While testing games with 4bit wav's in another thread, I came across Cricket 2002. This game has some 4bit wav's, but that's not why I create this thread. Originally, I had a problem starting the game with DxWnd, it always crashed (or hang with Handle Exceptions) at the same place after playing the first intro video (image + log). The game works fine without DxWnd in Win7, this situation does not occur. If I looked right, the game has no entries in the MS shim database in Win7.
Meanwhile, the problem miraculously disappeared. I don't know what happened, I am attaching my profile in case someone could try it on another system. There is still a problem with getting to the menu in a match, if I press Esc it's sometimes hard to keep the menu from disappearing right away. The game can be found in the web archive, but the game has unsupported CD protection, so you'll need some other stuff, like noCD exe.
Update:
The game crashes when trying to change the resolution in the game menu with DxWnd (without DxWnd OK). "Direct3D-Enumerate 16bit modes" flag seems to have resolved the situation. The game can still sometimes crash when setting the resolution, but it doesn't do it every time anymore.
New profile.
Updat2e:
The situation repeats itself, I can't run the game with DxWnd, the crash is back. Apparently this game is cursed.
Ok I will test it tomorrow as Cricket is popular here as well. I assume it suffers from same issues as NFS PU, so I should probably start with the single CPU settings as well.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I got the game running well enough, my profile in attach. If you get problems with mouse control, a good idea could be to add the "tweaks:EASportsHack" tweak, it disables some Windows hook to the mouse & keyboard that may create troubles in ES Sports games in general.
In the movie sequences I got some overlapped graphic, but the "Suppress overlay capability" and "Set minimal caps" made them disappear, though probably at the cost of bypassing some video HW feature. Since the movie overlays don't create much trouble, it's up to you to leave these flags set or not.
P.s. results with original game version + crack. There is also a game update + new dedicated crack, but I hope the configuration may work with this one as well.
Well, your profile was working here, until I restarted computer. After restarting the game still crashes in the place I described. So the behavior hasn't changed here, I believe the game will start working in maybe half an hour or until it feels like it. Strange behavior...
As for 4bit wav's, it seems, that the game uses Microsoft DirectSound Wave (dswave.dll) and DirectMusicWaveTrack (dmime.dll). I wonder if 4bit wav's are played here as some of the wav's in the game are 16bit and some are 4bit. There are a lot of files, so it is difficult to identify a specific one file and also the situation when it should be played.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I am quite confused with the 4-bit sound situation... Ever since I started my PC journey with Windows XP, I never got an issue with 4-bit sound files. In fact I think Pinball Science was the only one with the real error in playing 4-bit sound, maybe some codec or sound API issues.
Even Max Payne is an oddity, the last time I played on Windows 7, I didn't get any of the issues that you mentioned with sound, so that's probably not the same case as Pinball Science.
Third game Zork Nemesis, I am going to try it with better luck... but I think 2 tests should prove it is something else in these games (other than Pinball Science) that probably correlates or not with 4-bit sound.
Last edit: BEEN_Nath_58 2022-07-27
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
While testing games with 4bit wav's in another thread, I came across Cricket 2002. This game has some 4bit wav's, but that's not why I create this thread. Originally, I had a problem starting the game with DxWnd, it always crashed (or hang with Handle Exceptions) at the same place after playing the first intro video (image + log). The game works fine without DxWnd in Win7, this situation does not occur. If I looked right, the game has no entries in the MS shim database in Win7.
Meanwhile, the problem miraculously disappeared. I don't know what happened, I am attaching my profile in case someone could try it on another system. There is still a problem with getting to the menu in a match, if I press Esc it's sometimes hard to keep the menu from disappearing right away. The game can be found in the web archive, but the game has unsupported CD protection, so you'll need some other stuff, like noCD exe.
Last edit: huh 2022-07-26
Update:
The game crashes when trying to change the resolution in the game menu with DxWnd (without DxWnd OK). "Direct3D-Enumerate 16bit modes" flag seems to have resolved the situation. The game can still sometimes crash when setting the resolution, but it doesn't do it every time anymore.
New profile.
Updat2e:
The situation repeats itself, I can't run the game with DxWnd, the crash is back. Apparently this game is cursed.
Last edit: huh 2022-07-26
Ok I will test it tomorrow as Cricket is popular here as well. I assume it suffers from same issues as NFS PU, so I should probably start with the single CPU settings as well.
I got the game running well enough, my profile in attach. If you get problems with mouse control, a good idea could be to add the "tweaks:EASportsHack" tweak, it disables some Windows hook to the mouse & keyboard that may create troubles in ES Sports games in general.
In the movie sequences I got some overlapped graphic, but the "Suppress overlay capability" and "Set minimal caps" made them disappear, though probably at the cost of bypassing some video HW feature. Since the movie overlays don't create much trouble, it's up to you to leave these flags set or not.
P.s. results with original game version + crack. There is also a game update + new dedicated crack, but I hope the configuration may work with this one as well.
Well, your profile was working here, until I restarted computer. After restarting the game still crashes in the place I described. So the behavior hasn't changed here, I believe the game will start working in maybe half an hour or until it feels like it. Strange behavior...
As for 4bit wav's, it seems, that the game uses Microsoft DirectSound Wave (dswave.dll) and DirectMusicWaveTrack (dmime.dll). I wonder if 4bit wav's are played here as some of the wav's in the game are 16bit and some are 4bit. There are a lot of files, so it is difficult to identify a specific one file and also the situation when it should be played.
Finally some time to respond...
I am quite confused with the 4-bit sound situation... Ever since I started my PC journey with Windows XP, I never got an issue with 4-bit sound files. In fact I think Pinball Science was the only one with the real error in playing 4-bit sound, maybe some codec or sound API issues.
Even Max Payne is an oddity, the last time I played on Windows 7, I didn't get any of the issues that you mentioned with sound, so that's probably not the same case as Pinball Science.
Third game Zork Nemesis, I am going to try it with better luck... but I think 2 tests should prove it is something else in these games (other than Pinball Science) that probably correlates or not with 4-bit sound.
Last edit: BEEN_Nath_58 2022-07-27