Machines and Windows 10

[M123]

Tried Machines on a PC running Windows 10 (haven't updated mine from 7 yet), and wow, that is bad - messed up menu and textures, and very poor performance even on an i5 4690k and GTX970 (running at 640x480 D: ).

Tried a few different things... and found something that seems to work - dgVoodoo 2.

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EDIT: Note - dgVoodoo 2 requires DirectX 11 and a GPU supporting at least DirectX feature level 10.1:

• Nvidia GeForce 400-series and newer (some GeForce 200-series might work - G210, GT220, GT240)
• ATi (AMD) Radeon HD 3000-series (except Radeon HD 3410) and newer
• Intel HD Graphics 2000 and newer

Here's what I did:

1. Download dgVoodoo 2.55.4 from here.

2. Extract it somewhere (e.g. C:\Games\dgVoodoo\).

3. Copy the "D3DImm.dll" and "DDraw.dll" located in the "MS" folder under the folder you extracted the dgVoodoo 2 archive to (e.g. C:\Games\dgVoodoo\MS\).

4. Paste the two .dll files in your Machines install directory - must be the same folder as "machines.exe" (e.g. C:\Games\Machines\).

5. Run Machines.

6. (a). If the image is too bright, washed out, etc. or you want to try forcing some extra graphical settings (e.g. MSAA, Vsync), run "dgVoodooSetup.exe" located in the folder you extracted the dgVoodoo 2 archive to (eg. C:\Games\dgVoodoo\) and try out the various settings.

   (b). If Machines crashes or runs even worse than before, delete the "D3DImm.dll" and "DDraw.dll" files from your Machines install directory to restore it to the original state.

With dgVoodoo 2 installed I could run Machines fairly smoothly (some rough patches, but I get those on Windows 7 as well) at 1920x1080 without graphical issues (at least none I noticed in the time I could test it). :-)

Seemed to work fine without Windows 95 / 98 / XP compatibility mode.
The game crashes on exit on that PC (with or without dgVoodoo 2).

EDIT: some things to try if Machines doesn't run properly with dgVoodoo 2 installed:

• Install the DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010)
• Make sure Machines is installed in a folder other than "C:\Program Files" or "C:\Program Files (x86)".
• Run Machines as administrator
• Run without any compatibility modes applied (aside from run as administrator)
• If you use MSAA through dgVoodooSetup.exe and get weird graphical issues ('smearing", blurring, flickering), make sure you don't have any transparency multi-/super-sampling forced on Machines through your graphics drivers

[Pisarz]

@bilal
@Gameuser10
@M123

This seems to be the worst obstacle we have encountered! I will attempt to follow these steps (thank you @M123!) and see if it works. I will provide feedback; if it does work, we should update the download section and provide a fully functional version of the game with a troubleshooting guide.

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Oh no, I passed the one-month rollback point.
:c

Don't worry! We'll solve this :)

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Lots of freezing and very low game fps.

We should do a list with all the problems that we have found so far and their solutions (if any). That could make things simpler/easier. It might take a while for me to do this.
Also, do your specs look similar to mine? We might find a pattern!

[Gameuser10]

Machines will live on.

[M123]

Anyone had any luck trying what I posted?

[Pisarz]

@M123

Not lucky (yet). I just tried it and the game won't open after putting both .dll files in the directory. An error message appears and that's it. Also, I noticed that I already have a "native" .dll file in the game's directory (it's another one, or at least it has a different name).

[Maxamillios]

Hey M123 I tried ur instructions, and holy crap it WORKED!! I came back to write this real quick, and now Im off to go play!! thanks a million. I had tried a BUNCH of different ways to make this game work, and now it finally does, thanks alot.

[M123]

@Pisarz
Were there any specific details in the error message, or was it just one of those vague "machines.exe has stopped working and needs to close" errors?

The existing .dll file might be d3drm.dll ? I think it's needed for the game to run normally, and didn't seem to conflict with dgVoodoo.

@Maxamillios
Yay, have fun :-)

[Pisarz]

@M123
I'm still working on it. As soon as I try everything I can I'll post anything useful. Also, indeed, that's the file I was talking about.

[M123]

@Pisarz
Good luck, hope you can get it working.

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I noticed a few extra benefits of dgVoodoo that make it worth using on earlier versions of Windows as well - with it installed Machines is displayed in 32-bit colour mode instead of 16-bit, and you can force bilinear/trilinear texture filtering for all textures (through the dgVoodooSetup utility).

Comparison images (ignore FRAPS counter):
Native DirectX
dgVoodoo

32-bit colour massively improves the appearance of terrain and sky textures (especially darker colours / at night) by reducing banding.
Forced texture filtering reduces the jagged appearance of distant / angled textures and smooths over certain textures which Machines usually renders with nearest-neighbour sampling. This causes slight distortion of some transparent textures (e.g. autocannon turret barrels) and parts of the interface. I think the trade-off is worth it - especially if someone makes higher-resolution versions of the affected transparent textures (which would reduce the visible distortion).

NOTE: If you use dgVoodoo 2 2.55 or later with forced texture filtering, set the "Videocard" under the DirectX tab to one of the GeForce cards to avoid pink outlines on some transparent textures (gun barrels, etc.)

[reaper24]

Ok.So I installed machines on my Windows 10 laptop and have the fps issues. Downloaded the voodoo thing and now the game runs fine, but there are no textures...

[Mordakai95]

Ok, I think we can now safely conclude that the original Machines Wired for War is definitely not future-proof. For anyone who may not have seen it, I believe that the creator of the Machinima series "Freeman's Mind" released an episode of his "Game Dungeon" covering a game called Dungeon Siege. In the episode, one of the most important quotes early on that came to mind on this topic was:

"This is another one of those weird games where a system from ten years ago runs it better than a modern one does today... Stuff like this is why I always get paranoid about changing an OS. This sort of thing ALWAYS happens with a new operating system. Sometimes there are fixes, sometimes you're screwed. It's also why I sometimes feel like punching people who think NEW software is always better. Doesn't matter what it breaks; it's new!"

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgsR3qZp3-M

So yeah, it looks like I'm hyped for OpenMachines as that will bring the compatibility back to Windows 10, instead of waiting for it to arrive. Regardless, I'm sticking with windows 7 for a while.

[Pisarz]

@Mordakai95
Press the "S" ;)
http://www.machinesthegame.co.uk/

Don't worry, we'll rebuild Eden 4:

[nainnad]

wow m123, I wasn't able to play the game since the screen would constantly flicker but that really fixed the problem!

[M123]

@nainnad said:

wow m123, I wasn't able to play the game since the screen would constantly flicker but that really fixed the problem!

Glad it helped :-)

[M123]

dgVoodoo was updated last month, might be worth trying the new version 2.5 if the previous one didn't work for you.
May improve performance compared to 2.45.

EDIT: version 2.51 released, bugfixes and some new features

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@Mordakai95 said:

Dungeon Siege.

...aaand now I'm playing it again >_>

Complex shadows annihilate my framerate just like in the video.
Simple shadows? 120 FPS+ (Vsync on, 8x MSAA)
Complex? 20 - 60 FPS (relatively smooth with just the player character on-screen, becomes much worse with enemies or multiple party members) :-/

Another game with a weird graphical OS compatibility problem is Far Cry - apparently land water reflections don't render on operating systems newer than Windows XP, so only trees, objects and buildings are reflected.

[UKJohn]

I had pink artifacts on my Win 10 system, but the DGvoodoo fix above worked for me. Now I have a fully working brilliant game!

[Pisarz]

@M123 Thanks for the update!

Solved my problem! I applied the compatibility mode for Windos 98, but with one of the new .dll files. Now the game runs almost smooth (perfect gameplay).

[Doomcorp1ic]

@M123 You are the man, this worked for me. Ive waited years to play this game again. Thank you so much.

[andreasaspenberg]

dgvoodo is the worst glide wrapper around and not compatible with machines because it uses direct 3d only. anybody that say otherwise is trolling. it works well in windows 10 at least in multiplayer but have trouble running on amd cards just like it had trouble running on ati cards. (pink artifacts appear when entering the options menu but avoiding it solved the problem for me.). it was never made fully compatible with ati cards. best solution to getting it working is to use an nvidia card as that cause neither frame rate issues nor graphics issues(except the newer ones).

[Asdam]

So I just tried the DgVoodoo solution and it essentially worked- but with a small drawback.

Unlike Machines without DgVoodoo, which runs smoothly at 144fps (on, of course, my 144hz monitor) the framerate is now capped to a 60hz input. There is also a DgVoodoo watermark in the corner, but that's kinda whatever.