Balls of Steel Loader
introduction
Balls of Steel is one of my favorite games and (in my opinion) one of the best pinball games ever made.
Unfortunately, the game hasn't been updated since 1998 and the 3D Realms website mentions it as being discontinued. A major issue is that the game uses an outdated 256 colors fullscreen
mode that doesn't work too well with the latest Windows versions.
So, after being inspired by the DirectDraw wrapper project, here's a tiny loader that hooks the game's DirectDraw calls and redirects them to newer
and more compatible methods, like Direct3D.
The loader also allows for playing the game in a resizable desktop window, provides a nice bilinear filtering, and disables all the odd display resolution changes that would usually mess up
all the desktop icons.
screenshots
download
installation
- you'll need at least DirectX 7+ installed
- install Balls of Steel (either shareware or registered version) and patch it with the latest 1.3 patch (You can also use the unofficial 1.3 patch available here and here, the loader works with both versions)
- unzip the package into the Balls of Steel program folder (usually "C:\Program Files\Pinball Wizards\Balls of Steel")
- launch bosloader.exe
- you can access the rendering options using the dropdown menu. You can then switch between a Direct3D rendering (default) and a DirectDraw based one.
Use the DirectDraw renderer on slower machines or computers with a graphic card that does not support 3D rendering.
- use the F key or Alt+Enter to switch the game to fullscreen
license
- The Balls of Steel loader is provided as freeware and free of charge.
credits
