Grand Prix 3: DxWnd apparently has no effect on the game

[magros]

I know, the game is known for its problems. I'm trying to run it on windows 7 with a RTX 2060, and the problem I was trying to solve with DxWnd (transparent / clipped car parts), with DxWnd they can't find a solution. On the surface, launching the game from DxWnd appears to have no effect.
I followed this guide on YT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SkxdP6xwXQ

https://i.postimg.cc/wBs7KdxP/Immagine.jpg

Please, what can I do?
Thanks.

[BEEN_Nath_58]

You may use the Software 3D renderer the game provides until someone helps here... AFAIR that setting didn't have issues.

[magros]

Sure, I know, in fact I'm using it with software rendering, but I'd rather be able to use it in hardware for more than one reason.

[BEEN_Nath_58]

For Hardware rendering, many things have to fixed. And they weren't fixed earlier because gho probably wasn't able to mimic the same colour keying problem.

If you only use DxWnd and no dgVoodoo2, it will take more time to get fixed because first things have to be addressed which have been fixed by dgVoodoo2, in DxWnd.

If you use only dgVoodoo2 (or DxWnd + dgVoodoo2), you may be able to fix the remaining problems faster by creating a thread in the dgVoodoo2 VOGONS section. Dege has fixed these colour keying problems earlier, and he will probably fix them again.

The only reason to fix the game with DxWnd completely is if they have a video card unsupported by dgVoodoo2, and it's a lot of work. To speed your things up, it is better to fix this in dgVoodoo2 (by writing in dgVoodoo2 thread).

[magros]

Before using dxwnd I tried dgVoodoo2, but I have problems with it too. When the game does the graphic calibration, in the first 2-3 steps the image is correct, but from the next step the image is corrupted and I get an image where everything is green except the cars. That's why I tried dxwnd. I asked for help here as it seems very strange to me that it has no effect on the game. Evidently there is a problem at the root, I was hoping to be able to understand something more.

[BEEN_Nath_58]

I get your problem. I can experience the green screen 4th and the next steps as well.

I asked for help here as it seems very strange to me that it has no effect on the game.

In the 6th calibration run, that is the 3rd run with green screen, the game crashes for me.

Evidently there is a problem at the root, I was hoping to be able to understand something more.

Colour keying and other issues. I will open a thread for it in dgVoodoo2 forums. The reason I am focusing on dgVoodoo2 because I presume the colour key is HW dependant and it will be difficult for DxWnd to achieve that. See here (remove the spaces in link):

https ://www. vogons. org/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=89240

[magros]

Problem solved!
I'm using an older release of dgVoodoo2 (76_1) and now I can run GP3 in hardware rendering.

[magros]

Oh, wait, a new problem has come out!
Now the game doesn't want to run at full resolution anymore.
In the options it tells me that it is set for 1280, but visually it is evident that the resolution is lower.
Crap!

[BEEN_Nath_58]

That means 2.79 doesn't have the problem you have in 2.76. Let's wait for him to fix the problems in the thread...

[magros]

I just discovered that without dgVoodoo I have big problems even in 3D software. In practice the graphics are in black and white! How is it possible?

[BEEN_Nath_58]

Dege replied after all:
https ://www. vogons. org/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=89240

[magros]

I entered the thread too...

[gho]

@magros: Let's hope in some news. This GP3 game is a bad beast, Geoff Crammond used a lot of tricks to squeeze features and frame rates from video cards and probably some technique is not too conventional. In the past I treated this game and saw that in general you can have a more stable behavior by reducing the features, like pretending low capabilities and switching to sw mode rendering, but all this is very dependent on the video card and drivers, so it's difficult to get a universal recipe. In any case, whatever may show as a valid trick I'm ready to integrate it into DxWnd.

[magros]

@gho: Thank you!
P.S.: scopro adesso che sei anche tu Italiano!

[gho]

@magros: si, italianissimo (Italians do I.T. better!) ascendente Ligure. Ma continuerei nella lingua di Albione per tenere allineati alcuni altri appassionati che forniscono ottimi aiuti..

Ok, now that I (more or less) finished with "3D Scooter Racing" and the Blair Witch trilogy, I should be finally able to dedicate some more time to GP3. Hopefully, a few things fixed or learnt with these last games could help here.

One of the problems is that GP3 every time proposes a configuration check (that I usually skip because it crashes the game here) so every player could be dealing with a different graphic configuration each time he runs the game. So, please, pick your best configuration, never change it and post here the file gconfig.txt, it should help me to test a configuration like yours.
Also, if possible, It would be useful to post here some screenshot (with the Alt+Print key, then open MSPaint and paste the picture, then save in .png format and post as attach) that show the problems.

Also, it would be wise to add the DxWnd logfile captured with the options shown in the attached picture. The size can grow big quite quickly, so it is better to run short tests (as short as possible, killing the game after the problem appears and it is captured in a screenshot) and compress the dxwnd.log file before uploading here as attach.

Last thing (for now) : you should update your DxWnd files to my last experimental release. You don't need to change your working configuration, just unzip the last official release v2.05.86 in a different folder and overwrite the files in there with the ones in the attached archive dxwnd.2.05.87.rc1.rar, so that our testbeds will be aligned.

[BEEN_Nath_58]

Check out the config and start with my log:

Edit: I was tweaking compatibility modes and got the game running with no GPU adapters in graphics settings list and the game was rendering like a snail with all correct visuals, no tires problem or texture issues.

[magros]

Done.
The game still looks broken graphics wise and performances are terrible (high CPU occupancy and low fps).
Graphics config is the same I use with DgVoodoo2: all maxed @1280x1024

[magros]

I add a detail.
For some reason, I HAVE to use a wrapper just to play with the rendering software.
Without any wrapper, even in software mode the images are unacceptable, they are in black and white!

[gho]

Among other oddities, this one:

[00025:891] IDirectDrawSurface7::QueryInterface: ver=7 lpdds=0xcd0f760 REFIID=0x1bab8e96(IID_IDirectDrawSurfaceNew)

the game is rendering through a IID_IDirectDrawSurfaceNew surface whose characteristics are quite unknown. I'd like to see what happens if I replace that interface with a more standard (and maybe supported) IID_IDirectDrawSurface7 ...

[magros]

I'm ready to test! :-)

[gho]

This release replaces the IID_IDirectDrawSurfaceNew interface with IID_IDirectDrawSurface7.
On my computer nothing seems to happen, but you never know ... just try it and see if anything changes.

[gho]

This second release adds another possible fix: it can force the state for D3DRENDERSTATE_CULLMODE to the value D3DCULL_NONE, possibly eliminating some transparent texture like the ones you don't see in the car bodies.
To activate the fix you should set the "d3d:CullModeNone" tweak.
Beware: the fix may have some limited impact on the performances, since the 3D rendering is a little more complex.

[magros]

"To activate the fix you should set the "d3d:CullModeNone" tweak."

How can I do this?

[magros]

Found it, sorry!

[magros]

Apparently nothing changed.
Still have the same graphical issues and performance are really too bad.
CPU occupancy go over 200!