DXWnd made easy

[simovitch]

So after playing on my laptop I finally loaded the game full screen with dxwnd on my big 42" monitor and yeah... was disappointed with the graphics. So I played around with the Dxwnd settings for EDBTR (rt-click -> modify) and found that checking the "full bilinear filter" under DirectX tab and the "Run in Window" and "keep aspect ratio" on the main tab really helped! and you can access your window side menus. Here is a screen capture from my 42" monitor.

[simovitch]

And here are the settings in Dxwnd:

[Mappi75]

Thank you very much for your thread!

This helps a lot on my Win 11 Pro 12900KS/32 GB 6666Mhz system.
Scrolling the map is much faster.

Does this works for:
Gary Grigsby's World at War: A World Divided und
Gary Grigsby's War Between The States
too?

Edit:
can i use the most updated version of DXWnd 2_05_84 ?
Or better stay with the old version in the first post mentioned?

[Mappi75]

Simovitch,

When re-clearing the flags I am receiving an "error 5 in RegOpenKeyEx HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" message. Tried a complete reinstall of both BTR and DXWND and still ran into the same issue. Not sure where to go from here.

Gary

Running DXWnd "as admin" helped me to get rid of the error 5 code !

[simovitch]

Does this works for:
Gary Grigsby's World at War: A World Divided und
Gary Grigsby's War Between The States
too?

Edit:
can i use the most updated version of DXWnd 2_05_84 ?
Or better stay with the old version in the first post mentioned?

I would say try it out and see what happens! it can't hurt.

[kaybayray]

Greetings <S> Sir!
I have been unable to get this to fill my monitor screen. I have read through these threads and still not found a solution. I have attempted many adjustments in the "Modify" options but to no avail. I have tried compatibilities, window's display settings, everything I can think of. I would really appreciate some help getting this corrected as I cant play this on a tiny window 1/4 the size of my monitor.
I am pretty sure the issue is a very trivial one, it usually is with any Window's application.

Other than this issue this is a great application.

Kind Regards

[simovitch]

Greetings <S> Sir!
I have been unable to get this to fill my monitor screen. I have read through these threads and still not found a solution. I have attempted many adjustments in the "Modify" options but to no avail. I have tried compatibilities, window's display settings, everything I can think of. I would really appreciate some help getting this corrected as I cant play this on a tiny window 1/4 the size of my monitor.
I am pretty sure the issue is a very trivial one, it usually is with any Window's application.

Other than this issue this is a great application.

Kind Regards

So, first off the non-windowed version of this game will never "fill the screen" to the left and right edges with today's monitors without an ugly stretch, so it retains the 1280x1024 aspect ratio. The dxwnd settings will black-out the unused screen area.

Here are some common user errors:
1. Are you using dxwnd version 2_05_50? other versions probably work but will have a different setup than what we provided and i wont be able to assist.

2. make sure both 'in-game' screen options (direct draw and windowed mode buttons) are clicked off.

3. Clear compatibility flags in dxwnd under "tools"
here is what the main page should look like:

dxwnd1.jpg (89.62 KiB) Viewed 5106 times

[kaybayray]

simovitch <S> Sir!
Thank you for your kind reply.
I am running V 2_05_68. I believe this is what I got to through a link on the EDBTR forum section for this.
I have continued working on this and have actually been able now to increase the size of the window on my monitor with I believe only 1 issue. It seems that the game is not completely inserted into my display, IE the tool bar on the screen bottom still covers the bottom of the game view and blocks some of the option buttons both in the game selection window and in the game itself.
I dont have the same things selected in the DXWnd window as you have. I will attempt to copy what you have selected and see if that makes a difference.
I also have btr as the Name not EDBTR, but I beleive the path is the same. However I dont have anything inserted in the Launch field.
I apologize for my ignorance in software but thank you for working with me to correct this.

Kind Regards,
KayBay

[kaybayray]

simovitch <S> Sir!
Amazing how when you properly configure something it works properly.

I modified the selections in the control fields to match yours and this seems to have corrected all the issues I was having.

Again thank you so much for your patience and kind assistance with my ignorance.

Kind Regards,
KayBay

[simovitch]

You are welcome KayBay, I'm glad it worked for you.

[Zovs]

So I tried the steps in post #1 and the game wont run.

I tried running with the start up and the game runs but is unusable, only about 1/3 of the screen shows and you have to alt-tab out and kill it from task manager.

I have a 5k Monitor, 16 GB of RAM, 1 GB HDD, 3 CPUs.

I got WitP-AE to work using the Seabee tool.

Any thoughts?

[Zovs]

I followed this post: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 9#p4932539

And it basically works. Your in full screen so I can't or don't think I can alt-tab to read the manual?

[Merovian]

Quick note about DXWnd v 2_05_86 (the latest as of Jul 15, 2022) under Windows 11.

You can import the EDBTR.dxw file as indicated at the top of this thread, but you need to change how hooks are handled in the 2_05_86 to 'mixed mode' from a default of 'IAT Scan'

Your Hooks tab should look like the attached image, where "Hook" is set to "Mixed mode."

[simovitch]

Thanks,
And Alt-TAB works fine from fullscreen/DxWnd. At least on my machine.

[Zovs]

Alt+Tab works in Window mode when using DxWnd just fine. I have to re-clik to regain focus in the game but that is fine.

[MarkShot]

Richard,

I just fixed the key annoyance with DXWnd. I am running my desktop on a 32" 1080p TV, and the game interpolated on a 21" 1600x1200 LCD.

A very nice setup. But every time, EDBTR lost focus, it would take it 2 seconds to respond when it regained focus. I finally realized that the game doesn't take well to losing focus, and DXWnd has a setting for this. BTW, there was someone complaining about a black screen when they do an ALT-TAB. I suspect this might be his problem. With this option selected, the game is really running in background despite losing focus.

My display setup:

20220722 222641.jpg (2.17 MiB) Viewed 4758 times

The solution for smooth switching:

SNAG-0000.jpg (81.39 KiB) Viewed 4758 times

[MarkShot]

The above looks really good. I've already put too much scripting work into WITP-AE running on 32" full screen in letter box. If not, this would work very well for WITP-AE also which I think is native 1024x768. (You can get a true 1080p map, but the text is too small for old eyes.)

For WITW and WITE-2, I play them in a window on the 32" and bring up the manual on the 21".

20220722 225813.jpg (3.36 MiB) Viewed 4752 times

[Zovs]

Mark,

So your saying your running on two monitors? (32" and 21")?

BTW thanks for that tip on tasks switching!

[MarkShot]

Yep.

Mostly, I run my games just on the 32", and some old 4:3 on the 21" ... but there is Gary Grigsby. If ever anyone wrote a game for two displays, it is Gary!

TVs are better than large computer displays, since as they get larger the font gets smaller. But 1080p is always 1920x1080 at any diagonal.

[Zovs]

Ah, cool, thanks, maybe one day I'll have TV I can run my PC on, is it just a cable or some other special magic?