Happy Joe
Apprentice Geezer
Since up grading the ol' game computer (everything except the DVD, hard drive, and case) I have been busily installing some old favorite applications and games; most install and work fine with windows 7 home premium 64 bit. However a few had problems;
Quake 2 (game); this worked fine when doing my initial evaluation of W7 (32 bit) but after quite a bit of hassle I could only run it in a window at low resolution on the new sysytem...
Solution; It turned out that Nvidia drivers(for the video card) with versions greater than about 190.00 have problems running old open GL games... regressed to a 185 level driver... problem solved. (Hopefully, Nvidia will fix this with new driver releases.)
Diablo II (and I assume LOD); a compatibility warning is displayed immediately after trying to start the game.
Just for giggles I went ahead any way to see how bad it could get. The game got past the character screen to the install portal and locked.
Installed the 1.12a D2 patch from blizzard and diablo 2 now works fine, although it still displays the compatibility warning when starting the game. Note: the following solution was also found when researching this issue;
Problems running Diablo II w/ LOD expansion - Windows 7 Forums
"Yes there is a fix, I had the same problem initially... Try these steps, these should help:
1.) Make sure you are running at least v 1.12 so you can use the now-legit "NO CD* fix, Running from the CD often causes a read-buffer issue in W7, and having all those files on your hard drive will result in increased performance.
2.) YOU MUST Run Diablo II in Compatibility mode for *Windows XP SP 2* (Running in SP1 or 3 will cause error messages during gameplay)
3.) Run the Shortcut as an Administrator (Running as a local user causes W7 to limit its *AUDIO* functions... because it thinks the game is trying to exclusively access your sound device) and while you're there, check the box that says *Disable desktop composition*. This will allow Diablo II's 3D effects to render correctly. It temporarily disables Windows Aero and other Visual effects until the game has been exited. These effects are not compatible with the game.
4.) Go to your Diablo 2 folder and change game.exe to the same settings (Run as admin, Compat. mode for XP SP2, disable desktop composition)
5.) The only way I was able to use the 3rd mouse button was by using the older, non-legit version of D2loader.exe (An old hack they used for the no-cd thing until Patch 1.12 came out). You can now use this *hack* online as Blizzard has removed its illegitimacy and disabled the automated Battle.net Warden from detecting this online anymore as many Vista and 7 users have to use this to use their middle mouse buttons, hehe.
Thanx to Archangel!... Although I needed none of the above.
It should be noted that the 112a patch is in 2 parts one for Diablo 2 and one part for LOD ; load the first after installing Diablo 2 and the second part after upgrading to LOD.
The "NO CD" from blizzard is a part of this patch and documented as such by Blizzard;
"For users that originally performed a 'Full Installation'
and wish to run without the CD, all '.MPQ' files should
be copied from the Diablo 2 CDs to the Diablo 2 directory.
Most users will only need to copy D2Music.mpq from the
Diablo 2 Play CD and/or D2xMusic.mpq from the Lord of
Destruction CD. Mac users will need to copy these music
files and rename them to 'Diablo II Music' and
'Diablo II Expansion Music' respectively."
Crysis Demo has been found to sometimes have issues with 64 bit systems.
(Why play the demo when the game is out? I just happen to like a few of the mods for an occasional quick gaming fix...). (One of my quick jollys is to drive a hummer back up the trail to the beach where you first encounter the Koreans and then back to the first buildings. In real life I like four wheeling on difficult trails...)
This also turned out to not necessarily be a W7 issue, it may be a Nvidia problem; by switching AA off in the game control panel the original Crysis demo works fine (locks up with a black screen and a Crysis has stopped working error with AA).
If I encounter more problems and/or solutions I will post them up...
Enjoy!
Quake 2 (game); this worked fine when doing my initial evaluation of W7 (32 bit) but after quite a bit of hassle I could only run it in a window at low resolution on the new sysytem...
Solution; It turned out that Nvidia drivers(for the video card) with versions greater than about 190.00 have problems running old open GL games... regressed to a 185 level driver... problem solved. (Hopefully, Nvidia will fix this with new driver releases.)
Diablo II (and I assume LOD); a compatibility warning is displayed immediately after trying to start the game.
Just for giggles I went ahead any way to see how bad it could get. The game got past the character screen to the install portal and locked.
Installed the 1.12a D2 patch from blizzard and diablo 2 now works fine, although it still displays the compatibility warning when starting the game. Note: the following solution was also found when researching this issue;
Problems running Diablo II w/ LOD expansion - Windows 7 Forums
"Yes there is a fix, I had the same problem initially... Try these steps, these should help:
1.) Make sure you are running at least v 1.12 so you can use the now-legit "NO CD* fix, Running from the CD often causes a read-buffer issue in W7, and having all those files on your hard drive will result in increased performance.
2.) YOU MUST Run Diablo II in Compatibility mode for *Windows XP SP 2* (Running in SP1 or 3 will cause error messages during gameplay)
3.) Run the Shortcut as an Administrator (Running as a local user causes W7 to limit its *AUDIO* functions... because it thinks the game is trying to exclusively access your sound device) and while you're there, check the box that says *Disable desktop composition*. This will allow Diablo II's 3D effects to render correctly. It temporarily disables Windows Aero and other Visual effects until the game has been exited. These effects are not compatible with the game.
4.) Go to your Diablo 2 folder and change game.exe to the same settings (Run as admin, Compat. mode for XP SP2, disable desktop composition)
5.) The only way I was able to use the 3rd mouse button was by using the older, non-legit version of D2loader.exe (An old hack they used for the no-cd thing until Patch 1.12 came out). You can now use this *hack* online as Blizzard has removed its illegitimacy and disabled the automated Battle.net Warden from detecting this online anymore as many Vista and 7 users have to use this to use their middle mouse buttons, hehe.
Thanx to Archangel!... Although I needed none of the above.
It should be noted that the 112a patch is in 2 parts one for Diablo 2 and one part for LOD ; load the first after installing Diablo 2 and the second part after upgrading to LOD.
The "NO CD" from blizzard is a part of this patch and documented as such by Blizzard;
"For users that originally performed a 'Full Installation'
and wish to run without the CD, all '.MPQ' files should
be copied from the Diablo 2 CDs to the Diablo 2 directory.
Most users will only need to copy D2Music.mpq from the
Diablo 2 Play CD and/or D2xMusic.mpq from the Lord of
Destruction CD. Mac users will need to copy these music
files and rename them to 'Diablo II Music' and
'Diablo II Expansion Music' respectively."
Crysis Demo has been found to sometimes have issues with 64 bit systems.
(Why play the demo when the game is out? I just happen to like a few of the mods for an occasional quick gaming fix...). (One of my quick jollys is to drive a hummer back up the trail to the beach where you first encounter the Koreans and then back to the first buildings. In real life I like four wheeling on difficult trails...)
This also turned out to not necessarily be a W7 issue, it may be a Nvidia problem; by switching AA off in the game control panel the original Crysis demo works fine (locks up with a black screen and a Crysis has stopped working error with AA).
If I encounter more problems and/or solutions I will post them up...
Enjoy!
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