DgVoodoo creator discusses Swat 3

Just a quick look with Ghidra (I don't really know how to use it) at some of the important Swat 3 calls.

"DirectDrawEnumerateA" - this gathers information about the system of what valid resolutions there are
"DirectDrawCreate"

Information about DirectDraw and what we are up against.
Also this reference page about DirectDraw.




Some Windows calls:

"CreateWindowExA" (link to syntax and paramaters )
"SetWindowPos" (link to syntax and paramaters )



Strangely this error message was in memory:

"This program requires DirectX 6.1 or higher"

I am wondering if this is left over from an early build?

Update:  yup here are the original specs

Damn son, seems you really want this 32 bit to be a realization. I haven't seen SJ so excited in a long time.

Interesting read, gonna bookmark those pages for references.

The setwindowpos is dead on in  the swat 3 code, I have found multiple references to window size and pos. The position is hard coded 0, 0. but there are ways around that. we cant add integers because we only have 4 bites to work with "push 0"

At some point today we need to agree on the loading screens, please read my second to last post and respond, pliz.

I would be happy with 24 bit colours

Going to read your post now.

Just reading the direct draw reference page for "DirectDrawCreate".

One of the return values is "DDERR_GENERIC". Sound familiar? 

The dreaded start up/movie crash.

Update:  I also see a reference to SetPixelFormat on these pages.  Loading up Ghidra to see if Swat 3 uses this.  Nope

Right now everything I am doing is stabbing in the dark out of ignorance.  The more logical approach would be to look for an old book about DirectDraw and start reading.

I think a lot of the window creation calls also involve USER32.dll such as:
CreateWindowExA
GetWindowRect
SetRec
SetWindowPos

Update 2:   Got 2 books.  "DirectDraw programming" by Bret Timmins and "Windows Graphics Programming: Win32 and DirectDraw" by Feng Yuan.
 

If they are not too expensive. I will get a copy also. Where you purchase them from?

second thought, might go with different books to collaborate findings.

Wink wink.

I did a bit of quick reading last night of the first book.   Depending how they did things it probably is more difficult than a simple hack.

One command that may be of use to us is SetDisplayMode.   You can take an existing DirectDraw object and change it by height, width, and colour depth.   RestoreDisplayMode will change it back to what it was before you made the call.