Singling Support for 1.09b Final Edition

[Manny]

I know you're all about the OG patches, but would you consider adding Singling support to 1.09b final aka 1.09f by GalaXyHaXz?? The game alreaady runs amazingly well, but I got so spoiled by Singling and the skip intro cinematic lol. Also I noticed the little spinny circle in the top left hand corner sometimes when launching the game.

[fearedbliss]

Lol nah I only support the official versions. It's a good amount of work for me to implement Singling features, so I'm very specific about the versions I support. The more versions I support, the longer it takes me to fix stuff if a bug is ever found, since if a bug exists in one version of Singling, it's very likely it may exist in the others. Each Singling version is actually a completely separate environment, so it needs to be done manually one at a time.

[Manny]

lol i already knew but figured what the hell.

[ST369]

The main problem with this patch is the high CPU usage, which is apparently caused by an infinite loop in D2Client.dll.
@Manny: I'm not able to send PMs yet (new account). Definitely interested, but I'm completely new to the patch and only got a druid and barb to level ~30 so far.

[Manny]

@ST369 That's interesting man. I haven't noticed any performance issues but I will monitor the CPU usage running final edition today out of curiosity. And I'm power leveling my Barb this weekend if you want to join in! I'll PM you the details in case. I got all the gear needed for a MF Frenzy Build that I've been planning. And I do remember the 5 post requirement now before you can reply to PMs. My boy runs a tight ship over here xD

@fearedbliss Bro , can you at least look into the CPU loop thing? I'm no programmer wiz like you, but my brain is telling me that if you already did the leg work on 1.09b, that this patch can't be too far off? Perhaps / hopefully? And you don't have to "officially" support final edition, putting it on your GitHub and all that, but perhaps a one-time, unofficial Singling release just for your compradres?? You'd be doing us a solid!!

[fearedbliss]

My time is limited and I really do not support other mods. But feel free to play and discuss any mods you are interested in .

[Manny]

lmaooo all good bro. thanks anyway

[ST369]

@Manny here's a fix for the 1.09f CPU issue that worked for me. The fix is only for single-player to my understanding, and only ingame (will soon try to fix main-menu also):
(warning: im not a programmer!)
1) Download/Open OllyDbg v1.10
2) File —► Open —► Files of type: Dynamic-link library —► D2Client.dll
3) Request to load DLL prompt —► Yes
4) Ctrl+G —► 6FAA2633 —► OK
5) Right-click the selected line —► Binary —► Fill with NOPs
6) Select the next line 6FAA2635 —► Ctrl+E —► change HEX field to 6A 05 —► OK
7) Right-click —► Copy to executable —► All modifications —► Copy All
8) Right-click in the new window —► Save File

edit: remember to backup if you decide to attempt this.
edit2: credits to killer-gorilla and others at d2mods for the fix.

[Manny]

@ST369

Thanks for sharing this man!

I'll clone my final edition platform folder and follow these steps with a duplicate for kicks & giggles.

Honestly though, I was monitoring my CPU usage this weekend when playing final edition, and it hovers around the same 1%-3% usage as I normally get from vanilla 1.09b. I don't know if it's my rig or what, I have a 6-core Xeon workstation ATM, nothing fancy.

How were you able to spot the infinite loop?

[ST369]

on Windows:
Task Manager —► Performance —► Resource Monitor
Huge spike on CPU0