CyberStorm 1 - juanitogan/rbxit GitHub Wiki

MissionForce: CyberStorm icon MissionForce: CyberStorm (CyberStorm 1)

"Using Stem-gland, you can increase your Bioderm's performance in battle, at the risk of making him genetically unstable."

😮 NEWS FLASH 💥 06 December 2017 😮

Patch 5 released with better support for more versions of Windows! (Patch 6 adds all languages.)

Users of my earlier patch releases (releases 0 through 4) are recommended to reinstall CyberStorm and switch to the newest patch, even if that earlier patch is working well for you. This newer fix to the Save/Load issue will be less trouble for everyone in the long run.

😮 NEWS FLASH 💥 08 May 2019 😮

Patch 7 released with recompiled help files of the manuals for modern Windows!

Users of release 6 can just unzip the MANUAL folder instead of re-installing, if wanted.

Installation

READ ME FIRST: If you have previously tried to get this game to run by trying settings in the compatibility tab for CSTORM.EXE (or letting Windows' compatibility wizard thingy do this for you), undo all of those changes before proceeding any further with this patch. Be sure to also undo any settings made with "Change settings for all users" (which are not always easy to undo).

Did you know? - CyberStorm is the highest-rated game at Home of the Underdogs with a score of 9.23.

Game Install

  • :information_source: Finding a copy of the game:

    • GOG.com re-released the game in the summer of 2019. Theirs is the only place to get a legal copy of the game if you cannot find an old CD. :warning: Note, however, that the RBXIT patch here will not repatch GOG's patched copies. If you don't like how GOG's patch runs (and it's not hard to see how they failed to understand gaming in 1996 with this), get GOG to fix GOG's patch. I don't want to get in the middle of trying to make unhappy GOG customers happy.
    • Current "abandonware" copies. The legality and safety of these is up to you to determine. I recommend buying the CD and resorting to these only when the CD fails.

  • :warning: Do not run the installer on the CD.

  • :heavy_check_mark: Copy the CSTORM folder from the CD to your hard drive.

    • With all older games like this, do not copy to a Windows-controlled folder such as Program Files, copy to a DOS-like path instead such as C:\Games (short folder names, no spaces).
    • :fr: For the French language version (found on Europe copies only), also copy the following files from the FRENCH folder to the CSTORM folder on your hard drive (overwriting the English version of these files):
      • CSTORM.EXE
      • CWARSDLL.DLL
      • CYBDATA1.RBX
    • :de: For the German language version (found on Europe copies only), also copy the following files from the GERMAN folder to the CSTORM folder on your hard drive (overwriting the English version of these files):
      • CSTORM.EXE
      • CWARSDLL.DLL
      • CYBDATA1.RBX

  • :large_blue_diamond: Optional. :+1: If you want to play networked games, copy the DirectPlay DLLs to the 32-bit system folder for your system (if there are not copies there already). From your CD's DIRECTX folder copy DPLAY.DLL, DPSERIAL.DLL, DPWSOCK.DLL to:

    • 32-bit Windows: \Windows\System32\ (System32 = 32-bit files)
    • 64-bit Windows: \Windows\SysWOW64\ (System32 = 64-bit files, SysWOW64 = 32-bit files)
    • Not yet sure if you also need to turn on Windows Features >> Legacy Components >> DirectPlay (as that seems to install the dp*x.dll files which don't work for this game). Doubtful.

  • :large_blue_diamond: Optional. Download and run Sierra's CSTORM11 update (below) from any folder.

    • Optional, because some players don't like the single-player strategy balance tweaks in this update, even though it comes with other features as well.
    • If upgrading to v1.1, you must do so before installing the RBXIT Win7 Patch because they both modify CWARSDLL.DLL.
      • (The English 1.1 DLL can be used with both English CyberStorm 1.1 and 1.0, and this patch produces the English 1.1 DLL regardless.)

  • :heavy_check_mark: Download and run the RBXIT Win7 Patch (below) from your CSTORM folder.

    • Expect to answer "Yes" to the UAC message box asking permission to run part of the patch (this was not seen on the YouTube video because I was running Explorer++ as an admin; oops).
    • If you could not (or chose not to) answer "Yes" to the UAC prompt due to lack of admin rights, then the automatic method for setting 256-color mode was not installed and you will need to set this yourself. (This also included the shim for the low-disk-space check, but that error message in game can be ignored on modern systems and a manual workaround to it is not available.) Anyhow, open up the CSTORM.EXE properties and set the compatibility mode to:
      • Run in 256 colors -- (or the equivalent setting for your OS)

  • :small_blue_diamond: Very optional. After making sure the patch is working, set the compatibility mode for CSTORM.EXE to:

    • Run in 640 x 480 screen resolution

  • :information_source: But, why run in 640 x 480 when CyberStorm can take advantage of most larger screen sizes to draw the in-game play field larger? Even full 1080p at 1920 x 1080! :+1: To take advantage of larger screens, set the in-game preferences (Game >> Prefs >> Windows) to one of these two setups (requires game restart):

    • For full-screen mode (recommended), make these settings:
      • Game always fills entire screen
        • Use extra screen real-estate for battle terrain
    • For windowed mode (risky because only certain window sizes will render correctly), make these settings:
      • Game always fills entire screen
        • Use extra screen real-estate for battle terrain
      • Be sure to maximize the window (or otherwise set your window size) before launching a mission.

  • :warning: NOTE: The game can't handle 1366 x 768 :-1: when filling the entire screen (the size of a medium-res wide-screen monitor). The horizontal resolution must be a multiple of 4. Thus, it can do 1360 x 768 :+1:... which is a near-wide-screen alternative supported by many GPUs.

    • To automatically work around the 1366x768 caveat, see this. (The latest RBXIT patch includes SetRes.ps1 and CSTORM-1360x768.bat for your convenience to use and modify, and which may not always work as expected. Expect to at least edit the resolution you want to return to after the game exits.)
    • :mega: In my opinion, 1360 x 768 offers the best balance between map space and readability on 16:9 monitors. In 1996, the intended max resolution was 1024 x 768.

Sierra Updates

:large_blue_diamond: v1.00A to v1.10A: The Sierra Help Pages - Cyberstorm Series Updates :us::gb:

There is no v1.1 patch for the French and German versions (v1.00B) as far as I can find. To quote the v1.1 patch:

This patch will not update the foreign language versions of CyberStorm, though many of the bugs fixed here are already fixed in those releases.

Which leaves the French and German versions lacking in the new networking features, and probably a bit more.

RBXIT Win7 Patches

:heavy_check_mark: v1.0 and v1.1: CyberStorm-10-11-Win7fix.r7.exe :us: + :eu: (:gb::fr::de:) *

Previous patch release, R6:

:heavy_check_mark: v1.0 and v1.1: CyberStorm-10-11-Win7fix.r6.exe :us: + :eu: (:gb::fr::de:)

* Use release R6 if Windows Defender is flagging R7 with a trojan. More info on this can be found in Issue #20. R6 is the same as R7 minus the recompiled help files.

Homebrew Mods

:large_blue_diamond: CyberStorm Single Player v1.2: CyberStorm-12-HomebrewMod.zip :us::gb:

In 2007, Crow! (Richard Worhatch), Seraphim, Borg_Down, and SiopaomanX, of The Junkyard forums, created their own mod of CyberStorm to improve the single-player experience. In their own words, "We plan to create a mod of Cyberstorm, arming the Cybrids both more intelligently and more powerfully, to make the single player game more interesting." Their modded CSTORM.EXE should work fine with the other fixes here. You can read the instructions and original thread at the Internet Archive. You might want to save this for after you've beaten v1.0 or v1.1. (Frustratingly, The Junkyard Forums went down a few months after I created this patch. I had tried to gain access before they went down but got no response.)

Music

The game CD has 3 audio tracks on it in addition to the data track. The first two tracks are the background music (BGM) for during game play. The third track is the BGM for the menus. Curiously, the menus have a backup track (same music, lower quality) in the data files so that menus have BGM whether or not the CD is present.

On Windows 10, the game will play one track of BGM in game and then quit playing music. See this guide for ideas on ripping the audio tracks and what to do next:

Network Gaming

CS1 ran well on a LAN between a Windows XP machine and a Windows 10 machine (achieved via the optional install steps noted above). The connection did timeout when left idle for a while, so be sure to test the durability of your idles before committing to a game.

CS1 v1.0 did not support internet gaming (such as Sierra Network/SIGS/WON) but SIGS support was added to v1.1. SIGS later became WON. WON died after Valve reneged on their WON support and secretly built Steam on their own. A splinter group created WON2 but it only supports Half-Life and its mods thus far. NeuWon/NuWON sprung up for a while with much more support for more games, but that seems dead now.

Kali.net support was also added to v1.1 (see CSTORM\DOC\KALI.TXT). Kali doesn't currently list CS1 as supported (presumably because Sierra's "CyberStation" group is long gone -- so feel free to host one yourself and tell us about it 📣). Look up the kali.net fan server (called "Retro Gaming" and/or "Retro PCs and Game Development") on Discord (find the link at kali's helpful YouTube video) and see if any there are game. 😱

Otherwise, online gaming is limited to setting up your own VPN (which is beyond the scope of this wiki).

Custom Hercs

Custom Hercs are just variations on existing chassis of the base Hercs. Don't expect to find any new graphics here. Sierra released 89 custom Herc files for Christmas 1996. Save these HRC files anywhere that makes sense to you. Load them when on the Purchase Herc screen. Specs for these Hercs can be viewed and printed with Madaxe's HercView tool. Create your own custom Hercs by saving configurations when on the Herc Upgrade Menu screen. There is a guide to hacking HRC files at Herc Base Alpha.

:small_blue_diamond: Sierra's 89 custom Hercs: herc.zip

:small_blue_diamond: Madaxe's HercView v1.1: hview11.zip

Strategy Guides

Sierra published a couple strategy guides with some additional story content through Computer Games magazine:

Easter Eggs and Cheat Codes

Wiki page: CyberStorm 1 - Easter eggs and cheat codes

Outstanding Issues

  • The game occasionally freezes for a few seconds once in a while, depending on system. Just wait it out. I haven't taken any time to look into this so if you see a pattern (such as freezing on a specific event or animation) or find a solution (such as elevating the execution priority), please let us know.
  • The videos don't play with the proper palette switching on Windows 7 in game (except very rarely), but play great and with 24-bit color on Windows 10 (dunno about Windows 8). The only Win7 workaround found so far is to run CyberStorm with DxWnd as explained for the older RBXIT patch (see CyberStorm 1 (shim patch archive) for details on DxWnd and CyberStorm). DxWnd fixes this by emulating the GDI through DirectX (what later Windows OSs do as well, more or less). But, DxWnd is more trouble than it's worth for just fixing the videos, in my opinion, when you can instead view the AVI files alone in the CSTORM\AVI folder, and can also turn off the intro video under Game >> Prefs >> General >> Play intro. Other attempts to fix the video playback by re-encoding to other formats, and testing various Windows shims, have failed (I haven't tried to encode to paletted 8-bit video yet because it hasn't been worth trying to find both a Windows encoder and a VFW decoder for those obscure formats, plus a low hope of success regardless). If I could find a drop-in GDI-to-DirectX wrapper that works like DxWnd or Win10, I might include it. Another cheesy workaround, if you really love that intro, is to turn it off in game prefs and then use a batch file to play the intro with any player you choose before launching the game.
  • (Resolved by rebuilding the help files.) The help program is 16-bit and will not run on modern Windows. It is Microsoft Multimedia Viewer and the content is in an MVB file (Multimedia Viewer Book). There are several files in the CSTORM\DOC folder and you can try looking online for additional help. There is also a lot of content in-game under Single Player >> Start Career >> Easy/Normal/Hard >> Herc Command Center >> Communications. [I have tested and plan on printing the whole thing out on XP to a PDF but I don't know if such a thing would qualify as a legal patch.] Also, try:

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Carel de Bruin for helping to get the Europe patch built and tested.

Thank you to Hybrid for finding the DxWnd workaround for Windows 7.

Thank you to Khell for reporting my 32-bit mistake and testing the fix.

Thank you to ScarabParamit for preserving and resurrecting the v1.2 homebrew mod for us.

Troubleshooting

:point_right::point_right::point_right: Please use the Issues feature on GitHub (findable at the top of this page) for reporting issues. It should work much better here than trying to converse on my Wordpress blog or YouTube.

Also, please report Windows version and 32 or 64 bit. Copying in any error text from the DOS install window would also be helpful.

First, The Obvious

The patch must run from the same folder as CSTORM.EXE. If you aren't technical enough to understand this then please find someone near you to help you.

Second, Did the patch finish successfully?

Many people ignore the messages in the DOS patch window and simply complain that the game isn't working without any further detail. Don't be one of these people.

This is what patch failure looks like:

Patch error screenshot

This is what patch success looks like:

Patch success screenshot

If you read the bottom few lines of the DOS window, it's usually not hard to tell if it completed successfully or not. Note, however, that I did not take time to build too much smarts into the installer, so if you run it successfully once, it will fail each time after that unless you have recopied the RBX files from the CD. This is normal.

Below are the exit error messages created by the patch's script. What needs to be reported, however, are the messages before these -- that is, report the messages output by the tools that triggered the error.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!! Error during DLL file patching                !!!
!!! Maybe already patched, wrong version, or hack !!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Regarding the above message, I don't have much to add to what it says. This message also relates to Save/Load Still Crashing After Patching.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!! Error during audio file patching                            !!!
!!! Maybe already patched, wrong region, unknown print, or hack !!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Regarding the above message, see the Random Crashing After Start section below for more details on file specs and why or why not you may be getting this message. It could be any of the reasons the message indicates. The most common is that you have run the patch a second time when you didn't need to and the files are already patched. This message is typically preceded with a message like this:

xdelta3: source C:\Games\Sierra\CSTORM\CYBDATA2.RBX source size 20.1 MiB [21107994] blksize 64.0 MiB window 64.0 MiB
xdelta3: 0: in 941 B: out 8.00 MiB: total in 941 B: out 8.00 MiB: 347 ms
xdelta3: target window checksum mismatch: XD3_INVALID_INPUT
xdelta3: normally this indicates that the source file is incorrect
xdelta3: please verify the source file with sha1sum or equivalent

Beware that there is an early crack by Hybrid Ripper floating around the net that causes this error on CYBDATA4.RBX. This crack and any other crack will not be supported.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!! Error with WIN7FIX temp file or original file        !!!
!!! Check file attributes, try again, and/or report this !!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!! Error during file copying !!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Regarding the above messages, it is doubtful anyone will ever see them. If you do, check permissions on the CSTORM folder and such things. The latter one means at least one of the 5 auxiliary files the patch adds to CSTORM (listed below) failed to copy into the CSTORM folder from the temp SFX location. The latter one can now also appear if copying of the new help files in MANUAL fails.

************************************************************************
*** NOTE: Issue during compatibility database install.               ***
************************************************************************
*** If this was blocked due to lack of admin approval, this is okay, ***
***   but you will need to set 256-color mode yourself.              ***
*** If you believe this was an error,                                ***
***   please report all messages seen above.                         ***
************************************************************************

Regarding the above message, it should only appear if you answered "No" to the UAC message asking permission to make changes to your computer (Program name: Application Compatibility Database Installer). You may be forced to answer no if working on a system as a standard user (such as on a work computer) and you have no administrator user nearby to get you through it. In that case, do what it says and set 256-color mode yourself (as explained in Game Install).

The patch also adds these auxiliary helper files to the CSTORM folder:

CSTORM-1360x768.bat
CSTORM-Compatibility-Set.bat
CSTORM-Compatibility-Unset.bat
CyberStorm1AppCompatibilityDB.sdb
SetRes.ps1

If they are missing then the patch didn't finish for some reason. Try again and copy and report any errors you see in the DOS window.

Save/Load Still Crashing After Patching

English v1.00A:

:no_entry: The instruction at 10019546 referenced memory at 00000000
The memory could not be read from

Click on OK to terminate the application

English v1.10A:

:no_entry: The instruction at 10019586 referenced memory at 00000000
The memory could not be read from

Click on OK to terminate the application

French and German v1.00B:

:no_entry: The instruction at 100193d6 referenced memory at 00000000
The memory could not be read from

Click on OK to terminate the application

Chances are this is the error that drove you to seek out this patch. If you are still getting this error after patching, it means either CSWARSDLL.DLL wasn't patched for some reason, or you have a system that is terribly unique and you should report your system's uniqueness.

Also, check that you have my latest patch. Release 6, for example, added support for French and German versions.

Also, if you previously patched CS with a patcher before Release 5, you will need to reinstall CS from your CD and start over for the patch to run fully (or just recopy all *.DLL and *.RBX files from your CD).

Finally, maybe you ignored the install instruction warning to not set any compatibility settings before installing the patch. To be clear, this is what my Compatibility tab looks like for CSTORM.EXE and running the game on 64-bit Windows 10 with the patch (not a thing set):

CSTORM.EXE Properties Compatibility tab

Random Crashing After Start

All crashing after game start that I have seen -- either right away after the intro AVI, or later in the menus or in a game -- are due to an audio-decoder bug. This was the first fix I made and this is why some of the RBX files are patched. I simply re-encoded the audio to the more stable (but bulkier) format. The error related to this bug says something like:

:no_entry: The instruction at 00467e46 referenced memory at 83354cf6
The memory could not be read from

Click on OK to terminate the application

Please be aware that some machines are much more prone to this crash than others. Yet, even on a seemingly stable machine, without this patch, I can get it to crash on this bug if I poke it long enough. Thus, always use this audio fix -- even if you think you don't need it. In the grand scheme of things, this is an extremely stable mod.

Before the patch runs, these are the relevant file specs (file size and not "size on disk"):

USA copies
------------------------------------------------------
CYBDATA2.RBX,  15,306,390 bytes, 6/12/1996 12:05:46 PM
CYBDATA3.RBX,  16,805,969 bytes, 6/12/1996 12:07:12 PM
CYBDATA4.RBX, 165,223,668 bytes, 6/12/1996 12:32:16 PM

Europe copies (same content, packed in a different order)
------------------------------------------------------
CYBDATA2.RBX,  15,306,390 bytes, 8/28/1996 ‏‎8:38:52 AM
CYBDATA3.RBX,  16,805,969 bytes, 8/28/1996 ‏‎8:40:12 AM
CYBDATA4.RBX, 165,223,668 bytes, 8/28/1996 ‏‎8:55:06 AM

(Times are in EST [UTC-5:00], adjust for your time zone.)

After the patch, they should now be:

USA and Europe copies
------------------------------------------------------
CYBDATA2.rbx,  21,107,994 bytes, <patch run date>
CYBDATA3.rbx,  35,168,363 bytes, <patch run date>
CYBDATA4.rbx, 171,410,526 bytes, <patch run date>

Report any differences (but don't report the known crack from Hybrid with CYBDATA4.RBX dated 7/30/1996 12:00:00 AM). Report also, if you see any CYBDATA*.WIN7FIX files left behind.

If the above RBX files appear to be correctly patched and you are still experiencing crashing, report it.

Miscellaneous Stuff

Failure to set 256-color mode results in these errors (varies depending on version):

Problem!

GFXCDSSurface::create: Failed to create a surface.

Program: CyberStorm
Version: 1.00A, Win95 Jun 12 1996
File: graph\gfx\g_cds.c (#114)
-----------------------------------------------------
This problem prevents CyberStorm from proceeding.

Useful Tips: ...

and

:no_entry: The instruction at 0047571e referenced memory at 00000004
The memory could not be read from

Click on OK to terminate the application

Setting 256-color mode is covered pretty well in the install instructions. Search the net for it if you need more help with it.

If you want to poke at things your own way, running this will undo what the patch does to automatically set 256-color mode as well as prevent the game's occasional low-disk-space warning:

CSTORM-Compatibility-Unset.bat

Conversely, running this will redo this part of the patch (without needing to redo the DLL and RBX file patches):

CSTORM-Compatibility-Set.bat

These batch files can be rerun as needed without harm. (Expect to answer "Yes" to a UAC message box asking permission to run the change.)

Maximizing the Game Screen

Unless you need 640x480 for personal reasons, if you aren't filling the screen like this...

CyberStorm 1924x1084 screenshot

... you are missing out.

Read the Installation instructions again.

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