[Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Discussion of development and patch submission.
Battler
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[Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by Battler »

It's probably a bug in the VBL emulation. It happens with any emulated graphics card. But it's not a black screen, I still see the line mark flickering in the upper left corner.
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James-F
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by James-F »

I can hear the title music playing, but not the image.

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Battler
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by Battler »

PCem is still in text mode while it should be in graphics mode. I have no idea why, though.
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James-F
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by James-F »

I should add that Warcraft 2 uses Uni-VBE driver before it starts.
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James-F
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by James-F »

Fixed, by using a GPU bios that has VBE 2.0 with SVGA modes in it.
Apparently the Uni-VBE in Warcraft is OLD.

It's not a PCem bug after all.
I should say that adding at least one VBE 2.0 GPU bios to PCem is important.
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SarahWalker
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by SarahWalker »

PCem does have a GPU BIOS with VBE 2.0 - the 'ATI Video Xpression (Mach64 VT2)' BIOS supports it.

I also notice you're using the Cirrus Logic emulation. It's completely broken and unfinished - in fact it's not available in release builds for that reason. Obviously I don't recommend it...
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James-F
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by James-F »

It's actually a S3 ViRGE but Warcraft 2 VBE driver is very old so it thinks it's a Cirrus Logic and the screen remains in text mode.
Everything is fine when I use a S3 ViRGE (VBE 2.0) rom/bios I found on the internet.

It's not a PCem problem at all, but I strongly suggest having at least one VBE 2.0 rom in PCem.
Battler
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by Battler »

SarahWalker wrote:PCem does have a GPU BIOS with VBE 2.0 - the 'ATI Video Xpression (Mach64 VT2)' BIOS supports it.
Then it might be that the Mach64 VT2 BIOS you have is better than the one from VGA Museum which we use.
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James-F
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by James-F »

This one is a S3 Virge DX bios with VBE 2.0, this should give DOSBox like results.
[Moderator : please do not post links to copyrighted material]
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James-F
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by James-F »

Sorry about that, It's a very old bios, I though it's was public by now since there is no S3 anymore.
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SarahWalker
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by SarahWalker »

It doesn't matter if it's old, please do not post copyrighted material on this forum.
Katakis
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by Katakis »

Copyright is crap...
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omarsis81
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by omarsis81 »

Katakis wrote:Copyright is crap...
Unfortunately, it is not. And if it were, is the owner's rules, so...
ecksemmess
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by ecksemmess »

I'm a bit confused--on real hardware, doesn't Warcraft 2 run just fine with cards like the ATI Graphics Pro Turbo and Phoenix S3 Trio64? I could swear I remember playing it on a pretty wide variety of systems of that vintage, back in the day. Am I misremembering that, or am I misunderstanding what the limitation is supposed to be here?
Last edited by ecksemmess on Mon 05 Jun, 2017 3:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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leilei
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by leilei »

Warcraft 2 should run fine as it's only a VESA1.x game, and there has been very wide support for that (which is supposed to be helped with bundled UNIVBEs to reach the cards that have proprietary pre-VESA standards to play with them). On real hardware I've never encountered a situation where I couldn't run Warcraft II due to video hardware limitations, S3 Trio or not.
James-F wrote:there is no S3 anymore.
VIA owns S3's assets and therefore they're still "around". The S3 site's still up even.

It's pretty trivial to dump your own S3 bios to use with PCem anyway. It's what I did.
ecksemmess
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by ecksemmess »

Okay, that's what I thought. So the conclusions upthread about this not being a PCem bug were mistaken, then.
Battler
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by Battler »

leilei wrote:It's pretty trivial to dump your own S3 bios to use with PCem anyway. It's what I did.
Not everyone can afford an actual S3 card and an actual old machine to dump the BIOS (or an ROM reader device).
VIA owns S3's assets and therefore they're still "around". The S3 site's still up even.
Why not e-mail VIA then and ask them what their distribution policy regarding ROM's is? I e-mailed NEC a few years ago about the PC-98 ROM's, and got told I was allowed to redistribute up to 10 (or was it 5?) copies. Who knows what VIA might say.
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SarahWalker
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by SarahWalker »

I'm an emulator author. Not a ROM distributor. I have zero interest in going through the potential legal minefield involved in getting approval.
SA1988
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by SA1988 »

I don't give a flying **** about copyright or whatnot in general.
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SarahWalker
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by SarahWalker »

Yeah well, on your site you can make that decision. But this is my site, the hosting is in my name, I'm paying for it, I have decided I do not want copyrighted material on it.
SA1988
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by SA1988 »

Ok, then what if someone releases nightly builds of PCem outside this site? Well, those outside the site should at least try the latest commit.
Last edited by SA1988 on Mon 05 Jun, 2017 7:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
ecksemmess
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by ecksemmess »

I've got to say, it does make good sense to have a firm policy about not hosting any copyrighted material here. Lots of sites draw a firm line on that; this shouldn't be controversial. Can we stop wasting time with silly arguments about it? There are lots of other places to vent disdainfully about copyright, this doesn't need to be one of them. The policy is obviously not going to change, and it shouldn't change. All of the protests and what-ifs are annoying and pointless.
ecksemmess
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by ecksemmess »

See, questions like this:
SA1988 wrote:Ok, then what if someone releases nightly builds of PCem outside this site? You can't do anything to prevent so.
Come on, this is just silly. Sarah is legally responsible for what's on her own site, not for versions of her emulator that other people put up on other sites. It almost seems like you're being contrarian just for the fun of it. Why not spend this time coding? :)
Battler
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by Battler »

- SA1988: Sarah and ecksemmess are both right. This is Sarah's site, and therefore, Sarah's rules, so stop pressuring her and bringing up irrelevant points.

And yes, the time would indeed be better spent coding rather than arguing.
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omarsis81
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by omarsis81 »

I agree with ecksemmess. Sarah kindly asked not to release the builds (viewtopic.php?p=4189)
If she sees someone releasing builds she might get pissed off and close the access to the code.
If you want a BIOS or a game there are plenty of sites to look for... Be clever and don't provoke ;)
Battler
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by Battler »

omarsis81 wrote:If she sees someone releasing builds she might get pissed off and close the access to the code.
Edit: Actually, I was wrong. She can legally close the mercurial repository and only distribute the source of the release builds as she herself does not distribute devlopment binaries of PCem. So you're right.
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SarahWalker
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by SarahWalker »

SA1988 wrote:Ok, then what if someone releases nightly builds of PCem outside this site? Well, those outside the site should at least try the latest commit.
Then you get banned and the Mercurial repo goes private, available only to the handful of people I trust.
ecksemmess
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by ecksemmess »

Yeah, let's not go down this road. We've got a good thing going here, and it really shouldn't be too much to ask for everyone to respect the basic ground rules and refrain from engaging in shady behavior. Let's not fuck this up.
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leilei
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by leilei »

S3 Trio/Virge cards were once ubiquitous to 90's OEM PCs and they were once the best selling 2D card of its day. Video card roms can be easily dumped by software means and you don't need an old PC for it either. It's not rocket science...
Battler
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Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Post by Battler »

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