Patching extra functionality into <gamemd.exe>

[Daedalus]

Cracks often result into unpatchable exes.. so i think this is the same.. atleast you have the origional..

[pd]

Cracked exes differ from the original,
so they will not be patchable by the patch.

And I assure that there WON'T ever be a version which supports cracked versions, I think if I asked Marshall to do such a patch he'd also say no (which is right).

My work is illegal yet, so I want to show at least a little bit of respect to EA by not supporting cracked exe files.

So:
Get the original game!
It's worth the money (you can get it for only a few bucks e.g. at Amazon or eBay etc).

[DCoder]

Psst, the only CD checks are made in the yuri.exe / RA2MD.exe . Gamemd.exe does not need to be "cracked" to work on warez versions.

[wthigon]

Cracked exes differ from the original,
so they will not be patchable by the patch.

And I assure that there WON'T ever be a version which supports cracked versions, I think if I asked Marshall to do such a patch he'd also say no (which is right).

My work is illegal yet, so I want to show at least a little bit of respect to EA by not supporting cracked exe files.

So:
Get the original game!
It's worth the money (you can get it for only a few bucks e.g. at Amazon or eBay etc).

That was me asking about the no-cd thing....PaD I do have the original cd, in fact I have two of them....the only reason why I have the no-cd thing is because i hate changing cds all the time....i also play SC:Broodwar and changing cds is a pain....Ive tried emulation e.g. Alcohol 120% and similar and i didnt like them....

So if i want to try your patch i just get the gamemd.exe from my cd right?

[Marshall]

Not quite, you need the 1.001 version of gamemd.exe.
[I think the 1.001 version of gamemd.exe is different to the 1.000 version, but it might not be.]

[ZombyDragon]

I got confused with some earlyer wording on some things, is there the ability to have the new hacks with the countries? I ask this becuse my mod already has them in it.

[wthigon]

Can someone send me the uncracked 1.001 gamemd.exe?

:EDIT: whoops forgot email addy wthigon[at]hotmail.com

[Marshall]

The 'new countries' have been withdrawn until pd gets round to re-implementing them in an improved way.

@wthigon, I can if you pm me an address

[wthigon]

Thanks for the quick reply Marshall. I have tried the patcher on the version of gamemd that I have. The patcher gives me an error. Attached is the error.... I will try the one Marshall gave me and will come back with results...



:EDIT: Ok the gamemd.exe that Marshall gave me works fine. I guess the no-cd one is the wrong size and the patcher doesnt recognize it?

[~Guest~]

Augh, who took out my TLB file entry? I know exactly what I'm talking about. TLB files CAN be edited very simply with it's generated IDL file which can then be recompiled regardless of orignal compiler of the EXE.

[Blade]

You should post questions regarding wish list entries on the discussion part of that page on modenc, not here. TLB modifying has been attempted before and did not yield any useful results, if you think its easy to do and have the time and skill to do so however, you are free to attempt it.

[pd]

I uploaded a new bug fixing patch version a few minutes ago.
It fixes at least the BRUTDIE bug.

I dunno yet what's the reason for the sidec03.mix stuff.
But I'll also get that mistake

Well, you know where to get the update

-----
I personally use DAEMON Tools, copied an image of my original CD on my PC so I don't need to change CDs.

[Marshall]

Wonderful, InfDeath 10 is no longer a problem. However, now the problem with InfDeaths is that ANY MUTATION death has no anim and no effect.

InfDeaths 9, 11, 12 and 13 play no animation at all and so no infantry is made.

[Bobingabout]

here
hey, thats some shit i write for kravvitz... i don't even know if it's right...

Although the mix files may well complicate things.

Put simplistically, right now if the game needs to call SOMEFILE.SHP, it looks in the program folder (\RA2\). Suppose it instead looked for SOMEFILE.SHIP in \RA2\SUBDIR\, and if it didn't find the file there, it would fall back to looking in \RA2\.

The value of SUBDIR would be set by a command line parameter, like "-mod SUBDIR". This way SUBDIR can be anything you like...

For example, I could put all my mod files in a directory called 'cannisrules': \RA2\CANNISRULES\. When the game is run normally, the contents of that directory are ignored, of course. But if the game is run with the command line parameter "-mod cannisrules", then the game looks for files in that folder first, falling back to the default program directory for files that are not found.

This would mean that any number of mods could be installed at the same time, and the user could play any he wanted to by simply clicking on the appropriate edited shortcut. Plus, this would keep mod files out of the default directory where they really don't belong anyway...

(btw this is how Quake-based games operate)

This is like a holy grail for users, and therefore it should be a holy grail for modders too. Think of all the crappy mods that dump loads of loose files in your program folder. I have no idea if this can be done, but if it can be, then this is potentially the most important change of all IMO.

I'd have to agree, i came up with a very simular idea earlier. only difference with my version is instead of a folder, the mod would be in a mix with your mods name. that mix would contain all your other mixes and shit. i even came up with the command line idea, all be it a different command line. -mod RROTC would be awsome, means you can install all your favorite mods in this manner, and create a shortcut to each 1 with the apropriate switch, meaning you can run any mod you want with a simple double click.

also, here's that info you wanted on 4sides. i like what you doing to the countries.

also, about releasing it with TX and assault all that stuff. (BTW, does assault mode still require manual PKT editing/or unified PKT that shows mats that might not be instealled? if it does, see me for the inibind solution i came up with. I made a version of survivour map pack that used inibind to combine all PKTs into a unified 1, so you only needed to list maps in that pack, each pack was going to have 1, so it would be compatible even without uninstalled maps being listed.)
where was i, oh yes, if you want all that in 1 package, I'd sugest 2 releases. 1 with the stand alone patch, and 1 with everything in it. theres noway I'm going to download a 12M+ file just for this patch, that'd take forever on my poor old modem...

[CannisRabidus]

I'd have to agree, i came up with a very simular idea earlier. only difference with my version is instead of a folder, the mod would be in a mix with your mods name. that mix would contain all your other mixes and shit. i even came up with the command line idea, all be it a different command line. -mod RROTC would be awsome, means you can install all your favorite mods in this manner, and create a shortcut to each 1 with the apropriate switch, meaning you can run any mod you want with a simple double click.

But in order for that to work with mix files, it's necessary to first solve the problem of files not being read unless in language mix's, or else as loose files.

A folder will always work, even without those fixes, and the user can apply this capability even to old mods he might like and still have, even though they are not still being updated. Supporting custom mix files instead requires all mods be updated to make use of that feature.

Additionally, if the game is reading from a folder, it can write to it too. This is useful for savegames... no worries about a savegame written by one mod overwriting a savegame written by another... and the user wouldn't ever run into trying to load a savegame with the wrong mod and getting an internal error.

There is an additional point to be made in favor of the custom folder idea. If the game could look in 1) the mode folder, and then in 2) the prog folder, then it could also be made to look in 1) the mod folder, 2) the patch folder, and then 3) the prog folder. In this case, the issue of patching langmd.mix is less intrusive. Because the patch program could copy langmd.mix to the patch folder, and then modify the copy.

(BTW, does assault mode still require manual PKT editing/or unified PKT that shows mats that might not be instealled? if it does, see me for the inibind solution i came up with.

It remains up to the modder to set up his own PKT, whether he does it manually or uses a prog that condenses multiple files into one. I don't see why a modder would want to support one assault mappack and not the other, so I saw no reason to put up 2 separate PKT files.