This page contains very early version of simple wrapper which improves compatibility of ST:DS9-DW with never versions of Windows OS. It does this by hiding some HW features the game can not handle and by emulating HW features which are expected by the game and not supported anymore. Unlike the Klingon Academy wrapper, this wrapper only fixes interaction with existing DX API. It does not add new features and it is more sensitive to driver issues. On the other hand it does not reduce rendering performance.
Compatibility changes
- Game happily selects 32 bit color mode even if can not handle it properly. This shows as graphical corruption once the intro videos end. Videos themselves are handled by Bink library and work fine. The wrapper hides display modes which do not have 16bit color depth.
- Game contains code to take advantage of non-power-of-two textures. That code was likely never tested and does not work properly. If GPU supports NPOT textures, the game will attempt to create texture with invalid dimensions. The wrapper makes the game believe that only power-of-two textures are supported.
- Game expects that palettized texture formats are supported (8bit per pixel). This format is not supported by newer GPUs anymore. The wrapper emulates this format and converts it to normal RGB textures.
- Game selects last display device it enumerates. This is usually the secondary monitor. The wrapper enumerates only one device which maps to the default display driver.
- Game locks the back buffer to draw some additional graphics which causes performance issues on Windows 8+ which does not natively support 16bit display modes.
- Game has problems with mouse handling if the desktop resolution on the primary display has width bigger than or equal to 1600. This is NOT fixed by the wrapper. You need to reduce the resolution before starting the game if necessary
Installation
You need to unpack the archive to the game directory and then use a hexadecimal editor to change two instances of ddraw.dll string inside the ds9dw.exe to ddra2.dll. This is necessary because some parts of existing DX have internal references to the original ddraw.dll and so it must remain available.
On Windows 8 it is possible that the game might be unable to enumerate any available 16 bit display mode and fails to launch. In that case set in the Compatibility settings for ds9dw.exe (right mouse click + Properties + Compatibility) setting Reduced colour mode to 16-bit (65536) colour.
Download
Version 0.02 (31.12.2016) - Very experimental.
Source code
- Fixes performance issues on Windows 8+
History
Version 0.01 (30.3.2011) - Very experimental.
Source code
- Initial version. Only first mission played, might contain bugs after that. Tested on GeForce 460.