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Why Castrol Honda Superbike crashes on (most) modern systems

seri.tools

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Re: Why Castrol Honda Superbike crashes on (most) modern systems

#11

Post by seritools »

bitwize wrote: post #6
vintagedave wrote: post #2

> Microsoft has only kept the documentation for the DX8 version of EnumDevices left online This saddens me. Who knows how much valuable info has been lost. I recall back in the days of MSDN, we had docs back to early Windows, and it was a wonderful historical record. Today's Docs site seems to keep info only for a few versions.

Anybody who still has MSDN Library CDs from the 90s, archive them at archive.org NOW!

AFAIK they are all backed up. For the blogpost I used the DX5 SDK docs, DX7 SDK docs, and the MSDN Library from VS2005 (last version to include 9x information).

The VS2008 version purged all API information regarding pre-Windows 2000.

Re: Why Castrol Honda Superbike crashes on (most) modern systems

#12

Post by seritools »

Xylakant wrote: post #10
purpleidea wrote: post #9

The cool part of this adventure is that the author was able to write this DLL patch purely in rust! Good testament of how far it has come. Can't wait to see more C code ported to either Golang or Rust!

I chuckled at the callout to Rust9x. Neat to see it pop up randomly.

Author here -- given that r9x is also my project it wasn't entirely random :^)

Re: Why Castrol Honda Superbike crashes on (most) modern systems

#14

Post by vintagedave »

seritools wrote: post #12
Xylakant wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I chuckled at the callout to Rust9x. Neat to see it pop up randomly.

Author here -- given that r9x is also my project it wasn't entirely random :^)

This is pretty amazing, and I'm surprised in a sense by how few workarounds you've had to implement. It makes me wonder what Windows would look like if we had Win2K or Win7 with today's system APIs (for high DPI, increased security etc.)

I know Windows has made great strides in security, but I deeply miss the old Windows and this really hits home about how _little_ has fundamentally changed, or rather, how much the continuance of these APIs means today's Windows could be like old Windows, if MS wanted.

I came across Windhawk a couple of days ago here on HN, a system to patch Windows to look and behave more old-style; wow.

Re: Why Castrol Honda Superbike crashes on (most) modern systems

#15

Post by xx_ns »

vintagedave wrote: post #13

I was quite interested in the patch -- am I right in thinking the DirectX library only exports a single function and _everything_ else is through DX interfaces? I expected to see significantly more code, pass-through to the original DLL.

The author linked to the repo and the code is at https://github.com/seritools/castrol-honda-dinput-fix/blob/m...

Seems pretty straightforward. They hook DirectInputCreateA() and pass their own device enumeration wrapper with the offending flag removed.

Re: Why Castrol Honda Superbike crashes on (most) modern systems

#16

Post by seritools »

vintagedave wrote: post #13

I was quite interested in the patch -- am I right in thinking the DirectX library only exports a single function and _everything_ else is through DX interfaces? I expected to see significantly more code, pass-through to the original DLL.

> am I right in thinking the DirectX library only exports a single function and _everything_ else is through DX interfaces

Yup! That's why I didn't have to create a gazillion passthrough functions.

The original DLL in my modern Windows installation has these 8 exports:

    DirectInputCreateA
    DirectInputCreateEx
    DirectInputCreateW
    DllCanUnloadNow
    DllGetClassObject
    DllRegisterServer
    DllUnregisterServer
The game only calls DirectInputCreateA, and the rest happens via the COM object that that function creates.

Re: Why Castrol Honda Superbike crashes on (most) modern systems

#17

Post by tialaramex »

xx_ns wrote: post #15
vintagedave wrote: post #13

I was quite interested in the patch -- am I right in thinking the DirectX library only exports a single function and _everything_ else is through DX interfaces? I expected to see significantly more code, pass-through to the original DLL.

The author linked to the repo and the code is at https://github.com/seritools/castrol-honda-dinput-fix/blob/m... Seems pretty straightforward. They hook DirectInputCreateA() and pass their own device enumeration wrapper with the offending flag removed.

The flag DIDEVTYPE_JOYSTICK was added by this fix not removed.

The idea is, rather than handle up to 8 devices, otherwise UB and usually crash, handle up to 8 "joysticks" and disregard any beyond that.

Re: Why Castrol Honda Superbike crashes on (most) modern systems

#18

Post by xx_ns »

tialaramex wrote: post #17
xx_ns wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author linked to the repo and the code is at https://github.com/seritools/castrol-honda-dinput-fix/blob/m... Seems pretty straightforward. They hook DirectInputCreateA() and pass their own device enumeration wrapper with the offending flag removed.

The flag DIDEVTYPE_JOYSTICK was added by this fix not removed. The idea is, rather than handle up to 8 devices, otherwise UB and usually crash, handle up to 8 "joysticks" and disregard any beyond that.

Apologies, that's what I meant to say. I blame that on my lack of coffee today, my bad.

Re: Why Castrol Honda Superbike crashes on (most) modern systems

#19

Post by netsharc »

bitwize wrote: post #6
vintagedave wrote: post #2

> Microsoft has only kept the documentation for the DX8 version of EnumDevices left online This saddens me. Who knows how much valuable info has been lost. I recall back in the days of MSDN, we had docs back to early Windows, and it was a wonderful historical record. Today's Docs site seems to keep info only for a few versions.

Anybody who still has MSDN Library CDs from the 90s, archive them at archive.org NOW!

Oh geez, I have them, probably from the 00's. I tried to get into Windows programming, but it was all over my head.

Incredible that a few decades after thinking "All the world's knowledge will be online", we probably have to return to physical libraries to find the knowledge that ended up not being online anymore.

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