UCyborg

That makes sense. But is this relevant to win32 apps under any circumstance? Manipulating that block seems like something you'd do when running under DOS. Old code that should have been purged when porting to Windows? What are you trying to accomplish with catching writes there? You want to have your own mechanism for handling those?

I noticed that thing with MCI_CLOSE not stopping playback on older OS too. I guess those few games that I've played that play CD audio always do MCI_CLOSE at the very end, so music doesn't just stop when using real CD audio or older DxWnd's virtual CD audio on modern Windows versions. So to prevent locking the device in case of app crash on older OS, you have to close the device after every command and re-open it again when you need to issue another command? Crazy! Is there a story behind the memory...

You're right, I checked the statistics with Process Hacker 2 and the GDI handles count does keep rising. The game seems to leak them either way, but the number rises about 4 times faster with 'primary buffer' option.

Using DxWnd version 2.05.24. I use this option on DirectX tab to get rid of the issue on Windows 10 (probably happens on 8.x too) that makes menu screen go black under certain circumstances, usually happens on its own when transitioning from gameplay to menus, but it can always be reproduced if you use Aero Peek, easy to invoke from the main taskbar from another monitor. The problem is some weird usage of DirectDraw for menus when I76.EXE is invoked with -glide parameter (to enable rendering via...

Using DxWnd version 2.05.24. I use this option on DirectX tab to get rid of the issue on Windows 10 (probably happens on 8.x too) that makes menu screen go black under certain circumstances, usually happens on its own when transitioning from gameplay to menus, but it can always be reproduced if you use Aero Peek, easy to invoke from the main taskbar from another monitor. The problem is some weird usage of DirectDraw for menus when I76.EXE is invoked with -glide parameter (to enable rendering via...

Using latest official version at the time of this writing. I use this option on DirectX tab to get rid of the issue on Windows 10 (probably happens on 8.x too) that makes menu screen go black under certain circumstances, usually happens on its own when transitioning from gameplay to menus, but it can always be reproduced if you use Aero Peek, easy to invoke from the main taskbar from another monitor. The problem is some weird usage of DirectDraw for menus when I76.EXE is invoked with -glide parameter...

No, because there are separate entries for actual compatibility shims, which are left as is.

The problem is some stubborn cache being kept somewhere after you've already launched the game at least once before applying the registry settings.