Category Archives: Patches

Safrosoft RoX (Portable Edition)

Games, Patches

Safrosoft RoX is a great freeware clone of Boulder Dash and Supaplex, created by Dmitriy and Ilya Safro between 2001 and 2003. I first encountered this game on a June 2002 CHIP magazine CD. It immediately won a place in my heart.

The game was developed using Visual Basic 6 and DirectX 8, an unusually rare combination of technologies. While Microsoft still supports the VB6 runtime in modern Windows, the dx8vb.dll, which made DirectX 8 available for VB games, has been removed since Windows Vista. It broke RoX.

It's possible to obtain this DLL from Windows XP and install it globally on modern Windows using regsvr32 dx8vb.dll to fix the issue. This method has been used by people all these years. However, using an application manifest with registration-free COM entries allows to avoid making changes to the OS and makes the game portable.

Creating a manifest to achieve the desired was quite challenging. I worked on it in 2019 and managed to complete the portable version of the game at that time. I also wanted to develop a larger patch with additional improvements. I experimented with changing game resolution, but the project stalled at that stage and has been on hold since then. I might return to creating a bigger patch in the future, but for now, I've decided to publish the portable edition of the original game version.

Download v1.3.0: rox_portable_v130.7z (5MB).
Download v1.4.0: rox_portable_v140.7z (8MB).

Both v1.3 and v1.4 are provided due to their significant differences, as some users might prefer the original v1.3.

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If you like my patches, please consider a donation

Games, Need For Speed, Patches

Projects like the Need For Seed III Modern Patch require enormous amount of time for developing and support. It is not possible to do such things spending only an hour or two in the evenings. It requires days and weeks of hard work without huge gaps, 8-10 hours per day. Please donate if you like my projects and would like to get some new updates. It is the best motivator to continue working on them.

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Need For Speed 4 Modern Patch: To be, or not to be...

Games, Need For Speed, Patches46 Replies

I have published initial version of the NFS4 Modern Patch. Currently, it has a small amount of fixes. Unfortunately, I had spent more than 150 days during last year on developing of the NFS3 Modern Patch, it is too much, and now I can't afford to spend enough time for porting main useful changes to the NFS4. I recommend you to try the NFS3 Modern Patch to understand how big and useful this NFS4 version of the patch could be.

This kind of work needs much time. It is not possible to do such things spending only an hour or two in the evenings. It requires days and weeks of hard work without huge gaps, 8-10 hours per day. I had started NFS3 Modern Patch a year ago, and little by little this project absorbed all my time and had taken the place of my paid work (freelance). Now I can't continue in the same spirit because I'm almost out of money. It's time to choose what I will do next.

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Need For Speed III Modern Patch v1.5.1, v1.5.2, and v1.5.3

Games, Need For Speed, Patches
  • “Rear View Camera” setting which allows to lock the rear view camera in the car. It greatly increases visibility and reduces the blind spot when the current main camera is not “In Car”.
  • Experimental ini setting AllowHugeTextures which enables huge texture (512×512, 1024×1024, and 2048×2048) support for track elements and cars during gameplay. Useful for the game modding.
  • Fixed a bug of the original game which was a cause of different volume of the race music each race.
  • Added two additional random race music modes: Random (Rock) and Random (Techno).
  • Added two additional random menu music modes: Random (Fast) and Random (Slow). Fast: Romulus 3, Triton, Pi. Slow: Minotaur, Whipped, Whacked.
  • Menu music volume will be used for the movies.
  • Better Rear View Detail setting. Light from the car headlights and cop flashers will be rendered even on Medium value of this setting. View Distance and Car Detail in the Rear View Mirror now depends on Rear View Detail also. So, if you have performance problems with High level of the Rear View Detail setting, just use Medium. It have to be much more usable now.
  • Better compatibility with the Thrash API v107 according to fog. So, the DX7 renderer can render fog in the NFS3 now.
  • Fixed a bug of the original game which was a cause of using player name from the loaded ghost file instead of the current player name.
  • More than 20 changes in these releases. See the readme file for more details.

Download: nfs3_modern_patch.7z (1.5MB). Project page →

Yamaha S-YXG50 Portable VSTi v1.0.0 (a software MIDI synth)

MIDI, Patches, Software

A software MIDI synthesizer for Windows, which functions as a VSTi plugin. Supports both the Yamaha XG and the Roland GS extensions, which is a unique feature of the S-YXG50. The VSTi was a part of the Yamaha SOL2 package. Yamaha discontinued support of this software synthesizer in 2003. As it is abandonware now, a portable version of the VSTi was created (installation and registry keys are not required). It uses embedded (into DLL resources) official 4MB wavetable files, which is the best version of wavetable files for the S-YXG50.

Download: yamaha_syxg50_vsti.7z (3.0MB). Project page →

History of the Yamaha's software MIDI synths

MIDI, Patches, Software

Yamaha S-YXG50 was released in 1997. First versions were shipped with the simplified 2MB version of the wavetable, and the full 4MB version was published only in 2001. It seems that the cause of this is low amount of RAM in the computers of 90s. Both versions of the wavetable files were created in 1996 (4MB in February, simplified 2MB in July). Possibly, the full 4MB version is a dump of the WAVE ROM of the Yamaha MU80 / MU50 / QS300 / DB50XG / DB60XG / SW60XG / MU10, because the Yamaha S-YXG50 soft synthesizer is very similar to this series of hardware of 1994-1996.

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Need For Speed III Modern Patch v1.4.0 and v1.5.0

Games, Need For Speed, Patches1 Reply
  • No more non-rotating wheels in the rear view mirror and in the split screen mode (when Car Detail is High).
  • Rear View Mirror can display better 3D model, clouds, lightnings, and light from the headlights of cars and from the flashers of cops. “Rear View Mirror” detail setting was added. Better proportions of the objects in the rear view mirror.
  • An ability to enable or disable the fog effect directly from the graphics settings menu.
  • No more "Render_GetTm() raM out of raN" error for high poly cars. Corresponding buffer is 10 times larger now.
  • The View Angle setting allows to enable wider view angle, which is useful for the widescreen resolutions. New set of options: Narrow, Normal (former Wide), Wide.
  • 10 times faster gameplay loading on modern systems. To skip loading animation just press any key.
  • An ability to use port 9803 for the network games. It solves the problem when you can't start a network game because port 1030 often is used by system services.
  • Built-in screenshoter. Just press Print Screen key, and a screenshot will be saved into the screenshots subdirectory in the JPG/PNG/BMP format.
  • Improved keyboard support in the menu. Now it is much more consistent. You can also use the Tab and Shift+Tab to switch between elements.
  • Consistent sounds in the menu. Volume of all menu sounds will be same. Also you can set Menu Sounds Volume separately from the volume of the ingame special effects.
  • About 100 small changes in the v1.4.0 and v1.5.0. See the readme file for more details.

Download: nfs3_modern_patch.7z (1.5MB). Project page →