Windower Won't Start! - Windower V4.3 And The Creators Update

Windower v4.2's hooking uses a very old x86 library known as madchook. For legal reasons, we haven't been able to update madchook since the creator took it private but did have permission from him to use the old version. In order to get around this, Iryoku wrote a new x86 hooking library for Windower v5 (a work in progress).

As it happens, the Creators Update for Windows 10 (roll-out began yesterday) breaks the old hooking library. However, through collaboration with users who downloaded the Creators Update early, we discovered that Windower v5's hooking library had no problems with the Creators Update.

In the last three days, Iryoku heroically backported v5's hooking library to v4 and adjusted everything for it (bumping the version to 4.3). Two nights ago we got it to build and Arcon has been bug squashing for the last day.


There is also a pretty good chance that this Windower update will also fix the compatibility the issues people have had with Windows 8+ and Windower. This extends to the Launcher, where we've switched to software rendering and expect the white screen issues people were having to be fixed.


v4.3 and the new Launcher are both currently on -dev. If you are having problems with the Creators Update and want to log back in, we recommend at least temporarily using -dev. To do this, duplicate your entire Windower directory, then download this Launcher, replace your existing Windower.exe, and log in.

I will update this post when it goes live, but please try it on -dev or we're unlikely to find the last few bugs that are doubtlessly lurking.

Was this the library causing the issue with using Windower under Linux/Wine as well? Is that possibly going to become more realistic now?

Thank you very much for the hard work put into the fix.

Bumpity Bump!

It was one thing standing in the way, yes.

Wine compatibility is on my list of things to do for 5.x; it won't happen for the initial release, but I have made a conscious effort to avoid things that I know break on Wine.

Two odd things in using the -dev exe.
1) the crash i've had for years on logout is gone.
2) I cant use the gamepad when the window isn't in focus anymore - works ok on the normal install.

This fixed Windower for my friend who had the Win8 issue, so already great, thanks.

Make sure that you have the gamepad focus option set in the FFXI Config program (and audio focus, too). This particular change to the hook may have changed how Windower respects those options.

The "crash on exit" fix was intentional but is probably incomplete. This update also let us debug hook.dll when it crashes on exit, and Iryoku fixed the most obvious cause of the crash. For me it no longer crashes but still deadlocks. Even when it doesn't deadlock, it crashes upon attempting to log in again.

On v5, I can bounce back and forth between POL and FFXI as many times as I want without a crash. I don't know that that functionality is coming to v4 (because people are used to its current behavior and those hours could be spent on v5), but it might.

Thank you, this does indeed have to be checked now, and fixed the issue.

I also noticed that a couple things that would almost always cause a crash like tabbing from instance 1 to browser to instance 2 are no longer crashing. It's a fantastic thing because that's been bugging me for a couple years now.

am i right in hoping for send to be a bit more consistant with a different hook in play ?

This is actually not particularly likely, unfortunately. One of the dependencies the IPC uses still needs a version up as far I'm aware. If you do have success, feel free to share.

I also noticed that the Crash when you press the "Windows" button on your keyboard doesn't happen anymore with this v5 hook.
Actually did it happen in the previous one? I remember it happenign during the first Win4 versions but I'm not sure if it was still in place with the latest version.

Alt+Ctrl+Canc doesn't crash this v5 Hook either (but accessing to Task Manager will still crash though)

I haven't seen a crash when accidentally pressing the Windows key for a long long time, if ever.

Three issues on 4.3 I've run into (note, I am running without the Creators Update currently):

- Periodic stuttering/hitching, only when dual-boxing. Running a single character seems to be fine, -live is fine, -dev was fine before the update. Noticed this when running a mule around Whitegate.

- No sound when focus is lost. This doesn't occur on -live or -dev pre-update.

- Request: Window title is "FINAL FANTASY XI", would love to get the character name back in the title as before.

My plugin/addon list:
load LuaCore;
load AutoExec;
load Binder;
load DelayMeNot;
load Sandbox;
load Timers;
lua load battlemod;
lua load boxdestroyer;
lua load cancel;
lua load ConsoleBG;
lua load distance;
lua load enternity;
lua load eval;
lua load findAll;
lua load GearSwap;
lua load organizer;
lua load PetTP;
lua load Silence;
lua load Text;
lua load timestamp;
lua load TParty;
lua load Treasury;

Thanks for all your work on this, guys. I really appreciate it!

Thanks for this!
Had to partition a part of my laptop to windows 7 to be able to play but launches on Windows 10 now.

I have a question though, on Windows 7 I was able to play on borderless fullscreen but with the y-resolution set 40 or so off actual screen. (So 1920x1040) This was to leave the taskbar visible.

When I try and do this on Windows 10 it just fullscreens and stretches the resolution. Is there any way to get around this? I'm not too fond of going full windowed as prefer the game without the toolbar.

Thanks!

By windows 8.1 pb fix, are we talking about the dx8 compatibilty pb making multi-box crashing randomly ?

If this is fixed, i'm definitly sending you a bottle of Whisky or anything you may like.

I noticed a few things with this 4.3 -dev version:
- Gamepad doesn't work when FFXI is in background as already mentioned (FFXI acts as if gamepad has stuck buttons)
- Minimize doesn't work
- Optimus continues to use Intel GPU (I'm sure plenty of people are wondering about it)

Great work getting a functional patch out so quickly.

I'm pretty sure this is a video driver issue and not a windower issue... I doubt this will get fixed as that would require SE updating FFXI to a new DX version.

While we could all hope and pray for that, I highly highly doubt that day will -ever- come.

Regarding gamepad and audio focus:

This updated hook now correctly respects the settings for these from the FFXI Config program. Previously, the hooking method forced gamepad and audio without focus.

So, if you're not getting audio or gamepad while out of focus and you want that, check your settings in the FFXI Config program.

I believe that this will be configurable in the launcher when v5 comes out.

It's not a driver issue. It's because FFXI is so old and uses DX8, as you mentioned. NVIDIA Optimus requires DX9 or higher to properly switch GPUs. Piping the DX8 calls through a proxy DX9+ library would resolve the issue. dgVoodoo can do this, though it's proven to be unstable running FFXI under dgVoodoo. Apparently, Ashita windower has accomplished this in a dev build. It's certainly something a lot of people would like to see in a future Windower build, I can guarantee you that.


I was pretty sure I have had this option checked in my gamepad settings in FFXI Config since forever, but apparently it was not. Thanks for confirming it should have been working and to check this setting.

Dx8 calls are already converted to Dx9 by Windows. The problem is that Optimus doesn't feed those calls to your GPU. It's unclear why Optimus does this, so I'm willing to dump this all on Nvidia and blame them.

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3733


There's no real logic provided there. I could see them maybe making some handwave-y "it's more power efficient to do it on the CPU" for some reason, but I can't think what that reason is.

I can actually confirm that the power efficiency thing is the answer they gave me when I tried figuring out with their customer support why XI wasn't using my GPU. The person I was working with escalated it to like a department head to answered me with "it's a power efficiency thing with Windows" or something to that effect.

Edit: I checked to see if I still had their e-mail response and it looks like they passed off the blame and didn't make it a "power efficiency thing" This is the full response I got from the Level 2 service tech:

Thank you for contacting NVIDIA Customer Care. Your issue is expected behavior. The game Final Fantasy XI is a DirectX 8 title. Under Windows 10, Microsoft forces DirectX 8 and older titles to run on the integrated graphics controller when used with a Microsoft Hybrid notebook configuration.

Is this launcher the same one I downloaded the other day from another topic?

If this one is more up to date that would be cool, this whole no alt-tab is killing me inside a little bit, also found out just now my F5 key isn't working with the game running.

No, it's not the same one. This one has working alt-tab (and a few other things that were broken in that previous version).

Just downloaded the dev version, beautiful, just beautiful

I havent updated to Creators yet, but i tried the new launcher and hook earlier today, and was getting a c++ visual runtime error and crash, when addons loaded. Wasn't able to get to Title screen.

This behaviour was not present in 4.2

I didnt get a chance to narrow down exactly which addon was causing this, but from the little troubleshooting i did, it seemed to be addons that draw to the screen.

I will try again in a few minutes with debug and error logging on and update this post.

EDIT:
EnemyBar was the culprit, works fine with 4.2, but not 4.3.

I believe that this is related to image primitives used in some addons - I noticed the crash last night with EnemyBar and a Party Buffs addon.

If you can provide details on which addons crash for you, that will be helpful.

EDIT: Thanks!

I seem to be unable to launch the game with this new version still. It got me past the issue of not launching PoL. But now on game launch I get a black screen (But can hear the main menu music). In plain vanilla XI it loads but only when in bordeless window.

When in the Launcher gui I cannot change my resolution, arrows wont work and when I type my res in, it reverts back to 0 when clicking away from the box.

If I set my resolution in official FFXI config, it works for vanilla XI, but as soon as I attempt it through Windower, it reverts my FFXI config back to default settings.

Adding: PartyBuffs crashes 4.3

Upgraded to new laptop and Windows 10 - tried most everything and haven't had Windower available for many months - thanks for this new Windower link that works! Much Appreciated!