WinSPMBT v5.5-- NOW AVAILABLE

[RightDeve]

Very great as usual!!
But along with an announcement of "soon-to be released" patch usually follows a painful "wait" for any brand new PBeM games.

I think this one addition for the improvements already listed above will be good:
-a zero range close assault factor for infantry against AFVs, as already mentioned by Cross in the WW2 forum.

Thanks DRG and MobHack!

[SP4EVER]

3/ The GameOptions program will now auto-detect if your operating system is
Windows XP or earlier or Vista / Win7 and any future OS Microsoft may
release. If it finds you are running an operating system newer than Windows
XP it will automatically run a command line that shuts windows explorer down
briefly then restarts it ONLY IF you have the game set to run in FULL SCREEN
MODE.

There should be a beter way to fix the game on Windows 7 / Vista machines than force killing explorer.exe.

Games such as Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Starcraft and Fallout have all had the same color palette messup when running on those newer operating systems. And it is from forums for those games that I found out that they all work when a DirectDraw Compatibility registry patch is used.

See Microsoft has build in compatibility modes for old DirectDraw aplications that are wery poorly documented! The fixes are build in the operating system, but need to be enabled in the windows registry to work.

The compatibility mode can be found in windows Registry under:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectDraw\C ompatibility\

On 64 bit machines the path is a little different in that it has the "WOW6432Node" path in it.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\ DirectDraw\Compatibility\

So below there are the fixes for SPMBT v.5.00 only. This will most likely not work on older or newer versions of the game. For those one needs to write a new reg file with the correct value for the ID field matching the values in the .exe.

Copy paste the text below to notepad and save it as SPMBT_ddrawfix.reg for example. The .reg part is the important one. Then run the file you created and it will update your register.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectDraw\Compatibility\winSPMBT-v5]
"Flags"=hex:00,08,00,00
"Name"="winSPMBT.exe"
"ID"=hex:81,62,A6,4B

And if you have a 64-bit operating system you need the text below instead:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\DirectDraw\Compatibility\winSPMBT-v5]
"Flags"=hex:00,08,00,00
"Name"="winSPMBT.exe"
"ID"=hex:81,62,A6,4B

If this works you should not be getting any color problems and you do not need the cmd file to start the game. And most importantly it is not closing your explorer.exe. Its just using a compatibility mode built into Windows itself.

Here are the links for discussion about the color bug in Fallout and Command & Conquer for referance:

http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56175

http://www.cnc-comm.com/community/index.php?topic=711.0

Unfortunately I dont have access to a Win7 computer to test this so I don't know if it will work for SPMBT too. My apologies if it does not work. However im sure some compatibility option will fix the color issue without the need to use special tricks to close the explorer.

[SP4EVER]

13/ The game code has been altered to make it much more windows friendly
when it comes to CPU usage. In the past the game wanted all the resources it
could have all the time including that time you were away from the keyboard
making a cup of coffee or thinking about what you would do next. Now, the
CPU usage will drop considerably when the game is waiting for input from the
human player. It still requires all the CPU usage it can handle when the AI
is moving but once it is the human players turn many players with high end
computers will notice their machine is not working nearly as hard as it used
to be and the effects are more obvious the newer and faster your computer is

Would it help at all if the program run only using a single core on a multicore CPU system? It might reduse overheating and make the system better at multitasking if the resource hungry program would be using just one cpu core.

Heres a link to one way of fixing the processor affinity:
http://www.robpol86.com/index.php/ImageCFG

Also have you checked out Microsofts Aplication Compatibility Toolkit? With it you can create your own custom compatibility patches for old software to run on a new OS. I have had success in the past using it on my XP machine. It is the window to the inner workings of Windows XP/Vista/7 compatibility layers.

Wery useful program once you get to understand how it works. There are about 100 different compatibility options that you can play with instead of just the standard "run in windows 98 mode" etc...

Here's the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/e...displaylang=en

[Mobhack]

I have seen the registry fixes on the net.

They are pointless since they are aiming at a moving target. They seem to be different numbers on each and every machine as well, not a fixed set of numbers. We cannot ask end users to manually peek at registry entries and edit hex codes every time the game is changed, or whenever Windows decides to mess with these "magic numbers".

Also, it would appear that we would need at least three different installers - an XP or earlier one, A 32 Bit Vista/7 and a 64 bit one. That is not going to happen - with 2 different games, multiple patches for each, and an existing stock of CDs.

The batch file fix is simple and does what is required - it runs the game full-screen for those who require that facility. You lose the ability to multi-task out and do email or whatever, but that is a small price to pay.

Should you require to multi-task then CD owners can run in windowed mode at desktop resolution. The task bar and start key are available at the bottom of the screen as usual then, and the GDI mode graphics do not clash with the Aero desktop interface.

Cheers
Andy

[void1984]

Hello

Does 5, 6 and 7 relate only to the AI side, or both?
Does 2 relate only to stationary AT guns, or also to SPAT guns?

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by void1984

Hello

Does 5, 6 and 7 relate only to the AI side, or both?
Both

Does 2 relate only to stationary AT guns, or also to SPAT guns?
AT Gun classes - the other is a vehicle

Andy

[glaude1955]

Thanks for your patch !
Good work !

Glaude1955