Wcdx - Kilrathi Saga for modern Windows
- Thread starter Stinger
- Start date
delMar
Rear Admiral
Hey @Stinger,
It would be absolutely the most awesomest if you could patch in some functionality that allows for creating special mod .exe files.
So, if we were to build some SM1.5 (thanks to the great work of @UnnamedCharacter), it would be cool to be able to just name the files CAMP.003, etc. instead of having to replace the .002 file with the modded one.
We would have 997 slots available for mods...
In the original SM2.exe, the byte sequence to look for is this:
b8 02 00 50 9a 48
The 02 has to be replaced with the according number.
Unfortunately, setting this to 03 does not work. It just crashes the game.
Thanks
It would be absolutely the most awesomest if you could patch in some functionality that allows for creating special mod .exe files.
So, if we were to build some SM1.5 (thanks to the great work of @UnnamedCharacter), it would be cool to be able to just name the files CAMP.003, etc. instead of having to replace the .002 file with the modded one.
We would have 997 slots available for mods...
In the original SM2.exe, the byte sequence to look for is this:
b8 02 00 50 9a 48
The 02 has to be replaced with the according number.
Unfortunately, setting this to 03 does not work. It just crashes the game.
Thanks
delMar
Rear Admiral
Absolutely! Take your time!
Btw, it does not need to be a sophisticated solution.
Some byte offset and the game not crashing would be enough
cff
Kilk'dymga'qith laq Ik'vikvi
I've probably played it a couple dozen time more often then you (only the DOS version tho if that matters), but I still don't know what you are talking about. WC2 DOES have its bugs, but I am not aware of any related to the transfer function.
Well, I started out playing the DOS-version of WC on a CRT-monitor that gave me more control over the picture than my TFT today. And I would fiddle with the width/height-controls until the result made some sense, e.g. the background planets looked more like globes rather than eggs, so that's probably why I'm so used to viewing the graphic at something else than perfect 4:3 ratio
The problem is that the image-rotation routine in WC assumes square pixels for its calculations, though. If a spacecraft or other rotatable object in view at a fixed distance is rotated from a horizontal towards a vertical orientation, it gets noticably longer and thinner with non-square pixels, pretty much the same distortion effect that you get with 4:3 material stretched to 16:9 (what I also dislike, btw., for that very reason), just rotated by 90 degrees.
But I will ask Denis as you suggested and take his oppinion as the final word on this. I wanted to ask him something about the Scimitar's cockpit anyway.
I'll have to verify that at some point, but you may be correct about how rotation was done. (Sigh... yet another thing for me to look at.) I did some investigating with the raw image resources. In some places, it's very clear that stretching to 4:3 is the right thing to do.
Here's the planet from the victory sequence:
Here it is again, stretched appropriately for 8:5 -> 4:3 conversion (pixels 6/5 higher than wide):
Just in case it's not very obvious which one is more circular, I've drawn circles around them using Paint.NET's ellipse tool (holding shift to force a perfect circle):
Clearly, the stretched version is better.
Here's another example, this one from PLANETS.VGA:
...and with the same circular highlights:
Problem solved, debate over!
...Right?
...Except for these, also from PLANETS.VGA (uploading only the highlighted versions because of image limits in posts):
(The sun has a blue highlight because the red one was too difficult to see. At this size and against this background, the blue isn't much better. Sorry.)
So it looks like some of the resources were created with stretching in mind, and others weren't. That makes it a little more difficult to decide on a "correct" answer.
My conclusion:
There are inconsistencies in the in-flight artwork, but all of the surrounding stuff (the cockpits, the sequences between missions) all look much better (to me) at 4:3 than 8:5. Monitors of the time were all 4:3. Players at the time (almost always) played at 4:3. 4:3 is therefore still the best default ratio, although there is some inconsistency in spaceflight.
I'm looking forward to his response!But I will ask Denis as you suggested and take his oppinion as the final word on this. I wanted to ask him something about the Scimitar's cockpit anyway.
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Shades2585
none
I agree, 4:3 is the only way to go.
It took a bit longer than I'd planned, but 1.2 beta2 is finally here! Here's my list of fixes:
- Planets are now visible in the stellar background and in the Wing1 victory sequence.
- SM1 and SM2 now correctly search the local path for streams before looking for a CD (Wing1 already did this).
- Fixed window title.
- Joystick menu navigation now works correctly, showing the correct cursor and help text.
The joystick cursor issue took a lot more work than I was expecting. The bug may actually have been a result of some of the changes I made; it's possible that this feature worked correctly in the originally released Kilrathi Saga. Originally, the joystick handling code for the gameflow sequences would reposition the mouse cursor by calling the Windows SetCursorPos API. I think the resulting mouse "movement" would then trigger the code that updated the cursor image. As part of my changes aimed at making the game play nice with Windows systems, I removed all calls to SetCursorPos, so the second part of that sequence couldn't happen. Instead, I've reworked the joystick code to explicitly tell the rest of the game that the cursor position has been updated, and the gameflow sequences respond by updating the cursor image in the appropriate fashion.
The new binaries are up on the first post. As always, give them a try and let me know how it goes!
Happy flying!
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I'm sorry; I somehow missed this one. To your question: I'm using IDA Pro. I've never yet tried Olly, mainly because IDA is so very good at what it does, and I'm used to all the keyboard shortcuts and commands. Olly at least won't cost you your firstborn child for a license...
Runs Great! You've done such an amazing job.
I don't expect you to support it or anything, but I thought you would like to know it all runs well in Wine on my Mac as well thanks to the dx9 calls. Vanilla would crash otherwise. Only shame is the game doesn't detect the joystick through wine. Wine is very hit and miss with its joystick support. Some games like Prophecy/Secretops/Standoff that must address the joystick directly work just fine. Others that call upon direct input like Xwing 95 series doesn't find it at all....
I don't expect you to support it or anything, but I thought you would like to know it all runs well in Wine on my Mac as well thanks to the dx9 calls. Vanilla would crash otherwise. Only shame is the game doesn't detect the joystick through wine. Wine is very hit and miss with its joystick support. Some games like Prophecy/Secretops/Standoff that must address the joystick directly work just fine. Others that call upon direct input like Xwing 95 series doesn't find it at all....
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I just noticed, I was playing the dos version of SM2 and realized that the first mission had different planets then the KS version. In fact the planets in the first mission of KS's SM2 were the same as the first mission of the Vega Campaign. I noticed SM1 had the same issue too.
Thanks, I'll take a look. It's probably just reading from camp.000 when it should be looking at camp.001 (SM1) or camp.002 (SM2).
Edit: Yup, that's definitely the problem. The game loads the planet info before it knows which campaign you're playing. Interestingly, it looks like this only affects new games, not loaded games. Should be an easy fix.
Edit: Yup, that's definitely the problem. The game loads the planet info before it knows which campaign you're playing. Interestingly, it looks like this only affects new games, not loaded games. Should be an easy fix.
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More on the planets:
Locally, I've fixed the camp.00x loading issue, but SM2 has another problem. It never loads planets1.vga at all! It's currently crashing for me when attempting to load a planet image. (Not the beta, just a private version I'm working with.) This will take a little longer...
Edit: I've now fixed this locally. It'll be in the next update.
Locally, I've fixed the camp.00x loading issue, but SM2 has another problem. It never loads planets1.vga at all! It's currently crashing for me when attempting to load a planet image. (Not the beta, just a private version I'm working with.) This will take a little longer...
Edit: I've now fixed this locally. It'll be in the next update.
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Shades2585
none
Nice Work! 
Thank-you so much! You sent me down a rabit hole to discover just what the status of winmm in macwine was, only for me to discover that it didn't exist until a patch that was made yesterday! I'm compiling a new version of wine and crossing my fingers.
Also thanks for looking in to the planet issue!
[EDIT]
Dang not yet, it crashes when it detects the joystick. But it's a start
[EDIT]
He just fixed the error in his patch and it works now!
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Good timing!