• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

King's Bounty improvements

yevrowl

yevrowl

Experienced Member
Joined
Jun 26, 2022
Messages
159
Location
Kiev
cover.png​

King's Bounty version 1.01 (unofficial):
1. Two more optimal CGA palette combinations have been added to the existing 8, and one has been replaced with a less optimal one.
2. When running in CGA mode on EGA/VGA/SVGA/MCGA, 4-color and 3-color palettes have been added, replacing palettes 6 and 7.
3. The skills, parameters, and costs of all creatures have been rebalanced.
4. Resettlement has been carried out according to morality groups.
5. Now only winged creatures can fly.
6. Castle troops are now found in roaming, joinable units.
7. All 17 villains now have themed and/or high-morale armies.
It runs on the version from the HoMM disc.

And KB Map Editor — works under Windows XP from the game directory.
 

Attachments

Last edited:
Great work. Is the moding limited to tweaking numbers or more logic can be introduced?

There is a lot of stuff from KB : The Legend and successor games that could be put in there.
 
Zare said:
Is the moding limited to tweaking numbers or more logic can be introduced?
Click to expand...
Mostly the parameters were changed, but the game mechanics were also affected.

Zare said:
There is a lot of stuff from KB : The Legend and successor games that could be put in there.
Click to expand...
The patch has taken up almost all unused data blocks and will not be updated. Neither technical skills nor knowledge of the «King's Bounty: The Legend» series, which never played, are sufficient to implement additional gameplay mechanics. However, be happy to try it in this game if anyone can add them.
 
Last edited:
After several months of development, a compatibility package for various graphics cards is set to be released:

Code: 
┌───────────────┬─────────────────┬─────────────────────────┐
│    320x200    │ 640x200/400/480 │       720x348/350       │
├───────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤
│ M - MCGA      │ W - SVGA        │ I - Hercules color      │
│ V - VGA       │ X - XGA         │ H - Hercules monochrome │
│ E - EGA       │ 8 - IBM 8514/A  │ R - Orchid monochrome   │
│ C - CGA       │ G - PGC         │ 3 - 3270 PC             │
│ T - Tandy     │ S - Sigma       ├─────────────────────────┘
│ P - Colorplus │ A - PC1512      │
│ Q - Quadcolor │ D - DEB         │
│ B - GP II     │ O - Olivetti    │
└───────────────┤ Y - WY-700      │
                │ N - NGA         │
                └─────────────────┘
 
Last edited:
The remaining graphic modes generate images identical to the existing ones.

3-3270PC.png A-PC1512.png C-CGA.png E-EGA.png G-PGC.png H-Hercules.png O-Olivetti.png Q-Quadcolor.png S-Sigma.png V-VGA.png Y-WY-700.png
 
Awesome, to have support for those rare displays in such a great game. Where can this release be downloaded?
 
1ST1 said:
Have you tested on a real M24 with DEB?
Click to expand...
Only test in DOSBox and 86Box; never seen most of the real hardware, and worked on some of it in the 1980s and 1990s, and haven't seen it for a quarter of a century.
 
I will test the real monochrome Olivetti and Plantronics modes.
Unfortunately no M24 or DEB.

Is this the first game to have support for Display Enhancement Board?
 
CGA Composite:
Zare said:
Is this the first game to have support for Display Enhancement Board?
Click to expand...
It seems this isn't the only graphics adapter on the list that doesn't have any computer games. =)
 
If I may ask how did you do this, did you have knowledge of the game disassembly, did you use AI maybe to locate instructions and data?
I would really love to have Plantronics support for a number of EGA games that run on the XT and use EGA in simple way, like Civilization. Well most of those that have Tandy support could run with equal performance on Plantronics too.
 
Zare said:
If I may ask how did you do this, did you have knowledge of the game disassembly, did you use AI maybe to locate instructions and data?
Click to expand...
The data format and limitations are well described on Shikadi.

Used several types of AI chats to which transferred datasheets and drivers, such as those from Lotus 1-2-3, Dr. Halo, and other programs that support a wide range of graphics adapters. Even found source code for some drivers, while others can be extracted by disassembling them using IDA Pro. BIOS images of adapters can also be useful.

Freed up space for a table with new graphics modes by deleting the remaining checks against the brochure.
 
Last edited:
Very nice work!
I've had a similar project in mind for a different game for a while now, so this is interesting to look at.

However, I'm not entirely clear about all those options in the video selection menu. What exactly are "GP II", "Sigma", and "NGA"?

I think I've seen "NGA" used to describe NCR's hi-res video adapters, but they were never referred to by that neologism until just recently. Some emulator authors and youtubers do appear to enjoy making up their own "?GA" acronyms for every video chip under the sun, but let's leave that hobby to them. ;)

From other threads on this topic, I'm guessing "Sigma" is the Sigma Color 400? If so, it's probably best to be specific - Sigma made a lot of different video hardware. Perhaps not too many people will suppose that the intended target is the Reelmagic MPEG board, but still....
 
Here's the first map created in the editor (the 416.CC and 256.CC files are required to view it).
Adjusted the first pair of continents and generated and edited the second pair.
 

Attachments

VileR said:
What exactly are "GP II", "Sigma", and "NGA"?
Click to expand...
STB Graphix Plus II, Sigma Designs Color 400, NCR Graphics Adapter.

In future plans:

Amdek MAI
Conographics Cono-Color Adapter
Emulex Persyst BoB
Number Nine Revolution
Scion PC 640
Tecmar Graphics Master
Texas Instruments Professional Computer
Toshiba T1000LE
Vectrix Midas
Yamaha V6355D

Unfortunately, datasheets, drivers, and BIOS images are not available for these devices.
 
Yevrowl can you give me some tips, I'd also try my hand at this.
It is Plantronics and Olivetti (basic) mode I want to add to some games and programs. Both modes are simple and well documented.
Claude can understand it by fast web lookup where the first few results have great technical outline of what it is, and wikipedia also carries this info.

In your workflow with LLMs would you say they had a bigger problem of understanding the video hardware than the program structure and its internal video handler/driver?

I assume, as far as I know KB doesn't have any source and you mention data blocks, I assume that's segments so it's all LLM over a binary?
E.g. the IDA stuff/manual dissasembly is to tell LLM how to make code for some obscure video card, or did you actually point it to parts of game disassembly where the graphics code is?

I am trying to figure out whether it is worth to nag my brother for his premium LLM tokens :D
For paid Claude. Give it a zip of Civilization, tell it that it needs to add Plantronics mode, based on existing EGA assets.
What do you say, is it worth a shot?
 
The King's Bounty CC files contain built-in drivers for several supported graphics adapters referenced in the KB.EXE executable file (CGA.DRV, EGA.DRV, TGA.DRV, HGA.DRV, MCGA.DRV). The Plantronics Colorplus was based on a driver from Sierra. Some drivers were written from scratch based on datasheets, source code found online, or BIOS images.

Try the free version first: Sonnet Max with additional consideration.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top