Do you want to play Ignition on Windows 7 (x86 or x64), but have always been annoyed with menus where you can actually see a darn thing?
If that's the case, then I have a patch for you!
Long story short, there are 3 problems where trying to run this game on Windows 7:
- Microsoft removed the 320x200 resolution from DirectDraw on Windows 7, and Ignitions menu are 320x200
- You get a psychedelic colour palette during gameplay
- Anything that is not gameplay, such as the menus and intro, doesn't display (black screen)
Oh, and other minor inconveniences include menu SFXs only working if you have a CD, as well as the Windowed mode, which seems to be included in the executable (runtime address 00493728, IGN_WIN.EXE address 00091D28: 1 = fullscreen, 0 = windowed) not working at all, be it on 7 or even on XP, where fullscreen does work without the need to patch.
The following patch addresses issue #1 & #2:
ignition_win7_patch_v2.7z
Once applied and provided you launch the game from the batch file and can figure out the menu navigation (Enter, Esc, Enter, Enter, Enter if you want to play), you will be able to run the game fullscreen, in glorious 800x600.
Now for some more details:
- The patch includes an IGN_WIN.BTZ, which is the file that stores the configuration settings. Unlike the one from the archive provided here, it has 800x600 selected by default. Oh, and it also defaults to the bus, because
I like the bus
- The original IGN_WIN.EXE performs 2 fullscreen resolution checks when it launches: 640x480 and 320x200, and will bail out if
ANY of these fails. This is done by calling DirectDraw's lpdd->SetDisplayMode() from the routine @ address 0045BD70, which is called indirectly from 00417EA0, using 004BA6E0, 004BA6E4 and 004BA6E8 for the requested width, height and bpp attributes. Unfortunately for us, Microsoft, in their great wisdom, decided to ditched 320x200 support from the latest ddraw.dll, which results in SetDisplayMode() returning errorcode 0x80004001 (Not Implemented).
Our quick and dirty patch then is to replace all 320x200 references with 640x480, which is still supported. This doesn't solve the other issues, but at least, if you
really want to play, and don't mind the other issues, you can.
- The problem with the psychedelic colour palette for 256 colour games is highlighted
here. Basically, Windows 7 keeps the taskbar on top, even in fullscreen mode, which screws up the colour palette. The trick is to launch the game from a batch, file that disables the taskbar
Finally, for the love of God, do NOT enable mipmapping and persp. poly from the GFX settings on Windows, unless you like to see game crashes. Without that, the game runs great.
Oh, and I would just
love to see an updated Open Source version of Ignition, for various platforms. This game seriously rocks.
EDIT: v2, with a batch file to fix the colour palette during game. If this doesn't work, you can try the various tips from:
Starcraft on Win7.