SiN in stereoscopic 3D: it can be done! Here's how.

[DevilMaster]

Remember SiN? That 1998 game by Ritual that was released with showstopping bugs which a huge patch subsequently solved, and that probably some of us didn't buy, thinking that DNF would come out in few months, so it wasn't worth it to buy a ripoff?
Yeah, that one.

Well, I've just been able to run it in widescreen, in high resolution and in stereoscopy. I'm posting this guide so that anyone else who wants to try will be able to, without having to "reinvent the wheel".
First, a disclaimer: this guide refers to the version you can buy from GOG.com.

If you have a system like mine (Windows 7, nVidia video card, iz3D stereoscopic drivers) and you try to run SiN just after installing it, you'll be disappointed to see that the game is not displayed at all, but instead it only displays a couple of blue/gray rectangles. Do not panic. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL, bring up the task manager and terminate Sin.exe. This happened because the GOG version of SiN is bundled with nGlide, a Glide-to-D3D9 wrapper which is incompatible with the iz3D drivers.

- So, first, open your SiN directory and get rid of all files relating to nGlide (glide.dll, glide2.dll, glide3.dll, nglide_config.exe, nglide_readme.txt)
- Now rename Sin.exe to Quake2.exe (yes, really, I'll explain later why) and launch it again. Its configuration will revert to software mode. Probably, the 2D graphics will not be displayed correctly, but you'll be able to read the text and quit the game.
- Rename your SiN executable back to Sin.exe.
- Go to the Widescreen Gaming Forum, reach the page about SiN and download the SiN patcher for the retail version. Save it into the same directory as Sin.exe.
- Launch the SiN patcher, enter your desired resolution into the text boxes and click "Apply resolution".
- Download GLDirect from Sourceforge and unzip it anywhere. This is an OpenGL to Direct3D9 wrapper, very useful to run games based on Quake 1, 2 or 3 in stereoscopy.
- Go to wherever you unzipped GLDirect, reach the subdirectory gldirect5\bin\release, cut opengl32.dll and paste it into the same directory as Sin.exe.
- Rename Sin.exe to Quake2.exe, again, and launch it.
- Configure it to use Default OpenGL, maximum detail with the resolution of 1152x864. Thanks to the patch you used before, it will actually use the resolution you want, instead. And thanks to the wrapper DLL you pasted, the OpenGL calls will be translated to Direct3D9, allowing the stereoscopic drivers to kick in and display SiN in glorious stereoscopy!

And the reason for renaming Sin.exe to Quake2.exe? Well, apparently, both nVidia and ATI video drivers apply certain optimizations depending on the name of the executable that is being launched. If you deceive the video drivers into believing you are running Quake2, they will apply the necessary optimizations that are required to run SiN. Otherwise, they won't, and SiN will crash.

[cybereality]

Thanks for the guide.

Always wanted to play that SiN game, but never bought it for some reason.