winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Hi All: I just got lucky and managed to get a new laptop. Nice Acer too. Only problem is that it comes with Windows 8. I had no choice about that. I want to install winSPMBT in it but I'mnot ure if the game will run in windows 8, or how to modify the install if that's necessary. Windows 8 is something I'm just learning to try to use so any and all suggestions will be welcomed.

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Windows 8 is not a supported operating system, as yet.

Congratulations on being a pioneer - awaiting your test results with interest.

The Windows 7 installation routine should probably work, if you can find your way to its desktop, and not the kindergarten Metro blocks interface, I believe...

Cheers
Andy

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

The folks at Shrapnel Games tell us ...."it works on our Windows 8, just like Microsoft says regarding Windows 8– “backwards compatible with window 7 and vista”"

Don

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Well....that's not encouraging news but it is a challenge. I guess I'll have to see if the pioneer spirit still holds strong inside me lol. I saw the metrocrap Iface and knew I wouldn't want it. I literally had no choice given MS's stranglehold on the market. Decided to study it all the weekend and I can function at least. Now lets see if I can advance our cause and take that hill :shock: Any ideas will be entertained and tried to some extent at least.

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

A user by the name "Zap" posted on the Matrix Games forum info on running SPWAW on Windows 8 machine. In it he says there is no longer color distortion and he did not need to use the fixes.

This is interesting if it is true. Since Windows 8 now has the new Metro user interface it might be that there is no longer interference with the color palette of these games.

If you have Windows 8 you could try to test this by first setting the game to run in Full screen mode and then starting the game directly from WinSPMBT.exe or WinSPWW2.exe thus bypassing the command line fix and see if the game runs fine.

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Windows 8 has apparently ditched the "aero" look, and that was what interfered with the 256 colour palette. If that truly is the case then it is an actual improvement.

Now if they reinstate the registry switch that removed the Metro front end (was available in the pre-release beta versions, deleted in the release one - duh!:doh:) then it may become a useful desktop operating system. Perhaps it will be back in SP1 in 6-9 months?. (The metro blocks thing and its "gestures" and "charms" may make sense on a touch screen tablet, but have no place whatsoever on a normal desktop machine where the screen is out of arms reach and not touch-sensitive in any case).

The Aero look in Windows 7 I never used - looks rather silly to have semi-transparent windows. I simply set up the "classic" windows theme and forgot about it. Saves wasting CPU power as well.

Cheers
Andy

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Yeah Metro looks pretty awful. It says alot that there are already third party programs appering that bring back a start menu and other win7 features to win8. :D
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rycUk5kEx0k )

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

As I have already said..... we have been told by Shrapnel Staff that the games install and run fine with win8.

That said, the vast majority of postings about the win8 OS have been by people who are not using it and it would be nice to start hearing from the people who are using it instead.


Don

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

I've been running Win8 for a few weeks now and I'm quite happy with it. Of course there are some issues with it but it's still fresh and there are bound to be some bugs. You can skip metro interface very quickly and apart from seeing it when you boot up you don't have to use it at all. As for the SPMBT, the game works like a charm. Even without the fix file. Reason for that is that Win8 ditched Aero interface which was causing all the problems. I can even run SPWAW without any problems straight from the box on Win8. Actually this OS seems to be more backwards compatible than Windows 7 (I have no experience with Vista).

Now that I'm at it, I ordered MBT mostly because of the higher resolutions it offers, but I was wondering whether it supports any resolutions meant for 16:9 displays, 1080p for example.:confused:

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

You set the game to desktop and away you go. Good to hear some first hand info on Win8

Don

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Desktop resolution does whatever display your desktop is currently set to - I am using a 1080p display on XP ATM. So 1920 by 1080 wide-screen.

Looks like I may advance to Windows 8, after the release of the first service pack of course!. Reports do say the actual windows is a real advance, once you get past the kiddy's front end blocks interface of "metro".

Once I have the real beast to hand then I can fix the launcher to detect it and avoid the script for full-screen running that Windows vista/seven required due to nasty Aero not playing nicely with the 256 colour palette in full screen (not just a problem with this game, but all old-style 256 colour mode games of the DOS era, it appears)

cheers
Andy

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Thank you for your quick responses! :)

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

I joined the Win8 crew and waiting it to show its real potential as I'm currently having some stability issues which can be hardware related. Anyway, WinSPMBT seems to work great under Win8. I'm running the DL version full screen which I couldn't do on my Vista machine, even after all the tricks and fixes.

However, can I disable (by modifying Win7SPMBT.cmd?) the command that kills the desktop when fullscreen as it is unnecessary feature for Win8. I played 1.0 version while downloading the patch and it worked perfectly.

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Just start the game directly from "WinSPMBT.exe" in your game directory and you will bypass the fix.

Ofcourse you could modify Win7SPMBT.cmd too by opening it with notepad and deleting all the text there and replacing it with just "winspmbt.exe".

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Heya, I just got SPMBT CD-version and installed it to my new win8 laptop. The problem is that game seems to run in "bits". What i'm trying to say is that when I move my mouse to the edge of the map it scrolls, then stops for a moment and then scrolls some more and stops again. Same goes for the units, tank moves a bit, stops and then moves a bit again, you get the idea. I'd propably blame this on my specs if I didn't know any better. I ran MBT nicely on my previous laptop which was an ASUS EeePC, very very weak considering the hardware. It can't be Win8 either since my tabletop runs it smoothly and it has Win8 as well. Any ideas what to click to make this go away? Oh, I can't change GDI mode to the DIrectX, it's all grayed out.

Specs for those who are interested:
Intel Core i5 3210M 2,5GHz (2 cores)
Nvidia 635M
4gb DDR3
Win 8 64bit

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Does the launcher check the OS version number to determine if it should run the cmd fix?
If so the version number for Windows 8 appears to be "6.2".

e.g.
Registry value "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion"
"CurrentVersion" string:
Windows XP = 5.1
Windows Vista = 6.0
Windows 7 = 6.1
Windows 8 = 6.2

Also I found that you could do the version check using the command promt too with information posted at this web site:
http://www.grimadmin.com/article.php...ect-os-version

So one could edit the Win7SPMBT.cmd to look like this:
Provided I got it right that should do an additional check to see if the OS is Windows 8 and skip the fix in that case.

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

If the game runs fine on your desktop pc with win8 but is jerky on your laptop then my guess is that there is some sort of driver or software issue on that laptop.

Did you try running the game in both fullscreen and windowed modes? Was there any difference?

EDIT
Quite far fetched probably but you could also try to run the game on the second core of your multicore prosessor.
In this case you would use the command:
start /B /WAIT /AFFINITY 2 WinSPMBT.exe
to start the game from the command promt or with a cmd file in the game dir. Not sure if that works on win8 though...

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

In windowed mode the game seems to run fine. Any ideas why I can't switch between GDI and DirectX?

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

DirectX option is disabled on windows vista and later.
From the game manual:
"Game Mode-Sets up the game to start in as a Window or Full screen and to use Direct X or GDI. GDI may be useful in some windows emulators e.g. on Linux. Normally DirectX is recommended but testing has revealed that GDI works better when the game is run in Windowed mode with MS Vista or Windows 7 because If directx mode is chosen the Windows Aero system will still scramble the palette when you alt-tab to another programme and the game is minimised to the task bar. On restoring the game later the palette will be scrambled. However, with GDI mode, this problem does not occur, and so the GameOptions launcher now selects GDI mode for windowed game play and DirectX mode is disabled for Windowed mode when gameoptions finds Vista or Win7 on start up"

In the game mode it just has GDI grayed out in full screen and windowed mode in my windows 7 machines.

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Okay, thanks for the quick reply. Another issue. I can't see artillery blast radius, when I turn blast radius display on nothing happens. Is there something I'm missing? Same thing happens on my tabletop as well.
E: after referring to the manual it seems that blast radius is only visible when shells have already landed. Am I correct? Previouly I thought it'd give an estimate of area that that would be inside the blast zone if hex of my choosing would be bombarded.

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Yeah the blast radius option ("R" key) just shows white circles when shells are landing and smaller yellow circles where shrapnel hits. It slows down the bombardment considerably. It also shows the circles for machine gun fire and AT-guns etc... I never use it personaly. I guess it is just a graphical representation of how the game engine works for those really into that stuff.

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Well, I finally got myself a windows 8 desktop. An 8 gig AMD 8 quad-core HP Pavilion with an AMD catalyst dual something or other mode graphics card.

This machine shows all the problems that some have noticed with "stuttering" in full-screen mode.

- Scrolling is jerky
- Clicking on the mini-map results in a noticeable delay before moving
- making a long multi-hex move with a vehicle, sound on especially, can result in a long delay, or movement in small batches with a delay in between. hex at a time is usually OK, though.
- Weapons effects not tested as yet, but may be also.
- Any attempt to ALT+TAB out and then return, and the game is in a skewed state and colour palette is also trashed, and can only be killed by CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up the task manager.

I have eliminated the gameoptions options (setting scroll delay to 0 milliseconds and doubling the mouse scroll sensitivity zone) - makes no difference.

Exploring the Windows 8 compatibility mode settings made no difference whatsoever, though "Windows 98/Me mode" seemed slightly better. Especially on clicking the mini-map.
- Setting any compatibility setting brings up an annoying UAC message, even if you are the machine's admin with full privileges as well.
- The colour depth settings don't do that, but made absolutely no difference at all.

So I set the game up to fullscreen in gameoptions, exited game options, and launched the .cmd file directly (as we removed that if 8 is detected as folks have said its not needed). Exact same behaviour as before was noted, so the batch file is redundant in 8 (and it was Aero that was killing it before in Seven).

I also explored the video card options, e.g. turning its dual mode off and using standard, optimise for speed, etc. No change.

Since:
A) Some folks report that full-screen mode works perfectly OK for them
and
B) Others report the same stuff as how my machine behaves

Then the only variable there can be is the graphics card installed on the box as far as I can tell. And/or the drivers.

Some can hack it, others cannot.

And in the early days of Windows XP, this was a problem as well since many manufacturers had not got support for the old DOS video modes done right - they concentrated on windows. Sometimes a later set of drivers fixed it. This may turn out to be the same with Windows Eight.

HOWEVER
In desktop resolution in windowed mode, it runs like the proverbial brown and smelly stuff off a chrome digging implement. Not a hiccup, scrolls are smooth and fast, clicking on the minimap is instantaneous, no delay in unit movement or sounds. No palette scrambling if you minimise to the task bar or switch to other open windows.

You lose just a tiny strip for the task bar area (remember not to have auto-hide on!) but in 1080i mode - who cares. Additionally you can switch to other open windows easily, start new windows programmes, and see the clock, email notifications etc. All major pluses, along with the game working - there's no real need for exclusive full-screen at all really. Provided you have the full game and so can use your monitor's real estate.

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Got a problem with the CD version. I go to the filter screen, and the buttons for the armor values are gone. What do I do?

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

It's got nothing to do with windows 8. A graphics file was missing from the original patch and it has now been corrected
Download the V8 patch again and re-install it CLICK HERE

Note that is is now named WinSPMBTv8_(2014)_Upgrade(R)

See post #36 in the WinSPMBTv8_(2014)_Upgrade thread


Don

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Here is another Windows 8 tip or two, and it may be related to those video cards that mess up the full-screen mode 256 colour palette (as mine does).

I had noticed that the Firefox browser sometimes went "wonky" and pages were only rendered in black, with the occasional picture flashing on and off. Shutting the browser and restarting was the only cure.

However - a google on the problem brought up a cure - find the Firefox options for "use hardware acceleration if available" and turn that off.

Since I have done that the browser has been rendering pages just fine, and it has made no difference to watching catch-up TV (BBC iPlayer) in HD.

So - as with XP before it - it seems that it will take a year or 2 before everyone has produced video drivers (in both hardware and software) that will be fully compatible with Windows 8.

Probably related:
Also the only apparently useful Metro "App" of the cruft that was supplied, at least to me - was the weather one. However that also behaves rather like the Firefox pages - random icons appear on a blank screen, more if you "mouse over" where they should be. Again - likely to be video driver problems, even with the metro junk apps supplied by Microsoft. These (cr)apps seem to actually be a few lines to drive a browser page, they are not real programs, so that one is probably firing up Microsoft's explorer and its having the same rendering problems as firefox. probably if I bothered to fire up the Microsoft browser and turn hardware acceleration off as well, the app may work. But I only use IE for the updates page (which is tied to it) so I am not bothering to figure out its options.

So I've left the weather App installed on the Metro start screen as a test application for whenever I get some updated video drivers. If it starts behaving properly, then maybe SP will also work in full-screen mode!. It will then be deleted - as I refuse to use stuff that puts up *&!"$ advertising. (It was serving up a flashing Renault advert).

(cr)Apps use your bandwidth
Oh - also check the page on the task manager re Apps usage. The little darlings use up your bandwidth for the live tiles nonsense etc, as well as any served up adverts of course. This is even if you don't use them at all, but just visit the metro start screen. You can turn that off by right-clicking the beasties on the start page, and turning live tiles to off, or you can de-install them completely as an option from the same right-click. Some folks still pay for bandwith - especially on mobile devices. Such peeps should immediately strangle these "live tile" Metro apps ASAP, other than any that are actually useful.

cheers
Andy

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

I've got the CD version, but my firing filters keep disappearing. Does anyone have a solution?

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Known bug that has nothing to do with the OS. See this thread

Don

winSPMBT in Windows8 with 2014 Patch - Stealth Gunships?
 

Hi All,

I just got the enhanced CD and installed the game via the CD after removing the Demo.

Once done, the 6.0 version of the game seems to run well - besides the occasional crash.

Updating to the 2014 patch however makes my Apache Gunships turn invisible in the Tutorial.

Any ideas on that?

I've see other posts about scrolling etc but nothing about disappearing units.

Any help is appreciated.

- Don

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Just checking to make sure; but did you load Patch 7.0 before you loaded Patch 8.0? Still on XP but, missed patches are a common issue here at times.

Regards,
Pat

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Thanks Pat - I thought about that right after I posted then read your post - so I gave it a shot.

Looks great now - even the windowed instance is better now - larger and display does not get mangled with Alt Tab.

Appreciate the help !

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Was a solution ever found to tabbing in and out of full screen? When I had windows XP i could play and tab out to change music tracks or do other stuff, now I am kind of missing that...

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

Yes - Don't use full screen :p. Windowed set to desktop works brilliantly.

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

ashamed to admit i dont have the full version :(

Re: winSPMBT in Windows8
 

...and you just sold me on the full version. downloaded it, now all is well. thanks.