Run RnDs in any resolution with smooth scrolling!

[Alan]

I thought that might grab your attention

After reading the discussion about changing your desktop to 16bit, and the old topic about smooth scrolling, I thought I'd write this little wrapper.

Just drop it into your RND folder and run it, select a res and hit play!

The best mode is 640x480x16@100hz , this totally fills your monitor with the game and tricks the scroller into running smooth (almost). It's also the smallest resolution you can go to and still use menus, record tapes etc.

And it looks like DXBoulderdash!

Also I included in the default 800x600 mode a much NEEDED clock! This is handy for me because time really does fly when you're making CEs

Here's an unaltered screen shot I took in 640x480 mode, all you lose is a bit of the border and titles:



And the program:
http://www.ambience.2restinpeace.com/resndiamonds.zip


There's bound to be problems with some GFX cards, so any feed back would be most appreciated....

*NOTE*
You MUST exit the forum and any other window with the word "Rocks'n'diamonds" in the title because this program searches for it and won't center the RnD window properly (blame APIs not me)
I just found that one out when posting this......oh well! Anyway, you shouldn't be playing whilst on the forum

[Martijn]

Hi Alan,

It looks really great! But it does not work properly with my Asus Nvidia Geforce 5200 FX graphics card.

The preset mode:

- Default - 16 bit smooth still shows the border of the window (only part of it).

- Big - 16 bit smooth - goes a little bit out of the border (Of 'Rocks 'n' Diamonds' at the top of the screen only half of it is shown).

I hope it can work properly on my pc, because I have always wanted RnD in real fullscreen!

[Alan]

Yep they are both intended!

It doesn't actually change the resolution of rnd, all it does is change the res of your desktop and then center the window the best it can!

A bit of a con I know

I did say above that you'll lose a bit of the title...but who cares? As for the border, you only notice it when it's loading, after that it's not noticable (unless your desktop colours are some horrid bright green )

It works exactly like that other program you had.......but this one works

anyway, more importantly did you notice it running smoother?

[Zomis]

*NOTE*
You MUST exit the forum and any other window with the word "Rocks'n'diamonds" in the title because this program searches for it and won't center the RnD window properly (blame APIs not me)
I just found that one out when posting this......oh well! Anyway, you shouldn't be playing whilst on the forum

Hmm... isn't that possible to fix somehow by using additional APIs so that the program only cares about the "real" Rocks'n'diamonds?

[Alan]

I said the magic word.......API, and up pops Zommis (I must remember that)

Firstly, although VB6 has a nice help system, API is totally undocumented
I have the two MSDN cds and they're full of useless stuff (like DX, Foxpro,C++....and other things I don't use).
If I need help with API, I always have to go online, which is a pain.

I used the API "GetWindowText", which I just realised finds windows with the text in any part of the title, which is pretty cool and I'll use that for future projects.

Secondly, the whole topic is academic since nobody is using it anyway :-\ .......Has anybody reported smoother scrolling? nope!

You meanies!

[Martijn]

Well, to be honest, I don't really see much difference in smoothness.. maybe there is, but I didn't notice anyway.

Nevertheless, I like this nice little program and maybe it will inspire Holger one day to make his game fully stretched...

[Zomis]

I said the magic word.......API, and up pops Zommis (I must remember that)

Firstly, although VB6 has a nice help system, API is totally undocumented
I have the two MSDN cds and they're full of useless stuff (like DX, Foxpro,C++....and other things I don't use).
If I need help with API, I always have to go online, which is a pain.

I used the API "GetWindowText", which I just realised finds windows with the text in any part of the title, which is pretty cool and I'll use that for future projects.

Yes, I heard the magic word - API. And I feel your pain. I use APIs very rarely (although I haven't done much programming at all lately, if I would have I probably wouldn't have used API anyways...).

Anyways, what I thought of was exactly that "GetWindowText" (and maybe some other API... like gethandleofwindow and gettitleofwindowhandle or whatever they're called), if you use it repeatedly you could ignore those other windows and only care about the "real" Rocks'n'Diamonds.

[Alan]

Well, to be honest, I don't really see much difference in smoothness.. maybe there is, but I didn't notice anyway

Oh well... some you win, some you lose

Believe me, if there was another way to move a 3rd party window without APIs I would of done it!. For moving I used: EnumWindows, SetWindowPos ,GetWindowText and GetWindowTextLength

For launching RnDs and killing it I used: OpenProcess, GetExitCodeProcess, SendMessage, GetParent and GetWindowThreadProcessId.

Your right of course, it would be better to use it's handle, and the answer is probably in the above functions..... but beyond me.