It's an extremely problematic game to run. It requires Compatibility Mode (Windows 95) or else it refuses to launch. I believe it also requires 8-bit (256) color.
Then the colors do no look right. And neither DgVoodoo nor DxWnd seems able to make the window full screen.
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I took this game out of curiosity and I confirm that it is the same for me. The colors are displaying badly because the 256 colors mode is enabled, and this mode must be enabled in the exe file properties for the game to start at all. Another interesting observations:
1. Normally, to run the game, you also need to have Windows 95 compatibility mode enabled in the exe file properties. But if this compatibility mode is turned off, and you turn it on in DxWnd (Fake Version set to Win 95) and in the Hook you set the "Injection mode" to "Inject Suspended Process", then (with the obligatory 256 colors running) the game displays worse than how to run compatibility mode in the exe file properties
2. You can get a black window with the game and a message on its background to turn on 256 colors after setting the color palette in the Video tab in the "Initial virtual color setting" section to 8 BPP and selecting "No DWM" in the "Window style" section. With this message, the game is no longer leading us and there is no "Go-To" button
3. When selecting a tank, pressing H crashes the game almost immediately
4. And in turn, after selecting the full screen in the game, the game sends the message "DDERR_UNSUPPORTED"
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Hmm it seems to work for me in Win7 with DxWnd. This configuration works with VirtualCD or with real CD (I think). So far I have not been able to configure with DxWnd FakeCD.
1) Copy to your destination folder files from the CD:
RFIRE.BIN and \Langs\RFireEng.dll.
Copy RFIRE.BIN to RFIRE.EXE and rename RFireEng.dll to lang.dll.
2)Change your drive letter in the Main-Folder (from f:).
3) Change the path in regreturnfire0.reg and import file.
I did not use compatibility mode.
OK, after turning off the full screen, the message disappears, but the game either wants to have 256 colors turned on (as this option is turned off in the game's exe file properties) or it displays in the wrong colors after turning on these 256 colors
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Ok, here's an example of what it should look like. In the first picture it is necessary to set in flag Folder:
your virtual CD-ROM drive with a mapped game image (I believe it will work well with a physical drive).
Can't use DxWnd FakeCD, I tried it, but the game was still looking for data in the C: root folder. Maybe there's something FakeCD can't handle, and the gho could fix it when he will has time.
It is necessary to have the game in Fullscreen mode, see the picture with the registry, otherwise there will be no good colors. Fullscreen can also be selected in the game via F4.
The keyboard configuration will not run inside the game, but it can be done from the outside.
Make a copy of my profile and in Path: give the path to the CnfgEng.bin file in my case (F:\Langs\CnfgEng.bin).
Remember to remove compatibility mode from exe files.
If it still doesn't work then I don't know...
Doesn't work. If I go full screen A) it literally changes the desktop resolution to 640 x 480 (so what the heck is DxWnd doing here?) and B) I still get the "Invalid DD_CAPS" error.
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Maybe try running DxWnd as an administrator.
I assume you don't have the compatibility mode set to RFIRE.EXE (this would definitely not work).
I also assume you are using the renamed RFIRE.BIN (with RFire.exe from the root CD folder it will not work). Maybe your graphics card may be cause, but these are just guesses.
When you turn on logging, is a log file created in the game folder?
Last edit: huh 2020-07-19
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I think I already know why it does not work for me and for OP. If I understood correctly from the iso image of this game, I should copy the RFire.bin file exactly, rename it to RFire.exe, also rename the RFireEng.dll file to lang.dll, use your reg file before changing the path to the one where I unpacked the game and then use your dxw file, making sure that in the "Folder" field there is the letter under which I have the image of the CD with this game?
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I did as you wrote it and the game started in the right colors (finally!), But after the first logo it crashed. When I read a crash dump as the probable cause my debugger determines that it was avifil32.dll. Any ideas? I have Windows 10 2004, maybe that's why?
Last edit: MrPepka 2020-07-19
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I think I had the same problem in the beginning until I had set the paths correctly. I tried it on Win10 - 2004 yesterday and it worked so I don't think that's it. I believe the videos are in the Cinepak codec. I have a black bar in the middle of the video, the same behavior as "Sid Meier's Gettysburg!".
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I do not use K-Lite. Currently I only have ffdshow and Cinepak is off here. The problem with the black bar in "Sid Meier's Gettysburg!" occurred only with the intro and the videos were fine (here are the videos in Intel Indeo). I enabled Stretch ActiveMovie window and that was it. Here it is the opposite (intro ok, videos with black bar) and it does not work with this flag.
It doesn't solve your problem, I'm just describing the same behavior I have here with another game.
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Unfortunately I don't have another computer here. LavFilters used to be on the computer where I tried it yesterday (Win10 2004), but I don't know if I have ever uninstalled it before. I can look, if it's still there tomorrow, but I will not install K-Lite there, sorry.
P.S.
I think the Cinepak decoding library should already be present in the system
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\iccvid.dll
Last edit: huh 2020-07-19
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I started looking at the game, there are several things that are not ticking properly. Please, don't hurry to conclusions, it seems that are patches to make ....
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Ok, here is some stuff .... the game is quite complicated to handle, so to begin with I just tried to configure it in a defaul way, no fake registry, no fake CD, not even a change in the installation path! Let's go with order.
To install the game it is necessary to use Windows compatibility mode Win98 and reduced color 8bit or the installer \AUTORUN\AUTORUN.EXE won't start. I tried to install the game to my usual game folder policy c:\Games\Return Fire, but apparently that didn't work while the proposed c:\Program Files(x86)\Return Fire was ok. Maybe that happens only to me, who knows?
The game engine is RFIRE.BIN, no need to rename it, DxWnd doesn't care. It requires the usual tricks to set fake OS and color depth from start, but the game uses the palette in a peculiar way that wasn't managed properly by DxWnd. Here in attach the patched dxwnd.dll, hoping that the risky change I made won't break compatibility with other games. We will see ...
To make the game run you may need to configure the keyboard and joystick. That is made by a separate executable that requires to be run by the game with early hook and this doesn't work (ach!). The trick is to run the configurator by yourself through a second entry in the game configuration. In attach the two exports. Note: the configuration at the moment are meant for the game with physical (or emulated) CDROM, installed with real registry.
Things that remain to be made:
1) hook the keyboard configurator from the main exe
2) fix the intro movie split in two parts (I think I found this problem in another game, let me recall it ...)
3) use fake CD
4) use fake registry (I saw there is at least one system call that needs to be wrapped yet!!)
5) scale the pause image "be all you can be" (see screenshot)
Is DxWnd able to get this running properly?
It's an extremely problematic game to run. It requires Compatibility Mode (Windows 95) or else it refuses to launch. I believe it also requires 8-bit (256) color.
Then the colors do no look right. And neither DgVoodoo nor DxWnd seems able to make the window full screen.
I took this game out of curiosity and I confirm that it is the same for me. The colors are displaying badly because the 256 colors mode is enabled, and this mode must be enabled in the exe file properties for the game to start at all. Another interesting observations:
1. Normally, to run the game, you also need to have Windows 95 compatibility mode enabled in the exe file properties. But if this compatibility mode is turned off, and you turn it on in DxWnd (Fake Version set to Win 95) and in the Hook you set the "Injection mode" to "Inject Suspended Process", then (with the obligatory 256 colors running) the game displays worse than how to run compatibility mode in the exe file properties
2. You can get a black window with the game and a message on its background to turn on 256 colors after setting the color palette in the Video tab in the "Initial virtual color setting" section to 8 BPP and selecting "No DWM" in the "Window style" section. With this message, the game is no longer leading us and there is no "Go-To" button
3. When selecting a tank, pressing H crashes the game almost immediately
4. And in turn, after selecting the full screen in the game, the game sends the message "DDERR_UNSUPPORTED"
Hmm it seems to work for me in Win7 with DxWnd. This configuration works with VirtualCD or with real CD (I think). So far I have not been able to configure with DxWnd FakeCD.
1) Copy to your destination folder files from the CD:
RFIRE.BIN and \Langs\RFireEng.dll.
Copy RFIRE.BIN to RFIRE.EXE and rename RFireEng.dll to lang.dll.
2)Change your drive letter in the Main-Folder (from f:).
3) Change the path in regreturnfire0.reg and import file.
I did not use compatibility mode.
Did not work. The game throws a DDERR_INVALIDCAPS message when it starts
Now I tried it in Win10 and it worked too. Unfortunately, I don't know what your problem
OK, after turning off the full screen, the message disappears, but the game either wants to have 256 colors turned on (as this option is turned off in the game's exe file properties) or it displays in the wrong colors after turning on these 256 colors
Yeah, broken colors and lack of fullscreen are the issues for me.
Oh and I also get no music.
Ok, here's an example of what it should look like. In the first picture it is necessary to set in flag Folder:
your virtual CD-ROM drive with a mapped game image (I believe it will work well with a physical drive).
Can't use DxWnd FakeCD, I tried it, but the game was still looking for data in the C: root folder. Maybe there's something FakeCD can't handle, and the gho could fix it when he will has time.
It is necessary to have the game in Fullscreen mode, see the picture with the registry, otherwise there will be no good colors. Fullscreen can also be selected in the game via F4.
The keyboard configuration will not run inside the game, but it can be done from the outside.
Make a copy of my profile and in Path: give the path to the CnfgEng.bin file in my case (F:\Langs\CnfgEng.bin).
Remember to remove compatibility mode from exe files.
If it still doesn't work then I don't know...
Last edit: huh 2020-07-19
Doesn't work. If I go full screen A) it literally changes the desktop resolution to 640 x 480 (so what the heck is DxWnd doing here?) and B) I still get the "Invalid DD_CAPS" error.
Maybe try running DxWnd as an administrator.
I assume you don't have the compatibility mode set to RFIRE.EXE (this would definitely not work).
I also assume you are using the renamed RFIRE.BIN (with RFire.exe from the root CD folder it will not work). Maybe your graphics card may be cause, but these are just guesses.
When you turn on logging, is a log file created in the game folder?
Last edit: huh 2020-07-19
Last edit: huh 2020-07-19
I think I already know why it does not work for me and for OP. If I understood correctly from the iso image of this game, I should copy the RFire.bin file exactly, rename it to RFire.exe, also rename the RFireEng.dll file to lang.dll, use your reg file before changing the path to the one where I unpacked the game and then use your dxw file, making sure that in the "Folder" field there is the letter under which I have the image of the CD with this game?
Yes, that's how it works for me. I don't understand what you mean by a sentence
It should be like on picture rf6.
Last edit: huh 2020-07-19
I meant that first open your reg file with notepad and change the path there to where the game is installed
Ah, yes, it should be so. Then import the file into the registry.
I did as you wrote it and the game started in the right colors (finally!), But after the first logo it crashed. When I read a crash dump as the probable cause my debugger determines that it was avifil32.dll. Any ideas? I have Windows 10 2004, maybe that's why?
Last edit: MrPepka 2020-07-19
I think I had the same problem in the beginning until I had set the paths correctly. I tried it on Win10 - 2004 yesterday and it worked so I don't think that's it. I believe the videos are in the Cinepak codec. I have a black bar in the middle of the video, the same behavior as "Sid Meier's Gettysburg!".
Exactly the paths match. And you have the K-Lite codec pack installed on your computer?
I do not use K-Lite. Currently I only have ffdshow and Cinepak is off here. The problem with the black bar in "Sid Meier's Gettysburg!" occurred only with the intro and the videos were fine (here are the videos in Intel Indeo). I enabled Stretch ActiveMovie window and that was it. Here it is the opposite (intro ok, videos with black bar) and it does not work with this flag.
It doesn't solve your problem, I'm just describing the same behavior I have here with another game.
Maybe K-Lite is my problem? And would you check this game on another computer where also K-Lite is? I would be grateful
Unfortunately I don't have another computer here. LavFilters used to be on the computer where I tried it yesterday (Win10 2004), but I don't know if I have ever uninstalled it before. I can look, if it's still there tomorrow, but I will not install K-Lite there, sorry.
P.S.
I think the Cinepak decoding library should already be present in the system
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\iccvid.dll
Last edit: huh 2020-07-19
This is my problem I'm talking about. But it's not that bad except this one, the game works for me.
I started looking at the game, there are several things that are not ticking properly. Please, don't hurry to conclusions, it seems that are patches to make ....
Ok, here is some stuff .... the game is quite complicated to handle, so to begin with I just tried to configure it in a defaul way, no fake registry, no fake CD, not even a change in the installation path! Let's go with order.
To install the game it is necessary to use Windows compatibility mode Win98 and reduced color 8bit or the installer
\AUTORUN\AUTORUN.EXEwon't start. I tried to install the game to my usual game folder policyc:\Games\Return Fire, but apparently that didn't work while the proposedc:\Program Files(x86)\Return Firewas ok. Maybe that happens only to me, who knows?The game engine is RFIRE.BIN, no need to rename it, DxWnd doesn't care. It requires the usual tricks to set fake OS and color depth from start, but the game uses the palette in a peculiar way that wasn't managed properly by DxWnd. Here in attach the patched dxwnd.dll, hoping that the risky change I made won't break compatibility with other games. We will see ...
To make the game run you may need to configure the keyboard and joystick. That is made by a separate executable that requires to be run by the game with early hook and this doesn't work (ach!). The trick is to run the configurator by yourself through a second entry in the game configuration. In attach the two exports. Note: the configuration at the moment are meant for the game with physical (or emulated) CDROM, installed with real registry.
Things that remain to be made:
1) hook the keyboard configurator from the main exe
2) fix the intro movie split in two parts (I think I found this problem in another game, let me recall it ...)
3) use fake CD
4) use fake registry (I saw there is at least one system call that needs to be wrapped yet!!)
5) scale the pause image "be all you can be" (see screenshot)
Quite a lot of stuff. One step at a time.