[Corvin]

EGwhaven is a source code modification by ETTiNGRiNDER. It's current focus is for bug fixing and small enhancements to Witchaven II. Also work to document all areas of both WH1 and WH2 games including Game mechanics, Bug reports and any and all specifics of the two games.

[attachment=8763:EGwhavenBanner.png]

The EGwhaven Site and Download: http://ettingrinder....h-egwhaven.html

The Witchaven Shrine: http://ettingrinder....et/wh-main.html


EDIT: Updated Links

[Corvin]

ETTiNGRiNDER has updated his EGwhaven source modification again. One noticeable feature is the ability to have proper mouse support, look up and down! The author also wishes to incorporate WH1 as well; loaded as an add-on. You won't need the CD or a CD-Image and it plays the SMK videos just fine. Just copy your SMK folder and place it into the WHII folder. Try the game in SVGA through DosBox, it runs much better. It includes fixes to the treasure chest randomizer, added behavior for the Willow Wisp's non-functioning attack, and further refinements to player input and movement; such as strafing speed, and the run / walk should now work, and more! Get the new version (v0.2) at his site.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

EGwhaven author here. Feel free to direct any reports to me on this thread if it's what you find most convenient.

[Corvin]

Does the WH1 CD contain a README.TXT file?

My CD doesn't have it, but it has a README.EXE file...

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Corvin, on 17 November 2014 - 11:47 AM, said:

Does the WH1 CD contain a README.TXT file?

My CD doesn't have it, but it has a README.EXE file...

Same with mine. I have the big box edition with the Ken Kelly picture on the CD, that I would guess is the original release; there are a few other versions floating around that I don't have to compare against: there's the Witchaven & Witchaven II bundle that apparently comes all on one black & red CD, one with an orange CD (Budget re-release?) and a Witchaven/Chronomaster combo disc with a half-and-half or the two cover pictures on the disc. I have no idea if any of those releases have differences in the data.

[Corvin]

I have the US Gold published cd (rather than IntraCorp) it comes with TekWar Demo on it.

I'll have to get a hold the original CD some where.

[Corvin]

I made an install document for WH1 and WH2

http://dukertcm.com/...-witchaven.html

It currently doesn't cover DOSBox installation, but all you have to do is copy the cd folders over to the hard drive and run INSTALL.EXE in DOSBox EMU.

[Corvin]

Are you planning on leaving the smack player blod in the EGwhaven executable or are you leaving it in?

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Corvin, on 17 November 2014 - 12:57 PM, said:

Are you planning on leaving the smack player blod in the EGwhaven executable or are you leaving it in?

As long as EGwhaven remains DOS-based I don't have any intention of removing the current player, but since there's no source to it I don't know if I'll be able to fix the playback issue under DOSBox.

[Corvin]

I was also thinking about where the SMK files are located, The original WH2.EXE using the LOCAL command line looks for them in the games root directory. While your EGwhaven looks for them in the /SMK folder. Probably be best to use one of those methods. Maybe right in the root directory, this way you only need one set of SMK files.

What you think?

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Yes, that makes sense. I put in that feature before I knew about the LOCAL parameter and what it did, so it's a bit redundant, all I really have to do is have it act like LOCAL mode when it doesn't find the CD.

[Corvin]

Now that we know we can have custom setup graphics and game smk files I been trying to get the old smktools.exe to work but it needs a 16 bit system like win3.1 or better to install. I was going to make a package for it but it installs to the windows system folder and registry too.

So I used the Radtools.exe to convert smk files with audio embed into an avi file, worked great. I'm thinking the radtools.exe are not compatible with the smk player in wh2, I'll have to see if I can convert some frames into a smk file and see if they play with WH2.

[Corvin]

Still working on compiling a small smk video, for some reason it keeps coming out around 24 megs when it should be coming to 237KB.


You said you tried compiling the WH1 src code, but it wouldn't. Do you have an idea whats going wrong? Maybe someone here knows whats up.

Also is that BUILD Editor source , the BSTUB.C file is dated newer than the actual exe, Perhaps some improvements went in to it, would it be worth compiling?

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Corvin, on 17 November 2014 - 06:50 PM, said:

You said you tried compiling the WH1 src code, but it wouldn't. Do you have an idea whats going wrong? Maybe someone here knows whats up.

Not quite correct. I patched it up to a point where it would compile and run, but the game was messed up, I could get as far as opening the first level, but then Grondoval died everytime I tried to walk under the first arch. Kind of hard to know what was going wrong without a better debugging method.

[Corvin]

I'm sure you did, but did you try WH1 without sound, configured to none, in DOSBox?

Maybe if you ran it on your native system the snd may have dropped the game out. Just guessing.

[Corvin]

Just found this, Compared it to my CD, its the same thing.


https://archive.org/..._1995_U.S._Gold

[Corvin]

@ETTiNGRiNDER, could you compile the BUILD Editor that's offered in the source archive of WH2?
It appears to be updates even after the one included with the CD.
I want to mess around with making a small map perhaps to see what the sprite extension is all about, and like to do it with both editors to see if I can determine whats new.

Thanks in advanced.

[Corvin]

To disable the mouse movement in WH1, forward and backwards try the this file (FBMouDis) fourth file down:

http://dukertcm.com/...trollers/#Mouse

Make a batch:

WH.BAT
fbmoudis
wh

[Corvin]

This is the 5 cds images I found. Theres also the black and red WH1 and black and red WH&WH2 Bundle, still looking for them.
[attachment=8799:witchaven-cds.png]

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Corvin, on 26 November 2014 - 07:42 PM, said:

This is the 5 cds images I found. Theres also the black and red WH1 and black and red WH&WH2 Bundle, still looking for them.
witchaven-cds.png

The top left matches my Witchaven disc, but my Witchaven II one is a little different. I believe it's also a big box release (I didn't get the box with it, but the manual is a full-sized one rather than a jewel case insert.)
The EXE on it is labeled v2.0c (the one in Les Bird's release says v2.0g).


I'll look into compiling the BUILD editor from the source. It probably won't be much of a problem.

Running without sound doesn't seem to do much beyond the cinematics playing smoothly, but I did notice that if you disable sound on the DOSBox level and then tell the setup program to auto detect what sound card you have, it'll lock up. You have to manually select no sound.

I'll have to look into the other stuff. FBMOUDIS might be interesting to compare and contrast to NOVERT if there's much difference in what they do (it sounds like they have pretty much the same purpose).

Also, regarding the machine sensitive code in the original releases, according to Les Bird's site "the target machine was a 486 50+mhz running MS-DOS V5 or higher" while a comment from Gary Cole over here says "A 486 WITH 8 Mb RAM AND A 420 Mb and 4 Mb GRAPHICS CARD". The closer we can get to those specs for a test machine, the more accurate of an idea we'd be able to get as to how the motion in the game was intended to behave. My own old-gaming PC is still considerably newer than those specs.

[Corvin]

I'm trying to figure out if there is an actual v2.0 of WH2, but maybe not since yours was a big box version, maybe that came out first. Do you have the colored manual cover or B/W?
Softkey was a UK release, while US Gold was Europe.

Thanks on the BUILD Editor.

Yeah the setup may lock up for some, I only had it lock up once when my DOSBox EMU settings where wrong.

I'll look at novert, However I'm having good luck with fbmoudis in WH1 and 2.

The packaging of WH2 suggest a Pentium for SVGA mode. So the target specs are probably for the other video mode.
I'll see if I can find the specs on box covers again and I'll edit this post.
Only found minimum requirements which they said was 486DX.
In dosbox I run it as dynamic core and auto cpu and max cycles
You probably can tweak thos settings to get a 486 out of DOSBox

From CD-ROM Access (WH1):
Requirements: IBM 486/33+Mhz, MS-DOS version 5.0 or higher with a 2x speed CD-ROM (Pentium recommended for SVGA mode), 40 MB free space on hard drive, 8 MB RAM or higher, VGA or SVGA, all major sound cards supported, mouse, joystick or keyboard (configurable). 1-16 players with IPX compatible network. Modem head-to-head (9600 Baud+).

(WH2)
Requirements: 486/66 Mhz (Pentium for SVGA), 8MB RAM, VGA (320x200) or SVGA (640x480), most major sound cards supported, 62MB of free hard disk space, double-speed CD-ROM drive.

[Corvin]

WH1 maps - I loaded them with the BUILD Editor from Tekwar and they loaded(since they both use v6 maps), not sure if everything's there but it's a start.
Had to load it like this: DOS4GW BUILD.EXE ,this build was compiled by oasiz.

Its not loading the sprite extensions tho, so no good. That build.exe says its TekWar BUILD v1.2, and there's specifics in the executable that point to stuff for TekWar only.

[TerminX]

I have a few big box copies of that WH I & II bundle, but they're all sealed. Debating opening one...

[Corvin]

I don't think breaking the seal is needed. There's clean ISO's available of WH1 and 2.
The big box bundle just has a Black and red cd. I'll see if I can find images of it opened on ebay or something.
I doubt they applied any patches to them too.

[attachment=8801:wh1-2-bundle.JPG]

[Corvin]

@TerminX, If you get time, a good scan of the back top of the box of your WH1&WH2 bundle box would be nice.
I need the logo scanned in where it says Witchaven I & II for the site.
Not sure how it will look with the plastic covering it, but don't break your seal if doesn't work out. No big deal if you can't.

[MrBlackCat]

Corvin, on 28 November 2014 - 06:31 PM, said:

@TerminX, If you get time, a good scan of the back top of the box of your WH1&WH2 bundle box would be nice.
I need the logo scanned in where it says Witchaven I & II for the site.
Not sure how it will look with the plastic covering it, but don't break your seal if doesn't work out. No big deal if you can't.

I have it... is that all you need?

MrBlackCat


Edit: Here... see if this will work. Yes, it is edited slightly, but only to correct for some box wear which caused the Blackness around the top of the logo to degrade. The box is bigger than my scanner, so it cuts off on the right, but the logo you are after is uncropped.

[Corvin]

yes

Thanks I'll see what I can do with it.

Well I got it up, did a rush job, I'll go back later and see if I can improve on it. Thanks again for being so fast.

[DNSkill]

Since we're talking about disc and covers and whatnot, I thought I'd show this from my collection:

Spoiler

[TerminX]

Yeah, I used to have the boxed version of that interactive preview... had a really neat die-cut front panel.

[Corvin]

Never knew Intracorp sold the demo on CD. That's the same as the downloadable demo right?