Playing Dune 2000 w/GruntMods

[Andrew NDB]

So last night I attempted to play Dune 2000 via the GruntMods packs. I installed the core GruntMod pack and was able to jump into the first mission right away. Music fine, custom resolution worked fine. Then I installed the cinematics GruntMods pack. Now when I click on "Start" from the launcher nothing happens. 

Any idea what I'm doing wrong here? 

[Fey]

33 minutes ago, Andrew NDB said:

"Start" from the launcher

have you tried launching the game exe by itself? Dune2000.exe in your d2k install directory. it should work just fine. just keep in mind that the menu is NOT upscaled to whatever resolution you set the game to. cutscenes will be stretched though, if you have that option enabled

you could also go through the Mission Launcher application. it won't have cutscenes, but you can access all sorts of custom campaigns

[Andrew NDB]

23 minutes ago, Fey said:

have you tried launching the game exe by itself? Dune2000.exe in your d2k install directory.

Yeah, I double click on it and nothing opens.

23 minutes ago, Fey said:

you could also go through the Mission Launcher application. it won't have cutscenes, but you can access all sorts of custom campaigns

That's what I mean. The Mission Launcher button doesn't do anything when I click on it. It doesn't open.

[Fey]

38 minutes ago, Andrew NDB said:

Yeah, I double click on it and nothing opens.

hmm, that's kinda odd. I might guess that some kinda video setting isn't playing nice with the game, but even the Mission Launcher ain't booting up? even if you double-click THAT one in your d2k directory, and don't go through the gruntmods launcher?

can't say I've heard of this one before. feels like every machine has a different problem with this game lol

I guess you could try the dunemaster edition. it's an install package like gruntmods, but maintained by dato rather than gruntlord. if one version ain't working at all for somebody, usually the other one does. you can find its thread over here:

other than that, you can try making sure your game exe is the latest one. Klofkac fixed all sortsa bugs and stuff. you can find his devlog thread over here:

which also contains the latest version of the editor, if that's of any consideration. the game exe here will work with either gruntmods or dunemaster

can also swing by the Landsraad to bounce some things back and forth more quickly. that discord server's pinned in this thread here:

here's hoping that helps though

edit: oh yeah, and try running the game exe and mission launcher in admin mode. the gruntmods launcher too, if you wanna go through that. admin mode fixes some other problems; maybe this issue is related to permissions too lol

Edited 23 hours ago by Fey

[Andrew NDB]

I think I see the problem I had. I was installing the latest GruntMods version of the game and THEN downloading and installing the cinematic pack separately. That caused the game to fail. If I just install the GruntMods first and then click "Install Cinematics" from within the first menu, it all works fine. 

[Fey]

1 hour ago, Andrew NDB said:

problem

ah yeah, redundancies and all that. glad you figured out the problem!

still, be sure to update to the latest from Klofkac's thread. it has a number of great bugfixes and new hotkeys, like B to queue or ready for placement the last structure you queued, and the much-requested unit queues feature, which can be enabled on any mission

[Andrew NDB]

15 minutes ago, Fey said:

ah yeah, redundancies and all that. glad you figured out the problem!

still, be sure to update to the latest from Klofkac's thread. it has a number of great bugfixes and new hotkeys, like B to queue or ready for placement the last structure you queued, and the much-requested unit queues feature, which can be enabled on any mission

Point me in the direction of this thread?

 

Also, while it all works now there is still a big black area below every cinematic. I've got a widescreen monitor with a native resolution of 3440 x 1440. Is there any way to adjust?

Edited 14 hours ago by Andrew NDB

[Fey]

7 hours ago, Andrew NDB said:

Point me in the direction of this thread?

it's this one I linked up there  I left details in the latest post in that thread on enabling queues

7 hours ago, Andrew NDB said:

Also, while it all works now there is still a big black area below every cinematic.

sounds like you've gotta enable cutscene stretching. in the Dune2000Config executable, click advanced settings, go to the video options tab, and check the "Cutscene Change Resolution" box. that should solve the problem

otherwise, you could try setting up custom scaling through ddraw.ini. in your Dune 2000 directory, at least after you mess with the config exe, there should be both a dune2000.ini and a ddraw.ini. you can set GameWidth and GameHeight in the former and what you want it stretched to in the latter. for instance, try 1056 x 588 in the former, then width 1795 and height 1000 in the latter. and that'll make the game almost 2x zoomed, like this:

which should affect everything in the game, including cutscenes. the original resolution of the game is 640x400, but that allows for only four icons on the sidebar

the reason for the weird dimensions I suggested trying is because a new sidebar icon will only appear if there's enough space vertically, so if those dimensions are off, the sidebar will be screwy. as for horizontal, if those dimensions are off, there will be space between the sidebar and the battlefield. 1056x588 is one of those perfect combos that isn't too zoomed out, but still provides a good eight icons on the sidebar

eh, idr how this'll work out in fullscreen though. I play in windowed to test crap all the time. anyway, I hope that helps

[Andrew NDB]

5 hours ago, Fey said:

it's this one I linked up there  I left details in the latest post in that thread on enabling queues

 

But is this compatible with the GruntMods version of Dune 2000? It sounds like not, from the earlier posts in that thread.

[Fey]

5 minutes ago, Andrew NDB said:

But is this compatible with the GruntMods version of Dune 2000?

eh? yeah, you just overwrite the game exe  I've run it on either modern version of d2k, gruntmods or dunemaster. and the current 1.6.7 install of gruntmods uses a prior version of Klofkac's advancements - this is just a later branch that gruntlord and dato haven't placed in their install packages yet