Hey everyone!

[Erayz]

Hey, I just found this little forum!

So happy to see fellow D2 time travellers! Hopefully this forum is still alive!

I've been playing 1.09d for almost 20 years now (off and on), and accumulated quite a bit of wealth over the years, but have nobody to show off my finds and progress to . I'm on 1.09d because I wasn't aware of players X going all the way up to 64 back on 1.09b when I started, plus the Chance to cast bug lol. And I'm way too deep in to start over (6/7 level 99s as of now).

I also play Classic 1.09d and have 4 barons/baronesses, and 1 King.

I also play a bit of 1.06b (again, wasn't aware of the dupe detection when I started) in order to feed my Classic characters with Sojs to add sockets to my rares and also to find OP rares. Though I enjoy the patch by itself as well.

I played a bit of 1.07 to get Arkaine's Valor, and some Max damage charms, but nothing more, I didn't push it much further.

My ultimate goal in D2, which is 100% unrealistic, is to reach level 99 with all classes in LoD SC, LoD HC, Classic SC and Classic HC. I'm almost done with LoD SC. Lod HC might be possible, but I know Classic is borderline impossible unless I waste all my life playing this game lol. I have other priorities, so I'll just see how far I can get.

[Manny]

Welcome, @Erayz!

Glad you found this place. I am happy to meet a fellow 09'er.

Lately the forum has been very quiet, and besides the admin/fearedbliss, often I think I'm the only one here, lol. Obviously the majority of the D2 community has moved on to D2R and other games.

Please feel free to share some of those great finds and progress with us. Six 99's is an incredible accomplishment. My primary patch/home is 1.09b, and I just dinged my first 99 on my Bowazon about a month ago, after picking this game back up around DEC 2021. Besides her, I have a 95 Javazon, 94 Nova Sorc, and 87 WW Barb.

Maybe we can link up on TCP/IP sometime? Thanks to Cactus, I can easily clone/forward one of my characters to 1.09d in order to see all your GG progress and wealth in-game, and then perhaps you'd be willing to show me what you can do in Hell CS & Cows.

[Erayz]

Thanks Manny for the welcome!

It could be fun to play TCP/IP, I haven't done that in forever haha.

As for what I can do in Hell CS and cows, don't expect much as I am a slow player. I have a few videos of some of my characters on Youtube where I show my gear, stats, skills and do a Cow level run. I have a video of my necromancer reaching 99, too. But I have many more items in my characters' and Atma's stashes.

There are still many items I've never found, such as Tal armor, and Windforce, the latter being the reason why my Amazon is my only non-99 in LoD SC (I wanted it before leveling), but I gave up running Pindle after doing enough runs to find myself a Stormspire, IK Armor and 4 Grandfathers, but still no Windforce in sight lol

[Manny]

FOUR Grandfathers, IK armor, AND Stormspire? Wow!

Put me down in the "I don't have any of those" club, lmao.

BUT... to date I've landed 3x Tal's armors, and a Windforce (ironically the WF was a Pindle drop where you were hunting), so I guess that makes us somewhat even, lol.

And no worries about not moving fast. It would be purely to kick back and have a bit of fun. I am level 36 IRL after all.

Hmm. I should make some videos too. Could be a fun way to reach other D2 time travelers.

[Manny]

@Erayz

So I became curious about something...

This afternoon I did some compatibility testing, and have discovered that both character files and item files (in ATMA V) are interchangeable between 1.09b and 1.09d. Since forwarding characters to newer patches is pretty much always a given, the main takeaway/win here is that I was able to port characters and items created in 1.09d back to 1.09b without issue.

I thought this was pretty cool, and figured you'd might like to know. If you ever want to attempt this yourself, please make sure to profusely back up all your files/stashes first, and please ask me if you need any help or direction.

P.S. -- 1.09b is compatible with Singling...

[Erayz]

Oh that's interesting...

I always had doubts 1.09d saves were compatible with other 1.09 versions, just never really tried. It might be worth trying. Though I never used singling, nor do I know what it does. Does 1.09b work with ATMA for muling?

All I need is to be able to run multiple instances, and the game not requiring a CD. I'll look it up

[Manny]

Oh that's interesting...

I always had doubts 1.09d saves were compatible with other 1.09 versions, just never really tried. It might be worth trying. Though I never used singling, nor do I know what it does. Does 1.09b work with ATMA for muling?

All I need is to be able to run multiple instances, and the game not requiring a CD. I'll look it up

Yes, ATMA fully supports 1.09b. And Singling does both of those things. I highly recommend it.

https://github.com/fearedbliss/Cactus/b ... INGLING.md

[Erayz]

Ok, I installed and setup everything for the patches I play. Moved my 1.06b to 1.05b and did a bit of testing, save files seems to be compatible, which is good. Did the same to move from 1.09d to 1.09b. Works well.

I also changed the .ini file to be in fullscreen.

But now I'm having a small problem, whenever I'm in the main game menu (before entering a game), everything slows down/freezes when I move the cursor. It does not happen in game, but i'd like to know why, as it is irritating. Same problem in windowed mode.

[Manny]

Ok, I installed and setup everything for the patches I play. Moved my 1.06b to 1.05b and did a bit of testing, save files seems to be compatible, which is good. Did the same to move from 1.09d to 1.09b. Works well.

I also changed the .ini file to be in fullscreen.

But now I'm having a small problem, whenever I'm in the main game menu (before entering a game), everything slows down/freezes when I move the cursor. It does not happen in game, but i'd like to know why, as it is irritating. Same problem in windowed mode.

@Erayz Great news! So glad you started to transition to 1.05b & 1.09b.

As far as the lag at the main menu, I want to help, but need a bit more info. Are you running the Singling DLLs or Vanilla? FYI, Singling corrects the main menu lag in all the versions it supports (including 1.05b and 1.09b). The lag, from my understanding, is due in particular to the D2Client.DLL. Apparently that old file (remember D2 is a 20+ year old game) doesn't play nice with multi-core processors, so 1x CPU core will get assaulted when you launch the game, causing the "lag". I used to experience it as well before I updated to Singling, which is why I ask.

An easy way to tell if your files were updated correctly to Singling for any given patch is to note whether or not the introduction cinematics play when you launch the game. If they don't, and/or the battle.net button is disabled, then Singling is enabled.

[fearedbliss]

Hey @Erayz, welcome to the forum!

Our community is definitely small (give that this is a very unique niche at this point) and I don't try to artificially promote the forum. The only advertisement is really on the Cactus home page and my YouTube channel (The Moving Caravan), and of course word of mouth. I would rather people find the forum organically and want to sign up and stay here. If you know, you know. IMO the forum is as strong as ever and I'm happy to have the people we already have here. If we only got 20 people to play old time traveling versions worldwide that already amazing. If you played MP, you only need 8 people for a full game haha. The bar is not that high and I'm confident over time we will have a consistent 8 player game for people that want to MP on old versions. The forum is primarily single player time traveling, but it's fun to time travel in old versions via LAN .

Definitely start and continue to show us your findings , we are always are open to enjoy (and be slightly jealous) of your findings haha.

Regarding 1.09b and d, from my experience and research, all 1.09# versions are compatible. I would recommend backing up your characters and downgrading to 1.09b and using Singling as well.

Regarding 1.05b and 1.06, I was going to recommend not upgrading (at least not for those current characters, but definitely downgrade to 1.05b w/ Singling) if you ever do your own ladder reset, primarily because i know 1.05 and 1.04 are not compatible and there were changes that cause your characters' items to get wiped if you go backwards. However from your experiment it seems 1.05-1.06 are fine which also makes sense (besides the newly introduced 1.06 anti duping code). Since you already backed up your characters and downgraded to 1.05b with no issues, definitely stay on this patch, and welcome to the club!

Finally regarding the lag in main menu, @Manny is correct that it is related to my multi CPU fix so that your laptop doesn't get hot due to processors back in the day not sleeping and thus using 100% of a single cpu core. This only happens for versions before 1.10, and it's specifically only for the CPU fix in the main menu (D2Win.dll) not the CPU fix in game (D2Client.dll). To fix the lag in the main menu, you should switch to cnc-ddraw as your video renderer. I'm guessing you are using the normal video renderers which seem to not play well with modern versions of Windows for a long time now. cnc-ddraw, Singling, and OpenAL/DSOAL (3D Sound and Environment Effects), are all part of Cactus.

Singling only contains non gameplay modifications and i would highly recommend using it. Singling also includes my players command for versions before 1.09. You can read all about Singling here:

https://github.com/fearedbliss/Cactus/b ... INGLING.md (also linked by @Manny above).

The Singling page also describes the lag issue and how to fix it, and any other info you should be aware of:

If you experience extreme lag in the Main Menu for versions 1.00-1.09b, try using cnc-ddraw, this should fix it. If for whatever reason that still doesn't work, you'll need to revert the CPU fix for the Main Menu specifically (You'll still have the fix for Single Player and LAN). Simply replace the D2Win.dll you are currently using with the one in the Singling Stock Directory for the affected version.

- fearedbliss