Z95 for Windows XP without emulation

Ravey · Post by **Ravey** » 2007-01-29, 13:47

KISSMAD wrote:I tried it again and installed Daemon Tools. I loaded Daemon Tools and I got an error saying something about SCSI not found. I waited until I had to reset the computer and Daemon Tools loaded without any problems. I continued with the rest of the Z95 installation. I did everything the installation guide said to do and it's the way I have been doing it. I've tried it about 5 times without any success. This time the game worked.

So a BIG THANKYOU to SpaceOne, jezus_gristus, AxXxB and Ravey for your help.

Is there any way to have the cut scenes load from the cuts folder on the hard drive where the game has been installed?

There is a reg file for Z and there is a reference like Cuts - D:\

Start -> Run -> Type 'regedit' -> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Bitmap Brothers -> Z -> v1.0 -> WinZPaths

So just make a copy of the Z95 cd and put it on your harddrive and change it to wherever that folder is located. However when I did this I could watch the cutscenes but it was less stable for me and wouldn't load the levels. I'll try again soon

CHYROS · Post by **CHYROS** » 2007-01-29, 17:59

KISSMAD wrote:I've thought of that but there is no config file for Z95.

Ah, I think I remember now. I didn't edit a specific config file, but the computer registry. Use "run"-> regedit -> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> bitmap brothers -> Z etc. Then you'll find a registry entry named "cuts" with a drive letter behind it; I think it should work if you changed the drive letter there.

jezus_gristus · Post by **jezus_gristus** » 2007-01-30, 16:23

CHYROS wrote:
KISSMAD wrote:I've thought of that but there is no config file for Z95.
Ah, I think I remember now. I didn't edit a specific config file, but the computer registry. Use "run"-> regedit -> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> bitmap brothers -> Z etc. Then you'll find a registry entry named "cuts" with a drive letter behind it; I think it should work if you changed the drive letter there.

Please note that the loader program (Loader.exe) attempts to locate the Z95 cdrom on startup and if found sets this 'curs' registry entry according to the location where the Z95 cdrom is found. Just a note. You might wander why the registry entry changes when you play the game.

Ravey · Post by **Ravey** » 2007-01-31, 14:31

The default for mine was D: despite installing from an ISO mounted by daemon tools on F:

jezus_gristus · Post by **jezus_gristus** » 2007-02-01, 00:43

Ravey wrote:The default for mine was D: despite installing from an ISO mounted by daemon tools on F:

Strange.... is the 'volume name' of your Z95 cdrom 'Z95VOLUME'? The loader explicity searches for a logical disc advertising exactly this volume name.

By the way, it's a bit off-topic but, I would like to announce I graduated from pre university college (VWO) today. Folks living in Holland may have spotted me on TV at the Omroep Brabant news bulletin this evening

Ravey · Post by **Ravey** » 2007-02-02, 20:23

jezus_gristus wrote:I would like to announce I graduated from pre university college (VWO) today. Folks living in Holland may have spotted me on TV at the Omroep Brabant news bulletin this evening

Congrats to you, rocket fuel?

baumkuh · Post by **baumkuh** » 2007-02-03, 22:03

frist of all congratulations for your graduation

jezus_gristus you did a great job

i'm glad you made the game work in the first place, it's pretty much unplayable though. i'm having a hard time controlling that mouse speed

don't get me wrong i don't wanna be sassy... do you see any possibility to change the mouse speed?

dennis

CHYROS · Post by **CHYROS** » 2007-02-04, 03:47

Welcome to the forum, Dennis!

baumkuh wrote:i'm having a hard time controlling that mouse speed

Yeah, even after all those years that still bugs me like hell...

I would like to announce I graduated from pre university college (VWO) today.

Congrats! [gefeliciflapstaart!

]

BallWin · Post by **BallWin** » 2007-02-04, 07:37

jezus_gristus wrote: I would like to announce I graduated from pre university college (VWO) today.

My warmest congratulations on your promotion!

jezus_gristus · Post by **jezus_gristus** » 2007-02-04, 14:52

baumkuh wrote:frist of all congratulations for your graduation

jezus_gristus you did a great job
i'm glad you made the game work in the first place, it's pretty much unplayable though. i'm having a hard time controlling that mouse speed

don't get me wrong i don't wanna be sassy... do you see any possibility to change the mouse speed?

dennis

Thanks! I've seen quite some rocket fuel the past few days

About the mouse speed; this has indeed been mentioned before by other people. At this point I pettymuch got used to it, but I surely agree it's a petty nasty problem. I've looked at a way to be able to increase or decrease the mouse speed, but this isn't going to be easy. I'll try to explain:

Z95 uses DirectInput for mouse (and keyboard ?) handling. DirectInput passes raw mouse data to some function in the Z95 game. If DirectInput signals Z95 the mouse moved left for example, it only tells how much the mouse itself (the object) moved. You as a programmer have to 'translate' this to say for example the amount of pixels on the screen the mouse moves left.
Doesn't sound that complicated right? The problem however is that I don;t have any source code of Z95, only a compiled binary, this makes is extremely hard to trackdown the exact location of the function used to translate the real mouse movement to the cursor movement in game.
I have however found a really awesome new disassembler which may help me in further reverse engineering the game.

baumkuh · Post by **baumkuh** » 2007-02-05, 15:48

thanks for welcoming me, CHYROS

i know that the mouse problem was mentioned before i wanted to note it though. as you already said before, you get used to it in some way but it's still annoying as hell

well, i'll play some z now

dennis

AxXxB · Post by **AxXxB** » 2007-02-16, 15:51

I have installed Z95 in other folder. Now it works without problems. If it is interesting for somebody I can tell how it is possible to make it.

In Z95 MIDI quality is worse than in Z. May be somebody knows how to raise it?

Funkjoker · Post by **Funkjoker** » 2007-02-19, 16:39

Hi,

i got Z95 working on XP and Windows 2000 with the
z95forXP_by_YoMommaNL_1.1 patch.

Now i've tried to start a network game between these two PCs in a Local LAN. I've added the IPX Protocol Driver at the Network Connections menu in windows and set up a server in Z95.

The two PCs can connect to each other without any problems, but when i start the game and the loading screen disappears the screen stays black.

After a while the XP machine says "trying to reconnect" and the 2000 machine just stays black until you press the space key.

Is this a problem of one of my PCs/Windows2000 or is this a general problem with Z95 on XP over IPX ?

Did anyone get a z95 IPX network game running ?

Thx for your help,

Funkjoker

jezus_gristus · Post by **jezus_gristus** » 2007-02-22, 14:36

Funkjoker wrote:Hi,

i got Z95 working on XP and Windows 2000 with the
z95forXP_by_YoMommaNL_1.1 patch.

Now i've tried to start a network game between these two PCs in a Local LAN. I've added the IPX Protocol Driver at the Network Connections menu in windows and set up a server in Z95.

The two PCs can connect to each other without any problems, but when i start the game and the loading screen disappears the screen stays black.

After a while the XP machine says "trying to reconnect" and the 2000 machine just stays black until you press the space key.

Is this a problem of one of my PCs/Windows2000 or is this a general problem with Z95 on XP over IPX ?

Did anyone get a z95 IPX network game running ?

Thx for your help,

Funkjoker

Hmm, altrough it seems unlikely to me, this problem might be caused by the fix itself. It appears that when the game starts it peeks the com ports for a multiplayer connection (since windows XP doesn't allow you to directly check the com ports I had to nop this part of the code). Because Z95 cannot check for a modem connection, this might cause the whole multiplayer system to hang.
I'm not exactly sure how Z95 implements IPX networking, but it's likely to work via DirectPlay and thus ruling out this possibility. I'll see what I can do.

Ravey · Post by **Ravey** » 2007-02-22, 16:18

Yeah, I had no luck with multiplayer using hamachi and IPX when I tried. It would be better if the multiplayer could be handled from an external app..