MTM2.com

*******WARNING! PLEASE READ BEFORE DOWNLOADING********

This is provided solely for testing and finding out bugs. Without further ado, please read below to find out what is expected to work and what is expected NOT to work (the list is pretty big).

What Works:

- Bumped up maximum render distance from 20 to 50 units. (same as render patch. FINALLY!!!!!!!!)
- The maximum render distance is now fully customizable from within the game.
- Max Verts increased from 800 to 1200 (same as render patch)
- Maximum number of objects increased from 256 to 512 (same as render patch #2. this initially caused crashes on tracks like duality and razzle dazzle)
- Mark finally increased the box count - or otherwise known the infamous ground box error. Limit increased from 600 to 800. Tracks like Razzle Dazzle can now be completed with 8 running trucks.
- Most likely related to the groundbox error, tracks like Castle Rock Too and Spring Valley can now be succesfully played with any number of trucks \o/

What is being implemented:

Different resolutions!

What doesn't work (hefty one):

- the first time you select direct3d it will not show you the different resolutions. Just press OK and open the settings page again. Also, THIS WILL NOT WORK FOR 3DFX. I will look into making it for the 3dfx/nglide but right now it's exclusively direct3d.

- MAKE SURE YOU RESTART THE GAME AFTER EVERY RESOLUTION CHANGE. Sorry, but that's how it has to be for now.

- first and foremost, ONLY RUN THIS IN CLEAR WEATHER. There is a bug that crashes the game unless you don't run in clear weather. I traced the code responsible for the crash but right now the priority is getting the resolutions to work.
- Dashboard doesn't work right. Actually, it's all kinds of messed up. It's basically unusable but it won't crash. This will get fixed once I get all the resolutions to work as it is tedious. I might try to find a different, more efficient way of fixing it.
- The higher you go in resolution the smaller the text is. This will eventually get fixed.
- The main menu still displays in 640x480 even if the selected resolution is not 640x480 (thus you will end up with a lot of black screen around the menu). Usability is 100%, it just looks ugly that's all. This will eventually get fixed.
- Software mode has not been thoroughly tested. From the little testing that I've done, expect it to crash pretty often. Priority is to first get hardware acceleration work correctly before figuring out what to do exactly with software mode.
- Now, for the resolutions, here is a list. All the errors refer to hardware acceleration:

1024x768 - works
1600x1200 - works
1600x900 - works
1280x720 - works
1280x800 - works
1280x1024 - works
1360x768 - AV at loading screen
1366x768 - works
1440x900 - doesn't go full screen, software crashes
1536x864 - doesn't go full screen, software crashes
1680x1050 - doesn't go full screen, software crashes and looks weird
1920x1080 - works
1920x1200 - works
2560x1440 - crashes @ loading - impossible to make it work, will remove.

That's it for known issues. Feel free to try out everything you like and report any issues including the same issues I mentioned up there. Why? Well, to make sure that there's something wrong with the code and not with a video card incompatibility.

http://www.mtm2.com/~mtmg/misc/Beta0.2fixed.zip

Fila, cant get the EXE to run the game. It shows in task manager running but nothing on the screen. Tried running as admin and all that, no luck. The original games exe runs fine.

Ah. Ooops!

Try downloading the link again please (the file should be 12mb now). I forgot to include the modified cockpit.pod. Also I included the other .dll's just for safety though I don't think they should be needed.

Please try to run it first just with monster, trid3d.dll and cockpit.pod and see if it starts. If not, copy the other .dll files too and let me know.

Doesn't work for me either, tried replacing all the files with those that came in the zip file and no luck. I also tried using a stock only pod.ini.

The stock executable runs with no problems.

EDIT:

Using process monitor I see that the modified monster.exe never reads pod.ini or the pods that I want to be loaded to the game. It just loads monster.ini and there it stays. Could you please upload your monster.ini file?

Hmmmm.
Here you go.

http://www.mtm2.com/~mtmg/misc/monsterini.zip

I wonder if I am missing something.

I have tried this in two separate mtm folders and it works in both on my end. And I used it for my main installation where I only copied monster.exe, trid3d.dll and cockpit.pod. :/

Does beta0.1 work fine?

Edit: Another question, what windows are you guys using?

Backhand just tried it on win 7 and it works for him.

Same as Kmaster. Replaced all the files and still wont load.
Running Windows 8.1
Tried compat modes and run as admin again, no luck.

I'm pretty sure Kmaster is running either 8 or 10.

I found some peeps I did live tests with. Basically, Win 7 works. Win 8.1 refuses to work whatsoever, Win 10 if you use compatibility mode win7, force 640x480 and run as admin then the main menu shows up but it will crash when you try to load a race.

So... humbug. It's clearly something to do with the additional code I wrote for the resolutions but the thing is, I made zero changes. Just added to what was already there.

I'm using Windows 7. I'm at work right now, i'll check the patch using your monster.ini when I get home.

I wonder why the modified exe is smaller in size compared to the stock exe.

And yes, 0.1 works fine for me.

Perhaps the newer version of MSVC is better at code size optimization than the version used for stock MTM2.

Hmmm. Backhand tried it using Windows 7 and it worked for him :/

Mat- nope, I compiled this with visual studio6... the thing is, it's the same as when I compiled beta 0.1 and that one was larger. I have no idea why suddenly it became smaller, I didn't do any changes to the compilation settings :/

I am officially declaring I have no idea what I am doing and I have no idea what's going on AT ALL.

While I was trying to look through the project settings and fiddle with it to try and get it to work on Win 8 (and I assume on Kmaster's win 7 too) I totally failed to do so however... I got 1920x1080 and 1920x1200 to work. Without changing a single line of code O_O

But resolutions like 1360x768 and 1650x1080 still don't work.

I.DON'T.UNDERSTAND.

Edit: Further note for my 2560x1440 resolution pipe dream.



So I guess that's that.

OK guys, I have updated the opening post.

Please try to download this:
http://www.mtm2.com/~mtmg/misc/Beta0.2fixed.zip

It turns out a specific line of code was at fault for stopping the game from working in Win8/10 (and I hope this is why it wasn't working for Kmaster either). If all goes well, I will come back to that code later on.

I have tried it on my windows 8.1 laptop and it worked. The only problem is, since the game had 20fps at 640x480 resolution... yep you guessed it, at 1920x1080 my average FPS is a grand total of 12fps. Such a disaster of an OS.
Anyway, let me know if this works for you guys. If it does... I know 12 fps is not something you can play with. Sadly this is impossible to fix unless I learn how to switch the game to Directx9. It's simply the horrible way Win8 treats DirectDraw.

There are two possible workarounds:
1. Figure out how to get software mode not to crash (it always does at specific moments so I just have to trace down where the fault lies)
2. 3dfx/nGlide. This also has issues. 3dfx doesn't have any standard high resolutions for any aspect ratio other than 4:3. So this means stuff like 1920x1080, heck even 1600x900 or lower won't work. The only solution that I can think of is to use the resolution 856x480 which for some weird reason 3dfx supports and it's close to 16:9 and use nGlide to upscale. This way people can at least get widescreen and useable fps in Win 8. Same goes for 5:4 and 16:10.

Anyway, this fixed version should also include the working 1920x1080 and 1920x1200 resolutions \o/

Who would have thought...

in all honesty, big resolutions are not that important for me as nGlide does a very good job at it. Way more relevant for me is proper support of a high count of vertices displayed at once, as there is no workaround for that, unlike resolutions. This is very important because if this is not properly done, raising the limit of models and groundboxes (which is very important for my city tracks) and raising the draw distance would be pretty much useless. Also I would like to have the limit of moving objects increased so I can finally put some real working lightlamps in all my city tracks. And perhaps, increasing the maximum of textures in a track, or even better, increasing the number of tiles in a track (that would be really cool).

Note: I haven't tried the new patch yet, been very busy lately

There are some issues with nGlide though. The game crashes after loading 11 consecutive races/rumbles and there's some see through issues that affects a few trucks. Also you don't get proper widescreen with nGlide.

With that being said, I tried to do the 2nd workaround I mentioned above and it won't work. The resolution, on my end at least, seems to confuse the heck out of nGlide and it simply refuses to cover the whole screen, instead it only takes about half of it.

I don't mind not using nglide. nglide murders performance. I don't know why.

I am not too sure what Kmaster is talking about with the high count of vertices. Far as I know that's just a dx4 limitation. Your up to 7 now so you probably accidentally solved it.

No, it's hardcoded by TRI. The limit has been bumped up since the render patch hack and I just replicated it with the betas.

So the patched exectuable works. Man, that draw distance is awesome. Couldn't get the resolutions to work, had to use nglide as usual. When I set a 1920x1080 resolution, I only see like a quarter of the screen. Not even 640x480 worked properly (the game was rendered in a 640x480 box to the left corner, inside a 1920x1080 black image). What are the object limits now?

After you selected 1920x1080, have you quit the game and restarted?

The menu loads in a 640x480 corner window but if you start the race full screen (in Direct3D) it should go full screen. If you start in software mode just F4 until it enters full screen.