I got some significant progresses with "Wizardry GOLD".
I made a full install from the USA CD using a folder name with no spaces to bypass a mciSendString parsing problem (the game doesn't wrap the movie path with quotes, so it throws a file not found error).
Then I applied the official wizgold-patch-11a1.zip patch (that is a simple executable replacement).
To make the game playable I had to use a few tricks:
1) do NOT set the "Synchronize GDI to ddraw palette" flag because for some reason it crashes the game
2) make a hack for the creation of the "Wizardry Gold Automap" window to keep it as a child of the actual desktop
3) set a custom resolution of 640x440 pixels
4) used a fake-CD folder to place there the CD help folder
Other tricks (probably also some redundant ones) are in the attached profile, that I'm going to refine.
With all these tricks the game seems fully playable, though the automap doesn't show and I have the feeling that an automap could be really important in this game, or you will keep blindly bumping against walls and trees. I will see if I can fix that as well, though you are warned: the game is really old-style and it is really dull compared with more recent RPG games.
Another interesting fact is that the "Emulate help" option, based on winevdm sources, can handle the legacy help files only partially, showing only the main index page.
Another interesting fact is that the "Emulate help" option, based on winevdm sources, can handle the legacy help files only partially, showing only the main index page.
Good. As soon as there will be an updated winhlp32.exe I'll test it.
BTW the game has also a bigger and more complex help file WIZ.HLP (12 MB compared with the smaller WIZMAN.HLP of only 3 MB), it would be interesting to see how it works in this situation.
On my updated Win11 I found that it is still possible to run the Microsoft help instead of the stub browser page, so it should be possible to test the winevdm version through-fully by comparison.
Well done. The help no longer crashes and I started to compare the two help managers.
Of course there are some trivial differences that matter nothing, like a different program icon and pop-up helpers formatting, but maybe I found something that curiously could be important if someone wants to use the help maps:
it seems that the winevdm winhlp32.exe is not handling the dotted lines. Look closely at the different rendering in the attached two screenshots about the Orkogre Castle:
The image is drawn correctly but those outlines are hotspots which can be clicked on (in winehelp the cursor changes to a finger). Winehelp just uses msftedit for all the display and doesn't do any drawing itself so that probably can't be fixed at least very easily.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Also Microsoft winhlp32.exe does the same, change the cursor to the pointing hand, so the dotted line is not essential to get the hotspot text. It seems ok.
P.s. i you ever run the game in a more native mode, do you know how the "Wizardry Gold Automap" window is supposed to work? I used a trick to make it disappear, but I don't think this is the supposed behavior.
Last edit: gho 2 days ago
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I got some significant progresses with "Wizardry GOLD".
I made a full install from the USA CD using a folder name with no spaces to bypass a mciSendString parsing problem (the game doesn't wrap the movie path with quotes, so it throws a file not found error).
Then I applied the official wizgold-patch-11a1.zip patch (that is a simple executable replacement).
To make the game playable I had to use a few tricks:
1) do NOT set the "Synchronize GDI to ddraw palette" flag because for some reason it crashes the game
2) make a hack for the creation of the "Wizardry Gold Automap" window to keep it as a child of the actual desktop
3) set a custom resolution of 640x440 pixels
4) used a fake-CD folder to place there the CD help folder
Other tricks (probably also some redundant ones) are in the attached profile, that I'm going to refine.
With all these tricks the game seems fully playable, though the automap doesn't show and I have the feeling that an automap could be really important in this game, or you will keep blindly bumping against walls and trees. I will see if I can fix that as well, though you are warned: the game is really old-style and it is really dull compared with more recent RPG games.
Another interesting fact is that the "Emulate help" option, based on winevdm sources, can handle the legacy help files only partially, showing only the main index page.
Last edit: gho 3 days ago
I've made a fix for this at https://github.com/otya128/winevdm/pull/1532 .
Good. As soon as there will be an updated winhlp32.exe I'll test it.
BTW the game has also a bigger and more complex help file WIZ.HLP (12 MB compared with the smaller WIZMAN.HLP of only 3 MB), it would be interesting to see how it works in this situation.
On my updated Win11 I found that it is still possible to run the Microsoft help instead of the stub browser page, so it should be possible to test the winevdm version through-fully by comparison.
You can get the CI artifact https://ci.appveyor.com/project/otya128/winevdm/builds/52642115/job/vdarv2r8yn81x53i/artifacts . Both help files are very simple so the actual output isn't a problem, just one of the macros.
Well done. The help no longer crashes and I started to compare the two help managers.
Of course there are some trivial differences that matter nothing, like a different program icon and pop-up helpers formatting, but maybe I found something that curiously could be important if someone wants to use the help maps:
it seems that the winevdm winhlp32.exe is not handling the dotted lines. Look closely at the different rendering in the attached two screenshots about the Orkogre Castle:
The image is drawn correctly but those outlines are hotspots which can be clicked on (in winehelp the cursor changes to a finger). Winehelp just uses msftedit for all the display and doesn't do any drawing itself so that probably can't be fixed at least very easily.
Also Microsoft winhlp32.exe does the same, change the cursor to the pointing hand, so the dotted line is not essential to get the hotspot text. It seems ok.
P.s. i you ever run the game in a more native mode, do you know how the "Wizardry Gold Automap" window is supposed to work? I used a trick to make it disappear, but I don't think this is the supposed behavior.
Last edit: gho 2 days ago