Dangerous Waters and Virtual Box

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by AchtAchtel

And again - please tell whether networking works on DW emulated on XP @ Virtualbox. Are you able to HOST or JOIN session?

I don't know because I didn't have the occasion to test multiplayer.
I only installed virtualbox to know if DW would run better than in wine, and the answer is yes it runs better. But multiplayer, I have no idea.

[kgsuarez]

I tried to get DW working under Linux with VirtualBox today and it did not go well. I am getting an error when launching DW. Something like "Failed to initialize graphics." Any of you have any idea what this is about?

[PeriscopeDepth]

I saw this thread and gave it a whirl, got the same as you kgsuarez. I think it has something to do with my vbox machine running win7? I will have to try it under xp sometime. It's been quite a while since I've played DW.

PD

[kgsuarez]

It's good to hear that someone is still interested in this stuff.

I have some very good news for everyone. Dangerous Waters (and Sub Command too) work just fine in Wine, sound and everything. There's a trick to getting this to work which I will explain in a moment. First a little background on this subject.

Okay, there are several games on the market that organize their sound files in a strange manner. Dangerous Waters, Sub Command, and even Jane's 688i H/K are in this category. I don't know all the specifics, but basically there are several archives with the title "sfx.agg" throughout the file hierarchy in these games. Within these archives are .wav files. For whatever reason Wine is not setup to recognize and run these .agg archives properly resulting in a total lack of sound. But, as with most things, there is a solution. This solution took a long time to come to light on these forums, but better late than never right?

Head over to SubGuru.com and take a look at the Downloads page. You will find a small program called SCSoundEdit. This program allows you to extract the .wav files from the sfx.agg archives. Go ahead and do this for all the relevant afx.agg's. There is a main sfx.agg in the "Audio" directory of your DW install. And then there are several more that are specific to the platforms which can be found in the "Interfaces" directory. There are also some more in either the "Scenario" or "Missions" directory. (I am composing this post on just my foggy memory, so bare with me.)

Once you have extracted the .wav files from the relevant sfx.agg archives you can delete the sfx.agg archives if you wish, as you do not need them anymore. Just make sure that in the very least you move the sfx.agg archives out of their directories, because the next step will not work correctly if they are still present.

The final step here is to create several new directories in place of the sfx.agg archives. It is important that you name these new directories "sfx.agg+". (Yes, that is a plus sign.) Now place the .wav files you extracted into this directory. You are done.

So, to sum it up: 1) Extract .wav's from sfx.agg. 2) Delete sfx.agg 3) Create directory named "sfx.agg+" and place extracted .wav's within it.

Disclaimer: I have not been able to fully test this in DW yet for reasons that I will rant about a few sentences from now. However, it is a documented fix/hack for Jane's 688i H/K AND I have tested it in Sub Command without any trouble at all. Gentlemen, I am pretty sure that this will work for all of us.

Now, about that rant I've been planning since I started this post...

I've got DW up and running on Linux with Wine, and with sound I would imagine, but I have run into yet more trouble. It appears that for some reason the game crashes whenever I try to load a mission that uses the 688i platform. I haven't tried all the other platforms, but the Kilo works as does the Perry frigate (is that what it's called?). I think the Seawolf also works, but I am not sure.

Anyway, the bottom line is that DW works in Wine, with sound, but the game crashes if you try to use the 688i. *long-heavy-sigh* What is the point of this game if you can't drive the 688i!!??

Now, could anyone do me the favor of trying DW under Linux, in Wine, with the 688i. I would like to know if this platform is crashing other people's games too. Please? Just this little favor for me?

EDIT: THE FIX/HACK I DESCRIBED IN THIS POST DOES NOT WORK. See my my more recent posts for info on this.

[goldorak]

@ kgsuarez :

When you say :

So, to sum it up:

• 1) Extract .wav's from sfx.agg.
• 2) Delete sfx.agg
• 3) Create directory named "sfx.agg+" and place extracted .wav's within it.

Do I have to create a single global directory sfx.agg+ inside the main game directory that will contain all the audio files from all the units ?
Are you sure about this ? Because each playable unit has its own sfx.agg file inside the playable unit's directory inside the interface folder.

[kgsuarez]

I had a feeling that parts of my post might be misinterpreted.

goldorak, you are correct. Trying to use one single "sfx.agg+" will not work. I didn't mean for my post to sound like that was what I was suggesting.

You must create an "sfx.agg+" directory for each afx.agg that you want to replace.

Example: You replace the sfx.agg in the Audio directory with the sfx.agg+ that you created. You also replace the afx.agg in the 688i directory with an sfx.agg+ that you created. And so on.

Does that answer your question?

Also, like I asked before, can someone do me the favor of testing DW in Wine for me? Try loading a mission with the 688i platform and see if it crashes or locks up for you too.

[goldorak]

Ok its good to know. The last time I tried DW under virtualbox it didn't go so well, very strange since on a older version it worked more or less.
As for testing under wine, I don't have a native linux installation for the moment sorry. But its great that DW finally works, sound included under wine.
Its one less worry when I throw away windows xp.

[kgsuarez]

Okay. I have, unfortunately, created some confusion in this matter. I will try to clear things up a bit.

DW is as broken, in wine, as it has always been. The fix/hack that I described earlier does not work as I thought it would. It is my fault for not testing this properly. I jumped the gun on this one.

However, the fix/hack has some effect in Sub Command. If you apply the method I described above to SC you will notice that sound will begin to function properly, almost. You can modify the main sfx.agg in SC to produce sounds, but the method does not work on the vehicle specific sfx.agg's (IE: the ones located in the Interface directory). As far as I can tell, this makes SC perfectly playable in wine. The only sounds that are missing are related to the specific sub you are driving. Clicking on switches and buttons, flooding tubes and launching weapons, and a few other things will occur without sounds. The sonar, explosions, pings, and mostly everything else will produce sound.

So, Sub Command is working almost perfectly. I am currently seeking help in the Modders forum on this matter. My idea involves editing certain files so that the game will look for vehicle sounds in the main sfx.agg rather than in the vehicle specific sfx.agg that it currently does. My hope is that some of the lessons learned in getting SC to work can be applied to DW.

I have been working quite a bit on these issues in the past couple of days and my frustration is mounting despite some of my progress. I find myself wishing one of two things. A) That subsims were as popular as FPSs RPGs (the logic being that all of these issues would have been addressed by now if they were as popular) or B) That I hated subsims and loved FPSs and RPGs. I can only hope that with enough time and our small, dedicated fanbase can overcome these issues. We'll see.

Right now I am in the process of setting up VirtualBox to test Dangerous Waters. I will report back when I have my results. Let's cross our fingers.

[kgsuarez]

Okay. DW works in VirtualBox with very few problems.

Here is my setup:

DW v1.04
Windows XP Pro SP3
VirtualBox v3.2.10
Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS

Now, for a few specifics on my setup. If you are running Ubuntu don't install VirtualBox from the default repositories. The version available there is too old. Go to the VirtualBox website and follow their instructions for installing the newest version.

Once you have VirtualBox setup with Windows XP reboot the virtual machine and press F8 during boot up. Select the "Safe Mode" option and login as Administrator. Once you have done this go to the VirtualBox menu and select Devices > Install Guest Additions. It is very important that you check the Direct3D option. Install and reboot. You can now proceed with the DW install.

There were a few minor issues with running DW. First of all, it is a bit slow. The mouse lags quite a bit. This might be a problem on my end though, as I am using a weak computer. (1.6Ghz CPU, 1GB RAM, no video card.)

There is some glitching in the 3D options menu still, but this is hardly a problem as all these settings can be manipulated manually by editing the dangerouwater.ini file.

The final issue I have found so far is that the pointer does not load correctly. Instead of the familiar arrow you get a black square. The is easily fixed by editing the dangerouswaters.ini file. (I can't remember off the top of my head what the line is, but it is located under the 3D Options section and is named something like "use software pointer." Just change is to "Yes.")

[goldorak]

@ kgsuarez : I see that you have found the same problems I did months ago using virtualbox. Mostly that the game works, sound included except you can't get a working config screen.
Do you know how to change the resolution of the game through the config file, is there even an option for that ? I don't really remember.
Mine was fixed at 800x600 and I wished I could have set it to 1280x1024.

[kgsuarez]

Well... the configuration screen works just fine for me. There is a bit of a glitch in it when you go to the 3D section, but it doesn't prevent me from making the necessary changes.

Either way, I think you might be able to change the resolution via the dangerouswaters.ini by changing the line that reads ".ModeID 1". I haven't actually tested this myself as the default resolution is good enough for me. But if there is a line in the .ini that corresponds to resolution that would have to be it. I would imagine that 1 signifies the default resolution. 2 would probably be the second resolution in the drop down menu on the 3D configuration screen. Etc, etc...

Man... I realized today that DW runs really slow in VirtualBox. The whole interface lags like you wouldn't believe. And it's a bit unstable too. It locked up on me a few times when using time compression. I'm not sure I could play it like this.

Is it really slow/laggy for you too? Or is my computer just a dinosaur? I'd like to know how it runs/ran on your rig. Maybe I need more power again.

[PeriscopeDepth]

Yeah, with your setup running on a VM is going to be sh!t. No way around that kgsuarez. I got DW running on VMWare yesterday, it mostly works aside from the 3D engine (which works, but lots of missing textures, incorrectly displayed things). I guess I can deal with that for now.

I really need to buy a net top to use as our entertainment machine so I can bring my gaming rig back into the office where it belongs. Trying to do sim'ing on my work laptop through VMs is no fun.

PD