Post by enrico69 on Jun 4, 2017 10:56:22 GMT -6
Note of the author:
A few reminder about acronyms
Introduction: why FS doesn’t run on modern computers?
Fighting Steel has been developed using a specific part of the DirectX API: the Direct3D Retained Mode. This mode was introduced in DirectX 2.0 and the support was unfortunately dropped by Microsoft with the version 7.0, while still included up to the 9.0 version released in 2002.
One of the reason of this abandon being probably that a very few games use it, the most famous ones being Lego Island and Lego Rock Raiders.
This restrained adoption seems to get his origins in that this API gave not enough liberties to developers who complained about it. This led Microsoft to stop updating this mode since DirectX 3.0 before a complete abandon later. On top of that, the support by the operating system disappeared with the introduction of Windows Vista in 2006 (even if some games using Direct 3D still works if you add the proper libraries, but these games don’t use the Retained Mode).
Between 2002 and 2006, the NWS development team made a huge work (the Fighting Steel Project) to make the game more stable on Windows 98 and XP, and also adding a great quantity of new ships, leading to the fact that this game is still a reference in terms of simulation, without forgetting to mention the splendid scenario and campaign simulator: Thunder At Sea, which I highly recommend. However, the abandon of the support of the Retained Mode made any update of the game useless.
As it seems that there still (frustrated) users of this game, I wrote this small topic to sum-up the possibilities we have to continue to play on it. Unfortunately, there are very few, at the moment.
Reminder: what you should always do when you install the game
Here are the rules your installation need to comply with:
- On your OS, you need to have DirectX 9.x (only applies on Windows 98 and XP).
- Order of installation:
o Graphic drivers (obviously)
o DirectX
o Fighting Steel
o Fighting Steel Project
- Once done, go to the FS directory, and with a text-file editor (e.g notepad) open the file DbzLib.ini located in the Ini directory. Here, you can change many parameters for the game. Below are listed the most important ones to make the game more able to run without troubles, realistic and compatible with external addons:
o “INTRO” : set to 0
o “GUNNERYLOG”: set to 1
o “SYSTEMCHECK”: set to 1. It will make a quick check-up of your installation at the game launch, and could help to detect and understand any troubles
o “TORPEDOTRACKS”: set to 0
o “PLAYMOVIES”: set to 0
o “FATIGUEGUNNERY”: set to 1
o “SHOWALLSPLAHES” : set to 1
o “TAGS”: set to 1
Note: you can also try 0 or 1 with the “AGP” parameter. I use FS on a laptop, and this parameter has to be set to 0.
The old hardware approach: 99% percent solution
Definitely the best thing currently. You don’t have to buy a “massive” old desktop computer: I use a laptop (Compaq) of 2005 originally fitted with Windows XP. I put Windows 98 on it (I only had to buy a 5 USD USB soundcard) and it works without any trouble! That’s perfect for old games, including FS, and it doesn’t take too much room, could be easily stored when not in use.
As it is only for gaming, your laptop’s battery could be dead, in doesn’t matter. For a very few hundreds of dollars, I insist, it is the best solution to run old games without any problem of compatibility.
The modern hardware/OS solution
With the dgVoodo API
This way seems to work quite well, even on Windows 10. Just download the archive here, copy all the dll files located in the archive subfolders in your Fighting Steel Folder, and tha’ts done. You will also probably need to get the d3drm.dll file in this same folder. I recommend to use the one of DirectX 9.
Directly on Windows: a dead-end
Forget it. Almost impossible to do, because even if you manage to run an older version of Windows with the appropriate drivers, it is very unlikely that your graphic card will support the Direct 3D retained Mode. On top of that, as explained in the introduction of this article, it is almost impossible to run FS on a modern OS.
Emulation from a modern version of Windows: almost a dead-end
Emulation has become very common to run old games, even with those
ones using 3D thanks to the last version of emulator and VM (Virtual Machines) that enable to emulate a 3D card. However, this specific feature of emulation is still his in infancy, and with FS, things are complicated… Indeed, the emulated 3D card works directly with the host OS (the true one you are running directly on your machine), and so relies on it. If your host installation and hardware doesn’t support D3DRM, you are screwed. Of course, it costs nothing, but time, to try.
Here are the most common emulation solutions, and what you can expect from them.
VmWare
WmWare player supports Windows 98 and Windows XP without any troubles. However, the emulated 3D acceleration is not supported on Windows 98.
VirtualBox
VirtualBox doesn’t officially support Windows 98, and as with VmWare, the 3D support starts only with Windows XP.
Hyper-V (Available from Windows 8.x and following)
Hyper-V doesn’t support Windows 98. I didn’t try with Windows XP, but don’t expect any successful outcome.
Virtual PC 2007 (Available from Windows XP to Windows 7)
Virtual PC emulate a tiny accelerator card: the 4MB 2D S3 Trio32/64 PCI (732/764) adapter. If it supports DirectDraw, it doesn’t for D3DRM.
On Linux: maybe one day with Wine
If you are running Linux, you can play old and modern games with Wine. Wine stands for “Wine is not an emulator”. Indeed, it is a software that enable to run Windows applications on Linux, using the Windows API. However, if hundreds of games works perfectly on it, it is often more tricky for the others.
Wine implements the basics of D3DRM, but that’s seems to not be enough for FS. With the last version currently available (1.9.6), the game starts, but crashes at the main screen.
The evolution of the special mode of Direct3D seems to have already been planned by the developing team, more or less actually, probably because of the few games that use it:
wiki.winehq.org/Summer_Of_Code
On top of that, I opened a ticket:
bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=40365
However, it is very clear that it is not a major problem, and it is easy to understand why. But there is nothing that’s prevent us to keep hope to run FS on Wine in the future. An example? The game “Lego Raiders” works on it! Not perfectly, but it does. I will also add that it is possible that it could works through an emulator, which means that you could emulate Linux from a Windows host.
MicroComputers: nothing is sure
MicroComputers are becoming more and more fashioned. However, if there is some accessible versions with x86 architecture, I failed to get enough information to be sure that Windows XP would run on it, with DirectX completely supported.
Conclusion
Today, we are still with the assumption that FS belongs to the past, even if there still players in love with this game. There is no assured elements that could give us any hope that this game could EASILY run again on modern computers, sooner or later. We have the possibility that the Wine development team will solve the bug preventing the game to properly run, but I think we shouldn’t count on it as it is a minor bug of a minor (for the world community of gamers) game.
But hopefully there is still a possibility for the enthusiasts, the degeVoodoo fix or: old hardware. Today, old computers flourishes on auction and second-hand stuffs websites, and it is also an opportunity to get a machine to run other old games.
- I am sorry to overlook some points, sometimes. It is simply because this topic is also addressed to non-geek user ;-).
- Please do not hesitate to share information (configuration…), help to complete this topic, or correct mistakes.
A few reminder about acronyms
- FS : Fighting Steel
- FSP : Fighting Steel Project. That’s the main patch developed for the game by NWS.
TAS : Thunder At Sea. It is a campaign simulator for FS + FSP.- D3DRM : Direct 3D Retained Mode.
Introduction: why FS doesn’t run on modern computers?
Fighting Steel has been developed using a specific part of the DirectX API: the Direct3D Retained Mode. This mode was introduced in DirectX 2.0 and the support was unfortunately dropped by Microsoft with the version 7.0, while still included up to the 9.0 version released in 2002.
One of the reason of this abandon being probably that a very few games use it, the most famous ones being Lego Island and Lego Rock Raiders.
This restrained adoption seems to get his origins in that this API gave not enough liberties to developers who complained about it. This led Microsoft to stop updating this mode since DirectX 3.0 before a complete abandon later. On top of that, the support by the operating system disappeared with the introduction of Windows Vista in 2006 (even if some games using Direct 3D still works if you add the proper libraries, but these games don’t use the Retained Mode).
Between 2002 and 2006, the NWS development team made a huge work (the Fighting Steel Project) to make the game more stable on Windows 98 and XP, and also adding a great quantity of new ships, leading to the fact that this game is still a reference in terms of simulation, without forgetting to mention the splendid scenario and campaign simulator: Thunder At Sea, which I highly recommend. However, the abandon of the support of the Retained Mode made any update of the game useless.
As it seems that there still (frustrated) users of this game, I wrote this small topic to sum-up the possibilities we have to continue to play on it. Unfortunately, there are very few, at the moment.
Reminder: what you should always do when you install the game
Here are the rules your installation need to comply with:
- On your OS, you need to have DirectX 9.x (only applies on Windows 98 and XP).
- Order of installation:
o Graphic drivers (obviously)
o DirectX
o Fighting Steel
o Fighting Steel Project
- Once done, go to the FS directory, and with a text-file editor (e.g notepad) open the file DbzLib.ini located in the Ini directory. Here, you can change many parameters for the game. Below are listed the most important ones to make the game more able to run without troubles, realistic and compatible with external addons:
o “INTRO” : set to 0
o “GUNNERYLOG”: set to 1
o “SYSTEMCHECK”: set to 1. It will make a quick check-up of your installation at the game launch, and could help to detect and understand any troubles
o “TORPEDOTRACKS”: set to 0
o “PLAYMOVIES”: set to 0
o “FATIGUEGUNNERY”: set to 1
o “SHOWALLSPLAHES” : set to 1
o “TAGS”: set to 1
Note: you can also try 0 or 1 with the “AGP” parameter. I use FS on a laptop, and this parameter has to be set to 0.
The old hardware approach: 99% percent solution
Definitely the best thing currently. You don’t have to buy a “massive” old desktop computer: I use a laptop (Compaq) of 2005 originally fitted with Windows XP. I put Windows 98 on it (I only had to buy a 5 USD USB soundcard) and it works without any trouble! That’s perfect for old games, including FS, and it doesn’t take too much room, could be easily stored when not in use.
As it is only for gaming, your laptop’s battery could be dead, in doesn’t matter. For a very few hundreds of dollars, I insist, it is the best solution to run old games without any problem of compatibility.
The modern hardware/OS solution
With the dgVoodo API
This way seems to work quite well, even on Windows 10. Just download the archive here, copy all the dll files located in the archive subfolders in your Fighting Steel Folder, and tha’ts done. You will also probably need to get the d3drm.dll file in this same folder. I recommend to use the one of DirectX 9.
Directly on Windows: a dead-end
Forget it. Almost impossible to do, because even if you manage to run an older version of Windows with the appropriate drivers, it is very unlikely that your graphic card will support the Direct 3D retained Mode. On top of that, as explained in the introduction of this article, it is almost impossible to run FS on a modern OS.
Emulation from a modern version of Windows: almost a dead-end
Emulation has become very common to run old games, even with those
ones using 3D thanks to the last version of emulator and VM (Virtual Machines) that enable to emulate a 3D card. However, this specific feature of emulation is still his in infancy, and with FS, things are complicated… Indeed, the emulated 3D card works directly with the host OS (the true one you are running directly on your machine), and so relies on it. If your host installation and hardware doesn’t support D3DRM, you are screwed. Of course, it costs nothing, but time, to try.
Here are the most common emulation solutions, and what you can expect from them.
VmWare
WmWare player supports Windows 98 and Windows XP without any troubles. However, the emulated 3D acceleration is not supported on Windows 98.
VirtualBox
VirtualBox doesn’t officially support Windows 98, and as with VmWare, the 3D support starts only with Windows XP.
Hyper-V (Available from Windows 8.x and following)
Hyper-V doesn’t support Windows 98. I didn’t try with Windows XP, but don’t expect any successful outcome.
Virtual PC 2007 (Available from Windows XP to Windows 7)
Virtual PC emulate a tiny accelerator card: the 4MB 2D S3 Trio32/64 PCI (732/764) adapter. If it supports DirectDraw, it doesn’t for D3DRM.
On Linux: maybe one day with Wine
If you are running Linux, you can play old and modern games with Wine. Wine stands for “Wine is not an emulator”. Indeed, it is a software that enable to run Windows applications on Linux, using the Windows API. However, if hundreds of games works perfectly on it, it is often more tricky for the others.
Wine implements the basics of D3DRM, but that’s seems to not be enough for FS. With the last version currently available (1.9.6), the game starts, but crashes at the main screen.
The evolution of the special mode of Direct3D seems to have already been planned by the developing team, more or less actually, probably because of the few games that use it:
wiki.winehq.org/Summer_Of_Code
Difficulty: Hard
D3DRM (Direct3D Retained Mode) is partially implemented, it needs to interact with ddraw to actually display something.
Even if it's an old library and has been removed in Vista, there are small Games based on it.
D3DRM (Direct3D Retained Mode) is partially implemented, it needs to interact with ddraw to actually display something.
Even if it's an old library and has been removed in Vista, there are small Games based on it.
On top of that, I opened a ticket:
bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=40365
However, it is very clear that it is not a major problem, and it is easy to understand why. But there is nothing that’s prevent us to keep hope to run FS on Wine in the future. An example? The game “Lego Raiders” works on it! Not perfectly, but it does. I will also add that it is possible that it could works through an emulator, which means that you could emulate Linux from a Windows host.
MicroComputers: nothing is sure
MicroComputers are becoming more and more fashioned. However, if there is some accessible versions with x86 architecture, I failed to get enough information to be sure that Windows XP would run on it, with DirectX completely supported.
Conclusion
Today, we are still with the assumption that FS belongs to the past, even if there still players in love with this game. There is no assured elements that could give us any hope that this game could EASILY run again on modern computers, sooner or later. We have the possibility that the Wine development team will solve the bug preventing the game to properly run, but I think we shouldn’t count on it as it is a minor bug of a minor (for the world community of gamers) game.
But hopefully there is still a possibility for the enthusiasts, the degeVoodoo fix or: old hardware. Today, old computers flourishes on auction and second-hand stuffs websites, and it is also an opportunity to get a machine to run other old games.
