| Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon | |
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GreyFuss Adventurer Extraordinaire

Posts : 1948 Reputation : 0 Join date : 2009-12-13 Location : Iron Age
 | Subject: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Thu Feb 24, 2011 4:48 am | |
| I just had to bring this fantastic news about a member at Adventure Gamers Forums. The members screen name is Winterfury and they are the first one to create a fix for the missing text for Dark Side of the Moon running in XP. After all these years of people trying to figure out why this game would run beautifully in XP except for the missing text which renders the game unplayable a fix is created. I am thrilled for Winterfury and Kudos to them. Now gamers everywhere can now enjoy this classic game without the need for an older computer or have the know how to use Virtual PC. I am quoting the Winterfury Posts right from Adventure Gamers here. I have tried it and it works. http://www.adventuregamers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=573255 & scroll down - Quote :
- 1. Download this zip archive. Inside it you'll find a file named riched32.dll. Extract it somewhere.
http://www.mediafire.com/?4hevvidc7bvcl03
2. Open the folder where you installed the game, then open 'bin' folder and put the extracted file in there. If, for example, the path for your installed game is 'CProgram Files\SouthPeak Interactive\DSOM', you should put the extracted file (riched32.dll) in the folder 'CProgram Files\SouthPeak Interactive\DSOM\bin'
3. Run the game and tell me if it works for you. - Quote :
- I'll provide some details in case anyone is interested. The common belief is that the problem with the missing text in DSOM is caused by the game being unable to read text or some files not installed properly. I've run the game in the debugger and found out that it is not really the case - the text is actually there in memory while the game is running, it's just that for some reason it's not showing up. While examining the game in the debugger, I've also found out that DSOM handles text in Rich Text format and uses Microsoft Rich Edit control. Up till now there are several versions of Rich Edit and the newer ones, according to Microsoft, are supposed to be backward compatible with the older ones, but in reality it’s only true up to some degree. Now, different Rich Edit versions (read: different DLLs) are distributed with different versions of Windows. Rich Edit 1.0 (riched32.dll) is included in Windows 95. Windows 98 includes both Rich Edit 1.0 and Rich Edit 2.0 (riched32.dll and riched20.dll accordingly) and Windows XP includes Rich Edit 3.0 (its corresponding DLL is confusingly named riched20.dll) and Rich Edit 1.0 emulator (riched32.dll, which is in fact a thin wrapper around riched20.dll). DSOM loads riched32.dll, i.e. uses Rich Edit 1.0 (which figures, since the game was made for Windows 95.) I suspected that there might be an incompatibility between the Rich Edit 1.0 which the game was programmed with in mind and the emulator provided by the recent versions of Windows. So I copied the riched32.dll from my Windows 98 distribution to the game folder where there other DLLs that depend on it and you know the rest.
Also, there are three different versions of riched32.dll (can you imagine that) and only one of them (with the version number 4.0.993.4) is redistributable. Fortunately, the one that is also happens to be just the one that is required by the game.
The bottom line is that Microsoft is to blame for breaking compatibility and creating this mess EDIT 3/21/11 WinterFury has developed an addition fix for those who had a little trouble getting the game to run and had to disable video acceleration... - Quote :
- For those of you who have to disable video acceleration to make DSOM work, I've made a small patch which forces the game to use hardware emulation only, preventing it from using any hardware-supported features. The result should be exactly the same as disabling hardware acceleration, only the patch won't affect any global settings in your system (so you don't have to restore anything after playing the game).
The patched game dll is in this archive . Open your DSOM\Bin folder, find the file named xvideoio.dll and make a backup copy of it. Then copy the patched xvideoio.dll from the downloaded archive to DSOM\Bin
I recommend you use the patch only if the game doesn't work properly on your system unless hardware acceleration is disabled completely. Don't use it otherwise.
Last edited by GreyFuss on Tue Mar 22, 2011 4:00 am; edited 2 times in total | |
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hatshepsut Adventurer Extraordinaire

Posts : 3922 Reputation : 3 Join date : 2009-12-13
 | Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Thu Feb 24, 2011 5:16 am | |
| That is good news for people wanting to play the game on XP. Thanks GreyFuss for the information.
hatshepsut | |
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Gelert Admin Adventurer Extraordinaire

Posts : 2180 Reputation : 3 Join date : 2009-09-06 Age : 172 Location : Watching the ladiies bouncing on a trampoline :)
 | Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:16 pm | |
| Thanks GreyFuss. That's useful info.. | |
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winfrey Daredevil Pioneer

Posts : 527 Reputation : 0 Join date : 2009-12-13 Location : Here
 | Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Thu Feb 24, 2011 2:46 pm | |
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GreyFuss Adventurer Extraordinaire

Posts : 1948 Reputation : 0 Join date : 2009-12-13 Location : Iron Age
 | Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Tue Mar 22, 2011 1:43 am | |
| WinterFury has developed an addition fix for those who had a little trouble getting the game to run and had to disable video acceleration... - Quote :
- For those of you who have to disable video acceleration to make DSOM work, I've made a small patch which forces the game to use hardware emulation only, preventing it from using any hardware-supported features. The result should be exactly the same as disabling hardware acceleration, only the patch won't affect any global settings in your system (so you don't have to restore anything after playing the game).
The patched game dll is in this archive . Open your DSOM\Bin folder, find the file named xvideoio.dll and make a backup copy of it. Then copy the patched xvideoio.dll from the downloaded archive to DSOM\Bin
I recommend you use the patch only if the game doesn't work properly on your system unless hardware acceleration is disabled completely. Don't use it otherwise.
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hatshepsut Adventurer Extraordinaire

Posts : 3922 Reputation : 3 Join date : 2009-12-13
 | Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Tue Mar 22, 2011 5:05 pm | |
| Thank you for the link GreyFuss. Now everyone who couldn't play Dark Side of the Moon should be able to play and enjoy the game. hatshepsut | |
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mindysue Daredevil Pioneer
Posts : 582 Reputation : 0 Join date : 2010-02-07 Location : Land of Lincoln, USA
 | Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Sat Mar 26, 2011 8:01 pm | |
| I don't think I ever heard of Dark Side of the Moon, GreyFuss, I was thinking it was one of the Tex Murphy games until I just now realized I was getting it mixed up with Under a Killing Moon. Easy enough mistake to make, all things considered. | |
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GreyFuss Adventurer Extraordinaire

Posts : 1948 Reputation : 0 Join date : 2009-12-13 Location : Iron Age
 | Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Sat Mar 26, 2011 9:48 pm | |
| Miss Mindy Apparently you need to get your Moons in order | |
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mindysue Daredevil Pioneer
Posts : 582 Reputation : 0 Join date : 2010-02-07 Location : Land of Lincoln, USA
 | Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Sun Mar 27, 2011 10:54 pm | |
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Jen Opportunist Explorer

Posts : 66 Reputation : 0 Join date : 2010-01-14 Location : USA
 | Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Mon Mar 28, 2011 4:34 pm | |
| Dark Side of the Moon is a great game. I remember the only drawback to it being endless disc swapping. If you can get it on DVD and get it to run, it is well worth a playthrough. | |
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mindysue Daredevil Pioneer
Posts : 582 Reputation : 0 Join date : 2010-02-07 Location : Land of Lincoln, USA
 | Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Mon Mar 28, 2011 10:08 pm | |
| Hi Jen, Thanks for the information, but it sounds like a very old, old game, so even if it is great, I am losing interest in it. | |
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Jen Opportunist Explorer

Posts : 66 Reputation : 0 Join date : 2010-01-14 Location : USA
 | Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Mon Mar 28, 2011 11:18 pm | |
| It's not that old, maybe mid- to late 90s. It does sound like an effort to get it to run on modern computers, though. | |
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hatshepsut Adventurer Extraordinaire

Posts : 3922 Reputation : 3 Join date : 2009-12-13
 | Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Mon Mar 28, 2011 11:21 pm | |
| It was released in 1998 by Southpeak Interactive
hatshepsut | |
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mindysue Daredevil Pioneer
Posts : 582 Reputation : 0 Join date : 2010-02-07 Location : Land of Lincoln, USA
 | Subject: Re: Finally an XP Fix for the Missing Text in Dark Side of the Moon Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:24 am | |
| I recall when I played Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within back in 1995 or 1996, I had to do quite a bit of disc swapping for it. But that was back when I had a lot more patience to play games than I do now. Of course, they were more fun back then too. Less technology, but more adventure! | |
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