DDrawCompat is a DLL wrapper aimed at fixing compatibility and performance issues with games based on DirectDraw and Direct3D 1-7. Partially supports GDI as well. There is no API conversion involved, most of the rendering is still done by the native DirectDraw/Direct3D 1-7 and GDI libraries.
Download the latest binary release from the [releases](https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/releases) page (avoid the attachments with "debug" in the file name unless you know what you're doing). Unzip the file and copy the extracted ddraw.dll to the target game's install directory, next to where the main executable (.exe) file is located.
If there is already an existing ddraw.dll file there, it is probably another DirectDraw wrapper intended to fix some issues with the game. You can try to replace it with DDrawCompat's ddraw.dll, but make sure you create a backup of the original file first.
Once you start the game, a log file should be created in the same directory with the name DDrawCompat-*exename*.log (or ddraw.log in versions prior to v0.3.0). If no log file is created, then DDrawCompat was not picked up by the game - check the [Wiki](https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/wiki) for possible solutions.
Older binary releases are licensed under the Microsoft Research Shared Source License Agreement (Non-commercial Use Only) - see license.txt in those release archives for the details.
