MotoCross Madness 2

[hssreddragon]

I've been having a problem with an old game favorite called Motocross Madness 2 from Microsoft. When I migrated from XP to Vista(and now Windows 7) I noticed a peculiar problem with the graphics. On startup the game looked fine and at first I didn't notice that it wasn't bringing up the graphics card selection window. When you actually start playing the game though the terrain looks like flanel, very blocky and low resolution. The performance is also horrible when riding around. When I flipped back to the video settings I noticed it was defaulting to Software Rasterization rather than hardware. The check box to display a video selection on startup was checked but was obviously having no effect on the actual setting itself because I never see the selector box.

At some point I thought the game had just gotten beyond support and that it I would have to ditch it and move on even though I loved the tag ball mode which never seemed to make it into the sequels like MX vs ATV. The thing that got me thinking was when I install on my Vista laptop and the game ran fine with no graphical flaws at all. At this point I thought maybe it was an architecture problem because my workstation was Vista x64 and the laptop was Vista x86. However, this problem was discarded when I did my Windows 7 x64 upgrade and noticed the game ran fine on my media station. At first I thought it was Windows 7 but then when I upgrade my workstation the game still didn't function properly.

In the end it appears to be a system memory issue. My laptop and my media center both only have 3 and 2 GB of memory in them. I noticed, based on this fact, that the registry keys change based on that difference. Obviously I compared the registry settings on both machines and tried to duplicate the settings on the 4 GB workstation. While the settings took, the game would not function with the settings matched. The video card selector window would pop up, I'd chose the proper card and the game would simply close. If I return the registry settings to default, pull a stick of RAM and run things again the game runs without a hitch. So, rather than pulling RAM every time I want to play the game has anyone else ran into this problem and found a solution?

Obviously the game is old and was pretty much left unsupported by Microsoft a decade ago but I was just curious if any other nostalgic gamers out there have ran into similiar issues. Thanks!

Red

 

[r_manic]

Here are two things to try:

-Upgrade your RAM
-Try running the game in XP compatibility mode
-Try installing a virtual machine on your Windows 7 system, then create a virtual PC that runs Windows XP

Let us know if either does the trick.

 

[hssreddragon]

Upgrade RAM? I'm tried it on several different types of workstations with different types of RAM.

2 GB of OCZ 1066 Reaper RAM - Game Works
4 GB of OCZ 1066 Reaper RAM - Game doesn't work
3 GB of whatever ram Toshiba uses in it's Satellite s9810 laptops - Game Works
2 GB of Patriot 667 RAM - Game Works
4 GB of Patriot 667 RAM - Game Doesn't work
2 GB of Corsair DDR3 RAM - Game Works
4 GB of Corsair DDR3 RAM - Game Doesn't work

It's quite consistent where RAM is concerned. Amount matters, manufacturer & speed doesn't. Have tried it in single and dual channel mode and mode made no difference. The RAM amount changes some registry keys dynamically when the game is launched. Change those settings manually with the higher amount of RAM and the game crashes. If there are other system files changing based on the RAM amount I'm not aware of it yet.

As for XP compat mode, I've tried installing under that option and I've tried running it under every single compat mode from 98 up on Windows 7 and nothing made a difference.

Have not tried the virtual yet. I haven't tried it with new versions but my experience with old virtual machines is that they don't emulate 3d graphics cards very well so I assumed this would be a bust from the start.

 

[mumse]

Found any sullotion yet to this problem ?

I have two Win 7 x64 machines (one workstation and one Laptop) The Workstation has 4gb ram (1GBx4) the laptop has 3gb ram

MM2 runs fine on the laptop but i have the same problems you have on the worstation, dont know if it matters but the laptop has Nvidia graphics and the workstatin has ATI.

Tryed pulling two sticks of ram out of the WS but no diffrence

Can you tell med where in the registry you made your changes ?

 

[hssreddragon]

I have not found a solution yet short of removing the RAM.

Graphics card wise I have tried the following:

Nvidia 8800GT, 8800GTS, 9800GT, GTX 260, GTX260 SOC, GTX 280 and the laptop using an 8700m GT.


I don't have the registry key available right now (since I'm at work) but if you go to HKLocalMachine/software/syswow64/microsoft/microsoft games/Motocross Madness (I think that's the key from memory) you should see some graphics cards settings under the key. Once the memory has been decreased change the DisabledHardware from a 1 to a 0 and run the game again and see what happens. I'll confirm the key locations when I get home but if you've done registry mods before you should be able to locate it from my description.

You will know immediately if it's working because the graphics card selection screen will be displayed upon program launch.

 

[mumse]

Pulling one stick of ram and chaging the registry made the trick...thats a rather crappy way of solving this problem

Is there any way to fool the OS that its only got 3GB ram installed without having to physicaly remove it ?

 

[hssreddragon]

That's the fix I've been looking into but I have yet to find anything to do that. Obviously you can run a virtual OS on your desktop and restrict the amount of RAM available to it but restricting it to the primary OS is the trick. It's funny we've spent so many years trying to get Windows to recognize more than 3 GBs of RAM and now we're trying to do the opposite to make things like this work. If there was a way to restrict the amount of RAM available to a specific application that would be perfect but I just don't know how yet.

 

[mumse]

Asked on a Swedish forum (sweclockers.com)

one way of solving this could be "MSCONFIG > Boot > Advanced Options"

Check the "Maximum memory:" box and set the maximum amount.

Then reboot.

Havent tryed it my self yeat but it can be worth a try.

 

[hssreddragon]

OMG it's hard to believe but it works! Motocross works again! Thanks for that advice, I never even considered it. Once the setting you mentioned is set it says that 4GB of memory is installed but only the amount you put in is actually available to the system. Once I set that to 2GB of RAM everything worked perfectly!

 

[bpl442]

hssreddragon and mumse, thanks very much for your effort on this! I had all but given up on playing MCM2 on my Windows 7 machine. Thanks again

 

[dman7]

hey so after getting the game to play on my windows 7 machine, thanks to mumse, now the graphics are dreadful. the ground is made up of huge squares and there is no dust or anything in the game?

 

[jimbo8098]

I have not found a solution yet short of removing the RAM.

Graphics card wise I have tried the following:

Nvidia 8800GT, 8800GTS, 9800GT, GTX 260, GTX260 SOC, GTX 280 and the laptop using an 8700m GT.


I don't have the registry key available right now (since I'm at work) but if you go to HKLocalMachine/software/syswow64/microsoft/microsoft games/Motocross Madness (I think that's the key from memory) you should see some graphics cards settings under the key. Once the memory has been decreased change the DisabledHardware from a 1 to a 0 and run the game again and see what happens. I'll confirm the key locations when I get home but if you've done registry mods before you should be able to locate it from my description.

You will know immediately if it's working because the graphics card selection screen will be displayed upon program launch.

This has worked for me. Ill give instructions below:

on 64 Bit sytem:

go to start>run and type in regedit and press enter
if you are using vista or 7 then click start and type regedit into the search box and press enter

On the left hand side navigate through the following:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>SOFTWARE>Wow6432Node (thats what it is for me)>Microsoft>Microsoft Games>Motocross Madness 2 > DriverInfo and double click the one starting with a bunch of zeros.

Now after you have navigated there on the right hand panel you should see a file named diabled hardware. Double click that file and a window will popup. Just type the nuber 0 and hit enter. Close out of regedit and run the game now and you will see the window.

Enjoy!

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey