Thief 1/2 & SShock 2: DDFix and Enhanced Resolution Patch - discussion - by bikerdude
Timeslip on 14/3/2008 at 14:29
Quote Posted by Hiatus
Q1: can I have vanilla T2 exe and ddfixed one (and .dll+.ini) in game dir simultaneously (with vanilla/ddfixed exe renamed) and just launch them with different shortcuts OR should I move them out of game dir when I launch either of them. Is there any negative side effect of having them all in game dir all the time (only renamed)?
No problem with that at all.
Quote Posted by Hiatus
Q2 (out of curiosity): when in ddfix 1.2.x min required res is now 800x600 whereas in 1.1.x/1.0.x it was 640x480?
So that I can tell whether thief is in game or on a menu screen. When thief calls SetDisplayMode with a 640x480 resolution, ddfix assumes it's displaying the menu, and if it uses any other resolution it assumes it's in game.
I could have done it by hooking a few functions in thief2.exe, but that would have meant that ddfix wouldn't work with thief 1 or SS2, and would have required a specific version of thief 2.
1.1 didn't need to distinguish between game mode and menu mode.
Hiatus on 14/3/2008 at 14:38
btw when testing today older 1.1.1 (DX9) version of ddfix I've noticed sth that I didn't notice before (1.2.x are fine in this regard): level Framed, near the starting point, sky textures: visible cylindrical-shaped BLACK texture seam (only 1 long one) is visible (across nearly whole screen horizontally) - I assume at some sky texture intesections. As I said, thankfully it's gone in 1.2.x but do you have any idea of the cause of it and was it a known issue for you? (Haven't tested skies in other levels re that, and besides - maybe it's ATI specific...)
ps do you have plan to restore screenshot taking functionality in 1.2.x (w/o using external tools like fraps etc) or is it out of question as it could break (too) many things/have other side effects etc?
Timeslip on 14/3/2008 at 14:52
Quote Posted by Hiatus
btw when testing today older 1.1.1 (DX9) version of ddfix I've noticed sth that I didn't notice before (1.2.x are fine in this regard): level Framed, near the starting point, sky texture: visible cylindrical-shaped BLACK texture seam (only 1 long one) is visible (across nearly whole screen horizontally). As I said, thankfully it's gone in 1.2.x but do you have any idea of the cause of it and was it a known issue for you? (Haven't tested skies in other levels re that, and besides - maybe it's ATI specific...)
That was a texture seam between two of the triangle strips that make up the sky. It effected all levels and all graphics cards. I did know about it, it was just one of those annoying little bugs caused by using DX9.
Quote Posted by Hiatus
ps do you have plan to restore screenshot taking functionality in 1.2.x (w/o using external tools like fraps etc) or is it out of question as it could break (too) many things/have other side effects etc?
Does hitting printscreen not work for you, or do you just want .jpg shots back? Saving the screenshots was handled by d3dx9 in 1.1. There's no equivelent to d3dx in DirectX 6 though, so I had to write my own code to save a surface to a file. The bmp file structure was the simplest, and the only one I know well enough to write myself. Adding jpg support back wouldn't break anything, but I'd have to find some ready made jpg saving code that could handle the pitch being different from the width first.
Hiatus on 14/3/2008 at 15:01
Taking SS by print screen (via ddfix 1.2.4) is buggy for me. I've tried to take ss 4 times, and 2 out of 4 it would take several good seconds (freezing the game for that period of course) instead of normal < 1 sec. and produced during that try screenshotx.bmp's were empty (both were only 54 bytes in size). When taking SS by PS was fast/instant (<1s), produced screenshotx.bmp were ok (proper size and contents).
I don't remember now, vanilla T2 was taking SS in pcx? Is it like jpg? Png format would be nice, I guess.
EDIT: just checked: normal screens taken with game-configured keys are all black as expected (named dumpxxx.pcx).
Timeslip on 14/3/2008 at 15:16
Quote Posted by Hiatus
Taking SS by print screen (via ddfix 1.2.4) is buggy for me. I've tried to take ss 4 times, and 2 out of 4 it would take several good seconds (freezing the game for that period of ciurse) instead of normal < 1 sec. and produced during that try screenshotx.bmp's were empty (both were only 54 bytes in size). When taking SS by PS was fast/instant (<1s), produced screenshotx.bmp were ok (proper size and contents).
Odd. Taking screenshots by printscreen should always be slow now. (Takes ~4 seconds on my computer.) It certainly shouldn't take <1 second if the attempt was successfull. :confused:
Anyway, I'm off for the weekend so it's too late to do major anything about it now. I've made one little tweak to my screenshot code, so you can try redownloading and seeing if printscreen is a little less buggy now. (I didn't change the version number; it's still 1.2.4.)
Hiatus on 14/3/2008 at 15:32
just tried again 5 times (with "older" 1.2.4, will try with updated one later) and only 2 attempts were successful - in 3 other cases screenshotx.bmp produced was always 54 bytes in size. Successful attempts were conderably shorter than unsuccessful ones - I could guess at once when given PS attempt will be success or not (and after closing the game I confirmed it). So now I know ~how long successful and unsuccessful attempt takes. I didn't time successful attempt - maybe it's in 1-2 sec range not <1sec (?) but unsuccessful try is always noticeably longer for me (3-4 sec?). I'll try to time them somehow if possible. So in my case successful tries are much shorter for some reason, and unsuccessful take ~the same as your successful even though they are not for me for some reason (reversed situation). Again, maybe it's nVidia vs. ATI specific thing?
Are yours *always* successful (please try 5-10 times)?
Have a good weekend, Timeslip :)
Hiatus on 14/3/2008 at 15:57
fixed! :D
just tested with updated 1.2.4 and out of 9 tries all were now successful (no 54 bytes files produced any more). Taking SS takes <2sec imo (didn't time it exactly but it's much shorter than 4s for sure). I can count to 2 and starting saying "3" (average speed) and game freeze stops and SS is done.
Thank you for fixing this issue before the weekend :thumb:
Nameless Voice on 14/3/2008 at 16:25
Changing the overlay colour in SS2 has rather... humorous results.
The entire screen is a solid block of that colour, with the exception of the parts that are supopsed to be black (the background of the inventory, ammo counter, etc.), which are transparent and allow the world to be seen through them.
Looks like it's done exactly the opposite of what it was supposed to do! :D
bikerdude on 14/3/2008 at 19:25
Quote Posted by Timeslip
after hitting a problem that only affected ATi cards which I couldn't debug myself on account of not owning one, I ended up getting offered an x300. That's certainly never happened in all my time struggling with graphics card specific problems with MGE...
If I had been playing Morrowind when you were developing MGE I would have offered you a card back then :-)
As Ive said before I cant code or have the patience to make FM's. But what I can do is help out Devs and Fm authors with some free hardware to help them along. If it helps the community enjoy playing Thief/Ss2 then I'm more than happy to help. This sort of thing is indicative, that makes this forum better than any other I've used on the net.
biker
