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[Japo]

I've searched and there were people whom this game gave problems but not the same and any info there didn't help me. The game installs OK, but when I run it the logo movies play, and then the game crashes just afterwards. I have tried Compatibility and that actually makes the game run choppy until it crashes just the same.

I found two patches at bioware.com, one version upgrade and one bugfix for DirectX 8, to no avail, the game crashes at the same point. I do suspect this might be a DirectX issue, but the patch was for v8 and I have v9 and I think the bugfix was only about multiplayer anyway.

Talking about DirectX, is it possible to downgrade it to a previous version, to uninstall it and install other version? I don't think any of my games need v9, and I think I don't need it for any other multimedia app but please correct me on this if I'm wrong.

Anyway I'm playing the game in Virtual PC under Win98 and it runs fine, but I'd like to know if there's a way to run it in XP.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Talking about DirectX, is it possible to downgrade it to a previous version, to uninstall it and install other version?[/b]

Been there, tried that... supposedly possible, but I don't recommend trying.

[dosraider]

Some 'newer' win apps need DX9, won't work good with a lower DX version.
First that comes in mind: WMediaPlayer, IE, your Viddrivers probably also need that DX9.

You always can try to disable hardware accel via:
Run->dxdiag
Disable it in the screen (monitor?) tab.
You always can re-enable it the same way, this will not harm your system.
Can help sometimes to get older games running.

[Japo]

I think I'll stick to Virtual PC, it does the job in a clean way and doesn't affect my system. Running VPC isn't annoying after all; but having to use Win98, either virtually or really, is. Thanks anyway.

[The Fifth Horseman]

What I'd suggest is that you just go ahead and buy a cheap second-hand hard drive... IIRC, about 4 GB should be enough to fit Windows 98 and a full installation of BG.

It's a better choice than VPC, been there & done that.

[Japo]

Why, did VPC perform bad for you? For me it performs like the real deal, well maybe the mouse lags at times just enough for me to notice, but it's definitely satisfactory. (I've got 2.8+0.8 GHz Core Duo Pentium D and 256 MB out of 1 GB RAM alocated for that virtual machine.) The biggest nuissance is waiting for lousy Win98 to boot, but I'd have the same problem in a real partition. Plus a virtual machine is very handy to backup and get it back to previous states, just copying a file instead of having to use hard disc imaging software.

[Tulac]

If you by some case have Baldur's Gate 2, you could try using EasyTutu, which is an app that makes Baldur's Gate 1 run under BG2 engine. That might help solve your problems.

[Japo]

Thanks. But its homepage says it's only for the English editions. I have the multilingual one and I know it may sound silly because I have it configured in English anyway, but apparently both editions were different, even the patches I found at Bioware were different for each edition.

Ah well the virtualization solution is good enough. I had forgotten the joy of Win98's random crashes. LOL

[Tulac]

Are you sure winxp is the problem? The game works perfectly for me under winxp, and for many others too.

[Japo]

That's why I posted here, I heard some have problems and others don't. But I have no idea why. I bet that the pirate copies found at eMule and elsewhere will work in XP... OK don't look now.