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[Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Sat 03 Jun, 2017 3:15 pm
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.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Sat 03 Jun, 2017 3:19 pm
by James-F
I can hear the title music playing, but not the image.

Image

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Sat 03 Jun, 2017 3:29 pm
by Battler
PCem is still in text mode while it should be in graphics mode. I have no idea why, though.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Sat 03 Jun, 2017 3:37 pm
by James-F
I should add that Warcraft 2 uses Uni-VBE driver before it starts.
Image

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Sat 03 Jun, 2017 3:53 pm
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.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Sat 03 Jun, 2017 5:22 pm
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...

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Sat 03 Jun, 2017 5:58 pm
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.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Sat 03 Jun, 2017 6:54 pm
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.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Sat 03 Jun, 2017 7:50 pm
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]

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Sun 04 Jun, 2017 1:22 pm
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.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Sun 04 Jun, 2017 1:45 pm
by SarahWalker
It doesn't matter if it's old, please do not post copyrighted material on this forum.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 2:32 am
by Katakis
Copyright is crap...

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 2:40 am
by omarsis81
Katakis wrote:Copyright is crap...
Unfortunately, it is not. And if it were, is the owner's rules, so...

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 3:20 am
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?

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 3:21 am
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.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 3:45 am
by ecksemmess
Okay, that's what I thought. So the conclusions upthread about this not being a PCem bug were mistaken, then.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 2:26 pm
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.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 5:18 pm
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.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 5:57 pm
by SA1988
I don't give a flying **** about copyright or whatnot in general.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 6:53 pm
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.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 7:30 pm
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.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 7:32 pm
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.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 7:35 pm
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? :)

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 7:43 pm
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.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 7:44 pm
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 ;)

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 7:59 pm
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.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 8:13 pm
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.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Mon 05 Jun, 2017 8:17 pm
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.

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Tue 06 Jun, 2017 2:39 am
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...

Re: [Bug] Warcraft 2 displays nothing

Posted: Tue 06 Jun, 2017 2:05 pm
by Battler
[Post edited]