Fix hard-coded display setting without source (24-bit, need 32-bit)

Posted by FerretallicA on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by FerretallicA
Published on 2010-04-30T02:17:57Z Indexed on 2010/04/30 2:27 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 259

Filed under:

directx

|

reverse-engineering

|

vb6

|

display-mode

I wrote a program about 10 years ago in Visual Basic 6 which was basically a full-screen game similar to Breakout / Arkanoid but had 'demoscene'-style backgrounds. I found the program, but not the source code. Back then I hard-coded the display mode to 800x600x24, and the program crashes whenever I try to run it as a result. No virtual machine seems to support 24-bit display when the host display mode is 16/32-bit. It uses DirectX 7 so DOSBox is no use.

I've tried all sorts of decompiler and at best they give me the form names and a bunch of assembly calls which mean nothing to me. The display mode setting was a DirectX 7 call but there's no clear reference to it in the decompilation.

In this situation, is there any pointers on how I can:

pin-point the function call in the program which is setting the display mode to 800x600x24 (ResHacker maybe?) and change the value being passed to it so it sets 800x600x32
view/intercept DirectX calls being made while it's running

or if that's not possible, at least

run the program in an environment that emulates a 24-bit display

I don't need to recover the source code (as nice as it would be) so much as just want to get it running.

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about directx

Compatibility between DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 shaders

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I am a beginner to game development and as I am used to programming in C# I decided to go for XNA. I've been playing around with it for a while and now I am learning the basics of HLSL shaders, I have noticed in the MSDN documentation that there have been some syntax changes in HLSL between DirectX… >>> More
DirectX 9 or DirectX 10 for starters ??

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I want to do projects to make my resume more appealing to game companies. So I am going to start buying books. But I don't know rather to read DirectX 9 or 10 api books to start off with. DirectX10 is great, but it seems the industry is moving slow to 10. so should I use 9 or go with 10 ?? >>> More
book "Programming Role Playing Games with DirectX 2nd edition" and newer DirectX api

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I got the book "Programming Role Playing Games with DirectX 2nd edition" and I notice there are things in the book that are now considered deprecated. There is a whole Section on DirectPlay. And as much as I would like to avoid this section, I am afraid it might screw up the entire engine he is trying… >>> More
Need help transforming DirectX 9 skybox hlsl shader to DirectX 11

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I am in the middle of implementing a skybox to my game. I have been following this tutorial http://rbwhitaker.wikidot.com/skyboxes-2. I am using MonoGame as a framework and in order to support both Windows and Windows 8 metro I need to compile the shader with pixel and vertex shader 4. compile vs_4_0_level_9_1 compile… >>> More
load directx xfile in xaml/wpf

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
How can I load a .x file in xaml/wpf? >>> More

Related posts about reverse-engineering

Reverse engineering and patching a DirectX game?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Background I am playing Imperishable Night, one of the Touhou series of games. The shoot button is 'z', moving slower is 'shift', and the arrow keys move. Unfortunately for me, using shift-z ghosts my right arrow key, so I can't move to the right while shooting. This ghosting happens in all applications… >>> More
Reverse Engineering Custom Data File

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
At my place of work we have a legacy document management system that is now unsupported by the developers due to variours reasons, i have been asked to look into extracting the documents contained in this system to eventually be imported into a new 3rd party system. From various tracing and process… >>> More
Reverse engineering to get answers

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
So I've spent the last few days looking for a way to create a simple image drawing app with wxPython, and I think the key to doing just that is understanding how to use Device Contexts. The problem is that the wxPython demo program doesn't demonstrate DCs, and the docs for both wxPython and wxWidgets… >>> More
reverse engineering c programs

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
every c program is converted to machine code, if this binary is distributed. Since the instruction set of a computer is well known, is it possible to get back the C original program? >>> More
Reverse Engineering a Server Side Trace

as seen on SQL Server Central - Search for 'SQL Server Central'
How to reverse engineer or script a trace for disaster recovery, or simply scripting for enhance and adjustment. >>> More