ddhack final - wc1-3ks, wc4cd support

sol_hsa

2nd Lieutenant
Okiedokie.

http://iki.fi/sol/ddhack/

I've released ddhack 1.0, most likely the final version ever, unless something weird happens. I did a quick cleanup of the source code, and released it as well, as promised, so if someone wants to take it for a spin, I won't mind. The page also contains, in story form, what I did and what's what and that sort of stuff.


So What Is It?

DDHack is a direct draw ddraw.dll replacement hack. You place it in the game's directory, and things work better. Hopefully. Supported games are Wing Commanders 1-3 from the Kilrathi Saga box, and the CD version of Wing Commander 4.

Thanks to everyone in the WC CIC community who helped me out; I hope this little hack helps other people than me to enjoy these games on modern systems.
 
your page seems to load very slow and I get an error, that the page cannot be found, when I try to download the first file
 
"Looking sharp, Ace!" :)

Fascinating reading the whole story from start to finish.

By the way, it looks like your root page is more up-to-date than the ddhack page.

Also, I don't know who owns the main site (you?), but I really appreciate the article titled Why?. I dislike Flash generally, but I'll grant that it can be useful in certain cases. Rendering single lines of text is not one of them.
 
By the way, it looks like your root page is more up-to-date than the ddhack page.
Don't know what exactly you're referring to, but this might be a "feature" of the slashdotting the server is still experiencing..
Also, I don't know who owns the main site (you?), but I really appreciate the article titled Why?. I dislike Flash generally, but I'll grant that it can be useful in certain cases. Rendering single lines of text is not one of them.
It's a co-hosting thing, and I'm afraid the other folks are not all too happy about the hammering the server is getting. Never underestimate the power of a full-blown slashdot effect..

Oh, and I told the fellow who wrote that 'why?' article that you liked it.
 
Hey Sol, first of all, thank you very much for this hack, I think it makes the Kilrathi Saga look much better.

Two things I noticed though, when I exit any of the wing commander episodes with the hack enabled, the WC3W.EXE process keeps on running and has to be shut down manually via task manager. When the hack is not used this is not the case.
Do I have to close wing commander in a special way when using the hack?

Another question, the space in wing commander 3 is black instead of the original dark blue. Can I do anything to change that?

Thanks again for this great addition, I hope you can help me with my questions.

Regards,

Arjen
 
Thanks to everyone in the WC CIC community who helped me out; I hope this little hack helps other people than me to enjoy these games on modern systems.

Thank you too! I'm happy with the original graphics, although it's great if a graphical upgrade gets more players playing. What I'm most excited about is the fixing the compatibility issues that you've done!

I wouldn't mind if someone added ddhack to the https://www.wcnews.com/files.shtml kilrathi saga and wc4 sections. =)

Done!

Don't know what exactly you're referring to, but this might be a "feature" of the slashdotting the server is still experiencing..

It's a co-hosting thing, and I'm afraid the other folks are not all too happy about the hammering the server is getting. Never underestimate the power of a full-blown slashdot effect..

Yup, congratulations on that - the CIC got a thousand or so extra visitors today as a byproduct. Glad you found alternate hosting. As an offer for anyone in a similar position in the future, we're also happy to coordinate a release from the CIC front page.

KrisV has spent countless hours (and lots of money) working server magic to ensure that the CIC can withstand a good Slashdotting. It's actually a preemptive defense against the 10X Slashdot that we'll eventually face when they announce the next Wing Commander game, and we love to test it out. :)
 
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Two things I noticed though, when I exit any of the wing commander episodes with the hack enabled, the WC3W.EXE process keeps on running and has to be shut down manually via task manager. When the hack is not used this is not the case.
Do I have to close wing commander in a special way when using the hack?
I haven't noticed this. I've quit the games with alt-x or alt-f4, but I haven't seen the process left behind.

Another question, the space in wing commander 3 is black instead of the original dark blue. Can I do anything to change that?
Oops, that's a lazyness on my part. I detect clear screen, but don't check the color it wants to be cleared. I can't promise a fix at this time as my efforts are needed elsewhere, but I do know what's wrong =)

Only that two pages at different locations appear to be (almost) the same, is all. Looked a bit redundant.
I probably uploaded the page to a wrong place at some point. The front page looks correct at the moment.

Thank you too! I'm happy with the original graphics, although it's great if a graphical upgrade gets more players playing. What I'm most excited about is the fixing the compatibility issues that you've done!
As I've stated before, I wasn't in it for "upgraded graphics", but to get the games to run on win7 without
a) palette corruption
b) blowing up my dual monitor setup too badly
..the filters came in because they were cheap to do. If someone likes them, great.

I find myself misquoted a lot. Many sites claim I've said there's no directdraw on win7. There is. It just doesn't work as well as it could.

Yup, congratulations on [being slashdotted] - the CIC got a thousand or so extra visitors today as a byproduct. Glad you found alternate hosting. As an offer for anyone in a similar position in the future, we're also happy to coordinate a release from the CIC front page.

Alternate hosting? It's still the same server, and it's still being hammered, at a slightly more tolerable pace at the moment..

Surprisingly enough, most of the traffic (that has gotten through, anyway) is not from slashdot but reddit. I assume the slashdot format causes MASSIVE amounts of traffic at a spike, while reddit brings lots of traffic but on a slightly longer timespan.
 
I haven't noticed this. I've quit the games with alt-x or alt-f4, but I haven't seen the process left behind.

I solved the problem for KS: WC1 and KS:WC3 by enabling windows 95 compatibility.
Strangely enough this doesn't work for WC2, when I exit by Alt-F4 or Alt-X the process WC2.EXE is still running in the background, and has to be stopped manually via Task Manager.

Thanks for your response on the black background. I understand that this is not a daytime job for you. Thanks again for the great work you've done so far, maybe when you find some spare time in the future....;)

Regards,

Arjen
 
Yup, congratulations on that - the CIC got a thousand or so extra visitors today as a byproduct. Glad you found alternate hosting. As an offer for anyone in a similar position in the future, we're also happy to coordinate a release from the CIC front page.

KrisV has spent countless hours (and lots of money) working server magic to ensure that the CIC can withstand a good Slashdotting. It's actually a preemptive defense against the 10X Slashdot that we'll eventually face when they announce the next Wing Commander game, and we love to test it out. :)
We should be able to handle games.slashdot.org or reddit just fine. We have a dedicated server, so no one will get upset if the machine gets pounded.
 
Tried it with Privateer 2, sadly it doesn't work. Would've loved to see the game without interlacing...
 
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