War Wind (USA) and War Wind II — Human Onslaught (Europe)

Both are DreamForge / SSI RTS games shipped as CD images (.cue/.bin) with InstallShield 3 setups. Verified 2026-09-28: both install from the mounted CD and reach real gameplay with the CD still mounted.

Discs

Bugs fixed to get here

• War Wind setup: OpenFile(OF_CREATE) alone was read-only. The Win16 SETUP creates its engine stage file with style 0x1000 (access bits = OF_READ) and then _lwrites into it. DOS create (INT 21h AH=3Ch) always opens read/write; $handle_OpenFile now does the same whenever OF_CREATE is set. Covered by test/test-openfile-create.js.
• War Wind II setup spun forever in SdAskOptions. The IS3 engine's startup (_ins0432._mp 0x408cc9 → 0x408d29 → 0x40931f) registers GDI32, KERNEL32, USER32 into a DLL list at [0x4964ac] by GetModuleHandleA for system DLLs, stopping at the first NULL. GetModuleHandleA("GDI32") returned 0, so USER32 was never registered, and every script call into USER32 (resolved by 0x408f7f, lstrcmpiA over that list) was silently dropped — the dialog never appeared. gdi32 is now in $STATIC_SYS_DLL_NAMES (before the DirectX tail; $STATIC_SYS_DLL_FIRST_DX is 4, and the DPLAYX/DSOUND ordinal rules in 08b-dll-loader.wat derive their positions from it). Covered by test/test-wide-api.js.

Headless commands

The CLI resolves import DLLs beside the host exe, so for War Wind II copy smackw32.dll out of the install overlay next to a host copy of warwind2.exe (otherwise: UNIMPLEMENTED API: <ord>).

War Wind II also runs straight off the disc, no install needed: WW2\WARWIND2.EXE and WW2\SMACKW32.DLL are stored uncompressed on the CD. Extract both beside each other and point the guest path at D::

node tools/cue-bin-to-iso.js "<disc>.cue" ww2.iso
node tools/iso-dir.js ww2.iso --extract='WW2\WARWIND2.EXE' --out=host/warwind2.exe
node tools/iso-dir.js ww2.iso --extract='WW2\SMACKW32.DLL' --out=host/smackw32.dll
node test/run.js --exe=host/warwind2.exe --exe-guest-path='d:\ww2\warwind2.exe' \
  --media-mount="<disc>.cue" --media-exe=SETUP.EXE --cwd='D:\WW2' \
  --screen=800x600 --no-build --quiet-api --count=0xa205c0

Intro movie (Smacker, through the game's own smackw32.dll)

WW2OPEN.SMK is 2169 frames, 640x160 at 15 fps (144.6 s), shown letterboxed in a 640x480 DDraw surface. It plays in full with no WAT Smacker code: smackw32.dll runs as ordinary guest x86. The DLL loads at 0xa1c000 (origBase 0x400000), so _SmackDoFrame@4 (+0x4045c0) is 0xa205c0, _SmackWait@4 0xa1f170, _SmackOpen@12 0xa20ef0. --trace-at on DoFrame prints nothing (it is not called on the main thread's batch boundary); --count works.

Decode throughput, measured 2026-09-28 by running to fixed --max-batches (deterministic) and reading the DoFrame count, on the M1 at load 5-8:

That is ~36-56 decoded fps against the 15 fps the movie needs, 2.5-3.5x real time headless. The headless clock runs ahead, so the decoder never waits and this is its ceiling; browser paint is not included. On the 10,000-batch runs, ~30 batches go by per frame.

# install (drive with tools/ctl.js on the control port)
node test/run.js --media-mount="<disc>.cue" --media-exe=SETUP.EXE \
  --overlay-dir=/tmp/ww2-overlay --screen=800x600 --quiet-api \
  --control=8133 --frozen --max-seconds=3000

# run the installed game with the CD mounted
node test/run.js --exe=<host>/warwind2.exe --exe-guest-path='c:\warwind ii\warwind2.exe' \
  --media-mount="<disc>.cue" --media-exe=SETUP.EXE --cwd='C:\WarWind II' \
  --overlay-dir=/tmp/ww2-overlay --screen=800x600 --no-build --quiet-api \
  --control=8133 --frozen

Driving it (screen/PNG coordinates at --screen=800x600)

Both games poll GetKeyState for the button, so a bare ctl click is lost: send mousemove, step ~60, mousedown, step ~60, mouseup.

• WW2 install: Welcome Next (494,454) → options (Suggested) Next → destination C:\WarWind II Next → "create directory?" Yes (334,363) → copy → DirectX prompt No (434,336) → README prompt → setup exits 0.
• WW2 game: main menu star button (677,108) → mission screen → Start Game (450,32) → loading → tip dialog (right button 436,314) → "Start Game?" Yes (354,456) → gameplay.
• WW1 game: race circle (150,120) → Begin New Campaign (472,543) → campaign map → the black box at (665,540) is "Begin the scenario" (its art is missing — open question) → briefing → army screen → checkmark (665,535) → zoom-in transition (static for a few thousand batches while the level initialises in 0x4252xx) → tip dialog. The round-arrow button (437,317) closes the tip; the checkmark on the left is "Next tip" → gameplay.

Open questions

• $handle_ICOpen returns 0, so WW1's Cinepak AVIs are skipped. Fixed: 09a7g-video-icm.wat opens Cinepak and 09a7f-video-avi.wat reads the files, so LOGOS.AVI and WWOPEN.AVI play in-game (dd4437aa). All 63 disc AVIs are Cinepak 320x240 15 fps + 22 kHz PCM, and they are listed in tools/avi-player/ from test/binaries/cd-movies/War Wind/.
• WW1's "Begin the scenario" button draws as a black box.

Multiplayer Wizard (WW1) -- 2026-09-28

Clicking the centre icon of the race screen (320,240 at --screen=800x600) runs FlipToGDISurface and then PropertySheetA: the DreamForge "Multiplayer Wizard", a one-page-at-a-time wizard over the exclusive 640x480 DirectDraw display. Its Welcome page has two labels, an SS_OWNERDRAW static (id 101) that the dialog proc fills with a 120x225 BitBlt of the character artwork on WM_DRAWITEM, and the Back/Next/Cancel buttons.

Two bugs made it look like "no text and wrong fullscreen":

• $create_property_sheet always set $main_hwnd to the sheet frame, since it was written for Jazz2's demo installer, where the wizard is the whole UI. get_dx_present_hwnd returns $main_hwnd, so the game's primary was uploaded as a dxLayer onto the wizard, clipped to its client area ([dx] Upload slot=2 640x480 target=dxLayer hwnd=0x10002 ... clip=43,63 434x283). Every label and button was covered by the game frame, and the canvas composite zoomed onto the wizard rect with black around it. The sheet now becomes main only when there is no visible main window, and the primary stays on hwnd 0x10001 (test/test-property-sheet-main-hwnd.js).
• An SS_OWNERDRAW static painted itself as an empty label and never sent WM_DRAWITEM, so the artwork panel was blank. It now sends WM_DRAWITEM/ODT_STATIC to its parent (test/test-static-ownerdraw-drawitem.js).

WW1 runs straight off the disc, with no install needed for this route:

node test/run.js --exe=<host>/ww.exe --exe-guest-path='d:\warwind\ww.exe' \
  --media-mount="<War Wind (USA).cue>" --media-exe=SETUP.EXE --cwd='D:\WARWIND' \
  --screen=800x600 --no-build --quiet-api --no-close --png-canvas --png=ww1.png \
  --input=1500:mousedown:320:240,1560:mouseup:320:240,3000:mousedown:320:240,3060:mouseup:320:240 \
  --max-batches=4500 --max-seconds=100

The first click skips the intro; the second opens the wizard. The caption really is "test wizard"; that is the game's own string. WW2's tutorial text rendered correctly headless, and its failure was not reproduced.