The Dink Network

know my English is not very good... I'm from Italy.
Since I installed windows professional xp, and changed motherboard and videoboard, I didn't see the screen very well: all around charachters, houses, trees, barrels, etc, I see a black square that moved (or stayed) with them, and since two years ago I didn't play anymore, because of this.
And, when the game loads, after, I see white squares around the words "PLAY", "QUIT"...

Today I have installed 1.08 version, but it's the same. Dink was my favourite game...
Help me, please!!
Thank you by Monica

so black/white squares appear around ogjects?

this seems to be a transparency issue. as most (if not all) sprites are irregulaly shaped and don't take up all the space in an image. therefore there is left over space. it is usually filled with either white or black, and depending on the ini line the game reads this as transparency. but on your computer, something must be stopping transparency from working

when you changed your hardware and installed xp, did everything work ok? maybe there is an issue with your graphics card?

What's an ogject?

Riverstorm, grab a felt-tipped pen, the same colour as the background, and scribble over the white/black space. Your transparency issue should be fixed.

Could be debug mode?

Yes, I think it's something about transparency.
Once I have a look in DinkEdit, and there I saw the same black squares.
But I changed Windows, motherboard and graphc card at the same time, and I can't understand what of these three things caused that inconvenient.
If Dink works normally with XPprofessional in all other pc (except mine) I think it's the graphics card:
it's NDIVIA GeForce 4MX 440-SE, and I have no ideas of what to do...
anyway, thank you for your answer

Hei, DinkDude95... I don't understand English very well, OK, but... your felt-tipped pen, is an advanced technological instrument, or a joke????

Thank you for tour answer, Chrispy, but... what is the "debug mode"? I've understood the words,I know the term "debug", but I don't know what is it, and where I can find it..

Try playing dink with DFArc.exe and make sure the "Debug" and "True Color" boxes are not checked. (Generally, true colour shouldn't be used unless it's specificly stated in the dmod, it's slower and black and white boxes appear around some graphics)

Also, I think your English is quite good, don't underestimate yourself so.

Debug mode is basically a special game mode intended for the developers to easily control and check some more stuff in the game, like movement, collissions (you'd see boxes around sprites in different colours), sprite numbers etcetera. A normal user shouldn't have this on.

Yes it's related to your video card. There is a compatibility problem and the transparencies are not being handled properly.

Install the newest DirectX drivers and the newest NVIDIA drivers. It might work. If it doesn't, you can try to install *old* video card drivers, as close to when Dink was released as you can (probably the oldest you can find).

But unfortunately it's possible that your GF 4MX video card may never be able to run Dink properly.

Dink Smallwood's debug mode isn't very good, and is quite basic. i have seen BASIC denuggers more informative than this, with options to stop all script/application execution and continue step-by-step

What's a BASIC denugger?

BASIC is a programming language.
therefore a BASIC debugger must be a debugger for BASIC. but i was saying that the debugger in BASIC is better than the Dink debugger. why can't dink have adequate development tools? WDE+ is good, but slow, and i hear there are good scripting utilities out there but i have yet to have found a debugging app

It's something to do with the fact that maybe 15000 people have ever known about dinkc, while probably more than 15000000 know about basic?

AGH!! You don't get it Fireball!! I said

"What's a denugger?"

I didn't want to hear about the BASIC language! I know all about that! I wanted to know what a 'denugger' is! It happened before with those 'ogjects' as well! GEEEEEEZZZZZZZZZ!!

PROTIP: Don't care about typos when you're replying.

I feel your pain, pal. Unfortunately, most people don't care about how they spell, and thus the linguistic jokes pass most people by. If it makes you feel any better, I got your joke the first time I read it.

why can't dink have adequate development tools?

Who's stopping you from making one? I'm just asking. Don't expect others to do your job. Why don't you make good use of that BASIC debugger of yours and create a Dink debugger with its help?

hi, something similar happened as well. when i pick debug mode, there is 2 bar of white line on top left corner - annoying? does debug affects the game?

Other than what's been described here, it doesn't really effect gameplay.

those white bars ARE the debugger... that is why the dink debugger is crap and uninformative. i might one day make a better debugger when i get the chance but i am *busy*

You are what? 12? 13? And you're busy? Man. If I could only have as much time now as when I was that young...

I tried all, but my video card isn't good for Dink...
There is a new pc, now, in the room near this... I'm going to install Dink there, and I hope it works!!

Three things:
*Open DFArc 2.00.
*And then click on the debug mark. Not the writing. The v mark.
*Try out if it works now.

Simple enough?