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All I can suggest is to go through my readme and see if anything there helps you, especially the FAQ. If it doesn't, I have no idea what is going on.
Please help me :(?
I have 2 questions:
1. Would it be possible to display the mini-map in the bottom left (where we now have the large blue field?)?
Since there's extra space there, it seems like a little QoLif we wouldn't have to click the tab to see the mini-map.
2. How are you editing the exe file? I had a look at it with UltraEdit and it just came up as a bunch of hex code (a thread in a French forum explained which value to change so 6 sanctuaries can be built instead of the limit of 4). Wouldn't mind learning more about how you managed to understand the code (I'd love to learn how to manipulate some stuff to allow for more interesting adventures)
As for your questions:
1. It might be possible. It would require figuring out where in the game's EXE the code for drawing the minimap is, then modify that code to always draw it and position it in that area. Unfortunately, I don't currently have the time or knowledge required to do this.
2. There is quite the story behind this program. My program effectively hex-edits individual bytes in the game's EXE to make it run at higher resolutions. To add onto what I wrote in the description, I followed the guide that Mario wrote to learn what offsets in the EXE needed to be modified to make the changes I needed. However, Mario's guide was incomplete in that it did not have instructions for writing code that fills in the gaps in the game's UI caused by the resolution changes (one of those gaps being where the large blue field is).
To get this effect, I loaded JackFuste's patched EXEs into a hex editor (HxD is my editor of choice) and searched for all the differences between the two. To get a better idea of what the code was doing, I also loaded the EXEs into a disassembler (IDA Pro is my preferred disassembler) to translate those bytes into x86 Assembly. At this point, I worked out that JackFuste had injected extra executable code into his EXEs that drew UI elements in what were the empty gaps. Unfortunately, my initial attempts to just drop his injected code into my patcher failed as it was designed to work only at one specific resolution. In the end, I had to re-write his assembly from the ground up to work with any resolution value the user might type into my program. Besides this, it was mostly trial-and-error of making a change to the EXE and seeing what effect this change had on the game.
If you wish to learn more, you can find my source code for the patching process here. I also preserved Mario's original guide in my source code here.
Would it be possible to add an option to prevent the mouse pointer from leaving the game window? In dual screen settings, scrolling the in-game view can be pretty tedious because your mouse will automatically go to your other screen.
I'd also really appreciate a borderless windowed mode too, but I assume it's not possible, right? I prefer fullscreen mode, but the massive delay whenever you want to alt-tab out of the game is really annoying, so having a borderless windowed mode with fullscreen resolution would be the best of both worlds.
Thanks!
Unfortunately, I don't believe it's possible to constrain the cursor to the game's window just by hex editing it's EXE. AFAIK, the game has to be specifically programmed to do this.
As for borderless windowed mode: It might be doable, but I would need to research how exactly this can be done. For me personally, I just use this program to remove the game's borders and window decorations: https://github.com/Codeusa/Borderless-Gaming/releases
I suspect that the problem you're having is that you've installed the game to "Program Files" or some other protected folder. This would mean that without admin privileges, the game can't properly access files in it's root folder, which is probably the reason it's crashing. This would be why XP compatibility works, this compatibility option also tells the program to run with admin privileges.
As for why you only needed to tweak the compatibility settings after patching the game, I suspect that the Windows compatibility logic is looking for a Zeus EXE that has a specific checksum. If so, this means that the compatibility settings are applied to the original EXE as it has a recognised checksum, but not to a patched EXE with a different checksum.
How do I manage to get this working in fullscreen? Thank you.
That said, the game already runs in Fullscreen by default. The only reason it would be in Windowed mode is because you changed the setting I mentioned.
(and sorry if my english is not perfect, not so comfortable to me :) )
So what you have is not an official French version sold by GOG. It's the regular English version that you modded to use the French language files. I'm assuming you used something like this: https://www.gog.com/forum/zeus_poseidon_acropolis/fr_zeus_une_traduction_complete?
Unfortunately, I can't support modified copies of the game. My recommendation is to install the original English GOG version of the game, then use my program to change the resolution to what you want. After that, install the mod you used to translate the game into French. After that, you should be good to go.
I'm also planning on tracking down a French CD version of the game. Once I have a copy, I might end up making my own translation patch.