Purple and green color, resolution fix for old school games

How to fix old games running on Windows 7 from schowing up in purple and green colors, Age of Empires, StarCraft, etc.

StarCraft Classic with the blotchy purple and green resolution problems.

Having a newer computer is always a nice asset for gaming, so we like to think, right? There's just one problem... being a cool hipster and all, you want to play some of those retro and old school games you used to play as a kid, the only thing is the game companies do not update those games anymore and you are in a completely upgraded hardware era.

This is for those games that have purple, green or even blue blotchy areas and seem to be distorted due to resolution or graphics problems.

Now, there are probably a few different ways to fix these types of display issues with older games, but the one I am writing about isn't one of those difficult registry tweaks or the kill explorer trick, those are really tedious fixes and require in-depth computer knowledge, which we do not always have the time to research. As much as I'd love to make things difficult, I am not going that route.

The fix is a neat little tool dubbed "DirectDraw Compatibility Tool" created by a Russian programmer named Лёха Galogen, it applies a one time registry entry for the game you want to fix. All you have to do is download the program and run it, it's pretty simple to use, just find the executable of the game...

Example:

C:\Program Files (x86)\StarCraft\StarCraft.exe

Then, click apply, all done. No more blotchy colors or resolution errors, play the game with nice DirectDraw support. This tool works on both 64 bit and 32bit operating systems, the latest version as of 04/03/2012 is 1.01.

Requirements
DirectDraw Compatibility Tool (Software)

Download http://www.mediafire.com/?y1t737f9sgnf4d1 http://www.filedropper.com/directdrawcompatibilitytool#download http://www.4shared.com/file/4Nj0umuX/DirectDraw_Compatibility_Tool.html

Fix FieldTest, iOS Diagnostics, AdSheet and others from showing up on Springboard, iPhone & iOS

Have you ever installed something through Installous 4 or Cydia, afterward coming back to Springboard to see some blank icons with labels like FieldTest, iOS Diagnostics, AdSheet, Setup, Intellicontainer or others which are never supposed to be showing in the first place?

Screen-shot of the libhide bug.

This issue is known and it's a bug because it happens after installing any app through your iPhone, this might apply to iPod Touch but, I'm only covering the iPhone in detail here.

The cause for this problem comes from a dylib named "libhide", from the author's description it is a library to hide icons. I do not know which version of libhide you have or had in the past so you are going to be doing some manual work here if you are to remove this bug.

Solution
1. Close all your current running apps.
2. Open SBSettings, click "More", scroll down and open "Poof", make sure that all your icons are toggled on. 1, 2, 3.
3. Now you need to install the latest version of libhide, as of 11/13/2011 the latest libhide version is 2.1.
4. You can either download it from here and install it through iFile by clicking on the .deb file and selecting install or you can open Cydia and add http://apt.thebigboss.org as a source then install it after searching for it. (If you have any trouble finding it on Cydia make sure you have Developer enabled by going to Manage > Settings > Select Developer and Click Done)
5. Open SBSettings and click "More", "Mobile Substrate Addons" make sure libhide is toggled on.
6. Now that you installed the latest version of libhide and did the above, you must hard reboot your idevice.
7. Upon restarting and unlocking you should now open SBSettings and click "More", "Mobile Substrate Addons" and toggle libhide off. (You can leave it on if you'd like, I had no need for it on) 4.
8. If you toggled it off, hard reset your device once more.
9. Upon restarting and unlocking your device, this time you should open Installous or Cydia and install an app, this should have fixed your problem and you'll no longer see those pesky icons on Springboard again.

Note: It's been reported that the icons will still appear on some devices for unknown reasons, if this is the case with yours, toggle libhide off in Mobile Substrate Addons or remove it through Cydia altogether.

iPod App Crashes, iPhone & iPod

iPod Logo Copyright © 2011 Apple Inc.

The Issue
Some mp3s synced through iTunes that did not originate from the iTunes store causes iPod.app to crash within iOS 4+, usually every time you hit "Shuffle" within the iPod App, it will crash.

I too have been having this issue, I use something called Replay Media Catcher 4 when I listen to premium streaming music or podcasts, it does a great job catching streams. Although, it tags some files, I am assuming that some of the tagging corrupts the database in iTunes so that my iPhone cannot play some of the tagged files (I know it is the tagging or default encoding of the file because I have tested it by converting files from mp3 to m4a and the latter doesn't crash the iPod App).

You could just convert the files to m4a or whichever format you like that your device supports playback of, but that is a lengthy and ridiculous process and will inevitability lead to audio quality loss.

Solution
1. Disable spotlight search for audio files, including podcasts, etc.
2. Browse to /private/var/mobile/Media/
3. You should see "com.apple.dbaccess.lock", delete that file and if you see anything such as iTunesDB or similar, delete that as well, do not delete anything with "lock" or "sync" in the name as these are important files.
4. In the same directory there is a directory named "iTunes_Control" go into that directory.
5. Ignore the "Music", "Ringtones" directories. (Do not modify their contents)
6. This is where you can figure out the rest, there is an "iTunes" and "Artwork" directory.
7. Go into "Artwork" and delete all files and folders within it.
8. Go back and enter "iTunes", you'll see plists, delete whichever one has anything to do with databases.
9. Enter "iTunes Library.itlp" and delete anything that has to do with iTunes/Music databases here too. (Note "Library.itdb" is ok to have)
10. There is another directory within this one called "DBTemp", delete whatever is in it.
11. Hard Reboot.
12. Profit. (If you re-sync, there's nothing to worry about)