PalettestealerSuspender prevents palette issues using a different method. Fixes DirectDraw Compatibility Tool ĭirectDraw Compatibility Tool is designed to fix color palette corruption in the old games.ĭDrawCompat is a DLL wrapper aimed at fixing compatibility and performance issues with games based on DirectDraw and Direct3D 1-7. In newer versions of Windows, CSRSS and the desktop window (explorer.exe) set their own palette, which causes the odd colors. However, some applications try to set their own exclusive palette, causing conflicting colors since the game's exclusive palette is no longer actually exclusive and is set to the wrong colors.

More specifically, they used an exclusive palette, where they set the system palette (the colors the system can use, back when there were only 256 colors) to the palette the game wants to use. This is evidenced by how taking a screenshot of an affected game will show just the discoloration with black where the other game assets would be rendered and by the fix itself.Ī more technical explanation: These games rely on DirectDraw, an API in DirectX which was used to render graphics which is now deprecated. This issue appears to be caused by Explorer.exe resetting the system palette, essentially overwriting the palette defined by the game (hence the rainbow colors).

Ms directdraw