Patching extra functionality into <gamemd.exe>

[DCoder]

Excellent!

[pd]

some deeper info:

There's actual evidence that EA just took a hex editor and hacked it out...
:!: :!: :!:
so far the YR changes for TFD


@Marshall:
Given that the exes are really similar, can your patcher patch both the TFD and the usual exe?

[Bobingabout]

my guess is that if you don't modify anything in that area, the same patcher should be able to patch both, however, it will be likely that you need 2 seperete executables, or write into the patcher to check for that section, to ignore it.

in any case, I've got in touch with patchman from TTDP to see if he can offer any assistance.

on another note, I've found the damn thing available for download.... its all on 1 Duel Layer DVD disk....

[Marshall]

The patcher I provide for the Rock Patch already includes several different patches so that it can patch [some] older versions of the Rock Patch back into the original version before patching the original into the latest Rock Patch version (and then back to the original again).

I think extending this to two executable sets (original and TFD) shouldn't be too difficult, but I'll need you to send me the TFD gamemd.exe in order to create the patches (I don't plan to get TFD any time soon - although I might one day).
Also, what is the policy regarding checking for non-hacked ra2md.exe?
If we are still checking for that then I'll need the TFD ra2md.exe AND a modified one to force a patch failure.

For 1.08, I'll probably remove support for older Rock Patch gamemd's, and just include patches for all versions from 1.08 onward.


PS. Is there still a problem on WinME with the Rock Patch? (I ran the game okay, closed it, and then couldn't load it again - even when I removed the patch (and the game then worked okay) then re-applied the patch, YR would not load. I heard that someone else had had this problem. Just thought I'd mention it.)

[Bobingabout]

it apears to be ME only, PD had me check it on windows 98 before he released it and it checked out, we didn't think to check ME too. in all likelyhood, its still broke on ME, PD will have to find a guiniepig with windows ME to try and fix it.

[Blade]

Who's crazy enough to have that installed as the only operating system on their computer?

[DCoder]

I can install WinME in VirtualPC and test it, assuming that kind of setup is adequate.

[Marshall]

Who's crazy enough to have that installed as the only operating system on their computer?

Hey, I know that a lot of folks have trouble with ME, but apart from the occasional ddhelp error, I have almost no problems with ME (certainly compared to Windows eXtreme craPulence). My next computer will probably have ME, XP, and Linux as a trial-boot machine. But lets not get into a debate about that here.
Can we at least agree that enough people use ME to warrant getting the Rock Patch to work with it (and with 98 which is very similar to ME).

[Bobingabout]

blade, don't mock ME, it does the job, and on some computers(ok, not new) like my duron 1300, XP simply won't run on them. in which case you are stuck with 2000(in most cases, same problems, this caused hardware conflicts on my server, and on my duron didn't recognise half the hardware), 98(which has no USB memory device suport) or ME(which in most cases, runs just fine, although i prefer 98, despite the lack of USB media access)

putting this aside. yes, i say its worth fixing it on ME. after all, its in the catagory that YR was originally meant to run under.

and no DCoder, you can't run YR under a VPC ,you can try if you want, but in all casses i've tried, its refused to install, and if its installed, its refused to run because in most cases either DirectX isn't emulated, or it can't read the anti-copy protection off the CD.

[DCoder]

I haven't tried YR yet, but I've got some lighter DirectX games running in a VM just fine.

[Bobingabout]

i bet it will sting you when it gets to the save disk 2 check...

[Saberhawk]

blade, don't mock ME, it does the job, and on some computers(ok, not new) like my duron 1300, XP simply won't run on them. in which case you are stuck with 2000(in most cases, same problems, this caused hardware conflicts on my server, and on my duron didn't recognise half the hardware), 98(which has no USB memory device suport) or ME(which in most cases, runs just fine, although i prefer 98, despite the lack of USB media access)

And that is where you are wrong. I have a couple of duron 1300s over here, both running Windows XP with only 256mb of RAM flawlessly, never had a crash..

[Banshee]

My windows 98 SE never had problems with USB devices.

[Saberhawk]

They have a problem with not having most of the USB drivers already installed (such as the mass storage generic driver)

[Blade]

I must say that from my experiences, ME is by far the most unstable out of 98, ME, 2K and XP. XP and 2K tend to be the most solid when set up correctly and don't have users running around on the net with administrator privileges thanks to them being NT based. I've never understood how they managed to make ME worse than 98 though.
That said I realise that a lot of people are stuck with it or have machines that they wouldn't be able to make XP run correctly on (due to them not knowing how to configure it to run better on lean systems) so fixing a bug if it exists is a good thing tm.