VMWare WinXP compatibility: control bar items white fix / Retro & Legacy

[kittyfishfrommars]

Update: issue has been solved with PR #2128. Thank you @Stubbjax. Good work!

Description / Use Case

On VMWare WinXP some icons within the game's control bar appear as white instead of greyed out - they become visible, once the item becomes available for building.

Impact

Since gameplay and graphics are fine otherwise, a fix would allow Generals to be played on WinXP in a VM - making retro & legacy LAN parties fun.

Related Links

• Fixed bugfix(dx8caps): Resolve greyscale texture rendering issues in VMWare environments #2128
• Related bugfix(render2d): Fix possible greyscale image rendering issues on hardware without DOT3 support #2080

Expected behavior

• Building icons in Control Bar are greyed out
• The unavailable building is visible underneath (transparent)

What happens instead

• Building icons in Control Bar are white, building not visible underneath
• When the specific item becomes available for building it is fully visible in-game

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Hypothesis

It seems under VMWare with a WinXP SP3 guest there's a display bug in the Control Bar - already present in the original vanilla game. I assume that the way Generals handles transparency for currently unavailable build items is the cause.

I guess this is what's happening:

• C&C's source code achieves the greyed-out effect some method of transparency, maybe a semi-transparent image
• VMWare WInXP SP3 doesn't understand the format, rendering it as white instead

Proposed Solution

• Maybe the transparency can be adjusted or
• Maybe there's a transparent image to be replaced

Things I have tried updated

• Original C&C Generals 2 CD EA-Version (non-steam)
  • Crashes after start, CrashLog is empty, GenPatcher .exe allows start
  • With and without the 1.8 Patch
  • Re-installed the program on a fresh WinXP guest
  • Tried other vanilla versions of the game (TFD, Deluxe)
• Installed with and without GenPatcher
  • With and without GenPatcher's Control Bar mods incl. ControlBarPro
• Installed with and without GenTool
• Deleted dbghelp.dll
• Deleted MyDocuments / GeneralsData
• Highest to lowest and custom in-game graphic settings
• Installed MS Visual C++ Redistributable 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015-2019
• Installed .NET Runtimes 2.0, 3.5, 4.0
• Installed DirectX 9.0c and DirectX 8.1
• Tried the d3d8to9 fix (incompatible with WinXP)
• Tried an old DgVoodoo version 2.55.4
• Tried each mks change to the VMX file as described in this VMWare Tweaks Gist
• Tried Workstation 12 and 15, even though Fusion was suggested in this thread
• Re-installed VMWare Tools
• Raised an issue with the VMWare Community
• Copied Superhackers GeneralsGameCode into game folder and started generalsv.exe

[kittyfishfrommars]

Fixed. Issue can be closed.