Aaron Giles

Thanks for the great response to DREAMM 3.0! Unfortunately, a few crashers slipped through the testing process, so I've just published a 3.0.1 update. In particular, instability in Infernal Machine/Shadows of the Empire should now be fixed. Get it here: https://aarongiles.com/dreamm

Happy release day! DREAMM 3.0 is officially finished and released. Downloads for Windows, MacOS, and Linux: https://aarongiles.com/dreamm This version adds support for all remaining DOS-based LucasFilm/LucasArts games (plus some goodies), adds a CRT simulation filter, support for add-on packs, and tons of small changes. Thanks to everyone who tested, reported bugs, and helped track down new versions! I want to especially call out Alex Kaiser for his extensive testing help, John Novak for his CRT shader help, and Daniel Albu for his overall project support. Use this thread to report any issues or questions.

Thanks for the shout-out! I actually managed to lay my hands on one, and from what I can tell the bug that produced the broken save games was fixed with my fix for the opening level, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we won't see those pesky asserts again.

Getting close to release now. DREAMM 3.0b19: https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta Please try out Infernal Machine and let me know if you see that pesky assert! New in 3.0b19: * Fixed race condition on startup that caused spurious crashes * Worked around OG bug in Infernal Machine that would cause asserts after loading the first level * Changed Direct3D FPU fiddling to match documentation a bit better * Fixed error in ZIP unshrinking code * Added more safety around handling corrupt archives

Quick turn around for DREAMM 3.0b18: https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta New in 3.0b18: * Updated documentation to reflect new features: https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/docs/v30 * Fixed bug that caused textures to be lost if you changed resolutions in Infernal Machine * Fixed bug that caused combo boxes to open blank if only a small number of items were present * Fixed Day of the Tentacle Roland upgrader installer to actually work * Fixed handling of bitfield-based RGB bitmaps in Windows; fixes Behind the Magic windowed mode * Fixed lack of gain control when using sound fonts * Fixed detection of add-ons, which was broken in some cases with the last beta * Fixed crash in UI when custom graphics are used and the game exits * Fixed bug where font rendering could trash memory in some edge cases * Fixed bug where joystick configuration would not work at all if asymmetric axes are present * Fixed bug where the WinHelp missing message could be repeatedly invoked until DREAMM crashed * Fixed empty CD Audio tracks when reading from a ZIPped CD image * Added logic to CRC an entire file for cases where the first 2MB match * Removed sound configuration for Monkey CD and Loom CD; these now hard-default to AdLib * Tweaked the CRT shader to hopefully avoid artifacts on Apple Silicon-based systems

DREAMM 3.0b17 now available. Time to start winding down the cycle and finalize 3.0, so if there are significant open issues, let me know soon https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta New in 3.0b17: * Many new demos and alternate versions supported - Highly recommend you rescan your collection; I renamed a bunch of stuff that won't be found without a rescan * Tweaked the aggressive nested image search to find more stuff * Fixed logic for identifying games that would sometimes "discover" a phantom addon/expansion * Fixed language setting for Star Wars Chess Windows version * Fixed Outlaws 2.0.1 upgrader to work again * Fixed emulation bug in handling multiple address/operand size prefixes on an instruction * Further improved texturing accuracy in 3D rasterizers * Added support for weird French Making Magic demo that's just a video player using SMACKPLY.EXE * Added support for X-Wing slideshow demo with janky early logo * Added support for Dark Forces slideshow demos * Added support for the Behind the Magic Pepsi preview

Another week, another beta: https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta New in 3.0b16: * Added advanced per-game configuration; you can now tweak CPU speed and remap joystick controls * Added support for The Dig Super Sampler Demo * Added support for 2-level Rebel Assault II Demo * Added support for Rebel Assault II Special Edition (DOS and Windows) * Added support for Rebel Assault II French Demo * Added support for Full Throttle German Demo * Added support for Day of the Tentacle Spanish Demo * Added support for Outlaws CD demo * Added support for Dark Forces PC Gamer demo * Added support for an earlier Shadows of the Empire demo * Added support for the German version of Star Wars: Behind the Magic - Special Vehicles Edition * Added support for Indy Crusade CMS patch, and enabled CMS music for English 1.4 EGA version * Added some limited throttling in hopes of making SWSE not go crazy fast, with limited success so far * Added ability to auto-fix certain known corrupt versions (Spanish SOMI for example) * Fixed early Rebel Assault II demo with launcher that would previously hang * Fixed Star Wars Chess Windows opening scroll * Fixed TIE Fighter Collector's CD demo crashing after ~60 seconds * Fixed detection of nested self-extracting EXE archives (e.g., on CD-ROMs) * Make scanning more aggressive in searching embedded image files to find EXE-packaged demos on CDs * Improvements in 3D rasterization: - coordinates are converted to 16.8 fixed point and rounded as described in the Direct3D spec - improved accuracy of texture/color values at the start of each span - fixed incorrect texture bias for unfiltered textures - use correct renderstate for determining clamping/wrapping on Direct3D 3 and earlier * Reduced calls to SDL_SetWindowMimimumSize which due to an SDL bug causes the window to be raised on Linux * Windows/Cmd key no longer sends keystrokes to the emulator

New DREAMM beta today: https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta New in 3.0b15: * Added option to verify all variants of a game if multiple variants are present * Added loading indicator at startup of DREAMM and at game startup * Improved responsiveness switching between variants in the face of slow disk/network access * Added support for displaying shortcuts on the righthand side in menus * When verifying games, if no match is found, perform a thorough scan to see if we just need to reshuffle files * Fixed improperly aligned/spaced text in frontend UI * Fixed Star Wars Chess 1.1 installation on ARM-based systems * Fixed instability and lack of mouse input in Windows Star Wars Chess (pieces still face the wrong way though) * Fixed appearance and behavior of minimized windows in Windows games * Fixed Grim Fandango installs to work across the disk swap (reverify your install to fix the file layout) * Fixed Grim Fandango upgrader auto-run script to be more reliable * Fixed glitchy VGA mode timing in Masterblazer and Night Shift * Fixed Making Magic Japanese installation * Fixed missing backgrounds in InstallShield installers * Fixed missing background in Best of Windows Entertainment Pack installer * Fixed missing icon in Pipe Dream Windows about box * Fixed default background color in 16-bit Windows dialogs * Added support for Star Wars Screen Entertainment German * Automated Japanese SWSE installer

Ok, figured it out. It was a silly typo that will be fixed in the next version. In the meantime, if you create a new empty directory at ~/Library/Application Support/Aaron Giles/DREAMM/gamedelta it should let you launch games again.

Hmmmm, so you're saying you can't launch any games at all on the new version? I don't see that on my Mac. Do you have any unusual configurations? Also, is it an Intel or ARM-based Mac?

New beta for today. https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta New in 3.0b14: Major internal change in the way files are accessed; everything should work as before, but definitely report any oddness OutputDebugString and DebugBreak now wired up to DREAMM's debugger for Windows games Added keyboard configuration option, plus initial support for keyboard layouts in Windows (DOS still to come) Added "quiet" mode installation; hold shift when dragging or when clicking the first install button Added support for the Min'n'Mojo Monkey Island 2 Talkie demo Added support for English Rebel Assault II Level 4 Demo, made it the basis for other languages Added support for Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine preview (including installer) Added support for Jedi Knight Demo installer EXE Added support for CD images embedded in ZIP files (note that they are fully decompressed to RAM!) Fixed Grim Fandango 1.0 releases; this required a major rework and exposes multiple discs for you to swap NOTE: You will need to re-install any existing Grim Fandango installations! Fixed bug where menu selections would be stuck moving up in Grim Fandango Fixed keyboard behavior in Outlaws when typing names (though still glitchy in some versions due to OG bugs) Fixed popping sounds in some Windows games (Shadows of the Empire) Fixed incorrect mouse tracking in Loom CD in EGA mode Fixed bug in game detection logic when counting files that don't require 100% CRC matches Fixed bug where initial stack pointer for .COM programs was wrong and could trash memory Fixed incorrect alpha blending of UI text when a background is present Fixed bug where sound fonts with uppercase .SF2 extensions were not being recognized

Ok, new beta time! https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta New in 3.0b13: * UI font is now generated live at the target resolution from TrueType * Split DREAMM options into Options & Tools; moved Add New Games to tools * Enforced a minimum window size to help prevent problems at very low resolutions * Made auto-pause a global setting, configurable from the Options screen * Internal debugger added, run with -debug; mostly for my internal use, but you can play with it; try 'help' * Fixed bug where TIE Fighter Collector's CD would hang if you skipped through opening cutscenes * Fixed errors when running CD versions of Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe * Fixed bug where overdriving MIDI volume for external MIDI devices would wrap * Fixed visual glitch where indefinite progress bars would overhang to the left * Removed video configuration from Indy Fate Italian (GOG) to prevent errors when starting

I suspect the flakiness in Monkey 4 is due to running low on memory in the virtual machine. Does your weird behavior only happen after playing the game for a while?

Are you the personal who emailed me about this? I sent a reply yesterday, but here it is: Hi there, Thanks for the report. The Italian version of Escape from Monkey Island has a copy protection scheme on it which doesn’t work in DREAMM yet. It’s my bad that I don’t show a warning there. I hope to get this fixed eventually, but I have a workaround (see below). What’s interesting is that they later released the 1.1 version on CD, and that version no longer uses the copy protection. So the EXE that is included with that CD works. If you download that and replace the Monkey4.exe in your installed copy with the attached version, it should run. Let me know if you’re able to get it to work! Aaron

New beta is up. Lots of "big" new stuff and opportunities for regression. Hopefully this is the last "big" update for this release. Need to go back and fix bugs. 🙂 https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta New in 3.0b11: * Added proper TrueType font support to Windows emulation via FreeType * Added better locale and code page support for Windows; Japanese and Chinese games now mostly work * Redid volume controls to be proper sliders, mouseable, work in dB, and support overdriving * Centralized audio resampling code, made audio output fully independent of output frequency * You can now type the start of a game name in the carousel screen to select it * Added missing TIE95 file to fix joystick configuration; either reinstall or copy JOYSTICK.TXT from original * Fixed hanging notes when using certain external MIDI devices * Fixed Outlaws definitions that caused mis-identification of some versions * Fixed random-ish early exit on X-Wing 95 due to an OG bug * Fixed window frame size in certain cases for Windows programs

New beta is up: https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta New in 3.0b10: * Some major internal re-working happened for Windows; be on the lookout for regressions - Rewrote NE binary loader to support self-loading modules - DLL entry procedures now called at TaskInit; DLL exit procedures now called as well - Process exit cleans up more thoroughly, freeing loaded modules more aggressively - Files are now meticulously tracked for sharing and access across all processes - Improved fidelity of Global/Local memory allocation handling - Rewrote message thunking between 16-bit/ANSI/Unicode; should be quite complete now - Fixed message sending between 16-bit and 32-bit processes - Faked up a PROGMAN DDE server so installers can "register" new entries * Added support for Outlaws 1.1 and 2.0 updaters, including Handful of Missions CD * Added support for online Mysteries of the Sith installer * Added support for online Escape from Monkey Island installers (they work but produce an error at the end) * Added Pipe Dream installation support from Windows Entertainment Pack 2 or Best of WEP sources * Added TIE Fighter French * Added Escape from Monkey Island Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) * Added Indy Desktop Chinese (Simplified) - but no Chinese font supported yet * Added Yoda Stories Japanese - but no Japanese font supported yet * Added SWSE Japanese installer - it installs an English version, but no Japanese font supported yet * Fixed bug where MIDI would only play one time in SWSE

It's hard to find extracted, but now that the installer is supported, it should be pretty easy to track down. Amazing! Got your DM, will try to make these all work soon. Yeah, it's hard to present this info nicely when you don't have a command line interface like MAME. I agree it would be nicer if it gave you some hints about what is not matching. Maybe I can add a button you can click to drop that info on the clipboard or something.

New DREAMM beta is now available: https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta New in 3.0b9: * Added support for Star Wars Screen Entertainment installers * Extended internal scripting language to auto-navigate the SWSE installer * Enabled key configuration for Dark Forces GOG (needs reinstall) and Dark Forces Demo * Improved behavior of minimized windows for Windows games * Improved system menu behavior for Windows games * Removed unsupported video options in Indy Fate Talkie * Removed unsupported audio options in Secret of Monkey Island CD * Fixed subtle memory corruption that led to crashes in Behind the Magic and Episode 1 Insider's Guide * Fixed crash in SWSE Posters module due to memory trashing * Fixed bug in FXAM that led to incorrect shadow effect in SWSE Rebel Clock * Completed internal reorg to help reduce crashes on quit in Windows games

DREAMM 3.0b8 now available: https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta New in 3.0b8: * Split the Manage tab into separate Manage and Data tabs * Fixed several issues with new font logic; selecting a font in SWSE now works correctly * Fixed bug where configuration changes in SWSE were not sticky * Fixed resolution configuration in Outlaws demo * Fixed crash in Windows versions of X-Wing/TIE Fighter * Fixed GMIDI configuration for the Windows version of Indy Fate * Fixed clipping issues with listboxes and other controls * Exposed "Developer Mode" option in Grim Fandango * Partial internal reorg to help reduce crashes on quit in Windows games; this will take another release or two to complete Right now, no, there's no support for that. In theory it could be added, would need to think on it, because there's not necessarily any standard. Where does SCUMMVM place the OGG file and what's it called? If you can get me access to these versions, I can investigate why they aren't working. Feel free to DM me.

New DREAMM beta is up: https://aarongiles.com/dreamm New in 3.0b7: * Many improvements to GDI support, including proper support for bitmap brushes * Broader font support, including auto-generation of bold/italic fonts * Most SWSE screen savers run fine now, except that Poster Art crashes occasionally * Fixed bad memory leak that led to Windows crashes * Fixed detection of size updates, which should fix Jedi Knight/MotS user interface * Fixed Indy Desktop weirdness

New DREAMM beta available: aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta/ SWSE and SWChess Windows are unlocked but there are lots of problems, so don't bother reporting any bugs to me on these. SWSE also needs manual extraction from the installer. Many improvements Windows support, specifically 16-bit Windows: Can now load multiple 16-bit tasks together in the same address space Hooked up midiOut and 16-bit multimedia timer multimedia support Implemented many new GDI features, including support for non-solid brushes and binary ROPs Added support for owner-draw listboxes and better messages for 16-bit controls INI files are now read/written from actual INI files instead of using registry proxy 16-bit nametable resources now support type renaming as well New partially working "game": Star Wars Screen Entertainment (still crashes in spots but works partially) New non-working game: Star Wars Chess, Windows (loads fine but won't let you play) Indy Desktop/Yoda Stories now provide their own wavemix.ini configuration settings Disabled video options for DIG95 version of The Dig Fixed bug in GDI line drawing logic that sometimes caused a hang Fixed improper fault when fetching 80-bit floating point values from read-only segments Fixed crash when launching the DOS version of The Dig It's on the list of things to look at post-3.0. Hmmm, hoping to find a solution to this soon. Thanks for the report.

🤔🤔🤔 Yeah, fixing that is a super low priority, so don't hold your breath. 😜

Go into the game delta directory and delete REGISTRY.REG from there. Let me know if that solves the debug issue.

New DREAMM beta available: https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta New in 3.0b4: * Fixed many bugs in Pipe Dream Windows, including missing menus, clipping bugs, and other missing features * Added support for Infernal Machine 1.1 updaters (there are two versions) * Disabled non-working video modes in the DOTT English version of Maniac Mansion * Fixed regression in the open/save dialog for Windows games * Fixed regression where files with incorrect names but matching CRC weren't being found by the scanner/verifier * Fixed regression where Windows games were not returning idle time back to the system * Fixed crash when using the mouse wheel while menus were visible on some UI screens * Fixed missing lines in Infernal Machine map * Fixed Jedi Knight/MotS default video mode to be 640x480 instead of 400x300 * Fixed Grim Fandango defaulting to software rendering * Fixed screen position of Rebel Assault II Windows launcher after playing

Just released DREAMM 3.0b3: https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/beta New in 3.0b3: * Fixed bug where changes to file dates would not stick sometimes - This can affect updaters, so if you're having trouble upgrading, say, TIE Fighter, you should reinstall the original game then apply the updates and it should work better now * Upsampled digital audio now uses linear interpolation * Expanded joystick support to multiple joysticks, also report fixed values if no joysticks connected * Added support for German Defender of the Empire addon * Added support for Making Magic (Japanese) * Added support for Rebel Assault II Windows version * Added support for Pipe Dream Windows version * Fixed save games in FMTowns versions * Fixed default video mode for Loom CD * Fixed bug where installing Dark Forces would not include INSTALL.EXE, preventing controller config * Fixed wonky CMS music in Secret of Monkey Island * Fixed installation of Star Wars Chess on MacOS/Linux * Fixed crash when changing configuration in-game in some circumstances * Fixed (or at least greatly reduced) incorrect palettes on scene transitions in Full Throttle