RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Steel Panthers World At War & Mega Campaigns >> RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix

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RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 9/7/2011 6:05:48 PM

NCrawler

Posts: 30
Joined: 6/4/2003
From: Sherwood, AR
Status: offline

Anyone that wants the DLL, just PM me with your email address and I'll send it to you...

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Post #: 31

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 11/7/2011 6:46:37 AM

Ironfist738

Posts: 139
Joined: 4/30/2001
From: Cincinnati,Ohio.
Status: offline

Great Gonzo's

After I posted I found this Forum Topic.

Thank you guys so much for finding a fix.

Maybe I can return to the Steel Panthers field of Battle now..

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SpWaW Game Veteran since 1991

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Post #: 32

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 12/31/2011 8:40:24 PM

demyansk

Posts: 2840
Joined: 2/20/2008
Status: offline

Hi Guys,

I have the game working fine with the win7 fix for the game in win7. Do all of you get the same resolution in the game? It looks like a 800x600, its not really sharp like it was when I had it on an old machine.

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Post #: 33

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 1/3/2012 2:55:00 AM

JEB Davis

Posts: 443
Joined: 12/27/2005
From: Michigan, U.T.B.
Status: offline

LCD screens stink... is that what you have?

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Post #: 34

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 1/3/2012 9:24:01 PM

demyansk

Posts: 2840
Joined: 2/20/2008
Status: offline

Hi Jeb,

You are correct, I have a 24" widescreen ASUS lcd monitor, works great but not as sharp as the old crt monitors on this game. Do you agree that's what happens?

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Post #: 35

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 1/4/2012 3:01:51 AM

JEB Davis

Posts: 443
Joined: 12/27/2005
From: Michigan, U.T.B.
Status: offline

Absolutely. LCD's only look good at their full resolution.

When the 800x600 resolution is "stretched" to fill the full screen on an LCD, the pixels have to be "interpolated" to the closest approximation of the actual image, so it's a garbled image.

On the CRT, the size of the monitor's pixels actually changes to keep a 1 pixel to 1 pixel relationship for a true 800x600 image, just with larger pixels than what you would have with the monitor set to 1280x1024 for instance.

Plug one of your old CRT's in and see if it works better.

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Post #: 36

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 1/6/2012 10:57:57 AM

demyansk

Posts: 2840
Joined: 2/20/2008
Status: offline

hi jeb,

I do have the game still on my older computer which is set up right behind me. I can't remember now how it looks. It would be great if this game had high resolution to at least 1200x whatever number they use. It doesn't look real bad when I play the game but I always liked the crispness of the game and I don't have that with a 24 inch monitor running at 1920x1080

thanks

(in reply to JEB Davis)

Post #: 37

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 1/13/2012 2:35:46 PM

Rosollia

Posts: 19
Joined: 1/12/2012
Status: offline

I can confirm that setting the core affinity to use the second core of a dual-core cpu seems to alleviate the artillery screen lag on my Win7 laptop. It won't fix it entirely. Just setting it to a singe core affinity or to use the first core won�t help. Using the imagecfg program with the command "imagecfg -a 0x2 mech.exe" edits the executable to run on the second core. You have to do this in the windows command line promt.

As for the color fix the direct draw compatibility tool does fix the colors, but it does not fix the colors immediately upon starting the game. You need to choose single player and go to the edit screen. Then the colors should look normal.

I have not yet tested the dll fix by NCrawler, but it may be the best fix. There have been a couple of dll fixes to other games in the past. I believe they are called direct draw wrappers and use a modified ddraw.dll file... There are source codes availanle for some of those projects.

These won't work on spwaw but may be useful to developing ddraw.dll for spwaw maybe?
http://sol.gfxile.net/ddhack/
http://hifi.iki.fi/cnc-ddraw/#download

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Post #: 38

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 1/13/2012 4:47:07 PM

planner 3

Posts: 616
Joined: 3/7/2008
Status: offline

Rosollia try holding down the SHIFT Button Prior to selecting ANYTHING from the Artillery screen, that will/should cut down a lot of the delay probs. FWIW

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Post #: 39

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 1/14/2012 12:20:59 PM

Rosollia

Posts: 19
Joined: 1/12/2012
Status: offline

Thank you for the tip planner 3, but I still prefer the core affinity fix. Pressing shift everytime before clicking can get abit tedious.

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Post #: 40

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 1/14/2012 3:42:37 PM

Rosollia

Posts: 19
Joined: 1/12/2012
Status: offline

While reading a topic in the spwaw enhanced forum I came across an even simpler way to setup the core affinity.
This method does not reguire the imagecfg program. It is probably better too because you do not need to edit the actual exe file in any way.
You are just using build-in Windows commands to temporarily set the game to run on the second core.
This way if you do not like the results you can just start the game normaly the next time.

Instructions:
Just copy this text below...

start /B /WAIT /AFFINITY 2 mech.exe

...to notepad and save it as AffinityFix.cmd (The .cmd part is important!) to the same folder where your mech.exe file is. (The main folder of the game.)
Then when you want to start the game double-click on this newly created file and the game should then run on the core no.2 and your artillery screen should be more responsive.

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Post #: 41

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 2/19/2012 12:57:05 PM

jamos

Posts: 7
Joined: 7/11/2003
Status: offline

This issue is no longer only related to Win 7 or Vista.

Now XP with sp3 gets the same pallete distortion and artillery bug.

Any fix publically available from Matrix other than a cludgy cmd file fix that stops explorer?

Yes I have tried VMWare with mixed results. On some computers it ran fine on others it crashes (probably because of the video card).

Help me NCrawler your my only hope

< Message edited by jamos -- 2/19/2012 1:52:55 PM >

(in reply to Rosollia)

Post #: 42

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 4/30/2012 8:10:20 PM

Falcon1

Posts: 171
Joined: 4/30/2012
From: United States
Status: offline

They should change the name of this game to "Steel Agates" because that's what it takes to have a game advertised for sale at $80 that not only gets zero support from the publisher, but wouldn't even run at all on the latest version of Windows (or the one before that) without a user created fix.

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Post #: 43

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 5/12/2012 5:17:29 PM

Rosollia

Posts: 19
Joined: 1/12/2012
Status: offline

quote:

This issue is no longer only related to Win 7 or Vista.

Now XP with sp3 gets the same pallete distortion and artillery bug.

Odd. I just tested this game on Windows XP Pro SP3 (32bit) and had no problems with the color palette.

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Post #: 44

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 5/12/2012 5:35:06 PM

planner 3

Posts: 616
Joined: 3/7/2008
Status: offline

Been running on Win XP for 2 years or more without any pallette or artillery problem, 5 versions on SPwaw installed.

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Post #: 45

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 9/1/2012 1:20:41 PM

Grimnirsson

Posts: 132
Joined: 12/25/2011
Status: offline

I had the same problems with Windows 7 64bit (Home Premium). Running the game in compatibility mode didn't solve the color problems. I then deactivated Aero and switched to Windows basic / classic design - and the color problems were 99% gone (with only a few weird pixels here and there).

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Post #: 46

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 4/28/2013 11:45:11 PM

tcarusil

Posts: 210
Joined: 5/1/2011
From: Indianapolis, IN
Status: offline

Tried this but it did not work. Clearly I am doing something wrong. When I click on the zip file the screen flashes, a dos screen appear momentarily and then nothing. Any thoughts?

TomC

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Post #: 47

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 1/26/2014 8:33:08 PM

Zovs

Posts: 6668
Joined: 2/23/2009
From: United States
Status: offline

I got the script file to work but the screen resolution is like 640 by 480, any way to fix that?

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Post #: 48

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 1/27/2014 8:11:18 PM

JEB Davis

Posts: 443
Joined: 12/27/2005
From: Michigan, U.T.B.
Status: offline

Try searching at the Depot and/or Enhanced (in my sig). There are a bunch of ideas to get it working right for you. I'm still using XP so haven't got personal experience with W7 fixes but I follow the threads.

< Message edited by JEB Davis -- 1/27/2014 9:12:19 PM >

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Post #: 49

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 1/31/2014 9:45:34 AM

Zovs

Posts: 6668
Joined: 2/23/2009
From: United States
Status: offline

Thanks JEB, I used to have an account there (at the depot) but it has been deactivated. I tried creating a new one but they won't accept web mail, which is all I use any more (gmail, comcast, yahoo, etc.) so I don't know how to post there.

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Beta Tester for:
Flashpoint Campaigns: Sudden Storm
War in the East 1 & 2
WarPlan & WarPlan Pacific
Valor & Victory
DG CWIE 2
SPWW2 & SPMBT scenario creator

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Post #: 50

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 1/31/2014 9:50:03 AM

Zovs

Posts: 6668
Joined: 2/23/2009
From: United States
Status: offline

Hang on I took a swag and got a password reset!

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Beta Tester for:
Flashpoint Campaigns: Sudden Storm
War in the East 1 & 2
WarPlan & WarPlan Pacific
Valor & Victory
DG CWIE 2
SPWW2 & SPMBT scenario creator

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Post #: 51

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 1/31/2014 10:47:09 AM

Zovs

Posts: 6668
Joined: 2/23/2009
From: United States
Status: offline

Still no joy. I can use either the win7spww2 script or the D3D but both run in 800x600 mode and no amount of tweaking with D3D will change the screen resolution, not sure why.

I know there has not been any development on this for many years and the code has fallen by the way side.

Currently I am programming in java, but I know C and C++, but I don't know who to contact at Matrix to see if they are even interested in updating this code so users don't have to go to all the pains to make it work.

Due to SPWAW not being supported over the last 10 or so years I switched to playing SPWW2 by the Camo group since they (and Shrapnel Games) have continuously updated the code and have made it windows friendly (w7 and w8).

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Beta Tester for:
Flashpoint Campaigns: Sudden Storm
War in the East 1 & 2
WarPlan & WarPlan Pacific
Valor & Victory
DG CWIE 2
SPWW2 & SPMBT scenario creator

(in reply to Zovs)

Post #: 52

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 5/21/2014 7:41:58 PM

Sotamies Riitaoja

Posts: 3
Joined: 5/21/2014
Status: offline

No way to increase the resolution of Steel Panthers World at War it is always at 800x600. It is a limitation of the old game.

However I have compiled a small fix that contains the script to run the game in processor core #2 and fix the artillery screen lag.
The second part of the fix is Aqrit's ddwrapper that solves the color bug on Windows Vista & 7.

I will post a link to the fix as soon as I can.

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Post #: 53

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 5/28/2014 2:53:02 PM

Sotamies Riitaoja

Posts: 3
Joined: 5/21/2014
Status: offline

"You are not allowed to post links for 7 days from the date of your tenth post."

I cant post the link because I get this message. Rest assured I am not going to post ten times just to be able to post a link... sorry.

I quess we can thank the spammers for these strict rules.

Anyway the fix would contain a .cmd batch file with the command "start /REALTIME /AFFINITY 2 mech.exe" and Aqrit's ddwrapper configured with the ColorFix = 1 option. So if you have some computing skills you can easily compile the fix from that information.

Also if you google "DxWnd" you should find a link to Sourceforge for an interesting project that enables you to run many old games using a directdraw / direct3d wrapper. This in an eveolution of the older D3DWindower program. It is not that simple to use since it has no manual but with some trial and error one can figure it out.

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Post #: 54

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 5/30/2014 7:36:09 PM

artofwar85

Posts: 109
Joined: 5/8/2010
Status: offline

Someone here may need this info it is about what to do it you loose explorer and you don't want to reboot. Press CNTRL + ALT + Delete to bring up the task manager then click on the "NEW TASK" tab at the bottom right of the task manager window that pops up then type in explorer.exe and click OK - this brings back your desktop. I read it somewhere on the internet.

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Post #: 55

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 7/23/2014 6:09:00 AM

jwinter

Posts: 17
Joined: 6/25/2005
Status: offline

I installed the fix but the color is still a mess, even when I start from the fix, What did I do wrong?

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Post #: 56

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 12/2/2014 6:32:04 PM

Primarch

Posts: 19
Joined: 11/13/2005
Status: offline

Are there any updates to this? It's not working for me either...

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Post #: 57

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 1/5/2015 3:41:45 PM

Graymane

Posts: 520
Joined: 3/31/2005
From: Bellevue, NE
Status: offline

Thanks for the zip file, worked great on my Win7 laptop.

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Post #: 58

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 2/5/2015 5:29:18 PM

Riitaoja

Posts: 85
Joined: 1/30/2015
Status: offline

Some additional information regarding the SPWAW artillery screen bug and the multi core cpu fix.

Previously it has been noted that you need to start SPWAW with the command:
start /B /WAIT /AFFINITY 2 mech.exe

This should fix the unresponsive artillery screen on modern multi core cpu systems. The command AFFINITY 2 sets the game to run on the SECOND core of the processor.

However I have seen that for some people this does not work. It may be that if you have a 4 core system you might actualy need to set up the game so that it runs on the FOURTH core. To do this you should use the command:
start /B /WAIT /AFFINITY 8 mech.exe

Likewise if you have a 6 core processor you might need to set the game to launch on the SIXTH core with the command:
start /B /WAIT /AFFINITY 20 mech.exe
and so on...

You can also experiment with all the different AFFINITY values to find out which one (if any) works for your system.
The full formula for setting the AFFINITY is as follows:

CPU core#---->AFFINITY values:
CPU-1--------->1
CPU-2--------->2
CPU-3--------->4
CPU-4--------->8
CPU-5--------->10
CPU-6--------->20
CPU-7--------->40
CPU-8--------->80

P.S.
You might wonder why CPU-3 uses the AFFINITY value 4 instead of 3. Or why CPU-4 uses the AFFINITY value 8 and so on. This is because the AFFINITY value is actualy derived from a binary number that is then converted into a hexadecimal value.

P.P.S.
If you do not know how many CPU cores your computer has you can open the command promt and type in the command:
wmic cpu get NumberOfCores
This should then display the number of cpu cores.

< Message edited by Riitaoja -- 4/10/2015 3:31:56 PM >

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Post #: 59

RE: Windows 7 *GUARANTEED* fix - 2/11/2015 11:31:21 PM

shilton2437

Posts: 20
Joined: 7/13/2005
Status: offline

Followed all the steps, but still get the crazy color scheme when I run the program using the win7spwaw.cmd file. Is there any other setting that must be adjusted when using the Windows 7 system? Thanks.

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Post #: 60