3D Acceleration Fix

[teleguy]

Screenshot comparison

3D hardware with AA
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=558152966

Software
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=558153014

Solution 1: XWA Wrapper

The ddraw wrapper created for X-Wing Alliance now also supports the other games in the series (thanks to Reimar Döffinger).

Usage:

Grab the xwing_ddraw zip file from here
https://github.com/rdoeffinger/xwa_ddraw_d3d11/releases/latest
and extract ddraw.cfg, ddraw.dll and nopowervr.txt to both game directories
...\Steam\steamapps\common\STAR WARS X-Wing vs TIE Fighter
...\Steam\steamapps\common\STAR WARS X-Wing vs TIE Fighter\BalanceofPower

Solution 2: Aqrit ddraw

Usage:

Download http://workupload.com/file/fXsasZps (This is a modification of Aqrit's ddwrapper.)
mirror: www.vogons.org/download/file.php?id=18485
mirror: https://www.dropbox.com/s/58w5f5dzjt79cbn/aqrit%20ddraw%28ModifiedByTeleguy%29.zip?dl=0


Extract aqrit.cfg and the modded ddraw.dll to both game directories.
(...\Steam\steamapps\common\STAR WARS X-Wing vs TIE Fighter
...\Steam\steamapps\common\STAR WARS X-Wing vs TIE Fighter\BalanceofPower)

Windows 7 is the last OS that can do 3D acceleration natively though enabling any form of AA (with the exception of MLAA or FXAA) from the driver controlpanel will make ships invisible.

AMD users might have to downgrade their drivers to Catalyst 13.1 or put one of these atiumdag.dll files into the game folders. 

http://workupload.com/file/TSpxA5Tz
mirror: http://www.vogons.org/download/file.php?id=18776

Some Nvidia drivers can cause graphical glitches so you might want to try different versions.

If you aren't satisfied with it this way or if you're on a later operating system use dgVoodoo in addition to aqrit ddraw:

Download it here
http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2/
and extract dgVoodooSetup.exe / dgVoodooCpl.exe and D3DImm.dll to the game directories.

(If you use dgVoodooSetup.exe / dgVoodooCpl.exe to change settings  (like enabling AA and removing the watermark) make sure the conf file it creates is also placed in the game directories by clicking on the ".\" button. See dgVoodoo Readme.)

Before you put dgvoodoo's DDraw.dll into the game folders rename it to voodraw.dll

Then open aqrit.cfg and replace
RealDDrawPath =AUTO
with
RealDDrawPath = voodraw.dll

All files in one download:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/szc0unpec7yp6dq/Steam%20X-Wing%20Tie%20Fighter%20Hardware%20Fix%201.rar?dl=0 (Password: HardwareFix)
mirror http://workupload.com/file/9KpxrKp (Password: HardwareFix)



Windows 10 issue/invisible ships

On Windows 10 the game sometimes doesn't take advantage of dgVoodoo. This is immediately noticeable by the dgVoodoo watermark missing from the screen (that is unless you disabled it) and results in 3D acceleration not working on AMD and invisible ships with acceleration enabled on Nvidia.
The cause is as of yet unknown.
This only happened to me a couple of times when freshly applying the fix to BoP. Since I couldn't find any error in the configuration on my part I copied all the aqrit/dgVoodoo dll and config files from the BoP to the XvT folder unchanged. Surprisingly they worked like they should there. Then I moved the files back to the BoP directory and BoP was miraculously fixed as well.
Edit: Added Solution 5 to address this.

Solution 3: WineD3D

I finally found a way to make 3D acceleration work in the Steam version.

1. Go the the game directories.
...Steam\steamapps\common\STAR WARS X-Wing vs TIE Fighter
...Steam\steamapps\common\STAR WARS X-Wing vs TIE Fighter\BalanceofPower
2. Download https://www.dropbox.com/s/ydo8hg1yei7kd27/Wine%20for%20Star%20Wars%20games.zip?dl=0 and extract the files to the game directories.
3. Run wined3dcfg.cpl and select "backbuffer" as Offscreen Rendering Mode.
This way the old workarounds are no longer required and I was able to force AA from the driver controlpanel which didn't work before.

Edit: If your desktop color depth is lower than 32 bit or the game fails to launch you still need these workarounds:
4. a) Rightclick on z_xvt_.exe and set compatibility mode to 256 colors
or
b) Download https://www.dropbox.com/s/4cp63htqn5eyeon/opengl32.zip?dl=0 and extract the file to the
game directories.

All files in one download:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yfw2xooee3c7mvb/X%2CTie%20Fix%20Complete.zip?dl=0
http://workupload.com/file/8fhqXje

More up to date versions of these files:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6a23eoghu5qpiga/Wine3Dfix_Tie_X-Wing.zip?dl=0
mirror: https://workupload.com/file/cgXnZdr
The most notable improvement for me was increased performance on Win XP.

If you get poor performance try this:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/355250/discussions/0/620712999979153740/#c412448792356928912

Edit: Sometimes the keyboard fails to initialize for some reason. If that happens usually the game seems to hang at the start because it's displaying an error message in the background. In that case close Tie Fighter with Alt+F4 and try again. (You can skip this message with Esc or Enter but the Keyboard will not be available in flightmode so it's pointless.)

Edit2: I managed to fix the "Dinput Keyboard aquired failed message". Instead of setting 256 color mode download http://www.speedyshare.com/w8Ta6/TieWineFix.zip , extract the files somewhere and run install.bat with adming rights.

Uninstallation:

Delete ddraw.dll, wined3dcfg.cpl, libwine.dll Opengl32.dll and wined3d.dll from the game folder.

Solution 4: DDrawCompat

This is for everyone who can't get other the other solutions to work properly.

Usage:

Download ddraw.zip
https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/releases
and extract ddraw.dll to both game folders.
...\Steam\steamapps\common\STAR WARS X-Wing vs TIE Fighter
...\Steam\steamapps\common\STAR WARS X-Wing vs TIE Fighter\BalanceofPower

AMD users might have to downgrade their drivers to Catalyst 13.1 or put one of these atiumdag.dll files into the game folders. (The atiumdag.dll will probably not work on Windows 8 and above.)

http://workupload.com/file/TSpxA5Tz
mirror: http://www.vogons.org/download/file.php?id=18776


EDIT: The experimental/test release contains a fix for the driver issue so this workaround should no longer be needed.

Enabling normal AA from the driver controlpanel will probably make every ship invisible so use MLAA or FXAA instead.

Switching from flightmode to menus, map etc. may take it bit longer than usual. If you still only see a black screen after waiting a while, pressing the left/right arrow key on the keyboard should help.

Balance of Power might crash after the intro. This can be fixed by disabling the intro in the launcher.

Solution 5: DxWnd

This is basically Solution 2 done in a slightly different way.

Download Dxwnd v2_04_23 (direct link https://sourceforge.net/projects/dxwnd/files/Latest%20build/v2_04_23_build.rar/download ) and extract it to an empty folder.

Download https://www.dropbox.com/s/2aboewobay7av84/Dxwnd3Dfix.zip?dl=0 and extract it to the same folder, overwriting dxwnd.dll.
mirror: https://workupload.com/file/bXmKfd2

Launch dxwnd.exe, click on File and import the XvT / BoP dxw files included with the Dxwnd3Dfix.

Rightclick on both new entries ->Modify, change the filepath so that it points to the location where the game/addon are installed on your PC and click on OK. The icons in front of the XvT and BoP entries should now have turned green.

Download dgVoodoo http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2/
and copy DDraw.dll, D3DImm.dll and dgVoodooCpl.exe to both main game and addon directory
...\Steam\steamapps\common\STAR WARS X-Wing vs TIE Fighter
...\Steam\steamapps\common\STAR WARS X-Wing vs TIE Fighter\BalanceofPower

Either launch the game directly from Dxwnd or have Dxwnd running in the background when launching from Steam.

On Windows 7 and prior, 3d acceleration might work without dgVoodoo however the same limitations apply as with aqrit ddraw, see Solution 2.

[Greyshadow]

I had a quick go but couldn't see a ddraw.dll file. Can some one in the community just gift teleguy XvT, he was the one who wrote the 3D patch on the GOG version.

Many thanks for your effort teleguy, good luck!

[teleguy]

Originally posted by Greyshadow:

I had a quick go but couldn't see a ddraw.dll file. Can some one in the community just gift teleguy XvT, he was the one who wrote the 3D patch on the GOG version.

Many thanks for your effort teleguy, good luck!

XvT doesn't come with a ddraw.dll so just skip step 2.

I tried the files from the thread in my opening post with the Gog version of XvT and they work great. The color corruption that plagues X-Wing and Tie Fighter is completely missing. You just have to start Z_XVT__.EXE directly and not use the launcher.

[Greyshadow]

Teleguy, you are a wonderful human being. It worked perfectly! Note the following though:

1. When I launched the game from the exe, steam kicked in and took me to the launcher anyway. This didn't cause any problems though.

2. I got the no CD error when I tried to run the game in XP SP2 compatibility mode and the game wouldn't boot. I unchecked compatibility mode and it worked fine.

3. Reduced colour mode (8bit 256) was essential, otherwise 3D objects were sometimes not displaying.

4. I did not do step 2 (as discussed above) nor did I do step 4 (b) and (c). I didn't test 4(b) and 4 (c) as 4 (a), the first thing I tried, worked perfectly.

Thank you again - I had put a fair bit of time researching how to get the 3D acceleration working with no success previously. Game is so much smoother and nicer looking now! Very grateful!

Now I am off to shoot down some TIE fighters...

[teleguy]

Do you use Windows 8 or 10?

[Greyshadow]

Windows 8.1.

Another thing: Since I have enabled 3D, I've experienced reduced frame rates in the big battles where loads of fighters or capital ships are in view at the same time. Normally I'd just lower the detail a bit but compared to the rig I was running back in the day my computer should be having no problems even with the biggest fights. Is something others have been experiencing? Any idea on what could be the likely cause?

It isn't so bad that it is unplayable but it is very noticeable.

[teleguy]

These files are from Wine wich is a wrapper so naturally you'll lose some performance.

[Greyshadow]

I see - good to know so I can start fault finding my 3D

[teleguy]

Updated the OP with a new solution.

More in depth explanation here
http://steamcommunity.com/app/361690/discussions/0/530645446321047494/#c530645446323130567

[H-street]

so far i haven't been able to get this to work with my 5870 or 7950 AMD cards..

i always get the the Unable to use 3d Acceleration - See Readme.txt - i've tried the original dgVoodoo and the modified version and still no luck..

with the dgVoodoo default files i get the dgVoodoo watermark but the 3d just doesn't work.. and with the modified i don't see any indication that it is kicking in (so i can't say one way or the other)

any ideas?

[H-street]

Got it!!! also need your atiumdag.dll from the jediknight guide - works great! Thanks!
https://steamcommunity.com/app/32380/discussions/0/619574421426511905/?insideModal=1

So both the ddraw + atiumdag.dll works :-) as is out of the box

[teleguy]

Originally posted by H-street:

with the dgVoodoo default files i get the dgVoodoo watermark but the 3d just doesn't work.. and with the modified i don't see any indication that it is kicking in (so i can't say one way or the other)

any ideas?

The same thing happens to me when I put D3DImm.dll in the dgVoodoo folder. Judging by your report and Chris' about Tie Fighter some people have to put D3DImm.dll in the game folder and some in the dgVoodoo folder to make it work for some reason.

Can you try this?
Delete atiumdag.dll.
Rename dgVoodoo's DDRAW.dll to voodraw.dll.
Put all the files (my ddraw.dll, aqrit.cfg, D3DIMM.dll, voodraw.dll, dgVoodooSetup.exe) into the game folder.
Open aqrit.cfg and replace
RealDDrawPath =AUTO
with
RealDDrawPath = voodraw.dll

[H-street]

ok after testing the above does work..

(aqrit.cfg / ddraw.dll - dgVoodooSetup.exe, DDraw.dll renamed to voodraw.dll, d3dimm.dll - edit the aqrit.cfg and replace AUTO with voodraw.dll

the Antialiasing in the dgVoodooSetup is amazing in the game, a little blurry on the textures but much better than the 640x480 jagfest :-)


in the dgVoodooSetup just make sure the "Stretched" scaling mode is selected and make sure you click the "./" at the top so the config is kept in the game directory :-)

thanks so much for the help :-) my 10 and 13yo are playing it now.. finding out how hard of a game it really is but how much fun it is :-)

[H-street]

this also works for Tie Fighter :-) - awesomeness :-)

[Chris Solomon]

finally got all three games working with telguys patch on win10 rtm

[Chris Solomon]

Ok, now that all three games are working with 3d hardware under win10 RTM, a new issue has popped up.one that i have no clue on how to go about fixing. it would appear that M$ made some changes to the way Audio is played on Win10. when XvT starts up, the opening scene and credits happen, but afterwards a message about being unable to play the Music is displayed.

"CD Music is not Availible.
Make sure other CD audio playing applications like FlexiCD are not already running"

while this is a non-fatal error, the Star Wars music is half the fun of these games. clicking the green checkbox gets you into the game, minus any music. xwing95 and tie95 likewise have no musix, but display no error