Shivers 2 for XP/Vista

[Tawmis]

I am looking for my Shivers 2 CD right now. This is why I'd love no CD needed for these games!

[jafa]

Hi,

0x8876086c usually means your video card doesn't support a Direct3D feature the game is trying to use.

"Direct3D failed to display" is a presentation problem - most likely your video card does not support bilinear interpolation.

What kind of video card do you have?

Nick

[Collector]

It is an older card, an ATI 9800 All-In-Wonder AGP. I am going to put together a new PC this summer, but I am stuck with this one for the time being. This is my first time with an ATI card. I must say that I have not been very happy with it.

[jafa]

It is an older card, an ATI 9800 All-In-Wonder AGP. I am going to put together a new PC this summer, but I am stuck with this one for the time being. This is my first time with an ATI card. I must say that I have not been very happy with it.

Interesting.

My XP and Vista development machines both have ATI 9250 PCI cards in them... both work without issue.

The ATI cards do a better job of upscaling DirectDraw. nVidia was the reason I switched over to using Direct3D... DirectDraw upscaling on the nVidia cards was terrible

Do you have the latest drivers from ATI installed?

Go into the control panel for the ATI drivers and look for any performance configuration. The term "performance" means "disable features so the frame rate goes up"

[jafa]

BTW - there is a new 20080602 release on the website.

Nick

[Collector]

I did not see the 20080602 driver. I already had the one I saw listed, but I rolled back the driver and reinstalled it. This seems to have fixed what ever was going on with it. Is there anyway to restore the option to play it in a window again?

[jafa]

I did not see the 20080602 driver. I already had the one I saw listed, but I rolled back the driver and reinstalled it. This seems to have fixed what ever was going on with it. Is there anyway to restore the option to play it in a window again?

Sorry, 20080602 is a new Shivers 2 release on the squirtthecat website.

Is it playing ok now?

There is no option for windowed operation.

Nick

[Collector]

It seems to be OK, though I have not played very far.

There is no option for windowed operation.

There is an option in the settings for windowed play in the original, but it does not work with the patched executable.

BTW, did you get a chance to get any more of a look at the KQ6 executable?

[jafa]

It seems to be OK, though I have not played very far.

Great to hear.

There is an option in the settings for windowed play in the original, but it does not work with the patched executable.

There is the half-screen option for the cutscenes - this worked the last time I tried. I will look for the window option.

BTW, did you get a chance to get any more of a look at the KQ6 executable?

Yep... working on it. I have extended my assembly regeneration tool to support NE file format (old 16-bit). There are still a few quirks.

Nick

[Tawmis]

So I got it to work - however - the panning speed - even turned ALL the way down - is still turning WAY too fast. It takes effort to slowly turn.

[Collector]

BTW, did you get a chance to get any more of a look at the KQ6 executable?

Yep... working on it. I have extended my assembly regeneration tool to support NE file format (old 16-bit). There are still a few quirks.

Nick

It would be nice if it could be recompiled as 32bit and not have to use NTVDM and WOW, though I doubt it can be. This may be moot as Windows 7 may finally break backwards compatibility.

[jafa]

I found the byte in the savegame file that sets the scroll/spin speed.

It will slow down further by changing this byte.

Still tracing through how the game does the timing. As far as I can tell the spin speed is not related to any windows timer.

Nick

[jafa]

Ok, it is a bit of a hack but you can now select a slower panning speed:
http://www.squirtthecat.com/sierra/shivers_2/index.html

Nick

[Tawmis]

I will check this out when I get home then!

[jafa]

Hi,

Any idea what the "internet" feature in Shivers 2 is about?

Nick