Updating BC DirectX with dgVoodoo (preliminary)

[Tethys]

Some good news regarding graphical enhancement for STBC. pyratCPTN contacted me a few days ago and told me about his success in getting STBC to display at 4k resolution. Naturally I was intrigued.. and here we are a few days later and I have some results. Study these images, there are differences in the menus as well as the shading. All graphical enhancement settings are enabled EXCEPT for Space Dust. STBC with DirectX 9 working in preliminary tests.


DirectX ver: Stock BC





DirectX ver: 9

[King Class Scout]

yes, I can see minor menu differences as well as the shading difference.  I'd assume, though, this only works with aftermarket graphics cards.  I can't get my install to go over 1024, let alone to UHD.
what's changed to get the old engine to recognise newer versions of direct X?

[pyratCPTN]

DX11 could be possible too i hope

It´s done by injection.

[Mario]

You mean this?

https://forum.talonro.com/topic/22865-ragnarok-2k-or-possibly-even-4k-in-full-screen/

There's limits to that approach. One is that you're never able to cross the texture size limitation of DX7 (2048x1536).

DX11 could be possible too i hope

It´s done by injection.

It's not exactly injection but technically it is redirecting API calls.

[pyratCPTN]

http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2.html

Yess, this here, yea it basically works like ENB/Reshade/Sweetfx AFAIK

[Lurok91]

Is it just me but I can't really see any radical difference.  Is it more for low-end PCs?

[pyratCPTN]

No, it makes it a little more stable, at my system at least.
Before i had CTD when exiting the game and it took longer to load.
Now it loads up much faster and i have only seen one CDT at all since one week on my sys.

[Tethys]

My question is how do we in fact replace the DirectX that BC uses completely, without the use of gdVoodoo? Or is that something that is hardcoded you think? @pyratCPTN

[Mario]

My question is how do we in fact replace the DirectX that BC uses completely, without the use of gdVoodoo? Or is that something that is hardcoded you think? @pyratCPTN

Q wasn't directed at me but I love being sarcastic at times (it's a curse). You decompile the source code and rewrite functions to make DX11 or DX12 calls or rewrite the game in a new game engine.

Closest that you can get is by using a wrapper such as voodoo. I don't remember how internals work completely but I believe it redirects API calls to DX of your choice.

[pyratCPTN]

Yap Mario,
I could try it with IDA and add the missing code for DX.
This just a blind guess, since theres a guy mentioned to work
on renewing BC, Texture scaling, Widescreen etc.

But i´m at the beginning of a long process, i did not try to decompile it yet.

[Tethys]

I did some hex edting waaaay back in the day on Birth of the Federation. That was released in 1999? There was no source code available. and the fanbase is over 12,000 last i checked. It was the only way. Nonetheless it would be nice to have a decompiled and labeled exe to look at, even if it can't be recompiled. Little things can be done. The problem is changing the size of the exe, sometimes the file becomes crashy. Easier to find blank space and reroute/insert new calls manually...

[pyratCPTN]

Yes, i´ve seen a guy asking directly at Activision´s support forum for the sourcecode but they ignored him completely. Shame.

[Mario]

Source code was decompiled by someone, go to Discord and ask there.

[pyratCPTN]

Tehtys mssgd me, TY.