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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 swietymiki on Feb 1, 2020 5:47:21 GMT -8
Have you tinkered around with the executable settings since we last talked? The game is running slower with Windows 98 compatibility mode on my end.
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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 swietymiki on Feb 1, 2020 9:16:49 GMT -8
Well, I only meant those in the file properties window: Attachment DeletedIt never hurts to check if any of these settings has an impact on the game.
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GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Feb 4, 2020 14:14:30 GMT -8
On my 2017 laptop, Gruntz runs ... poorly. When Gruntz dies under dgVooDoo the mouse is deactivated for any use outside Gruntz (which is frozen) so even the "three finger salute" to invoke task manager does not allow me to kick Gruntz out of the system. Yes, I can use the arrow keys to highlight Gruntz ... but then cannot activate the "end task" gadget! So my only recourse is to completely power down, wait a bit, and then re-boot.
Speaking of the re-boot process: it does not allow me to reverse the STUPID keyboard settings that require TWO keys to save (F5) or restore (F8)! What idiot thought it more important to use a single keypress to highlight the keyboard, change contrast, etc., than to use the original purpose of FUNCTION KEYS?
Under dgVooDoo I have not been able to use anything other than the default (800X600) screen resolution; but the same is true for my XP laptop (where SAVE only requires a single key).
So I am reduced to 'SneakerNet' to test and then make available anything Gruntz. Which involves much use of the eject function on the thumb drive to remove from one, and move to the other.
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Post by Lahyme on Feb 4, 2020 17:38:21 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)
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GooRoo
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Display Name: GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Feb 4, 2020 20:05:55 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) Game play is fine for me under Windows 10 and VooDoo, but the swap in and out of Gruntz when choosing a CL or doing a SAVE/RESTORE are the pits. And I seem to make rapid mouse moves that fly out of the screen limits ... and Gruntz goes into a hang. The mouse is locked out when that happens, and only power off/power on kicks Gruntz out of the system and gives control back to me. The reversed Function Key/sound/contrast/play-back controls (video and audio?) make no sense ... and the suggested fix has not worked for me. Why would anyone need play-back keyboard controls, when any decent player program works well with normal mouse/TouchPad selection?
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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 swietymiki on Feb 5, 2020 2:51:47 GMT -8
[...]even the "three finger salute" to invoke task manager does not allow me to kick Gruntz out of the system. Yes, I can use the arrow keys to highlight Gruntz ... but then cannot activate the "end task" gadget![...] Actually, you should be able to do that with the "delete" button on your keyboard, once the task you want terminated is highlighted. [...]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.[...] The parallax effect is not using any logics. It's simply a secondary layer of tiles that is moving below the primary one. The back plane is a part of the level's WWD file. The only way to get rid of it would be to edit the map. When stuff goes to VirtualStore, that usually means the application is missing administrator rights that it requires. Launch the game as administrator and it should take the resolution and settings values from the other registries.
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