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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Feb 4, 2020 21:34:36 GMT -8
The only thing you guys need to have a lag-free gameplay is to have the DDRAW.DLL inside GRUNTZ folder... You can find the DLL here (github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/releases/download/v0.2.1/ddraw.zip) I do have DDRAW.DLL inside my GRUNTZ folder. Granted, maybe not your specific version, if there's any difference, but it's there nonetheless and I still experience some lag. And just as I thought, in playing through the original levels, when I reached the High On Sweetz levels with its parallax background, the game lags even more. So my hypothesis is still at least somewhat intact. That is, that the more logics that are present in a level, the more the game is going to lag. Which is somewhat counter-intuitive because we're working with newer-ish machines with faster processors, better graphics, more memory, etc. But the game wasn't developed with those things in mind. Not sure how to remedy the more logics = more lag conundrum. By the by, I thought there was some method by which to be able to turn off the parallax effect in the original game, but I haven't found it. Anybody remember if there was one and how to do it? GooRoo, one thing that I had to do and I wonder if you have done the same is that I had to turn off Direct Video Access in the game. To do that, you need to do the two-handed Gruntz launch. That is, hold down the shift key on the keyboard and click on your Gruntz icon at the same time. This should bring up a menu where you can disable various features in Gruntz (sound effectz, muzick, voicez, etc.). One of the options is Direct Video Access. Put a check mark in the box to disable DVA (and any other features you wish to disable) and click OK. With regard to your resolution problem, my install was resolutely stuck on the default resolution until your Vista resolution patch gave me an idea. I don't know if this is true of all installations of Gruntz, or just those on Win10, or just mine (Win7 upgraded to Win10), but I found 3 registry entries for Gruntz. Two are under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Monolith Productions/Gruntz and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/WOW6432Node/Monolith Productions/Gruntz. Both of those registry entries showed the resolution value was already set at DWORD = 3 (1024x768), yet I was still dealing with the default resolution. Then I found another registry entry at HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/VirtualStore/MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Wow6432Node/Monolith Productions/Gruntz/1.0 (similar to your Vista patch). The value for the resolution in this entry was set at DWORD = 1 (the default value). I changed it to three and that solved my resolution issues (although I changed it back to 2 because of lag). Just a couple of ideas for you (and anyone else) to mull over and try.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Feb 1, 2020 7:46:01 GMT -8
I ditched the compatibility settings because, like you, the game was running slower on the Windoze 98 settings than if I left it alone. And I haven't tried the executable settings yet, either. I guess I need to find those and try them, eh?
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Jan 31, 2020 18:08:44 GMT -8
*...cough...choke...splutter* Erm...sorry. Anyway, I am happy to report that I now have Gruntz installed on my Dell 64-bit Win10 laptop and it playz reasonably well. I have the v1.01 patch installed and have access to all resolutions that Gruntz was designed for. The Questz levels run pretty well, although not quite butter-smooth, and I have played the original levelz up through the Iciclez levelz with nary a problem. My results are tempered, however, by a few minor issues.
First, I still experience what I guess are fps issues when using the 1024 x 768 resolution when playing in the Questz levelz, but 800 x 600 does well. Not sure if that can be fixed, but I am open to suggestions.
Second, although the Battlez levels play okay, I experience more fps issues in Battlez, regardless of the resolution. I suspect that the more logicz there are on a level, as well as the usage of computer AI's and the number of gruntz allowed on each team factor into that fps issue. Maybe someone has more insight than me.
Finally, a couple of smaller issues. One is that regardless of whether I'm playing Questz or Battlez, anytime I swipe the cursor across the Statz, cursor artifacts remain behind. It's not a real great problem in the Questz levels because I can often just minimize the Statz when I don't need them, but it can be distracting. The cursor artifacts are more of a problem when playing a Battlez level because it's not useful to minimize the Statz. A second minor issue is that I can't truly Alt-Tab the game and return to it later. I usually have to kill the game and restart it. But these last two things are really minor annoyances that I can live with.
If anybody wants more details on how I accomplished installing and running Gruntz on a 64-bit Win10 system, I will gladly share the steps I took to do it. A lot of what I did involved trial-and-error-retry attempts, so it's not exactly cookbook, but I can boil it down to "Do this first", "Do this next", and so on.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Jan 20, 2020 19:39:57 GMT -8
*A muddy hand, with a baked (more like, half-baked) grunt pinched between its index finger and thumb, drops the grunt onto a spawning pad* Unnngh! Why I!...Oh, hello, there! Greetings to all the old friends who may still be here. And greetings to those folks who I haven't met yet. I see my title has changed a little bit, and probably rightly so. I did sort of vanish quite a few years ago, not without reason, of course. Life has changed greatly for me over the last ten years. Really, the last fifteen. Let's see...over the last fifteen years, I've lost a spouse; gained a spouse; seen my children finish growing up and move out into lives of their own; and graduated from college myself (finally!) with a bachelor's degree in Business Management Information Systems, although it hasn't helped land me a better paying job yet. I even have grandchildren now. My new wife (and the grandkids) keeps me quite busy, so I don't have a whole lot of time to spend playing Gruntz like I used to. What free time I do have, I usually spend surfing around the internet; however, the internet is beginning to bore me a bit. For that reason I'm interested in trying to resurrect Gruntz, which is partially why I'm here.
However, I don't know how well that's going to go, seeing as how I couldn't get it going previously on this machine, a Dell laptop that was originally a Windows 7 machine, upgraded to 10. And my older desktop machine, a homebrew Windows XP upgraded to Windows 7, had trouble running Gruntz. It would either crash immediately to the desktop upon trying to start, or, if I managed to get it started, when I finished a game (such as a Questz level ), the game would crash out to the desktop and I would lose any progress I made in the game, unless I had done a save somewhere along the way. And now with the ending of support for both XP and Win7, I find I have to either attempt to upgrade that machine, or leave it as is sans a connection to the internet. I think the frustration I had trying to just play Gruntz with a constantly crashing game was another reason I kind of left the scene. In any event, whether I'm successful in resurrecting this game, I thought I'd pop in and say, "Hi!". Don't know how long I'll stay or how much I'll participate here, but whatever comes, it's good to be back, if only for a short while.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Jan 20, 2020 18:56:23 GMT -8
Hello, all! Been awhile since I've posted anything in here, although I've been popping in here and there recently. I'm interested again in trying to get Gruntz to run on my Win10 64-bit laptop and this thread drew my attention, especially since my last attempt did not end in happiness. HOWEVER, I DO NOT recommend downloading ANYTHING from dgvoodoo. His site is infested with malware to the point that both Google and Firefox issue warnings about the site. Against my better judgment, I downloaded his latest release (1/17/2020 from the looks of it) and two files in the download had been corrupted by malware, trojans specifically, including one file that would be necessary to running Gruntz. Unfortunately, the developer/site owner seems to be too obtuse to understand that his download files have been corrupted by malware. He seems to be under the impression that Google thinks his otherwise perfectly fine proffered downloads themselves are attempts at malware infection. I should think that if he were to clean up his site and his download files and invest in better site security, he would find that Google (and Firefox) might be persuaded to remove their warnings.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on May 30, 2016 9:59:00 GMT -8
Hello, all! After another extended absence, I'm just popping in to say "Hi!" When last I was here, I had just gone back to school, a la online. Since then, I have graduated--well, not completely. I have marched in Commencement, but I still have one class left to complete before I can officially obtain my diploma. My degree is in Business Management Information Systems with a cognate in Application Development. Programming languages studied included Visual Basic, C#, and Java (not to be confused with Javascript. My current class in Web Technologies Enterprises is studying PHP. There was a heavy emphasis on object-oriented programming in my programming classes, as that seems to be current accepted programming methodology. Other classes I studied included classes in network communications, network security, system analysis and design, and project management, as well as various business and general studies classes. Now I can declare myself edumakated, now that I am in possession of a BS degree. Now the next step is to find a job in my chosen field, especially since I left my last employer last summer, and thus, unemployed.
Beyond my schooling, the biggest thing happenings in my life are that I have gained a grandson, have a granddaughter on the way (September 2nd!), and gained (and lost; related to the soon-to-be granddaughter) a son-in-law. My own daughter also graduated with her Masters degree in English earlier this month and is now working for a textbook publisher as a copywrite specialist. My life is full. I don't know how much time I am going to have to play Gruntz, seeing as how the only machine I currently have that runs Gruntz is my old desktop with one drive that runs Windoze XP--and even then, it crashes to the desktop at the conclusion of a game. Don't know what's causing that; doesn't always happen, but happens often enough to drive one batty. But I will try to keep in touch here in the forum more frequently; no guarantees, though. Cheerz!
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Jan 3, 2014 12:06:27 GMT -8
I could not even enter Start/Run/regedit ... this operating system does not give me a prompt to enter any of it. Yeah, Win7 does not have a "Run" command like previous versions of Windoze; instead you have to click Start, then in the "Search programs and files" box at the bottom of the Start menu, type in regedit, then click on the regedit link that appears at the top under programs.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Jan 1, 2014 23:26:55 GMT -8
Hmmmmmm...I must now refine my last post. I was able to run a Gruntz battle in 1024x768 exactly--once. Tried to run a Questz level and it failed. Tried again with a Battlez level--and it crashed. Edited the value of the HKEY_USERS entry back to 1 and it loaded. Edited it again to be 2 and it loaded. Tried it again putting the key value back to 3 and it worked fine; even quitting the game and loading another game. Maybe it has to do with amount of time the "clock" time the game was running and/or the amount of alt-tabbing I did. *Shrugs shoulders* Who knows?
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Jan 1, 2014 19:33:07 GMT -8
It made no difference to me ... still at 800X600 screen resolution. Of course, my registry still contains that reg file in the other location, so that is probably why the new file has no effect. That second reg file may actually be necessary--except they all need to be set to the same value(?). I found four entries for Gruntz in my registry. The first was in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT; the only key there is HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\VirtualStore\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow3462Node\Monolith Productions. Nothing about resolution or anything else. The second entry I found for Gruntz was in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Monolith Productions\Gruntz\1.0. Here, there was a key for resolution and it was set to a value of 3. This may be where the resolution patch set up the key for resolution when I attempted to install the resolution patch. The third entry I found was also in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE but this time it was HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Wow6432Node\Monolith Productions\Gruntz\1.0. Here, I found the value was set to 2 (the 800x600 resolution patch, I believe). I edited the value to be 3. The fourth entry I found was in HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-179637337-4\VirtualStore\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Monolith Productions\Gruntz\1.0; I hit the motherlode. This is where all the registry values for such things as Last Colour, Last Map, Resolution, Scroll Speed, Music, Music Volume, etc. are stored. The value for Resolution was set to 1 (600x400, I believe). I edited the value to 3 also. When I had edited all values for resolution to be the same no matter where I found them, I started the game and lo! And behold! The game started and ran like clockwork. Note that I first tried editing just the one value in the fourth entry and the game started but quickly crashed. I think that if there are multiple key entries for resolution, then they all must be identical in order for the game to work; but then again, this is just my theory and I don't know a thing about how the registry works. YMMV. (And yes, if I don't know anything about how the registry works, why am I mucking about in it? Interesting question isn't it? Perhaps a case of knowing just enough to be dangerous! ) As with anything registry-wise, anything I offer here is to be taken with a grain of salt. If you choose to alter your registry based upon what I have shared here about my own experience, proceed only at your own risk. Now, about that version patch...
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Dec 30, 2013 17:59:49 GMT -8
Oh, but it does. At least on mine it does. MOF, I've got I've got Gruntz running in the background (albeit ALT-tabbed) on said brand new (ok, nearly new) Dell computer.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Dec 30, 2013 17:46:02 GMT -8
I'm back...well, kinda, sorta. What have I been doing in the last couple of year(s) since I was last active on the forum? Well, I have re-married and, after helping my (new) wife obtain her Bachelor's degree in Accounting, I myself have returned to school to finish my degree. I started classes this past August and I'm now on Christmas break. I anticipate disappearing again in a couple of weeks when classes for the spring term begin. I anticipate graduating in 2016. What are my questions? First, as part of my return to school, I obtained a new Dell notebook computer running Windows 7. I wanted to try installing Gruntz on this notebook and for all intents and purposes, have succeeded by following the instructions posted elsewhere on the forum. However, one problem that I am running into is that I do not know how to install the 1.01 patch. I've downloaded it and attempted to install it, but am having no success. No error messages, crashes, or anything. It just won't install. Anyone have any ideas on how to install the v1.01 patch...successfully? Second question: The screen resolution patchez do not have any effect. So I am stuck with the default resolution, which is the lowest resolution available. Any suggestions as to how to resolve that issue would be greatly appreciated.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Aug 3, 2012 10:14:28 GMT -8
Hi, all! It's been awhile since I've posted, although I have been around peeking in from time to time. I haven't had a whole lot of time for Gruntzy things for awhile, what with much needed repairs to my house being done and a fairly recent marriage (2 years next Wednesday ). Also my desktop on which I run Gruntz went kablooey a while back. Wound up replacing the video card, the MB and processer, and the power supply. But now I am back in business. One thing that having to replace the video card did for me is that it cured an annoying problem that I had with Gruntz-- I couldn't run Gruntz above 800 x 600. Every time I tried, Gruntz would crash out to the desktop. The new video card fixed that. Now I have a new problem. Frequently when I play, when I complete a level or simply quit the game, Gruntz crashes out while waiting for the Statz page to load. It doesn't matter whether it's a Questz level or a Battlez. It doesn't happen every time nor does it happen while the level is in progress unless I quit the game. Sometimes I can complete two or three of the Standard Questz levels before it crashes. Other times I can load a game from a save point and it will crash two or three times (or more) at the end before it finally will fully complete. Sometimes, Gruntz will not start at all. It will attempt to start, but before it even gets to the Monolith splash screen, it crashes back out. And none of this is consistent. It's all very intermittant. If anybody can help me figure this out, I would appreciate it. Don't know if it will help or not but I've attached a Dr. Watson log file of my last crash. It would appear to show that Gruntz.exe is the culprit file that is causing the crash, but what the fault is exactly I cannot begin to determine. I also found it interesting that there were three errors indicated in the task list but I can't figure what those tasks were that were in progress that developed errors when Gruntz crashed. Again any help would be appreciated here. Help! Please?
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Dec 24, 2011 20:12:50 GMT -8
Merry Christmas to all my fellow Gruntzerz all over the world. May the Lord and Savior for whom we this day find a home in your heart, and rule and reign in your life, and bring you peace and comfort now and in the years to come. Amen.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Dec 21, 2011 18:49:28 GMT -8
I haven't been able to play Gruntz for the last two months. My desktop that I play Gruntz on died a couple of months ago. I thought it was only the video card fried, but when I installed a new one, the machine refused to POST. I've got it diagnosed down to the problem being the power supply, the motherboard, or the processor. But I haven't taken the time to diagnose it any further. In the meantime, this laptop that I'm relegated to won't run Gruntz. So until I get one of my desktops back up and running, I'm not going to be able to do any Gruntzing. I'll just have to watch from the sidelines.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Apr 9, 2011 15:02:30 GMT -8
As I recall, this one was supposed to be one of the "Secret Levelz" . Because of the inability to save one'z game when playing a Secret Level (you have to cheat to enter ), there is no Secret Switch or Secret Red Warp (IIRC) or Warp Letter to play for.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Jan 24, 2011 20:54:08 GMT -8
i understad that but i don't get across the toggle bridge try like hundred times don't know what to do It is a little tough to get across those toggling bridgez, but doable. The key here is to anticipate when the next set of toggling bridgez is going to come up. When you stand on the crumble bridge, anticipate when the next toggle bridge is going to come up and step off. Don't wait until you actually see the toggle bridge come up; you won't make it across to the next crumble bridge.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Dec 13, 2010 15:51:05 GMT -8
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Dec 13, 2010 15:42:58 GMT -8
Let me add my condolences to all the rest. It is very hard to lose a furry family member. And trust me, they are a part of one's family, even if they have four legs and fur. I know this all too well as I myself recently lost two such furry family members, probably within hours of one another. The death of one of them hit me especially hard because she was such a friendly little cat. She didn't know a stranger. She didn't deserve to die the violent death that befell her. Again, my condolences to you and your family, Ed.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Nov 15, 2010 18:53:29 GMT -8
Woo! Hoo! Got the PERFECT!
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Nov 13, 2010 6:44:17 GMT -8
Thank you. Now I just have to figure out how to get past that evil Shovelz grunt!
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