Video problems with old games, Win98SE

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure (More info?)

I have just been replaying some of my old games and run into strange
video problems. I'd like to see if anyone else with a Win98SE system has
had similar experiences.

My system - Win98SE, Ti-4200 nVidia with 61.76 drivers, DirectX9.0c

Timelapse which uses Quicktime32 reports no hardware support and uses an
old Microsoft vdg.drv file. Game runs if you first switch to 640x480x256
mode but on exit, all screen colors are scrambled. The Omega Stone (ROTS
II) crashes to the desktop if configured to use video hardware but plays
if configured for software.

Anyone know if these problems are caused by DirectX, nVidia driver, or
video card? I think both games ran in hardware modes with an older video
card installed. The Adventure Company gives little useful support on
ROTS2 but has an interesting claim for XP users. TAC claims that a
security update has rendered many of their games unplayable with
symptoms similar to the above.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure (More info?)

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 15:03:50 GMT, Robert Gault
<robert.gault@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

>My system - Win98SE, Ti-4200 nVidia with 61.76 drivers, DirectX9.0c
>
Could be the video drivers. The 60 series of Nvidia drivers do
not like some older games. I ran into this problem with my XP system.
Had to downgrade to the 56.72 driver to get the old games to work. And
Nvidia has already stated that they're not going to fix the problem.


Frederick J. Barnett http://www.eatel.net/~fred/
"Someone's got to take the responsibility if the job's going to get done!! Do you think that's easy?!" Gregory Peck - The Guns Of Navarone

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure (More info?)

On that special day, Robert Gault, (robert.gault@worldnet.att.net)
said...

> Ti-4200 nVidia with 61.76 drivers,

Try older drivers of the 40.x series. I have heard that the newest botch
old video cards. they are probably designed for XP, and dumped the Win9x
versions for good, which has some effects on the performance.


Gabriele Neukam

Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de


--
Ah, Information. A property, too valuable these days, to give it away,
just so, at no cost.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure (More info?)

"Gabriele Neukam" <Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de> schreef in
bericht news:cuvttk$g6f$05$2@news.t-online.com...
> On that special day, Robert Gault, (robert.gault@worldnet.att.net)
> said...
>
> > Ti-4200 nVidia with 61.76 drivers,
>
> Try older drivers of the 40.x series. I have heard that the newest botch
> old video cards. they are probably designed for XP, and dumped the Win9x
> versions for good, which has some effects on the performance.
>
>
> Gabriele Neukam
>
> Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de
>
>
> --
> Ah, Information. A property, too valuable these days, to give it away,
> just so, at no cost.

I think you're right. I've tried the 61.** drivers from nVidia but they did
crash my machine after working well for about a month(?). Downgraded to the
45.23 driverset and they work fine! Worth a try.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure (More info?)

On my system, the 61.76 drivers work just fine. That probably means
success is dependent on the motherboard as well as the video card and
driver set.

However, back to The Omega Stone. I'm sure that when I bought the game I
could use Hardware Rendering for video. With my current system of Asus
A7V8X-X and Ti-4200 I am forced to use Software Rendering or the game
won't start; major system crash with subsequent resolution change.

I have tried different 4-in-1 Via drivers, nVdia drivers (back to
40.52), video cards (Riva128, old S3 card), and DX-8 instead of DX-9.
None of these changes permit running ROTS-II in Hardware mode.

One other problem is that now one of the puzzles is impossible to solve.
The Rev1 of the game had a stone slab with a clue to the rotating skull
puzzle. This slab could not be read on the right side. Revsision 1.1
corrected this. Now that I can only use Software Rendering to run the
game, I can see the stone slab clearly in either revision but the scroll
in the skull room now can't be read correctly. Only the center 3/4 of
the scroll can be read and I can't pan to the edges.

However for anyone else that runs into this problem (and I'd like to
hear from those who do) I found a workaround. The images in ROTS-II are
in Targa format even though they have an extension of .spr instead of
..tga. That means you can view the images in the game using graphics
program such a Paint Shop Pro or ThumbsPlus. The problem scroll image is
a 1024x768x16bit Targa.

E-Cie wrote:

> "Gabriele Neukam" <Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de> schreef in
> bericht news:cuvttk$g6f$05$2@news.t-online.com...
>
>>On that special day, Robert Gault, (robert.gault@worldnet.att.net)
>>said...
>>
>>
>>>Ti-4200 nVidia with 61.76 drivers,
>>
>>Try older drivers of the 40.x series. I have heard that the newest botch
>>old video cards. they are probably designed for XP, and dumped the Win9x
>>versions for good, which has some effects on the performance.
>>
>>
>>Gabriele Neukam
>>
>>Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de
>>
>>
>>--
>>Ah, Information. A property, too valuable these days, to give it away,
>>just so, at no cost.
>
>
> I think you're right. I've tried the 61.** drivers from nVidia but they did
> crash my machine after working well for about a month(?). Downgraded to the
> 45.23 driverset and they work fine! Worth a try.
>
>