ExultStudio and Win9x question

[Mirek]

Hello
I know that ExultStudio is not finished yet, but I nevertheless try to follow its progress and I found one thing in Changelog I did not like:

2002-01-21 Ryan Nunn
....

* Makefile.cygwin, Makefile.win32, mapedit/Makefile.mingw,
mapedit/studio.*, server/servemsg.* server/server.cc,
server/servewin32.*, msvcstuff/Exult.dsp : Added commincations for
WinNT, Win2K and WinXP Only! Win9x/Me ARE NOT SUPPORTED!

.....

Does this mean that W9x/Me will not be supported at all (I hope not) or is it just a temporary thing?
I have Windows 2000 at work, but for home use I found out that W98 Second Edition are the best choice. I really dislike the idea to have to install Linux or W2000 just to run ExultStudio.

I hope that "Win9x/Me not supported" is just a temporary thing, but I thougt it better to mention it here anyway and ask for the clarification.

Best regards

Mirek Luza

[nadir]

Problem is that the Win9x family of Win32 OS's has a very inferior implementation of sockets which doesn't support asynchronous communication.

We (Exult Team) only provide support for what we use. If someone with Win9x codes support for asynch sockets, we would be happy to include it.

Until then... your best choice is to upgrade. Win2K and XP (without Luna) are far superior. (I won't talk about Linux or MacOSX

[suraimu]

No, no no. The '9x/ME' not supported bit is about the inter-communication
between Exult Studio and Exult.

[Mirek]

Yes, I know it is about communication between Exult and Exult Studio. However from what I have understood this is one of the most important functions of ExultStudio.

Well - I can live with the situation as it is. Not being designer myself, I would just probably experimented a bit with ExultStudio and then left it anyway.

As for advantages of W2000 and XP - their superiority depends on the task for which you use them. I certainly prefer W2000 over W9x at work. As for home: I am a fan of old RPG games, often DOS based, so NT based operating systems (NT, 2000, XP) are a big NO for me at home (too much troubles to run old programs). I have even additional ISA soundcard in my 1GHz Athlon - took me some time to persuade the shop assistant why I need something like that in my computer .
I prefer W98SE because it is a good compromise - last modern Windows fully supporting DOS.

[artaxerxes]

You might want to consider using VDMS to run old DOS games in WinNT based OS.
It enables you to play sound (it works great with U6)..

Unfortunately, after many many tries, I still can't get any EMS from NT based OS.. So can't play UW, UW2, can't get sound for Savage Empire nor Martian Dream. U8 plays well but for some reason I can't get both music and SFX together. SFX alone works but it's _horrible_.

VDMS can be found easily: google for one, or go to links (top of this page) and click on U8 in windows.

Artaxerxes

[raven566]

Atraxerxes, I have had similar problems with EMS memory in UW and UW along with VDM sound. I have found somewhat of a solution.

I am running Windows 2000 Professional. When I first ran both UW's, they crashed. I learned of a hex hack on Polychromic's Workshop page at http://home.attbi.com/~macecil/ultima/wintips.htm. After applying the hex hack, UW and UW2 told me I didn't have enough EMS memory. I found out that the PIF file somehow disabled EMS memory and after I edited it and set EMS memory to Auto, it ran perfectly. Getting sound to work with VDMS is harder and makes no sense, but it works. If I go into the command prompt and run uw.pif, it tells me of errors and I close. Then I run uw.exe and it runs fine but with no sound. Then I exit the game and load dosdrv then run uw and sound works fine. The sound will not work unless you follow those steps. It's strange I know. Has anyone found a way to get the sound to work without all those steps?

Also I have had similar issues with Ultima 8 and VDMS. The music works perfectly but the sound is harsh and garbled. I haven't found a way to fix this so I just turned off the sound and had only the music playing, but I've been looking for a way to get sound to work.

[Colourless]

Nadir, not true. Winsock in Win9x supports async communications, but i'm not using sockets, I'm using a named pipe. If sockets were used for communications then things would be ok. I don't know enough about Winsock to write the code though.

-Colourless Dragon

[Karlos]

Perhaps one could use the UNIX layer of Cygwin to achieve this on Win9x? Not that I actually know what I'm talking about here, mind you, but since one can compile a lot of UNIX software without changes with the Cygwin compiler, and linking against the Cygwin DLL that provides many of the UNIX system calls, perhaps one could use the UNIX way of handling the communication if this is the compiler that is used.

Is there anyone who knows more about the code and/or Cygwin who can comment on this?

Note that my interest is merely academic, since I use Linux, but I think the cross-platform nature of Exult (and eventually Studio) is an important factor.



-Karl

[Dominus]

ok, about VDMS and Underworld and U8.
1st of all there is a nice Forum for VDMS at http://pub7.bravenet.com/forum/show.asp ... 3016&cpv=1

2nd if you installed the latest version of VDMS you have the option of "run with VDMS" in your right click menu of the explorer. Use this with the Underworld exe. Works for me in XP. However in the Dragon's newsgroup a couple of people (including Polychromic) noticed that on some XP machines it doesn't work (Polychromic has 3 XP boxes and on only two it runs).
U8: Sound and Speech don't work in the emulation. Neither with VDMS nor SoundFX. Seems that U8 does some weird DMA stuff which is not emulated. Sorry no workaround for this (the author of VDMS and me looked into this some time ago).

[suraimu]

Errr.... Funny, I just go into DOS when I want to play an archaic game
that likes nothing but DOS. I don't see the difficulty.

[Dominus]

Hm, that's okay if you have your drive formatted ina dos readable way (Fat16 or Fat32) but people who are running NT,2k or XP are likely to have their drives in NTFS.
Also people like me tend to play games while doing other work or in between to spend some time. I have a lot of stuff running in the background but would like to play at the same time....

[Mirek]

Well, I am confused again:
Nadir said it is not possible because W9x miss some necessary support...
(In short :NO)

Then Colourless Dragon wrote"
"Nadir, not true. Winsock in Win9x supports async communications ... I do not know enough about Winsock to write the code though ..." (this implies to me that it is possible, just somebody who knows Winsock is needed - this looks more hopeful - in short: POSSIBLE).

Sorry for asking again - I am a programmer, but I have not ever done anything with sockets, winsock etc.

So is it possible or not? IMHO it would be very nice to have the support for W9x

On the other hand if there is a principal problem in architecture of ExultStudio, then people will have to live with it (of course nobody expects complete rewriting of ExultStudio just to support W9x).

[suraimu]

>(of course nobody expects complete rewriting of ExultStudio just to support W9x).


THEN WHY IS THIS THREAD HERE!^@%#^@%#!#

[Killer]

Information purposes by the looks of it.

[Mirek]

SURAIMU: I just asked VERY POLITELY how it is, because IMHO it should not be so complicated - generally all Windows program run on both W9x and W2000. I can be wrong here - I do not know much about sockets - perhaps for ExultStudio it is not possible.

I do not understand what you do not like about this question.

Just because you like Linux or W2000 and despise W9x you do not need to behave as if I was asking an idiotic question. If you do not have anything reasonable to say then do not write anything.

[suraimu]

Where the hell did my opinion of any operating system come into this?
I never said I like or even use either Linux or W2k.

[K.I.L.E.R]

Okay I think it's time for a freez over.
Now from what I gather Windows 98/me are not suported yet okay so chill untill it is cause some one will eventually do it. okay?

[drcode]

Well said, especially since ExultStudio isn't even close to being done yet.

[Colourless]

Hey, 1 week ago windows wasn't even supported at all.

-Colourless Dragon.

[Colourless]

Ok, I've added in some communications support for Win9x users. It isn't as robust as the WinNT comms but it functions well enough for now. It will be in the next snapshots (newer than 2002-01-24 06:29).

Just a note, for Win9x the comms will only be active after you've activated Map Edit Mode (Ctrl-Alt-M). This will also cause Exult studio to be launched.

Now, remember Exult studio is no where near finished. We do not want bug reports at this stage.

-Colourless Dragon

[Mirek]

Thank you. I must admit I really did not expect so quick reaction (basically I started this thread in order to know whether something like this will be done in future or not).


EXULT RULES!