cnc-ddraw (stylised as CnC-DDraw) is a graphics system override which fixes many of the graphical bugs in games using DirectDraw as graphics system. Initially developed for Command & Conquer Gold and Red Alert, it was later expanded to support other 256-color games like Carmageddon and Warcraft II, and was eventually also upgraded to support high-colour games like Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2.
Reasons for development[]
The DirectDraw full-screen 256-color mode is subject to numerous bugs, mostly caused by the fact programmers were tempted to use undocumented and therefore technically unsupported features of the DirectDraw system. The abandonment of these features in later updates of DirectX caused several bugs in older games. One of the most notable problems is the fact the 256-color palette of the game is corrupted by the Windows desktop by replacing the first and last eight colors of the palette by those of the standard Windows 16-color palette.
On high-colour games like Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2, the main issues were the fact windowed mode required the desktop to be reduced to 16-bit color, and the fact tabbing out of the game very often made it impossible to switch back to it and continue playing.
Operating principles[]
CnC-DDraw gets around these bugs by means of a ddraw.dll file put in the game folder, which then receives and handles all graphics output from the game instead of the real DirectDraw system. The CnC-DDraw dll then displays the graphics on a graphics surface which uses either GDI software rendering, OpenGL, or a number of other available renderers.
Besides the fixing of palette-related bugs, CnC-DDraw also contains options that allow extra game features like windowed mode, stretching of the game surface to custom resolutions, and frame rate limiting.
External links[]
- CnC-DDraw on FunkyFr3sh's GitHub
- CnCNet's GitHub page, which originally hosted the CnC-DDraw project
- CnC-Draw official website [dead link - archived copy]
- CnC-Draw on Github (Original repository)