Yet another X-com problem

[Anonymous]

Sorry to bother everybody with yet another X-com problem.

I can't get X-com to run on my machine. I ran ufo.exe (definitely the more usable of the two) but it displays as duplicated thin strips across the very top of my monitor. The sound is perfect and I can click buttons (though I only know which ones to click because I played the game so much when it came out), but the graphics are waaay off. I tried changing the screen resolution to a size that has a more square aspect ratio but that didn't help.

I'm using the Dell Inspiron XPS:

Pentium 4 3.4 Ghz
ATI Radeon 9700
Screen resolution: 1920 x 1200

Work just bought the computer a couple of weeks ago so I assume that it has the latest drivers and service packs.

Thanks for any help.

[FreeFreddy]

From how you describe it, I assume that the game doesn't support new graphic cards (or perhaps only Win XP :-)). If that is the truth, all I can suggest, try low resolution, 800x600 or even 640x480 and (you have Win XP doesn't you?) enable 256 colors for the programm, perhaps disable visual designs and enable compatibility for Win 95 too.

[LotharGR]

am i the only one that has played UFO without any problems? :P :P

[Tom Henrik]

Nope.

It runs perfect on my computer. :?

[LotharGR]

As Titan said to me some time ago, the fact that UFO runs perfect on modern machines just like it did on 386's and 486's makes it not only a masterpiece of gaming but a masterpiece of programming too :)

[Tom Henrik]

But I must add, that it is only on this site that I have found a workable download for the game...

All the other sites I have tried had either non-workable download links or the game showed flaws like the ones experienced above :?

[Anonymous]

I tried everything that FreeFreddy suggested, but still the same result. It's such a tease to hear the sounds, but not be able to play the game.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Petter1979]

hmm weird it wont work on a radeon 9700, the game works fine on my radeon 9800pro. Win XP Proff SP1 DK.

ati catalyst 4.4 drivers.



You sure you have installed drivers for your monitor?

[FreeFreddy]

Well, I downloaded this game from this site (to be honest, I never played this series of games), but before I go on, I'll explain how my system is configured:
First of all, my PC is configured so it can play old games that runs sometimes even only on old PCs and it also can play new games, both with best possible results on both sides. So I divided my harddrive in 2 partitions, then installed first Windows 98 on the SECOND, then the Windows XP Home Edition supplied with the PC on the PRIMARY partition. In addition, the soundcard on the PC is the Soundblaster Live 5.1 Digital, so it has drivers for Soundblaster-emulation for Windows 98 (and almost all old games support Sounblaster by default).
Because of the two operating systems, my harddrive has now FAT32 file-system, no NTSC which of course is faster, but many old games cannot run on NTSC.
Now, I downloaded the game, installed it first on WinXP-part and started it under WinXP also - it started, but hang then (no sound, no intro, nothing but a mouse-cursor that wasn't able to move).
Then I ran it under Win98. Guess what? It ran almost perfectly, only small mouse-cursor chopping/lag, with all the sounds and music and normal displaying.
So if you'll get no another hints how to make your game display anything normal, ask me, and if dont't know how to divide your hard-drive and install anything like me above, ask and I'll send you an e-mail with detailed description how to make this all.
By the way - with my system configured like this, almost all of old games I have run perfectly on it, apart from some of these that require EMS-memory disabled, which I don't know how to do this with Win98.

[FreeFreddy]

Perhaps it's just more simply to try this game with Dosbox from this site, this could just solve the problem without too much to do. I didn't use this program because I don't need it (see above), but try it out.

[Anonymous]

I forgot to mention that the video card is actually an ATI Mobility Radeon 9700. The driver is version 6.14.10.6396. I looked at ATI's website and they list the Catalyst Windows XP 4.5 as the latest so I'm not sure why device manager says I have 6.14 drivers.

I am going to try dosbox later, though according to the review this game is for windows so I'm not sure if it will work in dos.

[FreeFreddy]

:shock: This is definitely an Ms-Dos game...

[Kosta]

Well, the yellow sun icon (second executable file in the directory) should be the one that is supposed to fix the graphics problem of ufo.exe (synchronize the stripes). So if that one doesn't work for you, then you have a problem, yes, and I would suggest dosbox

[JoM]

That's just the problem - whenever I try to run it in Dosbox, it just says "This program cannot be run in MS-Dos mode".
Now for a little problem of my own. I'm running Windows XP on a 1.8ghz+ Athlon with a GeForce 2 Graphics card and 512k of memory. When I double click on the UFO Defense.exe I just get a garbled screen - no playability there, yet I can still click on things. The second (With the sun icon) plays perfectly right up until the point I choose to "Begin mission" and press "Ok" at the briefing screen. The program immediately exits to Windows.

[FreeFreddy]

The ever-old-games-unfriendly WindowsXP...

[JoM]

It doesn't work with Windows 98 or ME either, I get exactly the same error.

[Danny252]

This sounds like a case of using the weong EXE..
but since you seem so sure you are using the right one..
and if people never read anything for themselves...this is the
WINDOWS VERSION!