Scaling Menus/Game to 1080p using DXWnd (Almost Borderless Window)

The purpose of this guide is to go through setting up Rainbow Six 3 using DXWnd.
An added benefit of running the game through DXWnd (other than better compatibility.) is to create an almost borderless window feel.
This will allow you to ALT+TAB to various other windows with out needing to wait for the game to resize your desktop resolution to 640x480 between every ALT+TAB.
It also helps when using 2 monitors as your second screen windows won't be effected by resolution changes.

Introduction

The purpose of this guide is to go through setting up Rainbow Six 3 using DXWnd.

An added benefit of running the game through DXWnd (other than better compatibility.) is to create an almost borderless window feel.

This will allow you to ALT+TAB to various other windows with out needing to wait for the game to resize your desktop resolution to 640x480 between every ALT+TAB.

It also helps when using 2 monitors as your second screen windows won't be effected by resolution changes.

Disclaimer:

• I did not create DXWnd or have any involvment in it's development. I'm only spreading the good word as it's a program I've been using a ton for playing older games which are too new to run in DOSBox (another program I have no affiliation with.)
  
  
• That said I can probably answer a few questions about DXWnd. I'm willing to help you get Rainbow Six 3 up an running in it but if the problems are too advanced Google might be more help than me.

Installing DXWnd

DXWnd is a program originally created to play pre DirectX 7 games in windowed mode as before that point it was Full Screen or nothing.

Since then a lot of work has been done on it to create an awesome set of compatibility tools for older games.

To Install:

1. You can grab the latest DXWnd executable at their Latest build page[sourceforge.net]
   At the time of writting the newest build available on their Source Forge page is v2_04_58h_fx2_build.rar
   
   
2. Once downloaded you'll extract the entire .rar file into a folder.
   This will require you to have either 7zip or WinRar installed, I prefer 7zip as it's a fully free file manager.
   
   
3. Feel free to extract the contents any where you like but make a note as to where you extract it.

Disabling Intro Movies (May Be Optional)

I've run into an issue when starting Rainbow Six 3, where the game will become unresponsive while the intro movies are playing.

I recomend disabling the intro movies inorder to prevent this soft crash.

To Disable:

1. Locate the video folder (That'll be something like "\Steam\steamapps\common\Rainbow Six 3 Gold\Videos")
   
2. Rename Logos.bik to anything else (I renamed mine to Logos(1).bik so it'll be easy to reverse.)
   
3. Create a text file and rename that text file to Logos.bik
   
   What mine looks like:
   
   
   
4. Now go to the "int" folder within this Videos folder.
   
5. Rename RS_Intro.bik same as Logos.bik
   
6. Create a text file and rename that to RS_Intro.bik
   
   What mine looks like:
   

Note: ensure the file extentions (the .txt) on those text files were changed as in Win 8 and above file extentions are hidden by default making them harder to change.

Adding Rainbow Six 3 to DXWnd and Needed Settings

Start:

• Open the folder we extracted DXWnd to and run DXWnd.exe.
  
  You may want to rightclick and run DXWnd as an administrator, This may not be needed but I've run into a problem where DXWnd doesn't seem to do anything after starting games from there.
  
  
  
• In DXWnd we'll go to Edit>Add
  

Setting Tabs and Sub Sections:

Main:

1. Put in a Name and the Install Path for the Rainbow Six 3 executable.
   
2. Rainbow Six 3's executable will in "../steam/steamapps/common/Rainbow Six 3/system/"
   called "RavenShield.exe"
   
3. Generic: ensure only "Run in Window" is checked.
   
4. Position: you'll see "Window initial position & size" enter X: 0 Y: 0 W: Screen Width H: Screen Height
   
   Should look something like:
   

Video:

1. Window Style: select modal
   
2. Screen Resolution: select HDMI
   (You may need to select Native, I think it depends on what display or GPU you're using.)
   This effects the resolutions that the game sees as available. SVGA all 4:3, HDMI all 16:9, Native all supported by your video card.
   
   Should look something like:
   

Mouse:

1. Curso Clipper: select LOCKED
   This will lock the mouse into our window. When navigating the menus it can be annoying with the cursor leaving the screen all the time.
   
   Should look something like:
   

DirectX:

• This tab can be left alone
  
  Should look something like:
  

DirectX(2):

• This tab can be left alone
  
  Should look something like:
  

Direct3D:

• This tab can be left alone
  
  Should look something like:
  

Libs:

1. GDI: "select Scaled GDI calls"
   
   Should look something like:
   

Saving Changes:

Hit okay at the bottom of the options menu.

Running the game (Through DXWnd)

Rainbow Six 3 Will now be listed in DXWnd.

To Run:

1. Right click Rainbow Six 3 and select "Run"
   
   
   
2. You may see something like below on first run:
   
   Notice it's not exactly full screen and the mouse is weird and glitchy
   
   
3. To fix this you can press ALT+ENTER and it should look something like:
   
   The menu will be stretched, I don't believe there's an easy way to keep aspect ratio within the menu but later in the guide we'll get the in-game stuff to be 1080p without stretching.

In-Game Options

Finally we just want to adjust the ingame resolution.

Luckily Rainbow Six 3 Supports widescreen resolutions within the game itself... this fix was just for the menus and to give you a borderless window feel... as stated at the beginning.

In-Game:

(From the Main Menu.)

1. Options>Graphics: Video Resolution 1920x1080 (Or your prefered resolution)
   

Then just hit return and you should be good to go hunt those terrorist scumbags.

Application load error 5:0000065434 (Installed the game on a different hard drive from steam)

You may see this if you have installed Rainbow Six 3 on a different harddrive from your steam install location. It seems to happen to a few older games like Morrowind and New Vegas.

To fix it you'll just:

1. Copy the Steam.exe from your steam install location "../Steam/Steam.exe"
   
   
2. Paste the Steam.exe into your Rainbow Six 3 executable location "..Steam/steamapps/common/Rainbow Six 3/system/"

[xylr]

@Baraz Interesting. I'm thinking the Native/HDMI setting there is either display or GPU specific. I'll add a note to the guide. I know I had to change it after upgrading my PC, but I didn't test further.

[Baraz]

Worked like a charm.

I had one issue : mouse did not reach the entire right-side of the game (while the game window is perfectly centered, the mouse can reach full left but not full right, as if it thinks the game starts on the left of the screen).

Solution for me : under Video, I selected Native instead of HDMI and it sits perfectly in 1080 and looks really good!

[Sir Mr. Goodfellow]

@xylr Thanks a lot for your help. After doing what you said it is working perfectly now.

[xylr]

Updated the guide for the newer build of DXWnd.

1. The Input tab was changed to the Mouse tab.
2. It seems that it's now necessary to set the Screen Resolution to HDMI on the Video Tab for 1080p to show up correctly now.
3. Added a section on Application Load Error.

[xylr]

@PHÖßÖ interesting, think I figured it out. I installed the game on a 2nd harddrive, and am seeing the same error now.

What I had to do is copy the Steam.exe from the steam install folder. Then Paste it into the Rainbow Six 3 .exe folder "\steamapps\common\Rainbow Six 3 Gold\system"

Started working for me after that. It seems to be something that happens with older games like Morrowwind when on a different harddrive from the steam install.

I'll add that to the guide as I hadn't seen it before.

[Sir Mr. Goodfellow]

@xylr Disabling the intro movies did not fix it, still getting the same steam error: application load error 5:0000065434.

[Sir Mr. Goodfellow]

@xylr I did not disable the intro videos. I'll try doing that when I get some free time. I also installed OpenRVS so I hope that isn't going to conflict with anything. I mainly just want to get it border-less or in a size-able window so I can stream it easily. I'll get back to you on the intro video thing.

[xylr]

@PHÖßÖ did you disable the intro movies? I can't remember the specific error but I believe that should fix the error at start. I have a section above about disabling them.

After re-reading the guide I wasn't that clear.
You do have to make sure and add 2 text files to the video folders.
One for Logos.bik and a second for RS_Intro.bik.
Then rename those text files and change their extentions to match exactly:
so new_text_document.txt to Logos.bik. etc.

If that doesn't fix it, let me know and I'll see if anything has changed in the newest version DXWnd.

[Sir Mr. Goodfellow]

After setting it all up and selecting run i get this error:

steam error
application load error
5:0000065434