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.

[*****]

What display resolution do you have? I run at 1080p and think it's not so bad.
However the default upscaling is problematic because of the letters being so thin and rendered in 2D.
You can change ScalingType in ddraw.cfg to 1 (quite blurry) or 2 (sharp and properly blended but probably a bit heavy for anything not desktop-class).

[teleguy]

Updated OP with DDrawCompat.

[*****]

Originalmente postado por teleguy:

Updated OP with DDrawCompat.

Not complaining as more documented options is good, but out of curiosity:
What do people need that one for?
To my knowledge, anyone on Windows XP (or Linux/OSX with WINE) should not need any wrapper DLL.
Anyone with Vista or above has DirectX11 available (at least for the XWA wrapper it doesn't matter what the graphics card actually supports, so a DX9 GPU should be fine as long as you have DirectX 11 installed).
So that kind of leaves only cases where the XWA wrapper has bugs I guess. In which case I'd be happy to hear about them, as that is the only way they might get fixed :-)

[teleguy]

Ah, ok I didn't know your wrapper works with DX 9 gpus.

Concerning Windows XP, the Steam versions are still set to EmulationOnly mode which has to be overriden . However I didn't test the games on XP, so I might be wrong, and I'm not sure DDrawCompat is compatible with XP.

Also even though the XWA wrapper is the best and easiest way to enable 3D acceleration, apparently it doesn't work for everyone as Solution 2 still gets downloaded regularly. (I have no info about the other solutions.)

[*****]

Thanks! I admit I only know that the XWA wrapper is supposed to work with DX9 GPUs. There is the usual issue of "if it's not tested it's likely broken", I don't have an actual DX9 GPU.
Hopefully I can get some of the people using solution 2 due to issues to report the problems...

[JCDisaray]

http://www.imagebam.com/image/cfb722483032147

[JCDisaray]

http://www.imagebam.com/image/227858483037109

[JCDisaray]

Teleguy,

I imported the Mods I converted from XWAUpgrade to Steam's XVT. Looks AMAZING with your solutions, however, certain Ship Mods create errors. Have you seen these before and do you know anything about resolving them:

http://www.imagebam.com/image/51c1a5483147633

Thank you for your time!

Side Note the First Two Errors are from the Y-wing Mod, and the Last one is created from the Asteroid Mods.

[teleguy]

Sorry, I'm not familiar with these errors. If I had to guess I'd say something about the ship models is not compatible with XvT's 3D engine.

Maybe the people at xwaupgrade.com know more.

[*****]

These errors mean your GPU drivers crashed. That is either a bug in the driver or some issue with the hardware.
On the screenshots: did you adjust the mipmap selection like the readme.txt suggests? I think the textures look blurrier than they should in XvT.

[JCDisaray]

I appreciate the Comments

I will update my Nvidia Drivers tonight. I do feel it's a combination of the ddraw wrapper and perhaps the Mod. The Mods work fine with the CD version (on an XP machine) and worked fine with the GoG + dgVoodoo (Win10) though not as crisp and clear as the ddraw wrapper is. I did slide everything to the "Blurry" Side, and I think the blurry images are due to my Print Screen to Paint archaic picture making because ingame the mods look phenomenal (sp?). I could ask the XWAUpgrade Community but XvT has always been the "b@st@rd" child of the X-wing Community so getting help has been super painful.

If anyone else has any other suggestions, I am willing to listen. So far it's only been a couple Mods that cause the problem...I will continue to test

[JCDisaray]

Yeah, May be Driver Related. I played on my laptop with a Nvidia 750m and it worked pretty well...little laggy but no crashing. I will need to update my Desktop's Drivers and see if that's the prob.

[*****]

I released an update of the xwa wrapper (Solution 1) that enables anisotropic filtering in XvT and improves the font readability.
Though I realized that it looks less impressive in most missions other than that first training mission since most ships have much lower resolution textures than that container...

[JCDisaray]

Do you have a dropbox or something? I can send you the Converted Mods and maybe you can help me pinpoint the issue with the Y-wing MOD? Your Solution is Epically Exciting as it makes XvT look like XWA...but I'm wondering if there is something inconsequential that needs to be turned off to get the Y-wing to work properly. I messed with the CFG a bit and that didn't seem to help. There is an Old Y-wing Mod, I believe that works; it just doesn't look near as good as the recent release on XWAUpgrade.com. Thank you for your contribution!!!

[*****]

I have an dropbox account, don't remember my user name right now though.
But maybe it'd be easiest if you can open an issue on github and attach the files there?
https://github.com/rdoeffinger/xwa_ddraw_d3d11/issues
I don't know if maybe the latest xwaupgrade models use fairly large texture sizes, it might be that XvT just can't handle those. But I can have a look for anything obvious.