Thief 1/2 & SShock 2: DDFix and Enhanced Resolution Patch - discussion

[sNeaksieGarrett]

But why does it even mention system shock 1? Correct me if I'm wrong, but this thread has nothing to do with SS1. (just going off of the original thread post.)

[Bikerdude]

But why does it even mention system shock 1? Correct me if I'm wrong, but this thread has nothing to do with SS1. (just going off of the original thread post.)

... because all the games are based on the same engine/s T1-SS1 & T2-SS2. This thread is 2yrs old, and no one has brought this up before......

[ZylonBane]

... because all the games are based on the same engine/s T1-SS1 & T2-SS2.

Ummm... no. SS1 is based on the Ultima Underworld engine. It's an entirely software-based renderer which has absolutely nothing to do with the Dark engine.

[Bikerdude]

SS1 is based on the Ultima Underworld engine. .

I stand corrected, will remove references to SS1 - but I have to ask why hasnt anyone pointed this out in over 2yrs up untill now..?

[ZylonBane]

I stand corrected, will remove references to SS1 - but I have to ask why hasnt anyone pointed this out in over 2yrs up untill now..?

Was SS1 always in the title?

[Nameless Voice]

It's actually been annoying me for ages, but I only just worked up the required effort to make a sarcastic comment (as keeping with the forum etiquette) about it now.

[Bikerdude]

Was SS1 always in the title?

its been 2 years dude, so I cant be sure.

It's actually been annoying me for ages, but I only just worked up the required effort to make a sarcastic comment

I didnt notice, I just thought it was a plain comment, make more effort next time

[Bikerdude]

I had the same problem on Window7 64bit, so i made the manual approach.

Since it does not seem to be windows 7 specific I guess it is 64bit specific.
My guess, since it is a .net program, is that it is calling into 32 bit dll's but the CLR's JIT compiles the application to 64bit. 32bit + 64bit code does not work that well

Changing the platform target of the project's properties to x86 explicitly and recompile it would solve the problem as it would force the CLR to always run it at 32 bit

Arse I didnt think yo check this untill now...and sure enough it wont fire up.

[NoMis]

Arse I didnt think yo check this untill now...and sure enough it wont fire up. how do i check if DDfixgui is a 16 or 32bit app..

It's neither if its written in .NET (which I guess, since thats mentioned as requirement).
.NET actually is not compiling to machine code but to IL (intermediate language). If the Programm is run on the target machine, the just in time compiler (JIT) compiles this IL to machine code. Because the JIT takes the target machine into account, it compiles the code to 32 bit on a 32 bit system and 64 bit on a 64 bit system.
If the program calls arbitrary 32 bit code than you have a problem on 64 bit machines, because 64 bit code can't be mixed with 32 bit.
I think this is whats happening here.
However, the program can be compiled in such a way, that the JIT will always produce 32 bit code. I explained it in my previous post.

[Bikerdude]

I just figured that out.. doh! Window7 like vista dosent come with .net, you have to ad it via "turn windows features on or off" in w7. Im about to reboot and see if that worked.

[NoMis]

After looking a bit more into the gui problem I found out that my initial assumption was correct. DDFixGui.exe calls functions of the ddfixgui.dll. The dll contains 32 bit code. Do fix this, ddfixgui needs to be compiled with /platform x86, to make sure it runs as a 32 bit application even on 64 bit windows.

Here is a screen shot of the project properties dialog in VS 2008:

[Bikerdude]

After looking a bit more into the gui problem I found out that my initial assumption was correct. DDFixGui.exe calls functions of the ddfixgui.dll. The dll contains 32 bit code. Do fix this, ddfixgui needs to be compiled with /platform x86, to make sure it runs as a 32 bit application even on 64 bit windows.

Dude, you seem to know what your doing, the 1.3.11 source coded is freely available (http://timeslip.chorrol.com/ddfix.html), can you sort this out for us..?

.

[NoMis]

Unfortunately the source package from there only contains the source for the actual ddfix.dll. Can't find sources for the GUI version there. Maybe I'm blind though.

But luckily the exe can be changed afterwards with the corflags tool from the .NET SDK.

For the time being I downloaded the newest ddfix from timeslips website and used the corflags tool to apply the 32bit flag. But it should be fixed in the sourcecode as well that next time a new version is released we don't have to use the workaround again.

Heres an upload at rapidshare http://rapidshare.com/files/289328070/ddfixG.7z.html
Can only be downloaded 10 time however since I don't have a premium account.

[Kolya]

Mirror: http://www.strangebedfellows.de/BIGuploads/ddfixG.7z

[sNeaksieGarrett]

Awesome. I don't use x64, but I'm sure these other taffers will appreciate what you did

[Bikerdude]

Ill put that file up on the 1st post, well done that man.

[NoMis]

Just a quick follow up regarding your update on the first page. The fixed version will also work on any 32bit system because it basically always starts as a 32bit application. So you might update the download link and tell people that it "just works"

[Child Of Karras]

Is it possible to integrate AntiAliasing into the ddfix engine? I think Thief would look much nicer with it on TFTs, however I can't force it using my graphics driver application.

[Bikerdude]

Is it possible to integrate AntiAliasing into the ddfix engine? I think Thief would look much nicer with it on TFTs, however I can't force it using my graphics driver application.

you just force it in the gfx card control panel dude.

[Child Of Karras]

Like I've written that's exactly what I can't do in my graphics control panel.

[mudi]

What kind of video card do you have? There should at least be a 3rd party app to force antialiasing.

[Child Of Karras]

Intel GMA 945.

[Bikerdude]

Having grabbed Timeslip's source and recompiled DDFix so I could do some investigation, I'm not too surprised that we're having such problems with fog. Thief2 passes 4D homogenous coordinates to a D3D3 device which I'm guessing is probably outside IHV's support path. These days, developers usually pass 3D object-space vertices to a vertex shader together with the transformation matrices needed to project the verts into clip-space. T2 effectively does the work of the vertex shader itself. Add the fact that modern GPU's don't have any fixed-function hardware anymore and convert fixed-function device state into runtime-generated programmable shaders and you start to wonder what some drivers actually do when confronted with a path as comparatively unusual as "old" Direct3D3 API calls with 4D homogenous vertices. Purely a guess, but I would not be surprised if the fog switch was being ignored by some drivers.

Hmmm. I guess it would be possible to change Timeslip's wrapper so it creates a D3D9 device internally, translates the D3D3 calls and uses programmable shaders - we could then do whatever we want in the pixel shader. The vertex shader would just pass-thru the data to the pixel shader and after the homogenous divide we would have a depth value we could use to apply our own fog calculation to the colour output from the pixel shader. A lot work just to fix fog!

BTW If we ever get the official T2 source code one of the primary areas of improvement would be to offload the transformations to the GPU.

should young SiO2 take up the challenge, that is....

[sNeaksieGarrett]

Biker, that might as well be greek... Highly technical stuff he was saying there. I basically got that thief 2 uses fog in a way that is different from modern graphics cards....

[Bikerdude]

Biker, that might as well be greek... Highly technical stuff he was saying there. I basically got that thief 2 uses fog in a way that is different from modern graphics cards....

which is why I am really hoping he/she will take up development of DDfix..