Sega PC Reloaded: Four old games, working still/again

[goku262002]

Right, So I decided to post this here even though it's mostly Sonic for now. At some point this project may expand to other SEGA PC titles beyond Sonic but for now its Sonic focused.

Anyways, a neat project came up on Retro today. Tech Member Korama's post will explain everything, I'll be linking this thread to him via PM so he can gage reaction here and see if there is any bugs that are not reported:

What is it?

I wrote a program that is an installer, launcher, and patcher for a few Sega PC
games that were originally released for Windows 95/98. The games had issues or
broke entirely on newer versions of Windows. Now they work again, with a few
minor improvements even.

So far, these games are supported:

• Ecco the Dolphin PC
• Sonic CD 1996
• Sonic & Knuckles Collection
• Sonic 3D Blast
  
  
  
  
  Some boring technical details:
  Those games use DirectDraw and 8 bit / 256 color palettized video modes. Both are
  obsolete nowadays, and while the compatibility layer of Windows still supports/emulates
  them, it doesn't always work for whatever reason (e.g. buggy game code).
  So I wrote custom implementations of the necessary DirectDraw interfaces (IDirectDraw,
  IDirectDrawSurface, etc.), and a few other Windows API functions, that either
  wrap or replicate what the games expect.
  That code is packaged in a "ddraw.dll" file that looks like the real one from Microsoft.
  However, some of the games load ddraw.dll dynamically, after executing some "bad" code
  (e.g. checking if a 256 color mode is active). That's why a launcher is necessary, it
  ensures that my ddraw.dll gets loaded and run right at the start of the game, so that
  it can perform the necessary patches in memory. I could also patch the files on disk,
  of course, but I've decided against that. It is just too messy and gets complicated if
  I need to undo or update patches. Keeping the original files unmodified on disk and
  doing all the patching in RAM is the best solution.
  
  
  
  What exactly does it change?
  
  Many little things that I can't be bothered to write down. Some important ones:
  
  • Flexible window handling (free resizing, preset sizes, try Alt+0..9), quick fullscreen toggling... (all games except Ecco).
  • Music playback from file instead of CD, bass.dll and streaming plugin
      support for all kinds of formats. Custom loop points supported for ogg and flac.
  • All registry and ini file operations of the games get redirected to a single ini
      file that also holds the patcher configuration. The file is <exename>.ini, so
      if you'd like to have several configurations for a single game, just make a
      copy (or hardlink) of the exe and call it <exename>.whatever.exe (e.g. "sonic3k.2.exe").
  • Mapping joystick / gamepad POV hat / dpad to analog axes in all games.
  • Skipping annoying intro logos and videos.
  • Palette blending; mainly for Ecco, still experimental in SCD and particularly S3K.
  • Freely configurable keyboard and gamepad bindings (not fully implemented yet).
  • Midiout.dll of S&K Collection caused an access violation on termination,
    keeping sonic3k.exe in memory...
  • Diagonal key input for Sonic CD. Only worked for gamepad.
  • Savegame dialogs and several graphics modes were totally broken in Ecco.
  • and more...
    

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXnI5Ex6sr0


Why?

Yes, I know you can emulate most of those games, and Taxman's rebuilt Sonic CD is great.
I started this project last year, specifically for Ecco PC, because unlike the Sonic games,
that game did never receive any official re-release. Yet it is pretty much
the best version of Ecco 1 available. If you're interested in that game, you can find a
great bundle here.

After that was done, I generalized the code a bit and applied it to the old
Sonic games I had lying around. It took some restructuring/refactoring, but it
worked rather well.
Also, it's not like I'm new to this. I've made Sonic CD and Ecco PC "XP ready"
a decade ago already (does anyone remember SonicCDfix? I reused some code from that.).
But the patches back then were rather simple and superficial compared to this.


Where?

Download here.

A little extra for Sonic CD 1996.
- higher quality sound effects and Xvid-encoded intro movie. The original uses Indeo, which is no longer included in Windows. All other videos use Cinepak, which is still there.



To do...

There are a few minor issues I still need to resolve.
Palette blending tends to get stuck in SCD and S3K; you can turn if off and on via Alt+B. Should probably also be gamma-corrected.
Key/gamepad binding needs to be finished... you can already assign various stuff to buttons in SCD,
but only by editing the ini file directly. If you go to the "[JoystickControls]" section and add "JoyButton11=menu503" and  "JoyButton12=menu201", for example,
then button 11 will toggle debug mode and button 12 will toggle fullscreen (as 503 and 202 are the menu command IDs for those actions).
Some upscaling algorithms and dedithering would be nice to have, but that's a pipe dream for now.

Comments, suggestions, and bug reports are welcome.

 

[Solkia]

omg

 

Will this work for Smash Pack? I want to play Blue Swirls again.

[goku262002]

omg

 

Will this work for Smash Pack? I want to play Blue Swirls again.

[Korama]

omg

 

Will this work for Smash Pack? I want to play Blue Swirls again.

 

No, it only works with the 4 supported games so far. I'm open to suggestions what other games to investigate, but I can't promise anything.

To add a new game, I first need a copy of it, preferrably an untouched CD image, no rip. I do own physical copies of the 4 supported games, but unfortunately I do not have the Smash Pack.

[Solkia]

I could send you my copy

[Tracker_TD]

This is the best possible thing.Be right back, busting out my copy of Sonic 3D. 

 

Game runs beautifully, but no music. Very puzzling. 

[Korama]

Music was originally played from the CD audio tracks. That should still work, but I didn't really test it, because the alternative is much nicer.

Download bass.dll from http://www.un4seen.com/, it supports mp3, ogg, wav, and a few other formats. Additionally, you can download add-ons like bassflac.dll if you want support for more formats.

Put the DLLs in the game folder (only the DLLs, the other stuff inside the bass downloads isn't required).

Then make a music folder. It can be anywhere, though I suggest making a "MUSIC" subfolder in the game's base folder. The files are expected to be named either "Track##.ext" or "##whatever.ext" - e.g. "Track02.mp3" or "02 Title Theme.flac". Remember that audio tracks start at number 02 for those mixed mode data + audio game CDs. Then set the music folder in the configuration window, and you're done.

[goku262002]

I could send you my copy?

Someone at Retro is doing that for Bug! so that shouldn't be a problem.

[KillerHD]

I know that this is very late, but can someone give the music track order for the bass.dll?

[goku262002]

I know that this is very late, but can someone give the music track order for the bass.dll?

what game are you asking about?

[shdowhunt60]

Christ, for reference DirectDraw was used in a lot of really old games from back in the day when it was still dubious when graphics cards had 2D and 3D acceleration: it was deprecated from DirectX a LONG, LONG time ago.  Like, I believe as for example, games like Starcraft, Diablo, and Fallout all used DirectDraw.

[Jango]

Holy shit, that's awesome! I might give that Sonic & Knuckles Collection a go, since I've played that version first, I have such fond memories of the PC version

[KillerHD]

what game are you asking about?

Oh, Sorry, I was asking for Sonic CD.

[Korama]

Holy shit, that's awesome! I might give that Sonic & Knuckles Collection a go, since I've played that version first, I have such fond memories of the PC version

Thanks.

Don't forget that you can use smpsout.dll to get the original MD/Genesis music, if you don't want the MIDI music.

 

Oh, Sorry, I was asking for Sonic CD.

 

02 Robotnik's Spaceship
03 Palmtree Panic (Present)
04 Palmtree Panic (Good Future)
05 Palmtree Panic (Bad Future)
06 Collision Chaos (Present)
07 Collision Chaos (Good Future)
08 Collision Chaos (Bad Future)
09 Tidal Tempest (Present)
10 Tidal Tempest (Good Future)
11 Tidal Tempest (Bad Future)
12 Quartz Quadrant (Present)
13 Quartz Quadrant (Good Future)
14 Quartz Quadrant (Bad Future)
15 Wacky Workbench (Present)
16 Wacky Workbench (Good Future)
17 Wacky Workbench (Bad Future)
18 Stardust Speedway (Present)
19 Stardust Speedway (Good Future)
20 Stardust Speedway (Bad Future)
21 Metallic Madness (Present)
22 Metallic Madness (Good Future)
23 Metallic Madness (Bad Future)
24 Robotnik 1
25 Robotnik 2
26 Open Title,Sonic Boom (Reprise)
27 Open Title,Sonic Boom (Reprise)
28 End Of Level Fanfare
29 Sneakers
30 Invincible
31 Game Over
32 Special Stage
33 Sonic Boom (End Title)
34 Sonic Boom (Intro Movie)
35 Robotnik's Spaceship
36 Palmtree Panic (Past)
37 Collision Chaos (Past)
38 Tidal Tempest (Past)
39 Quartz Quadrant (Past)
40 Wacky Workbench (Past)
41 Stardust Speedway (Past)
42 Metallic Madness (Past)

(Not my names, those titles are from some CD database, see also here)

[Jango]

In fact I do want to hear the MIDIs one more time! Thanks neverthless!

[goku262002]

Korama seeing as you are here, do you plan on adding any more games to this list?

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

Like Last Bronx perhaps? and wasn't there a Virtua-on PC port in that time period?

[Korama]

Sure. I've got Bug! running, but it still needs some work, and I've fixed the weird window handling in Ecco (it can now be freely resized like the other games). But currently I'm busy with other stuff, related to Sonic Lost World and cpkredir, so an update of Sega PC Reloaded will have to wait.

[KillerHD]

Thanks.

Don't forget that you can use smpsout.dll to get the original MD/Genesis music, if you don't want the MIDI music.

 

 

02 Robotnik's Spaceship
03 Palmtree Panic (Present)
04 Palmtree Panic (Good Future)
05 Palmtree Panic (Bad Future)
06 Collision Chaos (Present)
07 Collision Chaos (Good Future)
08 Collision Chaos (Bad Future)
09 Tidal Tempest (Present)
10 Tidal Tempest (Good Future)
11 Tidal Tempest (Bad Future)
12 Quartz Quadrant (Present)
13 Quartz Quadrant (Good Future)
14 Quartz Quadrant (Bad Future)
15 Wacky Workbench (Present)
16 Wacky Workbench (Good Future)
17 Wacky Workbench (Bad Future)
18 Stardust Speedway (Present)
19 Stardust Speedway (Good Future)
20 Stardust Speedway (Bad Future)
21 Metallic Madness (Present)
22 Metallic Madness (Good Future)
23 Metallic Madness (Bad Future)
24 Robotnik 1
25 Robotnik 2
26 Open Title,Sonic Boom (Reprise)
27 Open Title,Sonic Boom (Reprise)
28 End Of Level Fanfare
29 Sneakers
30 Invincible
31 Game Over
32 Special Stage
33 Sonic Boom (End Title)
34 Sonic Boom (Intro Movie)
35 Robotnik's Spaceship
36 Palmtree Panic (Past)
37 Collision Chaos (Past)
38 Tidal Tempest (Past)
39 Quartz Quadrant (Past)
40 Wacky Workbench (Past)
41 Stardust Speedway (Past)
42 Metallic Madness (Past)

(Not my names, those titles are from some CD database, see also here)

Thanks, I put in order but the music of Sneakers, Invincible and End of the Level, doesn t play for me. Is there any solution or a way for the play the music from the CD?

[kj79]

Nice work.

By the way, on my Windows XP machine, I was only able to get the menu working, the functions required Windows Vista or later to be executed.

Any plans to add support for Windows XP in the future? It would be great if this program supported all past Win 9x OSes. Korama's Fix was a good start, but it doesn't necessary solve all problems with Sonic CD.

If the program itself wouldn't support Windows XP in the future, it would be nice to get packages for manual installation.

EDIT:

I did actually went for Mega-CD-version. But as Windows Vista/7/8/10 seems to get more popular, this project will still have many supporters.

Unfortunately Windows 98 SE and Windows XP are still the top line-up operating systems developed by Microsoft. Still the strongest ones. Windows 98 SE (and Me) give their users full Microsoft MS-DOS / Windows -experience: all of the software since the early 1980's runs on them, no need to tweak the software (except for the slowdown-software that is needed by a few pieces of software). The reason, why Sonic CD works, too, beautifully on them is that the game requires direct interaction with hardware.

Then, we go to Windows XP: it's absolutely great in many ways, and right now offers the best balance between compatibility and modernity. Unofficial support for XP will end this year (2019), but it still doesn't have a real successor, of which would be very welcomed. Making XP as safe as possible means that people should create additional administrator-accounts, make themselves as "restricted users" and give permissions for all the registry keys and files that their software needs. On the long run, along with all unofficial updates, XP will gain better security, and that way imitates the behavior of newer Microsoft operating systems. I believe that fan-made unofficial updates will still be developed for a long time for Windows XP.

Windows XP can be turned into an operating system that gives 99 % MS-DOS / Microsoft Windows -experience, by installing VDMSound, and on some machines, EMS Magic or such.

Then came Windows Vista, which was a huge rip-off. Unfortunately, Windows 7/8/10 -line-up is still pretty much the same, even if their functionality has been improved. With them, it's not possible to get even 99 % Microsoft MS-DOS / Windows -experience by installing VDMSound. As EMS was ripped off, EMS Magic or such has become a necessity. Then, one will need to install Windows XP video card -drivers to get all or the most of the display modes available for MS-DOS-programs. DOSBox is not a "real" solution, it's not an official Microsoft environment, so let's call it a "fake environment". Only Linux- and Mac-users should be required to use DOSBox. Plus DOSBox is not an option for the people who can't afford a fast computer. The newest MS-DOS-titles require roughly 3 GHz of processing power to be smooth enough to play. Microsoft Windows should be able to provide full MS-DOS-support and full Microsoft Windows -support out of the box for all users. Most of us are not advanced users, so Microsoft should provide out-of-the box experience for every user, just as they did with Microsoft Windows 98 SE. Bill Gates promised compatibility in his infamous Doom-speech. That was the golden age of Microsoft. They should bring back those days of Windows 98 SE and give full Microsoft MS-DOS / Windows -experience for everyone. That way, they will get more users into new operating systems, more trust from their loyal customers and prove that the legacy of IBM PC compatible -computing will stand the test of time, as the legacy of books has tested the time for thousands of years. History of computing should be able to do the same thing.

More notoriously, DirectSound 3D-acceleration has been absent since Windows Vista. That's a very huge rip-off, too. It can be brought back by using Creative ALchemy, although I believe that it doesn't fix all of the compatibility issues in software.

64-bit Microsoft operating systems, even Windows XP 64, are more painful to get work properly. One can't have everything by installing a single operating system anymore. One can only have everything to the certain point of time by installing Windows 98 SE (or Me, which is not exactly as great as 98 SE). There's no official way to get even a small amount of 16-bit MS-DOS-programs to run on them. One can only use a "fake environment", or install a 32-bit operating system along the 64-bit one, or install a virtual machine. Only 64-bit version of Windows 7 offers "Windows XP -mode", but other users will need licenses, and the great irony in all of this is that Microsoft doesn't sell licenses to their older operating systems, so as the time goes by, the fast-growing user-base (there are already 7 billion possible / current MS-DOS- and Windows -users) will be given "nothing", or are forced into piracy, which is ridiculous, too. Not even all of the 32-bit programs run on 64-bit systems. One can only use hardware that has 64-bit drivers on these systems, and old hardware will become useless, or are needed to be used via 32-bit operating systems.

Then, we come to the question: how about sustainable development? If people need to use 3 GHz of processing power to run their old MS-DOS-games that require 400 MHz at maximum, the CO2-omissions will obviously increase, and it's the same thing with today's unoptimized and bloated software that could be coded to be used with less processing power. If people can't use their trusty, let's say, laser printers, we need to produce more of them and that will increase CO2-omissions even further. So, compatibility is not only something that we long-time users want to keep up, but it's also something that will make the world better in the long run. Microsoft should react now and:

- Create a 16-bit virtual subsystem into 64-bit operating systems.

- Create a 32-bit driver-layer into 64-bit operating systems.

- Create an emulating layer for direct hardware communication, so we wouldn't need SEGA PC Reloaded or other tools like this.

- Create a better NTVDM for their newest operating systems, which would also contain the features that were included in Windows 98 SE's VDM. A better NTVDM could also include an integrated slowdown-utility, some graphics filters and a tool for aspect-ratio correction.

- Add an "Internet Explorer"-compatibility mode for Windows 10 to hand support for IE HTML Rendering Engine to the programs that require web-integration.

- Integrate DirectSound 3D-acceleration to the new audio-driver model of Microsoft Windows.

- Instead of dropping support for floppy disks, an floppy image creator could be integrated into new operating systems. Even if the people don't have a floppy drives, thay could use any machine to back them up and use the old games and programs forever. (All of the games and other software will probably never see a CD- or download-releases. We should not encourage people into piracy.)

By these moves, Microsoft would make it possible to save people's precious time from installing virtual machines or third-party emulators that are not produced or supported by Microsoft (One of the most time-consuming things in today's world is to solve all the compatibility-problems after every OS-upgrade. It was easy to move from Windows 3.x to 95 and again to 98, a bit harder to move on from 98 to XP, and very difficult or impossible to move from XP to beyond. It took me five years to migrate from 98 SE to XP, and I have already given up trying to migrate from XP to 7. XP will stay on my computer as long as we don't have a real successor to it.), encourage even more people to upgrade their operating systems, and finally, to hugely reduce CO2-omissions made by billions of computers on the world. What could be better than Windows 10.1 with all of the features from Windows 98 SE, Windows XP, and all of the new features added on top of it? – Probably nothing!

Edited February 23, 2019 by kj79
Added details I have forgot to mention earlier.

[goku262002]

You probably should just get off XP instead, I was a big XP supporter back in the day too but its really dated by todays standards and I've had 7 mimicked like XP for a good couple years now, trust me everything would work the same and alittle bit better.

[alphadalekben]

Sorry to drag this up again, but I've got the following error message after I've put Sonic 3D into the program. Any idea what it means?

[NickGamesYT]

doesn't work. when i click on a game to install it it says i need a cd. https://prnt.sc/qvu8nd

[Tracker_TD]

3 minutes ago, NickGamesYT said:

doesn't work. when i click on a game to install it it says i need a cd. https://prnt.sc/qvu8nd

This isn't just a collection of pirated PC games - you do need the actual original games in order to use them within the Reloaded program. 

[NickGamesYT]

Quote

Quote

This isn't just a collection of pirated PC games - you do need the actual original games in order to use them within the Reloaded program. 

doesn't work. when i click on a game to install it it says i need a cd. https://prnt.sc/qvu8nd

oh