiously, I have no hint about the meaning of mci errorcode 6. The mci errors should start from MCIERR_BASE = 256, an error 6 in theory should be a system error, but 6 is ERROR_INVALID_HANDLE that is strange in this context ....
Oh, that's weird. Both commands work for me in Win7. Maybe you have to run it as an administrator in Win11?
Nope, same result running both mcitool and the game with admin caps.
I made an experiment: I copied into the PICTS folder a movie file from another game (death.avi from Thief Gold) and repeated the test. This time I was successful, I could even see the movie in a freshly created new window. I suppose that this demonstrates that the problem is all in the movie encoding. Probably using some tool it should be easy to convert all the game movies (not too many, in effect) in a supported format, but I prefer the challenge of discovering the reasons why these don't work!