XP problems.

[NickCowan]

Hello there, first post, and it would be a problem, wouldn't it?

Right, I've got XP SP2, and although I had a couple of problems with it orignally, I'm happy again now. I bought the game because I saw it in a second hand shop and thought "that looks good" without realising it isn't suppsoed to run on XP. Anyway. Here's my problem:

On clicking "start new game" the game opens up - at least, about half way (i think) what i see is a black screen, surrounded by the GUI of the game. I can change options like screen resolution by clicking the little computer in the left hand bottom corner, and i can click on the "village" icons. However, there is nothing on what I suppose you'd call the game screen. I've tried the virtualdub suggestion, but that made no difference, I've played with running in 95 or 98/Me, but to no avail. I've even tried messing with DirectX a little... but I'm a bit dubious about DirectX9.0c. I think Microsoft have finally built something tough, and instead of being good, it's using its strength for evil - i can't get rid of it, and it seems I can't re-install it over itself... which is weird. Help!

[Wyvern]

Welcome to the board, NickCowan!!!

As previously mentioned, I'm not much help with the tech problems. Bungleau may be able to offer solutions and he's on regularly so keep checking back.

Wyv

[bsftcs]

Welcome. [img]graemlins/happywave.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Bungleau]

Welcome to the boards, NickCowan! May your blade soon slice straight and true.

Now, as for these problems...

First off, let me understand exactly where you are. You're getting past the opening splash screen (with the picture of the angel holding the sword) and getting to the first "town" screen, correct? Only you're not seeing the "town" in the middle of the screen? You can click on things, but just can't do anything in the town?

If that's the case, then you are probably in good luck. That part of the screen is in the .avi files, and I'm pretty sure it's just the townmsk.avi files. However, if you've already vdubbed those files and it's still misbehaving, I'd go ahead and vdub the townhub files as well.

I'd redo your virtual dubbing *and* download the old codec (from the link on the bottom of the first page in this thread). The townmsk files on my system are 32,780kb in size when vdubbed... if yours are in the neighborhood of 1500-200kb, they're still the originals.

You can also switch to graphical software mode. That is generally more forgiving than hardware mode. You can do that by clicking on that little computer in the corner of the game screen and moving to Graphics.

Defragging, shutting down other applications, fixing the size of virtual memory... those are standard good habits.

You might want to remove the game and reinstall it to ensure that you're starting from a clean install. I'm about to do that, since whenever I access my townmsk directory, XP throws up a memory violation error I think I've got something bad in there...

Oh, and my problems increased once I went to SP2 and 9.0C. I can still play the game, but it crashes more frequently. It can be done... it's just a question of putting the proper things in order and sacrificing a small goat when necessary.

Or a Macintosh...

Give those a shot, and let me know what happens next. I'll see what else I can think of.

[NickCowan]

OK, well I had already redone the avi files, they're all 32megs now... i've downloaded the indeo codec, and reinstalled it on my machine - but to no avail! In fact, clicking on "veiw intro" gave me a rude error message that had a slightly registry-like flavour to it... any thoughts?

Edit: It's just occured to me that I plugged in a patch I found online. I dunno if this is having an adverse effect, but to test this theory, I will uninstall and reinstall the game. I am even going to install it onto the C drive (generally only windows lives there) to see if that helps it in any way. As for virtual memory, i've given over 1500-3000megs, so I don't think it could be that... though you never know... I'm going to defrag it after it's finished uninstalling.... fingers crossed!

[ 03-11-2005, 02:36 PM: Message edited by: NickCowan ]