New Steam release

[CookiePLMonster]

KoTR released on Steam today: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4487840/Hard_Truck_2_King_of_the_Road/

Just opening this issue to track easily if D2GI is fully compatible with it or if anything needs fixing. They claim that the game is preserved in its original form, but they also added achievements somehow, so maybe the game code is somewhat modified.

[REDPOWAR]

Great, surprising news! But more surprising is that D2GI works well with Steam game version already, it even works very good on Linux via Proton (if vertical sync is disabled) without any significant differences. So, looks like D2GI is still the best solution for running the game on modern hardware, and this shows how much high-quality work we did.

Seems they are shipping unmodified KotR 1.3 with GOG ddraw wrapper (which is less buggy than in 2019, but still far from comfortable game experience for this game), so the only conflicts may occur are something related to their custom plugin that connects Steam API and achievement logic (probably located in dinput wrapper), but i didn't notice anything during playing about 1 hour. Achievements don't work for me, but community says that such logic doesn't work even for clean game, so this is most likely issue of the game itself

[CookiePLMonster]

For achievements, I suspect the DLL overrides for dinput.dll need to be added, same as when you'd be installing a game mod:
https://silentsblog.com/setup-instructions/#proton-wine

I'm not sure if devs can specify the overrides themselves on Steam.

[REDPOWAR]

You're right, thanks. I added ddraw but forgot to do the same for dinput. Now got achievements working

[AlexKimov]

KoTR released on Steam today: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4487840/Hard_Truck_2_King_of_the_Road/

Just opening this issue to track easily if D2GI is fully compatible with it or if anything needs fixing. They claim that the game is preserved in its original form, but they also added achievements somehow, so maybe the game code is somewhat modified.

This lib is still widely known in a very narrow circles, it was a long time before before the feedback was received about the very first d2gi version (russian local social group). There is nothing special about it, many other projects remain unknown, but one (everyone) have to put in effort so that it becomes known, i mean to create code is not enough. Poor gamer doesn't want to spend his miserable gaming life searching for a hand crafted tools to fix another game problem, 5 more minutes reading some titorial makes him quit cruel and unfair world, his first question always be "i downloaded this dll, it doesn't work, yes i unpacked it, you think im stupid or what, what do you mean, this thing doesn't store game itself, wtf". Of course, it's more like a sarcasm, except it's not. On the other hand, those old games, they are more for nostalgia, so they never played it, but askying for can you add this or why it works that way.

The only thing we can say right now that devs/copyright owners did almost nothing after gog version released, "default" wrapper is still s@cks, telling us the hard truth about that sources are lost and it is so hard living without source code.

[VldmrInt]

Thank you for D2GI; it really helps the new Steam audience get the game running. Here is a bullet-point summary of my article, "Not Incompetence, but a 90s Legacy: Why Hard Truck 2 is So Difficult to Maintain."

1. An Artifact of a Different Era
The most obvious point for all the bright minds here is that this game belongs to a completely different era. It comes with all the development approaches—and, more importantly, programming language versions—of its time.

2. The Nature of SoftLab-NSK
When it comes to Hard Truck 2 (King of the Road), it is crucial to understand one key thing: SoftLab-NSK wasn't a game studio in the traditional sense. The company specialized in commercial projects, including interactive 3D environments, simulations, and applied software.

Because of this, what players call the "game engine" is better understood in a broader context: as a software platform or a suite of technologies designed for creating interactive 3D scenes, simulations, and visualizations. This exact foundation was used not just for games, but also for other high-profile projects, such as software for the Russian Cosmonaut Training Center.

3. The Lost Window of Opportunity
There is another frustrating factor: the window of opportunity was missed. If an active modding and fan community had formed a year or two after the release, the studio might still have had original workstations, intact build environments, developers who actually remembered the codebase, documentation, and an internal understanding of the architecture. Instead, it wasn't two years—more than two decades have passed.

4. The Business Reality
We have to be honest about one more thing: developers and publishers are almost always more interested in working on new projects than spending decades polishing the exact same game. It might sound harsh, but from a business perspective, it's just standard practice.

Nevertheless, I am in direct contact with the publisher (Fulqrum) and the developers (SoftLab-NSK). Your colleague aleko2144 is aware of this and will let you know if your expertise is needed.