Windows Interlace Patcher 1.1

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WARNING!: THIS SOFTWARE IS EXPERIMENTAL. IT PATCHES A CRITICAL KERNEL DRIVER. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. THIS TOOL REQUIRES TEST MODE.*

*Test Mode is required as long as patched drivers are in use. This tool patches a system kernel driver, thus Test Mode is required, otherwise your system won't boot. The only side effect of Test Mode is a watermark on the right lower corner of your desktop. Well, that, and possibly a reduced security against rootkit viruses and such. If you're using this tool you're assumed to be a competent user. DO NOT attempt to disable Test Mode manually after patching your system or you're guaranteed to end up in a BSOD loop on restart. However, it's safe to disable Test Mode once you unpatch your system.

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Download Windows Interlace Patcher v1.1

O v e r v i e w

Windows Interlace Patcher is an experimental tool designed to fix an issue that exists in all versions of Windows (probably since Vista) affecting interlaced video modes.

The most notable effect of this issue is applications (e.g. emulators) running at halved speed when an interlaced video mode is in use and v-sync is enabled. Another typical effect is Windows desktop animations looking choppy.

This issue doesn't affect all systems however. It seems to be dependent of your particular hardware configuration. Systems with AMD pre HD-5000 video cards are known to always suffer from this issue. On the other hand, AMD HD-5000 and newer video cards are seemingly free of problems, although there is some evidence of slowdown issues with apps that run in non-exclusive full screen mode (thus affected by desktop compositing).

Therefore, it's up to you to decide whether your system is affected and so it's worth to use this software.

There have been previous workarounds to this issue, namely:

- Using positive sync polarity (pre HD-5000 cards). This magically fixes all problems, but you need an external sync converter (e.g. UMSA), as all TV sets and most arcade monitors expect negative sync.

- Disabling desktop compositing. This fixes choppy Windows animations and slowdowns on non-exclusive full screen apps. But v-synced full screen apps are still affected.

- Using direct v-sync (i.e. frame delay) in GroovyMAME. This works but it's specific to GroovyMAME. Besides it can cause static tearing for older cards, exactly those which are affected: pre HD-5000 ones.

- Using Windows XP.

This is the first fix that attempts to cover all situations.

It's important to note that this is actually a Windows issue. It is not a bug in AMD's or anyone else's drivers. We need to patch Windows itself in order to fix it. Specifically, the culprit file is dxgmms1.sys.

This tool is not part of CRT Emudriver. It can be used with or without CRT Emudriver, and is not targeted specifically at AMD cards.

This tool doesn't fix the issue with interlaced modes being reported with a halved refresh by the operating system.

U s a g e

Windows Interlace Patcher is quite simple to use. Just launch the app, and click OK when the warning message is shown.

If your kernel version is known by the patcher, it'll show a message like this:
"Version 6.3.9600.18662 found! Do you want to patch your system?"

Click OK.

Now, in case your system is not in Test Mode yet (if you're using CRT Emudriver, it'll certainly be already enabled), you'll be prompted with a request to enable to enable "TESTSIGNING".

Click OK, reboot and you're done.

If you ever want to revert the patch, just run the installer again. It will prompt:
"Your system is already patched. Do you want to revert the patch?

Again, click OK and restart your system.

If your particular kernel version is unknown to the program, it will prompt:
"Binary version not supported."

If this was the case, please send the dxgmms1.sys file you'll find in your Windows directory (x:\windows\system32\drivers), to calamity15khz at gmail dot com. Hopefully it will be added to a future version of the program.

A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s

Special thanks to Haynor666 from BYOAC for helping me testing this tool in lots of Windows versions.