Upscaling the game client size

[jeanbmar]

I'm going to explain in this article how I upscaled the original game client from Vircom in order to make the game playable on my modern 2560x1440 monitor.

In 2001, Black Moon Chronicles: Winds of War was running on a 800x600 window size, which was fine at that time but looks terrible nowadays.
It's even worse than you think because the game runs exclusively in full screen. Imagine a 600 pixels height picture stretched on a 1440 height screen. That's BMC. Click on the image to get the real feeling:

To fully enjoy this game, it has to look good. So i made two series of changes.
First, I've replaced the old ddraw.dll calls with a proxy library (dxwnd), to be able to run the game in a window in its original size of 800x600. And that works just GREAT.

But there's another problem. I now have HD graphics in a window which looks ridiculously small.
So here comes the real work.
I've reversed and patched the client using IDA and Frida in order to upscale it entirely. Which means expanding the rendering surface, and adjusting the UI elements such as menus, chat, backpack, etc. so they fit the new game size. That was quite a lot to do (https://github.com/jeanbmar/black-moon-rewind/blob/r0.1-beta/packages/frida-agent/lib/display.js).
But have a look at the result. Click on the image to get the real feeling:

It looks really nice. See the tapestries on the walls. Despite being more than 20 years old, the game is actually beautiful.
I can now focus on the next server features before releasing beta 0.1!

[ZuZuD]

Fantastic work keep going on!

[jeanbmar]

Thank you! I'm still actively working on the server, mainly on low level stuff for now so I don't have much to share, but it will change soon!

[melandrhild]

Hello, are you still working on Rewind ? I tried downloading and using the launcher but it shuts after opening cinematics.
(Ps : I'm french so we can speak french of you prefer)