DESIGN: CtP2 Source Code released - our actions [brainstorm & discussion]

[The Big Mc]

dont you mean micro$oft

[Solver]

Gee, lemurs, where are you? Are all the ideas gone, everyone fainted, or what?

[Peter Triggs]

Well, I've been trying to get to grips with C++.

But it's extra difficult when you're sitting in puddles of sweat. Jeez, it's hot around here lately.

[Solver]

Yup, 40 degrees in Spain and Italy I hear, gee.

Good to see you're preparing for our big adventure .

[Dale]

Hot? It's been averaging 12 degrees (that's celcius of course) for the last 2 months.

[Maquiladora]

I take it a windowed mode is too much work or just plain out of the question?

[J Bytheway]

A windowed mode should be doable. I don't know enough about that kind of thing to know how easy, and it likely depends greatly on how the display code works at persent.

[Locutus]

Windowed mode? Sure, we can do that. Most likely all we have to do is completely rebuild the game from scratch...

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Locutus
Windowed mode? Sure, we can do that. Most likely all we have to do is completely rebuild the game from scratch...

I don't think so.

I don't know of course, how CtP2 is written, but if it is the "usual" Windows code, the output goes not to a device itself (like the screen), but to the operating system using a device context. That's just a data structure, and in terms of input/output it doesn't matter if this DC covers the whole screen or only the client area of a window (with clipping at its borders and maybe scrollbars, of course).

If it goes not straight to the Windows GDI, but through DirectX, things are a bit different. If DirectX 8+ is used (hardly, considering the release date), it should be easy doing by just altering the device initialization from fullscreen to windowed mode. With DirectX 7- (more likely) it's harder, but still doable.

[Solver]

I am pretty confident that it goes through DirectX. I believe dxdiag can find out if the game uses DirectX...

[Locutus]

I'm pretty sure they use DirectX (5 or 6 IIRC).

Sure it's possible (what isn't?), but it's a hell of a lot of work, far more than is worth the trouble, IMHO.

[SMIFFGIG]

theres alot of games that run in windowed mode if u add this to the command like

C:/Program Files/Craptivision/CtP2 -win


however im taking it this dont work for CtP2
i could however just be a disabled function, could it be worth a look through the .exe for "-win"

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by tlatoani
I've read in some posts about problems playing CTP2 with Windows XP, is there anything to this? and if so, can it be fixed via the source code?

I seen a lot of people having problems with CTP2 on Win XP. I have found it to be a non issue. I've run it with XP home for a long time without any problems.

I just built a new system, running under Xp professional, and CTP2 w/ mods and modswapper runs quite smoothly.

Because of my experiences, I can only assume that there is some other issue involved, or else I've just been lucky.

A couple of suggestions:

1. Only play under accounts that have administrator privelages, I have seen this to be an issue with other games, in particular my wife's (got married about 2 weeks ago ) Sims games (I didn't want people to get confused and think they were mine )

2. Make sure that XP is up to date with all service packs etc.

3. If the version of XP, is an upgrade version, it may be necessary to do a complete reinstall.

[Gilgamensch]

Centrifuge,

first:

(got married about 2 weeks ago)

Shall we congratulate or express our sympathy????????????


2nd.

You remember the old joke about the guy calling the help-line:
C: I have a problem
H: OK, what is happening?
C: I installed Windows.
H: And, you already said so.

But fixing problems of CTP2 with Windows (XP), I think that we won't be able to fix any of those really. That is beyond our 'scopes'. A lot of problems are coming through changed handling in Windoofs itself......

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by Gilgamensch
Centrifuge,

first:

(got married about 2 weeks ago)

Shall we congratulate or express our sympathy????????????

How about congratulate for now, and save the sympathy for later on down the road...

Geez, I hope she doesn't read this