WARNING TO WIN2000 USERS: TOWN BUGS

[Archimedes]

This is a partial repost of one of my former posts under a clearer heading (done at Wyvern's request):

I had the problem of not being able to exit Ishad N'ha. I also didn't have a mages' guild I could access in Valeia. Turns out this is a well-known Windows 2000 issue, and there is an easy fix for it.

The towns are basically movie files. The left and right arrows move you forward and backward in the videos. The makers of Wizards and Warriors chose to put these movies into compressed format. While the call they use to run these movies in the town screen works for Windows 95/98 and also works for Windows 2000 if the movies are not compressed it does not work for Windows 2000 if the movies are compressed.

Simple solution, uncompress the movie files.

There are six files that all end up being about 32 MB each once they are uncompressed (so you will need about 180MB more disk space). They are in a subdirectory of the game directory (might be called town) and they all have the extention .avi. You need to download a program called VirtualDub (or any other program that can read in compressed and write out uncompressed movie files) from the internet, install it, and use it to uncompress the video files. This mostly consists of opening the files and saving them under a different filename, then deleting the old (compressed) files and changing the names of the uncompressed versions.

Once done you just run Wizards and Warriors and you should be able to get out of Ishad N'ha, as well as being able to enter several more locations in both Ishad N'ha and Valeia that you couldn't before.

If you don't have Windows 2000 I'm afraid you have a bug I am not familiar with and this advice probably won't help you. You could try it anyway, it won't hurt (aside from using up more hard drive space), but it probably won't help either.

Either way, good luck


I can't claim credit for discovering this. I was helped by both Wizards and Warriors tech support (which is aware of the problem and told me some general information but didn't know of a specific program to fix the problem) and Eldurin, a poster on this board, who gave me the specific name and URL of VirtualDub. Thanks Eldurin.

--Archimedes

LOL...Why are you even playing the game with Win2k....Why not install Win98...Win2k isnt for gaming...

Are you kidding? Win2k plays virtually every game I've tried on this system. Quake, TFC, Tribes, W&W, Starcraft, AoE..and they all work great. In fact they're more stable than on 98. The os never crashes (hasn't on me yet..unlike winblows 9 and still plays everything I wanted to in 98. Without the crashes/freezes... if I have to use a M$ OS (which I do if I wanna play games), I'll use win2k

Well I know that "Some games work"..Alot does actually,,,but the game(s) is developed for Win95-98 and Me,,,,And that Quake works and some of the biggest sellers there is not very odd since they actually support Win2k...

But why would they start making games for a ServerOS(getting them suported)

Win2k is nothing for the home user...

If you know what you are doing,,you certainly do that,,then Win2k is an ecellent system..and if you can live with that not every game will work....I cant....

[Wyvern]

Archimedes!

Thanks! I think you will save some people some grief. I may get into the habit of bumping this post back to the top along with the serpent temple map, serpent temple spoilers and the patch coming files which seem to be so useful.

Wyv

w2k is ment to replace 98 & NT .. w2k advanced is the workstation/singleuser ( nt workstation or 98 replacement ) .. w2k server is the nt server , w2k advanced server is the replacement for nt enterprize ...
My most powerfull machine , and the one i play all my games on , is w2k advanced server ... i have yet to find a game that will not run on it .. and except for Dungeon Keeper II every game runs TONS more stable ...
just my 2 cents.


Thans for the town lock-up fix .. i acctully went back to the orginal town just to look to see what was in the magic guild .. hehe never noticed their was a second exit from town their .. now i understand some of the quests.

Granted, most of the games were *not* specifically coded for win2k. But they work (most). And it's more stable than 95/98..that's what always got me ticked, was crashes. I'm lucky that I havne't run into a game yet that doesn't run on win2k, as I can't see myself dual booting (too lazy .

In the end, most games will run on win2k, and usually more stable, but of course there are exceptions as Junker mentions. But for those that want stablility, the NT family is the best M$ option.. so win2k is the compromise area. Stable, and plays *most* games....

[Wyvern]

Back to the top with you!

Wyv

going up again
dam those lifts in the stout mine