How to play PoP 3D in Windowed Mode

The following guide is confirmed to work
* on Windows 7 & Windows 10
* when following the [installation guide](https://www.speedrun.com/pop_3d/guide/kcxhr)
* with dxwnd v.2.05.15 ([direct link](https://sourceforge.net/projects/dxwnd/files/Latest%20build/v2_05_15_build.rar/download)) although it should work on any future version as well.

Thus at first you have to download dxwnd ([homepage](http://sourceforge.net/projects/dxwnd/)), unpack it and start *dxwnd.exe*. From the top menu select "Edit > Add" which should open an additional window:

https://i.postimg.cc/QN7w1Ydr/mlxgiJH.png

Both *path* and *launch* should link to *pop3d.exe*. Then tick "No banner" and set the "Window initial position and size" according to your game's resolution (the base resolution after installing is 640x480). The window should look like this:

https://i.postimg.cc/bNH5FGnC/JlMwc8j.png

Click "OK". Now if you start *pop3d.exe* from the game's directory the game should start in a window. This should also enable you to capture the game in OBS via simple window capture.

**Big Shoutouts** to @Samabam who found out how to make dxwnd run with this game which surely was not an obvious task.

-------------------

*Fixes:* If the game behaves weirdly in the sense that some levels do not load and the prince clips through rising elevators, a known fix is to turn on the FPS counter in dxwnd (FPS counter > overlay) : 

https://i.postimg.cc/9Qmk3WtW/KPOWu6N.jpg

We believe the underlying problem to be about the game running in more than 60FPS (so another possibility is to turn on Vsync in dxwnd and/or force Vsync on in the settings of your graphics card).

Prince of Persia 3D Installation Guide (Windows 7/10 64-bit)

Because I got the game to work in windowed on Windows 10 64-bit (as well as Windows 7 64-bit), I felt like writing it up in a detailed guide might be a good idea. Most of the information I will list here can be found on the [Prince of Persia unofficial website](http://popuw.com/download3.html). This guide assumes that you do *not* have a physical copy of the game. If you do have the original CDs you might be able to use them in Step 4 & 6 (untested assumption).

# How to install the game

**1.** Install a program which creates virtual CD/DVD drives--such as [Virtual CloneDrive](https://www.elby.ch/de/products/vcd.html) ([direct download](https://www.elby.ch/download/SetupVCD.exe)) (with the default settings).

**2.** Use the first download link from [here](http://popuw.com/download3.html) and unpack the .zip file with WinRAR. This should yield the files pop3d.nfo, .r00, .r01, .rar and .sfv.

**3.** Unpack pop3d.rar with WinRAR. The password for doing so can be found at the linked site as well. This leaves you with a folder "Prince of Persia 3D" containing two sub-folders "DOX" and "IMAGES".

**4.** Now it is time to install the game. In the images folder double-click on pop3d-cd1.ccd. If step 1 was done correctly, this should mount the PoP3D installation CD in a virtual drive which in the PC overview window should look similar to this (please don't mind the german language here):

https://i.postimg.cc/9FpxY63s/HpJ5jcp.png

Double-clicking this should open the installer:

https://i.postimg.cc/t44BSBpJ/vKPsgo9.png

Install the game in a location of your choice. You just need to install the base game--neither QuickTime 4, nor DirectX 6.1 nor Windows Media Player should be installed!

To make things work, we need to apply a few fixes:
**5a.** In the folder "DOX" of the downloaded files you find the folder "Patch". Copy "PoP3D_Unpacked_Patch_v1.01.rar" into the game directory and unpack it there (replace all duplicate files).
**5b.** From "DOX" > "Unprotected_POP3D.exe" copy POP3D.exe into the game directory.
**5c.** To preclude frame drops or performance issues, get the latest stable version of dgVoodoo2 which can be downloaded [here](http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2/) ([direct link](http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/bin/dgVoodoo2_81_3.zip)). Open the downloaded .zip--it should contain a folder MS with three .dll files in it. Copy those (D3D8.dll, D3Dlmm.dll and DDraw.dll) into the game directory.
To turn off the dgVoodoo watermark in-game, also copy the dgVoodoo.conf file into the game directory. Open it with notepad, search (Ctrl+F) for the option "dgVoodooWatermark", change the respective line to "dgVoodooWatermark = false" and save.

*Alternatively* to **5c** you could also try to use [DDrawCompat v0.2.1](https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/releases/tag/v0.2.1) ([direct link](https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/releases/download/v0.2.1/ddraw.zip)): Simply extract the ddraw.dll from the downloaded ddraw.zip into the game directory. This step has the drawback that it obliterates the section about playing this game in windowed mode.

**6.** The last step should be to go into the IMAGES folder once again and activate *pop3d-cd2.ccd* (i.e. mount CD2 of POP3D). Running pop3d.exe from the game directory now should make the game work and run (for now in fullscreen; if you want to play the game in windowed mode make sure to additionally follow [this guide](https://www.speedrun.com/pop_3d/guide/rku4s)).

# Get the minimizer to work (Win7 only)

This paragraph is of interest to you if you want to run the [Any% Alt Tab category](https://www.speedrun.com/pop_3d?h=Any_Alt-Tab&x=z27zlok0) and if your PC uses a Windows 7 OS.

If you have the game in windowed (as described in [this guide](https://www.speedrun.com/pop_3d/guide/rku4s)) you may download the minimizer program from the [resources](https://www.speedrun.com/pop_3d/resources) and place the executable anywhere. After renaming pop3d.exe to POP3D.exe--capitalization matters here--you can start the game and afterwards PoP3DMinimize.exe. This should open a blank window:

https://i.postimg.cc/wj40SDjV/oueAzQB.png

Now pressing num-5 should make the game minimize and pressing num-5 again should revert that. With this you should be able to alt-tab clip! (Does not work on Win10 because alt-tabbing does not induce any lag frames due to Windows Aero)

# Known problems

- The downloaded files include a folder "Crack" which should enable playing the game without having CD2 inserted (i.e. without Virtual CloneDrive). Sadly, I have not been able to make this work yet.

- If the game behaves weirdly in the sense that some levels do not load and the prince clips through rising elevators, a known fix is to turn on the FPS counter in dxwnd (cf. the [guide to play the game in windowed](https://www.speedrun.com/pop_3d/guide/rku4s) ). We believe the underlying problem to be about the game running in more than 60FPS (so another possibility is to turn on Vsync in dxwnd and/or force Vsync on in the settings of your graphics card).

Setting Up the Autosplitter

1.) Setup Livesplit: http://livesplit.github.io/downloads/

2.) Right click anywhere in Livesplit and choose **Open Splits -> From File...**
https://i.imgur.com/MZNnn1B.png

3.) Open one of the splits files found in the **Resources** tab of this site (coming soon)

4.) Right click anywhere in Livesplit and choose **Edit Splits**
https://i.imgur.com/Gfn4QAk.png

5.) Underneath the **Attemps** box ensure that the **Activate** button is clicked. 
https://i.imgur.com/6y5YHxB.png

6.) Right click anywhere in Livesplit and choose **Compare against -> Game Time**

7.)  Enjoy. The script pauses the timer during loading screens and when the game crashes. Auto-start, split, and category detection coming soon. 





Side Notes: The name of each split is unimportant. If making your own splits, you need to ensure you have the number of splits the script is expecting, and that the category and subcategory (found under the 'Additional Info' tab) are set correctly. If you discover a bug please notify me (Samabam#8840) on Discord so I can fix it.

Updating Autosplitters (Pull Requests)

1. First step, make a github.com account.

2. Find the asl script you want to update. (This should be listed in Resources here on src).

3. Click on the edit pencil seen here:

![](/static/blob/xz0p68el.webp)

4. Add your desired changes and click Commit Changes.

5. Now travel to the Pull Request tab and click "New pull request"

![](/static/blob/kzw02qeq.webp)

6. Click "Create pull request" to send your changes to the owner for review.

In the event a script owner leaves the community, upload your script to your own github account. Copy a link to the raw file and make a pull request of the autosplitters code, placing your raw link where the former script owner's used to be.

https://github.com/LiveSplit/LiveSplit.AutoSplitters/blob/master/LiveSplit.AutoSplitters.xml

Nombre	Autor
How to play PoP 3D in Windowed Mode	toca 1 year ago
Prince of Persia 3D Installation Guide (Windows 7/10 64-bit)	toca 1 year ago
Setting Up the Autosplitter	Samabam 5 years ago
Updating Autosplitters (Pull Requests)	Samabam 4 years ago