JemyM
Okay, now roll sanity.
- Joined
- October 26, 2006
- Messages
- 6,027
I have experimented with getting Lands of Lore II: Guardians of Destiny to run in 64-bit Windows 7 and it's not without hassle. In fact, it seems the game is currently unplayable with 3d Acceleration. (Running the game in windows without 3d acceleration or in DOSBox gives about the same result).
For information; I have tested on 2 rigs, one laptop with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT and a regular computer with NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX. I cannot test with an ATI rig. I have also tested this in VMWare 7.0 with Windows XP 32bit, both with DirectX 9.0c and 8.1, still with the same result.
There is a patch for the game (1.30) that adds hardware acceleration. In the settings you can select Acceleration, Bilinear Filtering, Use 4444 Color, Switch Movie Display and Switch Automap Display. The last two seem to correspond to values in options.ini called Acceleration_VGA_Automap & Acceleration_VGA_Movies. This is not entirely intuitive because when they are set as "No" 3d acceleration seem to be enabled and you can see the 3d cards texture filtering in effect.
The 3d uses Direct X 3.0, which had functions appearently removed in DX10/11. Simply running all three accelerations on you get a screenshot like what follows. It seems transparency ceases to work all the time so objects usually end up with a black box around them. I use D3D Windower, explained below. I also use some nvidia enhancements also explained below. These boxes do not appear when not using 3d acceleration!
I found one with the same issue in this thread on another forum, unfortunately it only debates piracy, but you can see some shots from the guy lower down.
The readme for the patch mentions black filled squares in the note on 4444 color (16-bit). But this doesn't help.
If you turn off 3d acceleration for the menues the black boxes are less common but still common enough to be disturbing, however, if you do the menues and the ingame movies are garbled. What follows is a screenshot taken with a camera, then one taken with a screenshot utility. As you can see it looks ok internally, but output into garbled graphics. The third image is taken from the introduction of the game.
What I learned so far
Installation
Installation doesn't seem to work with modern machines. It simply refuses to run. To bypass this you can either install the thing in DOSBox or VMWare/Virtual PC, but you can also do it manually. Considering the annoying installation utility you might prefer to do it manually. The problems above still happens even if you use the real installer.
To install:
1. Create a folder on your harddrive
2. Copy all files from CD1 inside the folders \INSTALL and \SETUP\INSTALL into your folder (about 39 files)
3. Create a textfile, rename it to LOLSETUP.INI and add this info;
I personally copied all the .MIX files (all 4 CD's) to my game folder in attempt to make it run on Harddrive only. I am not sure if it works though.
Run for Windows NT
Rightclick LOLG95.EXE
Select Properties
Select Compatibility (tab)
Check the box before "Run this program in compatibility mode for:"
Select Windows NT (might also work with Windows 95 or 98)
This seems to reduce some of the crashes.
Applying the patch = Broken?
You might wish to install the 1.30 patch to get 3d Acceleration.
Patching the game
Copy PATCH/LL2-130E.EXE to the same folder.
LL2-130E.EXE refuses to run on 64-bit no matter what I did.
I applied the patch inside DOSBox!
LL2-130E.EXE unpacks itself into a couple of files called PATCH, then it run it's own internal PATCH.BAT that will first execute a PATCH.EXE, then delete all extracted files. In order to test the patch I have disrupted LL2-130E.EXE once unpacked, then deleted PATCH.BAT in order to experiment.
I get the following error message, but the game seem to start anyway;
When I used PATCH -list it reveals that it's supposed to modify LOLG.DAT, LOLG95.exe, then extract OPTTEXT.TRR, CREDITS.TRR, PATCH.DOC and PATCH.TXT. After much effort I managed those files to be modified and extracted but then it try to modify "DANIEL_.WOM" which simply isn't available. For DANIEL_.WOM I get "error eut0008: Internal Error 'table.c(183)'.
When I finally ran the patch in VMWare 7 under a 32-bit Windows, I managed to extract 10 files. Here is all the files patched/extracted; Patch v1.30 extracted.
Using D3D Windower to avoid garbled menu/video
When I ran the game I got graphical problems depending on "Switch Movie Display" Yes/No inside Hardware Acceleration. If I use it as YES, all videos and the menues got garbled colors. If I used NO, all in-game textures got a black frame. I solved this by using D3D Windower and ran the game in a Window. I have yet to find a way to make 3d Acceleration work properly in fullscreen and I still get some black boxes but it's not as bad. I had a similar problem with ARCANUM and SANITARIUM that I solved this way.
Use D3D Windower
1. Run D3D Windower
2. Click the "+" icon (add program)
3. Select LOLG95.EXE (LOLG95 appears in the list, click it once to select it)
4. Click settings (icon of a yellow folder with tools in it)
5. Pick a custom height/width that fit's your taste. Remember that you must run the game in a window. Also remember aspect ratio. You can use modes like 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1600x1200, 1920x1440, 2048x1536 etc
6. Make sure "Use Windowed Mode" is checked.
7. Leave the other options untouched.
8. You can now use "Run program" to run the game (small computer icon).
9. You can use the > icon to "Run Emulation", but I personally haven't gotten it to work (it gives you the same graphics corruption you get when running the game in regular mode).
Messing around with NVidia drivers
No matter what I have done in the NVidia drivers I got nowhere to actually fix the problems, but I found some ways to improve the graphics of the old game.
Enhance the graphics with nhancer
Using NVIDIA I could set up a profile to enhance my graphics a bit. I use nHancer to make things simple.
Enhancements; Anti-Aliasing, Anisotropic Filtering
Optimizations; Texture Filtering (High Quality)
Compatibility; Force Mip-Maps (trilinear) (not sure if this is an improvement)
For information; I have tested on 2 rigs, one laptop with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT and a regular computer with NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX. I cannot test with an ATI rig. I have also tested this in VMWare 7.0 with Windows XP 32bit, both with DirectX 9.0c and 8.1, still with the same result.
There is a patch for the game (1.30) that adds hardware acceleration. In the settings you can select Acceleration, Bilinear Filtering, Use 4444 Color, Switch Movie Display and Switch Automap Display. The last two seem to correspond to values in options.ini called Acceleration_VGA_Automap & Acceleration_VGA_Movies. This is not entirely intuitive because when they are set as "No" 3d acceleration seem to be enabled and you can see the 3d cards texture filtering in effect.
The 3d uses Direct X 3.0, which had functions appearently removed in DX10/11. Simply running all three accelerations on you get a screenshot like what follows. It seems transparency ceases to work all the time so objects usually end up with a black box around them. I use D3D Windower, explained below. I also use some nvidia enhancements also explained below. These boxes do not appear when not using 3d acceleration!
I found one with the same issue in this thread on another forum, unfortunately it only debates piracy, but you can see some shots from the guy lower down.
The readme for the patch mentions black filled squares in the note on 4444 color (16-bit). But this doesn't help.
PATCH.TXT said:2.2.4. Use 4444 Color (On/Off)
This option is NOT RECOMMENDED unless your card requires it. It allows the card to select a sixteen bit color format that many cards support, but very few require. If you run the game with it off ("No") and you notice graphics that have black filled squares around them, try switching this option to Yes".
If you turn off 3d acceleration for the menues the black boxes are less common but still common enough to be disturbing, however, if you do the menues and the ingame movies are garbled. What follows is a screenshot taken with a camera, then one taken with a screenshot utility. As you can see it looks ok internally, but output into garbled graphics. The third image is taken from the introduction of the game.
What I learned so far
Installation
Installation doesn't seem to work with modern machines. It simply refuses to run. To bypass this you can either install the thing in DOSBox or VMWare/Virtual PC, but you can also do it manually. Considering the annoying installation utility you might prefer to do it manually. The problems above still happens even if you use the real installer.
To install:
1. Create a folder on your harddrive
2. Copy all files from CD1 inside the folders \INSTALL and \SETUP\INSTALL into your folder (about 39 files)
3. Create a textfile, rename it to LOLSETUP.INI and add this info;
[Swap]
Swap_Size=150000000
I personally copied all the .MIX files (all 4 CD's) to my game folder in attempt to make it run on Harddrive only. I am not sure if it works though.
Run for Windows NT
Rightclick LOLG95.EXE
Select Properties
Select Compatibility (tab)
Check the box before "Run this program in compatibility mode for:"
Select Windows NT (might also work with Windows 95 or 98)
This seems to reduce some of the crashes.
Applying the patch = Broken?
You might wish to install the 1.30 patch to get 3d Acceleration.
Patching the game
Copy PATCH/LL2-130E.EXE to the same folder.
LL2-130E.EXE refuses to run on 64-bit no matter what I did.
I applied the patch inside DOSBox!
LL2-130E.EXE unpacks itself into a couple of files called PATCH, then it run it's own internal PATCH.BAT that will first execute a PATCH.EXE, then delete all extracted files. In order to test the patch I have disrupted LL2-130E.EXE once unpacked, then deleted PATCH.BAT in order to experiment.
I get the following error message, but the game seem to start anyway;
OPTTEXT.ERR is created by the patch and opening it with NOTEPAD.EXE seems to reveal it adds the english text in the options menu (the new Hardware Acceleration option). Trying to start without this will crash the game when selecting options within the game.ENTRY: OPTTEXT.TRR
error ept0025: Verify of New File Failed. Possible Internal Error.
When I used PATCH -list it reveals that it's supposed to modify LOLG.DAT, LOLG95.exe, then extract OPTTEXT.TRR, CREDITS.TRR, PATCH.DOC and PATCH.TXT. After much effort I managed those files to be modified and extracted but then it try to modify "DANIEL_.WOM" which simply isn't available. For DANIEL_.WOM I get "error eut0008: Internal Error 'table.c(183)'.
When I finally ran the patch in VMWare 7 under a 32-bit Windows, I managed to extract 10 files. Here is all the files patched/extracted; Patch v1.30 extracted.
Using D3D Windower to avoid garbled menu/video
When I ran the game I got graphical problems depending on "Switch Movie Display" Yes/No inside Hardware Acceleration. If I use it as YES, all videos and the menues got garbled colors. If I used NO, all in-game textures got a black frame. I solved this by using D3D Windower and ran the game in a Window. I have yet to find a way to make 3d Acceleration work properly in fullscreen and I still get some black boxes but it's not as bad. I had a similar problem with ARCANUM and SANITARIUM that I solved this way.
Use D3D Windower
1. Run D3D Windower
2. Click the "+" icon (add program)
3. Select LOLG95.EXE (LOLG95 appears in the list, click it once to select it)
4. Click settings (icon of a yellow folder with tools in it)
5. Pick a custom height/width that fit's your taste. Remember that you must run the game in a window. Also remember aspect ratio. You can use modes like 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1600x1200, 1920x1440, 2048x1536 etc
6. Make sure "Use Windowed Mode" is checked.
7. Leave the other options untouched.
8. You can now use "Run program" to run the game (small computer icon).
9. You can use the > icon to "Run Emulation", but I personally haven't gotten it to work (it gives you the same graphics corruption you get when running the game in regular mode).
Messing around with NVidia drivers
No matter what I have done in the NVidia drivers I got nowhere to actually fix the problems, but I found some ways to improve the graphics of the old game.
Enhance the graphics with nhancer
Using NVIDIA I could set up a profile to enhance my graphics a bit. I use nHancer to make things simple.
Enhancements; Anti-Aliasing, Anisotropic Filtering
Optimizations; Texture Filtering (High Quality)
Compatibility; Force Mip-Maps (trilinear) (not sure if this is an improvement)
Last edited:
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2006
- Messages
- 6,027