Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain - No window
Window hooker to run fullscreen programs in window and much more...
Status: Beta
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Hello,
I've been trying to use DxWnd to run Pax Imperia Eminent Domain correctly on Windows 10, since even the GOG version (the one I'm using) has problems.
In fact, the game runs fine and I even managed to fix the issue with the music not playing, however it is only running in full screen mode. Of course "Run in window" is checked, but no matter what I try, it will still ignore the settings and run in 800x600 (I guess, might actually be 640x480) full screen.
Is there a way to fix this?
P.S.: I'm also trying to make the cinematics run, but they seem to skip automatically. Hooking smack32dll does not seem to make any difference. Any chance someone might help with this as well?
The game shows quite a lot of different problems, the worse of them probably the black trail left by the cursor that is going to blabken the whole screen in no time.
I tried to fix the game already, and with no success. Let's hope I'll have a better luck this time ...
Stay tuned for news, it there will be any.
Hi, thank you for replying.
I had the black trail problem as well, but if I recall correctly I fixed it by using the "Bypass GOG libs. I also solved the missing music problem by enabling "Hook DirectSound" and "Virtual CD Audio". I hope this helps with your investigation.
Here is the config file I created, in case it might be useful for debugging.
Lucky day: I got the culprit for black trails on standard game release.
The game set a clipper on the service surface that is meant to hold the screen background and be overwritten by the current cursor. The clipper seems to inhibit the background copy that remains black. Setting the Clipper selector to "OFF".
This way the game seems perfectly playable. I'm trying to merge my configuration with yours to get the best out of the two.
Interesting. I'm not experiencing this problem, however, even without putting Clipper to OFF. As I mentioned, for me enabling "Bypass GOG libs" solved this issue.
The real main problem for me at the moment is that the game always runs in fullscreen no matter the options. The second one is that it doesn't show Smack videos, but one thing at a time...
Uhm, I misunderstood you ... I thought you were using the non-GOG release.
For GOG release, I have to check ... but in many cases the problem is caused by shims applied to the executable. In this case, a good trick is to copy the game executable file giving it a different name and hook that one: shims are linked usually to the file pathname, so a new name can cheat the operating system.
Also, be sure to run DxWnd with administrator's privileges and (maybe) set "Hook / Inject suspended process" flag.
I attempted all the suggestions (copy the executable and give it a new name, run DxWnd as admin, set Inject suspended process, etc.) but unfortunately I get the same result. The only difference is that if I set "Inject suspended process" the game runs in a distorted borderless window, but my desktop resolution is switched to 800x600.
Anything else I can try? I even tried "No SHIMs" which seems to have no effect.
I started some tests on the GOG release 2.0.0.12 on Win7.
I know you have problems on Win10, but I'll test Win10 a little later, now I can't ....
Well, the bad news is that the game is behaving very well here. The GOG sound emulation works, the game run flawlessily in windowed mode with the attached configuration, the only problem being some partial frame updates during movie play (but I didn't spend much ime trying to fix this).
Surely it is a situation quite different from yours. The culprit could be the OS (Win10 vs. Win7), but maybe also the game release: it is possible that GOG shipped differentreleases of the same game with different tricks put in place (I'm still thinking at the shims feature).
Does the GOG release version corresponds? It is not repoorted on the game, you should look at the GOG installer filename - mine is Setup_Pax_Imperia_2.0.0.12.exe
Apologies, I forgot to write my status update yesterday night.
Using your attached configuration (not the latest one you posted, but the one you uploaded two days ago, it worked! Strangely enough, Bypassing the GOG libs will actually cause the program to not work in windowed mode.
So now everything is working...except the movies. This is known to be a problem of the game only on Windows 10. Even using the option to hook Smackw32 will not work. If we could find a way to fix that, then the game will work flawlessly, as intended.
Very good. But I insist that you may check the GOG version: the bypass GOG lib simply bypasses the GOG ddraw.dll proxy that GOG installs on several games. But the GOG version that I tested has NO such a file in the game folder, so maybe you have another game release. If you can't recall the original GOG installer filename, it would be sufficient to check whether a ddraw.dll file exists in your game folder.
I don't have a ddraw.dll file in the game folder, and I have the latest installer from GOG (installed from GOG Galaxy).
Another quick update: I noticed you are using "primary surface" as the renderer. While this works, I noticed some quite evident "warping" around the mouse cursor, and some slowdowns in certain screens (for example the Design Species screen if you run your mouse over the selectable options). Unfortunately, while the other renderers don't seem to have that problem, they present others, so at the moment I'm experimenting trying to find the best solution and get rid of that "warping" effect.
QUICK EDIT: I'm getting interesting results using SDL2: no warping, but still slowdown during certain screens and now the fonts are of much worse quality. Hmm...
EDIT 2: I've been playing with these settings for about half an hour and it is seems to be very much playable for now. The slowdown I talked about seems to appear only in the Design Species section. Strange. Now, if only the movies would work...
Last edit: AMB 2018-11-14
You can do a quick test on movies: all movie files are .smk files in the Movies folder (well. I admit this is not a smart discovery so far ...). I can play them all on a movie player (I used VLC Media Player). If you get the same good result, the problem must be in the game / DxWnd settings. If you don't get a good result, the problem should be in the codecs installed in your pc.
I can play all of the movies properly with an external player. I use MPC and I have the Full K-Lite Codec pack installed. I know the problem is 100% in the game/DxWnd.
In-game, the intros are not shown, and if I click on "Show Credits" or "View Introduction", for example, nothing happens when I click the option.
Hi, any progress/report on the Smack videos problem? I don't mean to be pushy or anything, I know that you have a lot of other games to work on compatibility-wise! Just curious if you did some additional testing/fixes.
Ehm, my apologies, but this Heavy Gear CD sound was absorbing all my free time ...
Now I'm going to spend a weekend out of home, so no news at least until next monday, but thinking better to your problem you may do one thing: capture a log file when trying to show some movie and getting no result. The screenshots below show a probably good setting for the logging flags and the hooked smack lib. You can refer to the tutorial in DxWnd help pages for more instructions (Help -> View help), just remember to run the game as quickly as possible to avoid a huge logfile. Then, compress it and upload it here.
No worries, as I said, I know you are busy!
Here is the log as you requested. There are some interesting lines related to Smack near the beginning of the file.
Yes, very interesting! It seems that smack is set to use MSS (Miles Sound System) to play there .smk movies, but this operation returns an error and the movie is skipped (no traces of frame processing).
The logical conclusion would be to check for MSS settings on your pc. I recall that MSS was available in many different releases, the more recent ones more compatible with newer operating systems. Somewhere there was a web archive with many MSS libraries to be tried.
For instance, you may try this one, from Zanzarah game.
Here they talk about 17 different releases! Good hunting ...
http://www.dlldownloader.com/mss32-dll/
Last edit: gho 2018-12-07