And while you can turn off features like JIT to make Java more predictable, performance would take a hit. It would probably be a lot better to create a custom Java Virtual Environment that would make things more controllable.
<ccfreak2k> There is no 'ctrl' button on DeHackEd's computer. DeHackEd is always in control.
I was able to get a ways into Demonophobia on my old comp (running Windows 7) with no problems at all, save states and such all working perfectly, but I had to switch to a new machine that is also running Windows 7 and now I can't get it to work anymore.
I've tried several of the submissions on here and they work fine, but even when I have my settings exactly like they were before, the game still gets stuck on a black screen right before the first dialogue box appears, or more often the window doesn't even come up.
I can't think of anything different between my computers that would cause that to happen. I had to disable timer creation and allow infinite timeouts on my old machine and it would work fine, but not so now. Any ideas?
If you didn't install a graphics driver on your new computer and you installed Windows 7 on it yourself, you're probably using a generic Windows graphics driver instead of the official ATI/NVIDIA/Intel driver. Otherwise you may want to check on that anyway. Also, if the graphics card is a different brand than what you had on your old computer, you may want to look in to compatibility issues, especially if you're using Intel integrated graphics.
<ccfreak2k> There is no 'ctrl' button on DeHackEd's computer. DeHackEd is always in control.
I'm considering buying a Laptop just for hourglass, because I can't get anything to work here on my Win 7 64 bits.
Does hourglass work on a Laptop with Win XP 32 bits as well or must it be a Desktop Computer?
I'm considering buying a Laptop just for hourglass, because I can't get anything to work here on my Win 7 64 bits.
Does hourglass work on a Laptop with Win XP 32 bits as well or must it be a Desktop Computer?
I had to use a VM to get hourglass to run properly since anything non XP makes loading savestates crash frequently for me. :/
I'm considering buying a Laptop just for hourglass, because I can't get anything to work here on my Win 7 64 bits.
Does hourglass work on a Laptop with Win XP 32 bits as well or must it be a Desktop Computer?
Recommended environment is 32-bit WinXP VM (host OS doesn't really matter) on computer having Nvidia GPU.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
synnchan wrote:
I'm considering buying a Laptop just for hourglass, because I can't get anything to work here on my Win 7 64 bits.
Does hourglass work on a Laptop with Win XP 32 bits as well or must it be a Desktop Computer?
How does it not work? We have it running decently on Win 7 x64. (Sure XP works better like mentioned, but I still would like to know)
When I was trying to TAS IWBTG on Win 7, the graphics glitched a lot, and the runs would never sync when played back. When TASing Touhou, they also wouldn't sync, and savestates would crash after loading for the 3rd or 4th time.
These issues don't seem to happen on XP. Unless there's a trick to make it more compatible with Win 7 or something.
(MasterJun's VVVVVV TAS played back fine though)
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Warepire wrote:
I noticed in the source code that you want a more secure way of finding the OS version due to the current one becoming wrong when running Hourglass in compatibility mode.
This is a bit hackish but it should give better results: Get major and minor version numbers of svchost.exe in the System32 folder, at least on XP, XP 64bit, Vista, Win7 and Win8 the major and minor version number is the same as the OS.
The reason to use the svchost.exe file is that no program ever need it (so it is not likely it will ever have a compatibility version) and it's a corner stone of Windows (so it is not likely to be removed in future versions of Windows)
The GetFileVersion-function in the Windows API should do the trick.
EDIT: I was bored, here's an untested function I threw together, it may contain a few errors but it should be close enough to the final implementation to be of help.
Language: C++
/*
svchost.exe versions and their Windows counter parts:
5.2 = XP
6.0 = Vista
6.1 = Win7
6.2 = Win8
*/
if(major == 5 && minor == 2) { return XP; }
if(major == 6)
{
switch(minor)
{
case 0:
{
return VISTA;
break;
}
case 1:
{
return WIN7;
break;
}
case 2:
{
return WIN8;
break;
}
default:
{
break;
}
}
}
Windows XP is 5.1 AND 5.2. Which you get depends on a few criteria, but either is possible.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Recommended environment is 32-bit WinXP VM (host OS doesn't really matter) on computer having Nvidia GPU.
VM, really? Why can't I just use a laptop instead?
Trying to use Fraps or something else to record my videos on a virtual machine would probably make stuff lag LIKE HELL. I really can't see why you're recommending a VM over a normal computer.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Thanks for the compiled list jlun2, knew some, others not. Added all of them to the list except "Syobon Action would fail to start if the System time was set at a certain range", it's possible games will react weird if they get a value that is much lower/higher than they anticipate, there are too many Win32 games to build an internal database and limit the system time to various ranges depending on game. So that specific problem will just have to exist.
synnchan: FRAPS also uses DLL hooking to record video, so there is a very big risk that using FRAPS to dump AVI will cause desyncs or soft-locks.
Ilari: Yeah, save-states are pretty unstable, the biggest problem is threading which I have some ideas for, I already fixed one of the reasons to why thread-wrapping crashes.
Handles in general are a big problem, saving a state with a valid handle, then before loading the state the handle is freed... really bad.
Savestates (many VMs have those, very useful given limitations of hourglass).
You don't necessarily need them though, you can continue from the last frames of the .wtf file. But having a VM is really handy since XP is really lightweight and you won't need to compromise a whole computer with an outdated OS (I like XP, but it's kinda lacking for our days). Dual-boot would be fine though.
And depending on the game, you could play back on Win 7 for recording. MMF2 games don't seem to work though, but VVVVVV did.
I THINK Win 7/8 do that automatically if you first had a XP installed then install the 7/8 on another partition. Or if it's a different HD, the one with Win 7/8 has the boot priority. But I'm not sure, I need someone to confirm that.
Dualboot is much handier with Grub/Lilo, but eh, that's Linux stuff I barely know about (have been into them when I was like 11 years old, don't remember very well).
I know that as of r79, nitsuja force-set the font used for Japanese locale to MS Gothic. Why is this a problem? Let's take Cave Story as an example.
This is how the text normally looks like on a Japanese locale (doesn't matter if you use Applocale or set the locale to Japanese):
Now, this is how the same text looks like in Hourglass r81 (latest by nitsuja, enforced Japanese locale):
Of course, the text should look like in the former screenshot.
Now, I don't know if this commit is easy to revert (as in, doesn't cause unexpected issues), but it only seems to affect font/text rendering, so it might.
As people have suggested in this thread, I'm trying to set up a Windows XP virtual machine for use with Hourglass. However, I haven't even tried Hourglass inside that virtual machine yet because I can't get games to run on their own (MegaMari and other Japanese doujin games). No matter what I do I can't get Microsoft Update to work, so I don't know what I could be missing from the general update pool. I've tried a directx update with no success. I'm looking for other ideas of things that you can kind of expect a standard PC game to require that I need to enable or install.
Error messages when I try to open MegaMari:
http://puu.sh/62HAL.pnghttp://puu.sh/62Hzx.png
Now, this is how the same text looks like in Hourglass r81 (latest by nitsuja, enforced Japanese locale):
Of course, the text should look like in the former screenshot.
Now, I don't know if this commit is easy to revert (as in, doesn't cause unexpected issues), but it only seems to affect font/text rendering, so it might.
