[1.09b] Monster pal shift bug

O

oli

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Hi everyone!
On 1.09b while using cncddraw I encountered bug that makes unique monster and his minions use the basic colors without the palette shifts. Has anybody encounter this bug? Screenshots attached for reference. Folks at PK suggested that this may be some old ddraw/direct3d issue. It’s hard to reproduce this bug but supposedly minimazing the game can cause it. Monsters that were bugged most often were the dark elder and stormtree.
 
Interesting. I don’t know if I’ve noticed it in 1.09b (probably but I do know they are normally \"purple monsters\" for pre 1.10. 1.10 actually has that but you described which is why it was lost in 1.10+. But interesting to know it can happen in 1.09b as well. I’ll keep an eye out while I’m playing now and see if I can reproduce it.
 
It’s kinda different than the purple boss bug from 1.10+. That one made bosses just use different colors. This one completely removes palette shift both from boss and his minions. Notice in second screenshot how dark elder’s minions use base zombie color just like him. It’s easily noticable because you can’t tell which one in the pack is the boss actually so it impacts the gameplay heavily. Do you use cncddraw?

Edit: just tested it on ddraw mode without cncddraw and the bug is still there. Now I need to test it on glide.

Edit 2: it’s also bugged on glide mode. I’m really surprised nobody noticed this bug and I’m starting to think it’s something with my game lol

Edit 3: in case somebody wants to test it here are steps to reproduce it:
-start the game
-alt tab - not sure if minimazing is causing it though
-go to lost city and search for the dark elder
-if it’s not bugged save and repeat all steps
 
Hey Oli ~ good to see you!

I did a handful of Lost City runs for ya in 1.09b and was not able to reproduce the bug.

How weird!
 
Hey Manny!

Thank you for testing it out! Did you alt tab the game? I’m super confused right now... But the worst thing about it is that it’s actually hard to reproduce...

Edit: i have actually reproduced this without alt tabing so that’s not the cause...
 
[mention]oli[/mention] Not only do I use cnc-ddraw, I’ve been distributing it in Cactus for like 1-2 years now and a supporter of it over other renderers ;D. I’ll need to get back to you with my tests for the Dark Elder and I’ll look at some other SUs.
 
Thanks FB! Actually this is not a SU exclusive bug. All other zombie packs were also effected. I’ve also seen a maggot pack in rivers of flame effected among other random unique boss packs.
 
oli said:
Hey Manny!

Thank you for testing it out! Did you alt tab the game? I’m super confused right now... But the worst thing about it is that it’s actually hard to reproduce...

Edit: i have actually reproduced this without alt tabing so that’s not the cause...
Click to expand...

No problem! Ah, yeah I was going to let you know that I did alt+tab on each attempt. My gut is that it doesn’t have anything to do with the renderer, but I could be wrong. At any rate, fearedbliss is on the case, and he’s pretty damn good at figuring stuff out! ;)
 
[mention]Manny[/mention] Lol thanks for the kind works but I’m definitely not fixing it, just wanna witness it for myself haha.

And yea [mention]Manny[/mention], it seems that from what [mention]oli[/mention] mentioned, it’s happening even without cnc-ddraw being used so it’s probably either a vanilla 1.09b bug, or it’s a regression in Windows as time has gone by. Maybe some integer is getting interpreted in a weird way. What happens if you run the game with Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode? Also I think there are some people on the forums that play via Wine so that could also be a good test scenario (vanilla 1.09b with the default direct draw / direct 3d renderers, full screen/window mode, and then trying it with cnc-ddraw as well).
 
More people confirming seeing this bug is good enough for me. I just want to know it’s not something on my end 😄

[mention]fearedbliss[/mention] I actually run with Win XP SP3 compatibility mode. So far one person confirmed this happening to Urdars in rivers of flame.
 
[mention]oli[/mention] What happens if you run it with Windows 98 or something :lol:
 
fearedbliss said:
@Manny Lol thanks for the kind works but I’m definitely not fixing it, just wanna witness it for myself haha.
Click to expand...

:lol: fair enough bro ;)

[mention]oli[/mention] are you running XP SP3 compatibility mode in a Linux crossover/wine type of environment or using an actual Windows install on bare metal? Just curious :)
 
fearedbliss said:
@oli What happens if you run it with Windows 98 or something :lol:
Click to expand...

:lol: :lol:

Not to derail this thread, but this makes me think of a question i’ve been meaning to ask...

[mention]fearedbliss[/mention] if I were to install D2 LoD from my 1.07 discs on an actual Windows 98 machine (Pentium III), do you think I’d have any problems swapping out the stock files with Singling? I know that Cactus won’t work due to not having a modern .NET framework, but I would imagine Singling would work, no? Let me know your $0.02. I’m in the process of building a retro gaming rig :geek:
 
[mention]Manny[/mention] I’m on Windows.

I need to test this on 1.10+. I don’t see anything in 1.10 changelog that could have fixed it.
 
[mention]Manny[/mention] Singling will (should) work perfectly since all of my changes are done directly on the original DLLs with no external dependencies. DSOAL won’t work though since it’s compiled using a modern visual studio and those libraries (the modern visual c++ redistributables) don’t exist in Windows 98.

You also don’t need to install D2 as long as you have the MPQs and the D2.LNG file:

https://github.com/fearedbliss/Cactus#required-files

Which makes me think you may need to install D2 specifically because I haven’t found where the CD key is stored, you would think it’s in the registry but if that were the case, I shouldn’t be able to copy/paste my D2 folder to another computer and connect to battle.net. D2.LNG is the only possible file that can have that cause the game won’t even start if that’s missing. Unless of course blizzard injected the CD key in one of the MPQs which I don’t think so. I haven’t looked much into this though.
 
I actually wonder if this bug appears when the monster that the boss pack is based on doesn’t spawn on the map... I think everytime it happened this monster type didn’t spawn on the map...
 
oli said:
@Manny I’m on Windows.
Click to expand...

Dangit, I was low key wanting to blame Wine/Crossover for the bug.

Carry on, nothing to see here. :lol:
 
fearedbliss said:
Which makes me think you may need to install D2 specifically because I haven’t found where the CD key is stored, you would think it’s in the registry but if that were the case, I shouldn’t be able to copy/paste my D2 folder to another computer and connect to battle.net. D2.LNG is the only possible file that can have that cause the game won’t even start if that’s missing. Unless of course blizzard injected the CD key in one of the MPQs which I don’t think so. I haven’t looked much into this though.
Click to expand...

Very interesting. From my research on the interwebs, the D2 CD key is encrypted in one of the MPQs. Perhaps all I need to do is simply copy my D2 folder (ignoring all the cactus files) to my retro gaming rig. After first launching it with the platform I want, of course. Hmmm. When the time comes I will make a thread about this and how it goes. Thanks for the input!
 
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