DirectX Retained Mode

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budious
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Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2007 10:55 am

DirectX Retained Mode

Post by budious »

Good work on ReactOS. I downloaded the 0.3.1 .iso and installed on VM Server to make my image, I know you guys had one but I wanted to customize. I was curious about support of directx so far, I heard that you have taken some portions of Wine to integrate with ReactOS for directx support. Is ReactOS capable of rendering dx2 retained mode as of 0.3.1 (functionality of d3drm.dll)?

My case study, you can skip this and just answer my question(s) :D
Getting to the short, I noticed that some software mode games, UT2004 would already work in ReactOS. I was attempting to get an older 1998 title called Star Wars Rebellion to port over to ReactOS just for my own novelity. In linux and bsd, Wine supports the required dx2 retained mode (d3drm.dll) function, I so far had not been successful in getting the executable working in ReactOS (yeah... i know its alpha, this is just an inquiry). Note that the game installer would not work so I was attempting to build my own install and manipulate the registry manually (I notice ReactOS regedit.exe is not so stable at the moment). I have the appropriate keys (having previously ported the game to XP x64 registry compatibility) and branch knowledge. Just a matter of getting them in there, I don't suppose I could write a .reg file in notepad and right-click merge anytime soon?! :lol:

Anyways, keep up the good work.
Radhad
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Post by Radhad »

AFAIK the DirectX support get's self implemented because in WINE the DirectX calls get translated and used with OpenGL. GreatLord works on DirectX 2 to 7 or so. I think that needs time that some games run with DirectX :) Although DirectX 2 is rather old ;) I cannot speak for GreatLord, but maybe some Debug-Output would help?
dark
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Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2005 9:40 pm

Re: DirectX Retained Mode

Post by dark »

budious wrote: I was attempting to get an older 1998 title called Star Wars Rebellion to port over to ReactOS just for my own novelity.
Was it for windows 9x (95,98,ME) series OSes? I understand there's no 9x subsystem in ReactOS, so nothing made for those OSes will work.
budious
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Post by budious »

Well... I don't know what subsystems it requires. I know the original installer application is 16-bit which does not work with ReactOS or x64 Windows. The game however, is 32-bit and can run in x64 variants with a rewritten installer. The game was originally released for Windows 95/98 giving it's era, but I have run it on NT4 Workstation with no problems.
Z98
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Post by Z98 »

frik85 actually experimented with using the installers for various MS Office versions and the older ones use a 16-bit installer to start off. He got the installer running, so something might be in place for this stuff.
budious
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Post by budious »

I ended up putting the registry files in a .txt file and using the import feature to merge the changes. The autorun of the game cd detects the registry entries and gives me the option to play as highlighted. Registry taken care of, next step. I manually copied all the files from the cd to the appropriate directory and child directories. Everything that is in place and tried to execute the game.exe to launch but nothing happened. Tried the -w switch from command line for windowed mode but still nothing. I guess at this point whatever is needed is not supported yet, I'll try again in future builds.
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Jaix
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DirectX rewrite

Post by Jaix »

Actually, it's a bigger chance to get games working on 0.2.8 - 0.3.0 because GreatLord's rewrite of Ddraw. Yet another thing is that Winesupports DX from 2-9 but ReactOS will only support the same as Windows (DX 8-9 (or what ever the numbers were) for now and hopefully 10 later).
When 0.3.2 is released we hope DX will be back at the same level as before 0.3.1 though.
budious
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Post by budious »

I will keep an eye on the project. I hope you can keep ReactOS more backwards compatible than Windows. The fact is that while Microsoft claims that directx is entirely backwards compatible this is completely false with Vista. Vista x86/x64 editions exclude the d3drm.dll which supports the directx retained mode. The file is not installed by downloading and installing the monthly directx9 updates either. I have tried implementng the XP x64 version of the file into Vista x64 with no success. Just another reason I won't be using Vista. This mode as I am familar with it links the graphics of direct draw and pipes it into the hardware acceleration of directx sort as a "hybrid" mode. I'm not sure how many applications actually use it but it was originally introduced in directx2.
Radhad
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Post by Radhad »

Yesterday I have installed "The Curse of Monkey Island" which needs DirectX 5. due to the fact it can't find a Direct3D dll I have to run it in a compatibility mode for Win98 / Me - but this let's the cursor hanging while moving the mouse fast. As you can think, installing DirectX 5 didn't help. This was reproducable with on a 3 GHz Pentium 4 as on an AMD Athlon64 3700+.

Why should RectOS only support DirectX 7 - 9 or so? Why not supporting nearly all different versions of DirectX? I hope a lot of people would like to play such old games native instead of using a compatibility mode. If this OS should get Gamers first choice it should also support old games which needed older versions of DirectX.
GreatLord
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Post by GreatLord »

the kernel api for d3d are not ready
Phalanx
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Post by Phalanx »

Radhad wrote:Why should RectOS only support DirectX 7 - 9 or so? Why not supporting nearly all different versions of DirectX? I hope a lot of people would like to play such old games native instead of using a compatibility mode. If this OS should get Gamers first choice it should also support old games which needed older versions of DirectX.
That should be looked at after, esp when the majority of users and useful programs are using newer api. After all, those old api are already there and people would own a licence to them in 99% of the cases.
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