[WillowIX]

Originally posted by Radek: I am fighting with crap2000, too and I am getting similar crashes as well [img]graemlins/madhell.gif[/img] My current hardware is the following: Motherboard: K7N2 Delta L CPU: Athlon XP 2200+ RAM 1 GB (That's why I cannot run w98. I am not about to pull a memory chip out of my computer whenever the windows crashes such a way that a reinstallation is necessary). HD Caviar 40 GB Video: GeForce Ti 4200 TD 8x Sound: SB Live 512 CD, CDRW, Zip, etc. Operating system: eCS and, well, crap2000 with sp2 [img]graemlins/confused5.gif[/img] Here is my current experience: 1. Be an administrator. You cannot play as a user. Don't forget that a "user" under Neanderthal Technology is a being which cannot be trusted at all and which must not be allowed to install or run anything, not even a printer driver. All games are "near kernel" applications that try to compensate inefficiency of windows by using "low level" APIs. Such applications cannot be run at the user level successfuly. 2. Unpack the .avi files by means of Virtual Dub. Otherwise, you cannot play at all. At this moment, I was able of ALMOST everything - except using items on another objects (using keys on locks or using the Bauble Stick on the crystal) but I was able to use potions on myself or cast spells on myself. I was also able to pick items from the ground, disarming chests, entering all houses in Valeia and so on. I was also able to insert crystals into receptacles. 3. Activate the compatibility layer and play using the w95 layer. This seems to solve the problems with the keys and similar items. Well, the result is still unsatisfactory: a) The game crashes significantly more often than it did under w98. b) Once the game crashes, I get a permanent false white cursor in the middle of the action window. Quititng the game and restarting it does not help, the cursor is there again! Only restarting crap2000 helps! c) The Save Game screen is extremely jerky. Nevertheless, I am able to run the game somehow. Note: I have removed DirectX and replaced it with DirectX comming with W&W. Therefore, I see the following possible sources of Willow's problems: 1. sp2 at least is needed. 2. some application thread is guilty, the system threads should not be guilty. 3. incompatibility between DirectX and crap2000.

SP2 is a must have. You won't be able to enable compatibility mode without it. If you have trouble with it, try SP3 (be sure to backup while installing!). There are some new adjustments and improvements to the compatibility mode in that upgrade. But there are a few things you can't get rid off. For instance the game WILL crash more often when using Win2000. What I experienced was the constant crashes when trying to cast a spell, opening a chest, using/giving an item etc. Running the game in compatibility mode will solve those crashes but the game will still crash. (And Iplay logged in as a user with administrative priviligies).

OK, I doubt that your graphics problems is due to Win2000 (well it probably is but not in the same way as above). Which graphics driver are you using? The most stable Nvidia driver is 30.82. Try using that to check your driver since you don't need the Detonator FX drivers for your card (lucky you ). 41.09 is also a pretty good one.

There are several known problems using DirectX 8 on windows 2000 (or any other OS for that matter). However the DX8.1 has several bug fixes and runs smooth on most machines. I'm guessing you were using 8.1. But the 8.1 is fully compatible with the DX7 on most machines.

BTW, what crashes do you experience with Win98? 1Gb Ram shouldn't be a problem (win95 could recognize up to 2Gb RAM). The only thing about that is that Win 98 will never use that much.

But this "constant" crashing is probably due to video programming. I'm not quite sure how W&W is programmed but I'm guessing there could be some movie "files" in there to open chests, animate spells etc. Unless a patch to correct these errors is presented I doubt W&W will be completely compatible with WIndows 2000.