DDrawCompat
Introduction
DDrawCompat is a DLL wrapper aimed at fixing compatibility and performance issues with games based on DirectDraw and Direct3D 1-7. Partially supports GDI as well. There is no API conversion involved, most of the rendering is still done by the native DirectDraw/Direct3D 1-7 and GDI libraries.
Requirements
- Windows Vista, 7, 8 or 10
Additional requirements for Windows Vista and 7 only:
- WDDM-compatible graphics driver - the legacy XPDM drivers are no longer supported (since v0.3.0)
- Desktop Composition must be enabled (especially for windowed mode applications)
Installation
Download the latest binary release from the releases page (avoid the attachments with "debug" in the file name unless you know what you're doing). Unzip the file and copy the extracted ddraw.dll to the target game's install directory, next to where the main executable (.exe) file is located.
If there is already an existing ddraw.dll file there, it is probably another DirectDraw wrapper intended to fix some issues with the game. You can try to replace it with DDrawCompat's ddraw.dll, but make sure you create a backup of the original file first.
Once you start the game, a log file should be created in the same directory with the name DDrawCompat-exename.log (or ddraw.log in versions prior to v0.3.0). If no log file is created, then DDrawCompat was not picked up by the game - check the Wiki for possible solutions.
Uninstallation
Delete DDrawCompat's ddraw.dll file from the game's directory. You can also delete any leftover log files (DDrawCompat-*.log or ddraw.log).
Configuration
There are currently no configuration options available, but this is expected to change in an upcoming release.
Development
DDrawCompat is developed in C++ using Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2019.
Additional dependencies:
- Windows 10 SDK & DDK (see WindowsTargetPlatformVersion in DDrawCompat.vcxproj for the exact version)
- Git for Windows (optional, needed for proper DLL versioning)
License
Source code is licensed under the BSD Zero Clause License.
Binary releases starting with v0.3.0 are licensed under the same, and no longer carry a separate license file in the release archive.
Older binary releases are licensed under the Microsoft Research Shared Source License Agreement (Non-commercial Use Only) - see license.txt in those release archives for the details.